Chapter Text
BDSM:
“Acronym for Bondage, Discipline, Domination, Submission, Sadism, and Masochism. It's not violence or degradation, but the consensual art of giving in or taking control, of exploring desire through the most radical trust. It's theater, it's truth, it's vulnerability and power. It's a mirror that only reflects back if you have the courage to look into it.”
The city glittered like a handful of broken glass, scattered in the darkness. From the height of the fifty-second floor, the lights looked like fake stars twinkling above a concrete universe. At the center of that universe, like a figure cut out in black ink, stood her.
Elphaba Thropp leaned against the frame of the penthouse's enormous window, her silhouette outlined by the pale blue light emanating from the skyscrapers in the distance. The orange ember of her cigar burned like a small sun in her left hand, casting brief flickers through the dimness of the room. The smoke rose in lazy spirals, filling the air with a bitter, almost sad scent.
Her green eyes, dark and marked by shadows of insomnia, gazed without looking. She reflected. Or rather, she avoided doing so. And yet, the questions always found a way back.
"How does a story like this begin?" she thought.
Or rather: why tell it at all?
It wasn't a story for everyone. It wasn't sweet. It wasn't heroic. It wasn't the kind of tale you read to someone you love. It was… something else. Something harsh, intimate, poignant. Something that can only be said through gritted teeth or a tightly tied rope.
She turned slowly, her slender figure wrapped in an oversized black shirt, unbuttoned to her collarbone. She walked barefoot across the polished wooden floor to the desk. She ran her index finger along the rim of the nearly empty whiskey glass, where the ashes of the previous cigarette floated. She didn't hesitate: she put out the one in her hand in that same glass, like someone leaving a mark on warm flesh.
She sat down. The chair creaked softly, as if it, too, wanted to say something.
On the screen, a blank document flickered impatiently. Elphaba stretched her fingers. She tapped the keyboard with a gesture that seemed more like intent than intention. Then she typed. One sentence, then another. Words that tried to make sense, to seem distant, objective, orderly. As if this story could be told from the outside. As if it didn't belong to her.
But halfway through the second paragraph... she stopped.
The cursor flickered.
Elphaba frowned. She hit backspace and watched the words disappear one by one, as if they'd never been there. As if she hadn't felt them.
She leaned back in her chair. She rubbed her eyes. Another drag. Another silence.
"Come on, Elph... What the fuck are you doing?"
It wasn't a real question. Just the echo of so many others. Why do you keep thinking about her? Why do you still care about what happened? Why, after all, do you feel more alive thinking about that hell than anything else?
"Because it was real," she answered herself quietly. "And that's more than I can say for the rest of my life."
She sighed. The kind of sigh that doesn't seek relief, but time. She sat up. She returned to the keyboard. This time, she didn't try to hide. She didn't try to sound intelligent. Or strong. Or fair.
She just typed:
"Every role-playing game needs a script. A structure. A story. And every story, to work, has to start at the beginning. Not with the climax, not with the end. But with that first spark that you don't know if it's desire or destruction."
She paused. She looked at the sentence like someone contemplating a freshly opened wound.
"I'm not a heroine. Not a victim. Nor a reliable narrator. But this is what it is. A love that hurt like a tightly tied rope. A story of two women who recognized each other by their scars. Who found each other when they'd stopped looking."
She blinked. She smiled sideways. Her reflection in the window gave her a sour grimace.
"This is going to end badly, you know?"
She answered with the most honest gesture she had: a bitter pill to swallow and an unvarnished truth.
"This isn't a story about sex. Although there is a lot of sex. Nor is it about power. Although there was plenty of that, too. It's about what happens when someone truly sees you. When someone—with a sweet voice and iron hands—forces you to look at yourself without excuses. And that, I assure you, can hurt more than any bondage."
A distant crack of thunder split the night. Elphaba looked up. It wasn't raining, but it was as if the sky was thinking about it. Like her, who was always halfway between breaking up and starting over.
She looked back at the screen.
And wrote the simplest, most honest, most dangerous sentence:
"Her name was Glinda. And that was the beginning of the end."
CHAPTER 1:
The somber, silent, neon atmosphere of the penthouse dissolves like smoke in the wind, receding in time as if under a spell. Night turns into day. The city stirs with its honking horns, hurried footsteps, and that unmistakable bustle of disguised routine. The camera descends from the top of the skyscrapers to gently rest on the streets: modern, clean, vibrant. A setting where everything seems to have a warm, almost cinematic filter, as if life there weren't real, but aspirational.
And it is among this coming and going of black cars, specialty coffees, and pedestrians too well-dressed to be in a hurry that our protagonist moves with the bearing of royalty. Her perfect red heels echo on the sidewalk. Her cream-colored pencil skirt hugs dangerously measured hips. Her white blouse with mother-of-pearl buttons and a camel coat hanging barely over her shoulders. And finally, a face so symmetrical it seems designed in a laboratory. Her platinum-blonde hair billows like silk in the urban breeze. Sunglasses, lips lined with surgical precision. A smile that doesn't say "hello," but "you're good to meet me."
She walks as if the world belongs to her, although she likes to pretend she doesn't know.
Men turn around. Women too. Some with admiration, others with envy, all with a hint of suspicion. She doesn't flinch. Not because she doesn't notice, but because she expects it. Her every step is part of a carefully rehearsed choreography.
She crosses the building's revolving doors with the lightness of someone stepping onto her own stage. The lobby brightens a little, as if the lighting system recognizes her. The receptionist bids her a stammering good morning, to which she responds with a barely perceptible nod. She wastes no time on banalities. She is not banal. At least, not in her own eyes.
She gets on the elevator. Floor 42.
The reflection in the stainless steel walls reflects an immaculate image, and she watches it with false indifference. She smooths down a stray lock of hair with the grace of an actress in close-up and thinks, "They should sculpt this in marble."
The doors open and a murmur of reverence runs through the halls. Some employees greet her with forced smiles; others simply lower their gaze. No one knows exactly what she does at the company, but everyone knows who she is. That's enough.
She moves between desks, greeting people with small, rehearsed phrases that oscillate between condescending sweetness and the imperceptible hint of threat:
"Oh, that print is so brave!"
"Did you sleep here, or is that the new "uncomplicated" look?"
"Honey, smile more. Or is it Monday in your soul, too?"
No one answers. Everyone smiles. Everyone makes an effort. Because wherever she passes, attention stops.
She stops in front of a dark wooden double door. On the other side, the boardroom. In the center, the chair that doesn't officially bear her name, but which, in her mind, is just for her.
She takes a breath. She straightens her shoulders. She lowers her sunglasses to the tip of her nose and gazes for a moment at the reflection of the chrome handle. Something transforms in her gaze. The sweetness evaporates. Her mouth curves, not in a smile, but in a gesture of control. As if she's just decided she's ready to take on the world. Or at least use it as a footrest.
She opens the door.
She crosses with a slow, calculated gait. As if each stride echoes in the columns of power.
The boardroom. Silent. Immaculate. The large wooden table gleams in the white ceiling light. Fourteen chairs arranged like soldiers awaiting orders. But she doesn't look at all fourteen. Just one: the one in the center.
She approaches. Slowly. She circles the table like a feline. Then, without asking permission she doesn't need, she sits in the main chair.
Her nails, impeccably polished in red, tap the tabletop. And then, she begins to speak.
"Do you know what fascinates me most about you?" Her voice is soft, honeyed, like honey dripping over razor blades. "That you actually thought you could compete with me. That you could hold my gaze. How funny."
A pause.
"You're like a beta version of myself. Incomplete. Failed. A prototype that wouldn't even pass quality control."
She leans forward, as if caressing with her words.
"Do you want to know the truth? I'm letting you stay here out of charity. I like having something to entertain myself with before lunch. But don't get me wrong, darling..." Her voice sharpens like a velvet-wrapped scalpel. "If you bore me, I'll delete you. Like a typo."
And then, a voice bursts from the doorway, cutting through the moment like a butter knife.
"Glinda?"
She jumps in her chair, startled. She turns. The door is open, and there's Boq. Holding a folder, his expression perplexed, his eyebrow raised like an unanswered question.
The image shatters like broken glass. She looks around all the addresses, still wrapped in trance, the huntress's expression still on her face... until she remembers the truth.
The room is completely empty.
Except for her. And the plant she'd been using as her imaginary audience.
"Boq!" she says, with a start that quickly transforms into haughtiness. "You scared me, please!"
Boq, tiny, meticulous, and clearly used to these kinds of situations, watches her with a mixture of resignation and affection.
"Were you... talking to the plant again?"
"What? No! Of course not! I was... uh... going over my presentation. Rehearsing out loud is a powerful technique, you'd know if you were less literal." She adjusts her posture, runs a hand through her hair, and adds with feigned nonchalance, "Besides, that chair is empty, and I thought it would be a good way to get a feel for the... atmosphere."
"That chair is for the CEO."
Glinda gestures as if that were a minor detail.
"And that's why she must be inspired by my presence, don't you think?"
Boq sighs. He's no longer trying to argue. He knows it's pointless.
“I need you to help me prepare the presentation before the board arrives. You told me you were going to help.”
“Of course, Boq. I'm a woman of my word. Just… let me have some coffee first, gather my thoughts, and… stop talking to plants. Okay?”
“Please.”
As Glinda follows him with her impeccable gait and a smile that hides a thousand things, her gaze returns one last time to the empty chair.
“Soon,” she says silently. “That chair won't be empty for long.”
And this time, it doesn't seem like a fantasy.
Minutes later, the screen lit up in blue. The projector flickered. The clock read 8:47 a.m. Glinda, her blazer still half-buttoned, held a cinnamon roll as if it were an Olympic trophy.
“Voilà! Fresh cinnamon, fresh from the oven at La Pâtisserie Écarlate! I had to get up at six to be first in line, because if you arrive after seven, there's not even a damn croissant left. But I—obviously—made it. Because I have priorities, Boq. And because, unlike some people, I know what compromise means.”
Boq, kneeling by the power outlet trying to get the HDMI to work without exploding, simply murmured, “Thanks for the rolls, Glinda...”
“Don't tell me, tell your taste buds,” she immediately interrupted with a delighted laugh, as she delicately placed a tray of rolls on the conference table, turning it so everyone could see the bakery's logo.
Then she turned to Boq, hands on her hips, dramatic shoulders.
"And tell me something, Boq... you also think I'm being used, right? Because between you and me—and the board floor, who seem to be my only confidant these days—this is ridiculous. Madame Morrible keeps treating me like I'm an intern wearing expensive shoes. Me! I designed the marketing campaign that doubled third-quarter profits!"
“Yes, yes, Glinda, you did—”
“And not a word of recognition, not a mention, not a ‘Bravo, Glinda, you're the shining jewel of this company!’ No. Instead, what does he do? He assigns me tasks. Degrading. Menial. Like helping you prepare cables and review presentations. Not that I don't love to collaborate, Boq, you know I'm generous by nature, but this…”
She bent down with all the grace of a Broadway star to plug in an extension cord and added in a lower, almost conspiratorial voice:
“…this is beneath me. Literally and figuratively.”
Boq tried to say something, but didn't get the chance.
“Also,” she continued, now pacing in circles, gesturing as if she were in a theatrical monologue, “I'm sick of being underestimated. Sick. Not just in this company. Everywhere. You know how my mom says I have an aura of superiority that scares men away? Men! As if I have to worry about that on top of everything, God! It really drives me crazy every time.”
She picked up a chair with one hand, dusted it off like it had invisible dust on it, and rearranged it with pinpoint precision.
“I'm ready to lead. To inspire. To stop having to ask permission from a lady with prehistoric shoulder pads and a Disney villain's voice. Because, Boq, I'm going to say it clearly: I didn't come into this world to blend in!”
Boq opened his mouth to reply, but Glinda held up a finger without even looking at him.
“And that's not all. You know what else bothers me? People thinking I'm not profound just because I wear makeup. People thinking I'm lacking substance just because I wear pink. As if pink weren't a political, revolutionary, incendiary color!”
“Glinda, is the coffee maker—?”
“Not to mention the drama in my apartment! The downstairs neighbor is complaining because, according to him, I walk like a herd of horses in stilettos. Excuse me? Since when is it illegal to sound fabulous? And don't even get me started on my date on Friday, who asked me if my eyelashes were real. What kind of question is that, Boq? Do you think it's romantic to question a woman's integrity over half a glass of chardonnay?”
“Glinda... did you bring Madame Morrible's specialty coffee?”
The question was like a silent bombshell. Glinda's face froze, the color draining like blush in rain, and the cinnamon roll she was about to arrange fell from her hand.
Silence.
"...the coffee," Boq repeated, already knowing the answer but waiting, with the faint hope that her world wouldn't burst into flames at that moment.
Glinda blinked. Once. Twice. Horror slowly began to settle in her dilated pupils.
"Madame Morrible's special coffee..." she repeated in a whisper. The tone wasn't one of understanding. It was one of tragedy.
"NOOOOOO!" she yelled in a panicked leap, searching for her wallet, cell phone, keys, and probably a time machine too.
"BOQ! Distract them! Make something up! A presentation! A gas leak! There's a nude parade down the street, I don't know! Whatever! I'll be back in fifteen minutes!"
“Glinda, you won’t be here in fifteen minutes, the meeting—”
But it was too late. Glinda flew out the door, her hair and dignity flapping like flags behind her.
“DISTRACT THEM, BOQ!!!”
The door closed with a loud bang.
Boq stares at the box of rolls fallen on the floor and at the plant still in the corner, a silent witness to the collapse.
“I think I'm going to need more canelés,” she murmurs.
Heels against the marble floor. A pale pink blur with gold sparkles zips between desks and employees who barely manage to avoid her.
Glinda, completely out of her mind, runs down the hallway. Her hair bounces, her bag wobbles, her expression mixes panic with the determination of a romance novel heroine in the midst of the apocalypse.
As she passes a waiting room filled with several business executives, Glinda slams on the brakes, turns like a ballerina at a gala, and, as if nothing were happening, suddenly changes her demeanor.
Now she walks with feline grace, a seductive and confident smile forming on her lips.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” she says with a sweet wink.
The men, bewildered, barely manage to nod when she, with the same speed she arrived in, accelerates like a rocket toward the elevator again.
She jumps in like an Olympic athlete, tapping the first-floor button five times impatiently.
“Go, go, go, go!” she whispers, tapping the edge with her fingers as if that would speed up time.
The elevator doors open and Glinda bursts out, crossing the lobby as if she were fleeing an explosion.
In front of the cafeteria, a long line snakes toward the entrance. Glinda slams on the brakes, sees the queue… and completely ignores it. With firm steps and without looking at anyone, she sneaks straight to the front, positioning herself in front of a confused woman who was just about to order.
“Three double espressos, oat milk, a hint of cinnamon, and the last one with Madame Morrible written in gold, please! IT'S AN EMERGENCY!” Glinda spits out, agitated.
The café employee, a young woman with a crooked visor and dark circles under her eyes, freezes.
“Huh?”
“Don't make me repeat myself! My life depends on this! My job! My reputation! My entire future!”
The employee barely nods when a finger touches Glinda's shoulder.
A firm, somewhat husky voice is heard from behind her.
“Excuse me, do you think this is fair?”
Glinda, without even turning around, responds with annoyance.
“Can we not do a soap opera for a coffee, dear? I'm busy saving my career, thank you.”
The woman insists.
Glinda turns around in annoyance, only to find herself facing an intimidating figure: a tall woman in a black leather jacket, dark glasses, perfectly lined green lips, and an air of authority that screams trouble.
“I was there before,” she says, without raising her voice.
“Well, now I'm there!” Glinda replies, with the nervous laugh of someone who knows she's at fault but refuses to back down.
Tensions rise. Several people in line watch, murmuring to each other.
At that moment, the employee appears with a glass of hot coffee and says in a low voice:
“Double latte with almond syrup?”
“That's mine!” Glinda shouts, snatching it from her hands.
The woman in the black coat purses her lips.
“That's mine.”
“Please, are you going to start arguing over a misspelled name? Can't you see I have more important things to do than—?”
Glinda looks at the label on the glass.
Name: "Elph..."
She freezes. She looks at the coffee. She looks at the woman. Embarrassment begins to tickle the back of her neck.
“Uh-huh...” she mumbles, awkwardly handing the cup back. But as she does so, she tilts it slightly… and a small splash of hot coffee falls directly onto the woman’s arm.
She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t flinch. She just closes her eyes slowly… and breathes like someone deciding whether or not to commit a crime.
Glinda smiles uncomfortably.
“Oops! Hahaha. That was… gravity! A traitor!”
She reaches for her own cup on the counter, picks it up without checking to see if it’s the right one, and steps back, ready to flee.
“A thousand apologies! Love, don’t let a stain define your day! Kisses!”
And with that, she runs back toward the elevator, cup in hand, leaving everyone in the cafeteria completely perplexed. The woman in the black coat watches her walk away, still not moving.
The elevator doors opened with a metallic hiss, revealing a stark contrast to the one who had entered hours before. Glinda, once radiant, elegant, and confident, now emerged like a withered whirlwind. Her hair, though still fluffy, showed signs of a battle with the wind and stress; her makeup, flawless from a distance, was beginning to reveal small cracks in the mascara and barely contained tension around her lip line. She walked with the bearing of a dethroned queen, holding her coffee cup as if she were carrying the Holy Grail, but with the expression of someone who has crossed a minefield in stilettos.
As soon as she crossed the main corridor of the executive floor, Boq, like an eager puppy, ran to her, arms outstretched in an attempt to assist her, or at least prepare her for the impending disaster.
"Glinda! Finally, look, I tried to stall them, but... they wouldn't let me get much of a word in, and—"
"No! Boq, don't talk!" she interrupted without even looking at him. "Not a word! I'm seconds away from an emotional implosion, and if I hear one more syllable, I'll explode like a chocolate fountain with its lid off!"
She strode forward with a firm but tense stride, muttering to herself about the unfairness of her day, about how she'd had to fight for a cup of coffee like a common office worker, and how outrageous it was that she—she—had to endure such hardships while others simply existed in mediocrity.
"Three degrees, seven awards, two articles in style magazines... and I end up running errands?"
Boq continued trying to talk to her, pointing toward the boardroom, but Glinda was still in her personal tantrum.
"Seven years being the face of this company for what? To end up as Madame Morrible's glamorous waitress? I didn't even have vegan whipped cream!"
"Glinda! Glinda!"
Boq did everything he could to stop her, but Glinda opened the boardroom door in the middle of her tantrum.
"AND IF ANYONE TELLS ME AGAIN THAT A 'POSITIVE ATTITUDE' IS EVERYTHING, I'LL—"
She slammed the door open, just as her voice reached a crescendo of indignation.
And then, time stopped.
On the other side, the room was completely packed. Suited executives, assistants with tablets, and at the far end of the elegant oval table, seated like an imperturbable monument to authority, Madame Morrible watched her.
Her gaze was like a scalpel. Cold. Sharp. Implacable.
Glinda froze like a pillar of salt. She wasn't even breathing. Her smile died on her face, only to be reborn, forced, stiff, as if glued on with school glue. Slowly, without saying a word, and with a barely audible creak, she closed the door in front of her, as gently as an executioner lowers the blade of a guillotine.
On the other side, the executives stared at each other in silence while, behind the door, the accelerated whispers of hysterical reprimand could be heard.
"How did you let me in like that, Boq?! Are you trying to destroy me?! My whole life was hanging on a glass of coffee and you didn't say ANYTHING!"
"I tried to warn you! But you didn't—"
"Shhh! Shhhhh!! Shut up! Give me the scrolls! The scrolls save! They always save!"
Two minutes of tense silence passed.
And then, the door opened again.
Glinda reappeared. She was, once again, perfection incarnate.
Her hairstyle seemed magical, her gesture sweet and noble, her walk full of grace. She had put on her best smile, the one she only used when she had to kiss rings she really wanted to melt. She strode through the room like a princess at a charity gala, the box of cinnamon rolls in one hand and the coffees in the other, stopping right in front of Morrible.
"For you, Madame," she said with satiny sweetness. "Coffee with oat milk, a touch of cinnamon, two packets of Stevia, as always. And of course, your favorite cinnamon rolls from Maison de Sucre. I brought them personally! I hope you haven't suffered too much in my absence."
Madame Morrible didn't respond immediately. She took her coffee, sniffed it skeptically, then took a sip. She nodded briefly, without looking at her.
"Thank you," she murmured emotionlessly. "Let's continue."
Glinda smiled, though inside she felt like she'd just had a stake driven through her ego. She sat down elegantly, but one eyebrow trembled imperceptibly.
Morrible spoke in an imposing, straightforward voice.
"As you know, our company continues to lead the corporate magical development market, with a 27 percent margin increase this quarter. Congratulations to everyone for their efforts... although some might want to refrain from over-dramatizing their contributions."
Glinda pretended not to feel the stab. She settled back in her seat and slightly raised her chin.
"And now, let's get to the important stuff," Morrible continued, as a large screen lit up behind her. "It is my pleasure to announce that today we are adding a new asset to our family. A strategic signing who represents talent, potential, and scope. A true find who will raise our standards to new heights."
Glinda listened, her lips pressing into a forced smile. Every word seemed like a tailor-made description for her. Talent? Her. Projection? Obviously. New asset? Well, maybe she'd misunderstood the memo.
She couldn't help but let out a condescending chuckle. Morrible raised an eyebrow, sharp as a dagger.
"Something funny, Miss Glinda?"
The smile evaporated.
"Oh! No, no, nothing at all," she replied quickly. "Just… excitement, yes. Pure excitement at meeting such a… outstanding asset. I'm sure he'll be a great help, and, well, all new assets need a… guide, right?"
But before she could continue wrapping herself in her self-congratulatory verbiage, the boardroom door opened.
And with that small click, Glinda's universe collapsed.
There, framed by the doorway like a figure that seemed to have emerged straight from a nightmare, wrapped in leather and mystery, she appeared.
Dark hair. Glasses that hid her gaze. The same black jacket. The same impenetrable energy. The same woman who had stood behind her hours earlier in the cafeteria, a coffee stain still visible on her sleeve.
Morrible smiled, for the first time.
"I present to you our new star acquisition. Intelligent, ruthless, bold. She will be part of the strategy and external relations department."
The woman walked slowly to the center of the room, took off her glasses, and fixed her gaze directly on Glinda.
Glinda didn't move, not a muscle. Her face, which moments before had radiated that plastic, polished smile designed to seduce the attention of her superiors, collapsed into a mask of bewilderment. Her eyebrow twitched, her hand tightened around the glass she was still holding. Was this a joke? Had the universe decided to punish her like this? The new recruit, for her part, maintained a smile that seemed to walk the fine line between genuineness and provocation. She extended her hand with studied friendliness, as if the entire moment were nothing more than an opportunity to demonstrate politeness and grace, in the face of Glinda's palpable surprise.
"Elphaba Thropp," she said in a clear voice, looking directly into Glinda's eyes. "A pleasure. I believe we already crossed paths this morning, albeit in a slightly more... agitated manner."
Morrible, with her characteristic tone that blended condescension and theatricality, intervened with a controlled smile.
"That's right, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to formally introduce you to Miss Thropp. Starting today, she will be a key player in the new corporate expansion project. Her experience in international logistics, her strategic vision, and her... unique approach will be invaluable to all of us."
Elphaba bowed her head slightly, receiving lukewarm applause from the other executives as she took her seat. With unpretentious elegance, she expressed her enthusiasm:
"I'm truly grateful for the opportunity. I look forward to being a part of the team from day one and learning from all of you. I believe in collaborative work and concrete results... although I admit I'm still familiarizing myself with the inner workings, I'm very excited about what's to come."
All of that was noise to Glinda.
Inside her head, chaos was absolute. Every word out of Elphaba's mouth was like a dagger. International logistics? Strategic vision? Collaborative? How could she compete with that? She couldn't let this... person overshadow her presence in front of Morrible and the others. She had to intervene! She had to do something to regain control of the scene. She couldn't just sit back and allow the meeting to revolve around her.
And so, in her desperation, without thinking too much—or rather, without thinking at all—she blurted out:
"I speak French too!"
A deathly silence fell over the room. Even the air seemed to stand still, as if the atmosphere itself were confused.
Morrible slowly turned her head toward Glinda. The expression on her face was indescribable, a mixture of weariness, bewilderment, and mild embarrassment. The other board members exchanged awkward glances. One of them hid a cough. Another cleared his throat.
Elphaba looked at her with an arched eyebrow, obviously surprised, but still composed. Her tone was diplomatic, like someone trying to defuse an awkward situation without hurting feelings:
"Oh... that's wonderful. I'm still perfecting it; pronunciation can be tricky, can't it?" she said with a slight, polite smile that bordered on mocking.
Glinda, who at first tried to maintain her smile, felt heat begin to rise from her neck to her cheeks. She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her. French? Was that the best she could come up with?
But before she could attempt a graceful recovery—or what remained of one—Morrible stood up.
"That will be all for today. There are certain matters I need to discuss with Miss Thropp privately. You will be informed later how she will be integrated into our operations."
With a subtle but authoritative gesture, she made it clear that the meeting was over. The executives began to rise, exchanging murmurs, a mixture of interest in the novelty and relief at the tension of the moment. Glinda, still motionless, watched everyone leave.
She tried to stay. She stepped forward, clutching her folder to her chest.
"Madame Morrible, if you will allow me just a minute, I wanted to discuss some ideas I've been developing regarding the campaigns for—"
"Glinda," the woman interrupted without even looking at her, leafing through some papers. "Not now. I have more important matters."
Boq, who was already by the door, approached quickly, reading the signal on Morrible's face like a neon sign. He took Glinda's arm gently but firmly.
"Come on, Glinda, I'm sure after..."
"But Boq, if you give me a second..." he tried, his voice strained by frustration, his gaze never leaving Elphaba's, who stood impassively beside Morrible.
"Glinda," Boq repeated softly, and this time it was enough.
He dragged her toward the door as Glinda cast one last desperate glance over her shoulder. Elphaba's diplomatic smile followed her like a poisoned echo. The door closed with a dull click.
While Glinda's voice could still be heard grumbling and mumbling from the hallway—a mixture of denial, attempts at justification, and meaningless phrases—Morrible closed his eyes for a moment, holding back a sigh of exasperation. Then, she shook her head and with a quick movement of her hands, rearranged the papers in the folder in front of her, as if also trying to organize the air disturbed by the spectacle she had just witnessed.
"I apologize on behalf of Miss Upland," she said finally, addressing Elphaba with a polite but tired smile. "Your enthusiasm sometimes... oversteps the bounds of what is useful."
Elphaba, still staring at the door through which Glinda had disappeared, tilted her head and raised an eyebrow.
"No problem. I'm used to that kind of... energy," she replied in a calm, though not ironic, tone. In truth, she couldn't get Glinda out of her head. There was something about her: a mix of absurd arrogance and a kind of almost pathetic vulnerability. Annoying, yes. But... interesting. In her own way.
Shaking off those thoughts, she turned to Morrible and sat down. He settled in confidently, unbuttoning his dark leather jacket—a garment that screamed independence and power—and revealing an impeccably tailored suit: a white shirt without a single wrinkle, tailored black trousers, and a discreet but quality tie. He placed his glasses elegantly on his face and crossed one leg with precision.
Morrible opened the folder bearing his name and began reviewing Elphaba's file with practiced eyes and a dry, agile voice.
"Let's see... Graduated with honors from Gillikin State University. Specialization in International Logistics Control Systems Analysis. Academic merits for crisis resolution in high-risk operations. Three languages. Proven leadership ability across multiple projects. And if that weren't enough," he looked up, "direct recommendation from the Global Strategy Board."
"Every word is true," Elphaba said, without false modesty.
Morrible continued flipping through it, his tone growing more impressed, until... he stopped. His gaze fell on a section of the document. Her brows furrowed slightly. The atmosphere changed.
"Thropp," she repeated, savoring the surname as if trying to recall a bittersweet taste. "It sounds... familiar."
Elphaba tensed imperceptibly. The corner of her lips twitched for a second. She lowered her gaze, still composed.
"Yes," she finally answered, in a dry, cutting tone, with a studied coldness- . You've probably heard it before. My father was a minister.
"Oh... right," Morrible said, as if it all fit. "Frex Thropp. A man with... strong opinions."
"Among other things," Elphaba replied, not wanting to open that door. Her tone was clear: don't go down that path.
Morrible seemed to get it. She slammed the file shut and rested her elbows on the table, folding her hands. The gesture had a certain ceremony about it. The atmosphere transformed from a simple interview to something more serious. More strategic.
"Very well, Elphaba. I think it's time to drop the formality. Do you want to know why you're really here?"
Elphaba nodded, her expression now alert, analytical.
"Our company is on the threshold of a critical expansion. The past few years have been generous to us. We've gained ground, prestige, alliances. But now we're moving on to something bigger: political... partnerships. Partnerships that require discretion, precision, and, above all, absolute loyalty."
Elphaba didn't move. Only her eyes, intense and calculating, reflected the change in tone.
"We want people like you. Intelligent. With initiative. With ambition." But also, with an instinct to detect chaos before it erupts. You're not here just to be part of the team. You're here because we want to see if you can survive outside of character. This meeting," she said, gesturing with one hand, "is your first test."
Elphaba met Morrible's gaze. She felt something inside her ignite. This was the real game. It wasn't about making a good impression anymore. It was about moving like a player. And she knew how to play.
"So, you want to know if I have what it takes to operate in the field... or if I'm just a good expedient?"
"Exactly," Morrible said with a faint smile.
Elphaba leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms.
"In that case, I hope you're ready to see what I'm really capable of. Because I didn't come here to take a backseat."
Morrible nodded slowly, visibly pleased.
"That's the answer I was hoping for." While Elphaba shook Morrible's hand with a confident smile and a look that said "I'm ready for anything," in another part of the office, someone clearly wasn't.
Glinda, her expression frozen and jaw clenched, stood at the small coffee station in the hallway. She held her beloved pastel pink mug, the same one with sparkles and her name written in gold cursive, and she was pouring coffee... nonstop. The dark liquid slowly overflowed, running down the sides and forming a small puddle on the metal tray. But she didn't even notice.
"...and then, maybe it was just a coincidence. I mean, there are a lot of women in leather jackets..." Boq tried to say with his usual awkwardness, gesticulating with an awkward smile as he looked at the coffee mess. "Glinda... about the coffee?
Nothing."
Glinda continued staring into space, as if her soul had separated from her body and she was reliving the scene in the conference room over and over again.
Boq leaned a little closer and waved a hand in front of her face.
"Glinda!"
She blinked, came to, and, looking at her overflowing mug, let out a small, indignant shriek, pushing it away exaggeratedly.
"My coffee! My nails! This mug is limited edition, Boq! How could you let this happen?"
Boq opened her mouth to defend herself, but at that precise moment, as if summoned by the sound of a drama, Pfannee and Shenshen appeared.
"Glindyyyy!" they squealed in unison, entering like a storm of expensive perfume, sequins, and fake laughter.
"Honeyyyy! Are you okay? We saw you leaving the meeting and said, 'That can't have ended well.' Your face said it all, darling," Pfannee said with a tone of fake concern as she adjusted the collar of her faux fur coat.
"Oh yeah, and that straight hair." "Did you straighten it for the presentation? Iconic!" Shenshen added, already taking a selfie of Glinda without even asking permission.
"Boq! Move over, honey, this is high-level conversation," Pfannee said, mercilessly pushing him out of the frame.
Boq, resigned, walked away, muttering something about having an important call... which clearly wasn't there.
Surrounded by her "beloved" friends, Glinda seemed to regain control. She straightened her back, lifted her chin, and took one of the pastries from the tray like someone holding a crown. She took a small theatrical bite, savoring it with false calm.
"Oh please, girls. Today was absolutely trivial. Just another boring meeting. You know how Morrible is when he gets excited about... paperwork."
Pfannee and Shenshen nodded with sly smiles, waiting for the real gossip.
Glinda, with an air of false modesty, added,
"And yes, that Thropp woman was there, the girl with the 'people who read on public transport' face. But don't worry, I don't think I'll see her again. Morrible will surely send her to the archives or to those sad offices where the walls are a depressing beige."
Between muffled giggles, she walked toward her office as if the world were at her feet. Restored, brilliant, arrogant, and completely convinced that she had left her new rival far behind.
But as she opened the door to her spacious glass office, making her typical theatrical entrance, she stopped dead in her tracks.
Glinda burst into the office like a storm dressed in pink, closing the door behind her with a bang that made the posters on the wall shake. Elphaba, with her back to the door, was arranging some books on the shelf, but when she heard the door, she slowly turned, releasing a long sigh that had been filled with years of pent-up resignation.
"Ah... perfect," she murmured, not hiding her irony. "I knew this was coming."
"What are you doing here?!" Glinda blurted, crossing her arms with a frown and her voice as high-pitched as an emergency whistle.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow and turned completely to face her.
"I'm packing my things. Morrible assigned me this office. Temporarily," she added, already anticipating the melodrama.
"Temporarily?! Here?!" Glinda pointed at the floor as if she were stepping into a minefield. "This office is next to mine! Mine! Wasn't there another dark corner in the company where they could have put you?"
"Interestingly, yes." But it turns out the last person here... asked for a transfer.
Glinda took a step forward, offended as if she'd been told her perfume was cheap.
"That wasn't my fault! I had nothing to do with Mr. What's-His-Name going to HR in the middle of a nervous breakdown! That was a coincidence!"
Elphaba didn't even look at her. She continued pulling books out of their box and arranging them with meticulous precision.
"Right. Coincidence."
Glinda narrowed her eyes. She watched as the shelf she'd once used to hold her decorative candles was now invaded by tomes with titles like "Ethics and Power: Politics for Those Who Think," "Subtle Manipulation in Modern Diplomacy," and her favorite: "People Who Don't Smile and Still Win Debates."
"You're invading the commons! That shelf was perfectly curated by me!" "She said, acting as if a work of art had been stolen from her.
"Yeah, I don't think the confetti-scented candle and the plastic cactus qualify as 'curating,'" Elphaba replied without even looking.
Glinda opened her mouth to scream, but... stopped.
She closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. She put on her best smile, the one she used to open events and feign interest in things she hated. And then, she did the unthinkable.
"Well... maybe... this doesn't have to be so terrible, right?"
Elphaba looked at her now, slowly, as if scanning her for signs of fever or demonic possession.
"Sorry?"
"I mean..." Glinda approached with dramatic steps, hands clasped "sweetly," "if we're going to be sharing a hallway, maybe we could... get along. Maybe even collaborate. I can help you adjust, guide you... dress better."
Elphaba narrowed her eyes.
"Was that an insult disguised as a peace offering?"
"No! Well, yes... No! Oh, you see! I'm trying to be nice to you, and I can't even do that right!"
"You started this by barging in like you're in an episode of Soap Opera: Luxury Management. I just want to do my job."
"Well, your presence is destabilizing my feng shui! And your bookshelf makes me feel... oppressed!"
"Oppressed?! They're books, Glinda! It's not an armed invasion."
"Emotionally armed, maybe!"
The two stood facing each other, a few inches apart, staring at each other with suppressed fury. Until, suddenly, there was a light knock on the half-open door.
It was Boq again.
"Uh... I just wanted to drop off Elphaba's admission forms. I also brought cookies... Is this a bad time?"
"YES!" they both shouted in unison.
Boq dropped the papers and cookies on the floor and fled like someone who'd just thrown a bone between two hungry lionesses.
Inside the office, Glinda and Elphaba stared at each other for a second longer... and then turned their backs simultaneously, frustrated.
But as they both huffed and puffed, arms crossed, without saying another word, something had been sown. It wasn't friendship. It wasn't a truce. It was something worse... Competition.
And that... was just the beginning.
The clock read 11:47, and the atmosphere in the office was so tense it could have been cut with a nail file. The very one Glinda used viciously.
Elphaba, focused, filled out form after form with the precision of a surgeon, without looking up. Her pen ran fluidly over the lines of the paper, while her fingers tapped the keys nimbly. Opposite, Glinda, frowning, filed her nail with her index finger as if she were taking out all her inner fury on her.
File. Rasp. File. Rasp.
Each noise grew louder, more unnecessarily prolonged, until finally...
"Don't you have anything useful to do?" Elphaba asked, not raising her voice, but raising her eyebrow sharply.
Glinda smiled with a poisonous sweetness.
"And miss watching 'the new girl' play at being efficient? Impossible. I feel inspired."
Elphaba gritted her teeth and muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like "insufferable princess." But she went back to her routine, feigning indifference.
Glinda, of course, wouldn't allow it.
After putting away the file with forced elegance, she began humming a silly, catchy tune, lightly tapping her bubblegum-pink pencil on the desk. When that wasn't enough, she began reorganizing her drawer, making an unnecessary fuss over every paper clip and piece of paper. She even turned on her lavender-scented mini fan, which sent scented breezes toward Elphaba's desk.
Finally, Elphaba dropped her pen and stood up abruptly.
"This is ridiculous!" she snapped, her tone firm and exhausted. "It's my first day here, and I have to put up with a... a corporate Barbie who can't stand not being the center of attention."
Glinda stood up too, almost at the same time, as if someone had started a battle.
"Oh, please!" As if I needed attention! Attention just... follows me! And it's not my fault Morrible's been confused lately and thinks hiring you was a brilliant idea!
"Confused? Because she chose me instead of continuing to give you medals for breathing?"
"At least I know how to introduce myself! Look at your clothes! You look like the depressing version of a bad day in HR."
They both shot each other dagger-like glances. In the middle of this verbal cold war, Glinda made a dramatic gesture with her arm and accidentally knocked her pink cup over. It fell to the floor with a loud CLONK, bouncing without breaking.
"MY CUP!" Glinda cried, bending down as if she'd just seen a family heirloom fall. She took it in her hands, checking it over with exaggerated concern. "You're okay, my love! Mommy's here..."
Elphaba, watching the scene, could only roll her eyes, almost in admiration for the level of drama.
But then... RINGING.
Glinda's reception phone began to ring. She, still on the floor, didn't notice it immediately. Elphaba did. She approached the desk, curious, and looked at the caller ID. She frowned.
"'Conceited prince'...?"
"NOOOO!" Glinda yelled from the floor, leaping like an electrocuted gazelle. "DO NOT ANSWER!
Too late. "Hello? Office of Glinda Upland, drama queen and nail polish..."
"NOOOOOO!" Glinda yelled again as she ran, but Elphaba was already speaking.
Elphaba pressed the button with the calmness of someone who doesn't understand the weight of her actions. A soft click confirmed that the call had been accepted.
The speaker crackled with static, distorting the voice emerging amid the noise of traffic, distant horns, and static. Still, it wasn't difficult for Glinda to recognize the male voice that broke through the air.
"Glinda?... Glinda, are you going to keep ignoring me? I've been leaving messages for days..."
Glinda froze completely still, her eyes wide. Elphaba slowly turned her head, intrigued by the sudden tension.
"My assistant got us a reservation for tomorrow night. I know you're not crazy about this kind of thing, but... my advisors say it would be good publicity if we went together. I'll pick you up at eight. And... don't be late."
The call ended with a dry beep.
The silence that followed was overwhelming. Heavy. Deathly.
Elphaba blinked.
"What... the hell was that?"
Glinda, still stiff as a statue, slowly turned toward her, her eyes wide with suppressed fury, her lips pursed, and her cheeks red with embarrassment.
"I HATE YOU!"
Elphaba took a step back, surprised... and then, as if a spark had ignited in her head, she understood.
"No..." she said between peals of laughter that were beginning to erupt uncontrollably. "Wait! Was that your 'boyfriend'? An idiot who needs his assistant to arrange his date for him? Oh, Glinda! You're dating a PR mannequin!"
"SHUT UP!" Glinda shouted, now red-faced, shaking with pure indignation. Elphaba's laughter only made her rage grow more and more.
"And you're making fun of me for filling out forms when you're actually a 'contract girlfriend'? Oh come on, this is making my day!"
Elphaba turned around, still laughing, ready to return to her desk... but she hadn't counted on Glinda's immediate reaction. In a fit of rage and humiliation, Glinda lunged at her, grabbing her wrist—right by a black elastic bracelet Elphaba was wearing, a discreet but sturdy accessory.
"You're not going to laugh at me and just walk away!"
Glinda tugged hard on the black elastic bracelet on Elphaba's wrist.
Elphaba, feeling the sudden touch, reacted on pure instinct. She moved her wrist with an almost choreographed gesture, elegant and precise... and then, it happened.
From one second to the next, the two found themselves with their wrists raised, tied together by a dark, vibrant ribbon... as if it had a life of its own. They were joined. Undeniably joined. Mere inches apart.
Both of their breaths caught.
Glinda opened her lips as if to say something, but nothing came out. Her eyes were fixed on Elphaba's, intense, bright, trapped. The air between them was almost tangible, thick, charged.
Glinda couldn't—or wouldn't—admit it, but the sensation of being tied like this... felt like nothing she'd ever experienced before. Not just uncomfortable. Not just strange. There was something more. Something she couldn't name, and didn't dare explore.
Elphaba, paralyzed, felt it too. That familiar, familiar energy... but never in this context. And definitely not with her.
Their gazes locked. Their ragged breaths synchronized. Both of their cheeks flushed red. Every slight movement seemed to further strengthen the bond, which tightened gently, as if it understood they didn't want to let go just yet. It was suffocating, yes... but then, why did it feel so good? So... stimulating.
The spell was suddenly broken by the sound of a knock on the door.
"Glindaaaa!" Pfannee crooned from the hallway. "It's time to go!"
"Shenshen already called the car! And we don't want a repeat of the accident in the lobby!"
Elphaba and Glinda stared at each other, frozen. Panic set in like a lightning bolt. They began to struggle, tripping over each other as they tried to untie themselves. Finally, with a sharp snap, the bracelet broke, and Elphaba fell back to the floor, letting out a stifled moan.
They looked at each other. Elphaba on the floor, still catching her breath. Glinda stood, her breath shaky, her blush still burning.
A thick silence floated between them.
And then, Glinda took a deep breath, smoothed her hair, gathered her things with impeccable precision, and without looking back, murmured,
"See you tomorrow."
The door closed softly behind her.
Elphaba sat on the floor, alone. Her heart still racing in her chest. Her wrist still warm. And the echo of that gaze, that closeness... still floating in the air.
"I never imagined it would all start with a rubber band. I never imagined that woman, so superficial in my eyes, would be anything more than a passing irritation. But what one imagines and what one ends up feeling... they rarely align."
It was late in the day when Elphaba finished packing away her belongings. Her office was dimly lit, barely illuminated by the twilight that slanted through the half-open blinds. She had picked up every sheet of paper, every pen, and every document, leaving her desk as spotless as if no one had ever worked there. Only one thing remained outside her control: a white cup, decorated with pink flowers, perched precariously on the edge of the desk. Glinda's cup.
Elphaba looked at her for a moment. She could have left her there. She wasn't hers, nor her responsibility. But something—a tiny guilt, an unspoken affection, or perhaps the simple need to maintain order—led her to approach and carefully arrange her in the center of the desk.
"She seemed everything I despised: banality disguised as elegance, hollow laughter disguised as charm. But she was also something more. Something… that disarmed me without me realizing it."
Meanwhile, at the entrance of the building, Glinda descended the marble stairs, flanked by Pfannee and Shenshen. Their high-pitched, animated voices filled the air with stories that no longer interested Glinda. They laughed, exaggerated gestures, and recounted anecdotes from a meeting that not even Glinda knew she had attended, but she walked as if floating, absent. She didn't listen, she didn't participate. Her mind was elsewhere. Her gaze, fixed nowhere.
As she passed Boq, who was waiting nearby with an eager smile, he straightened and timidly raised his hand.
"Glinda," he greeted.
She didn't stop. She didn't even see him. She continued walking, impassive, leaving him with his hand suspended in the air and a puzzled expression on his face.
"I noticed she was absent. As if something had disconnected her from her own world. And maybe... just maybe, that disconnection had my name on it."
A few offices away, Elphaba crossed paths with the imposing figure of Madame Morrible, who, upon seeing her, quickly gestured for her to come closer. She was still on the phone, as if closing some deal. Without interrupting the call, she handed him a dark leather folder containing a couple of documents. Elphaba took them without question, with a slight nod. As she walked away, however, her curiosity grew, though not enough to stop there.
"At that moment, I knew I was bound to her in a way that went beyond the bracelets.
Bound by an institutional whim. By a signature. By a game I hadn't chosen. But... one that was beginning to play on me from within."
In the backseat of Pfannee's car, with the city reflected in the glass, Glinda kept her gaze lost on the horizon. Traffic sped by around her, but nothing seemed to move her. Suddenly, with an involuntary gesture, she brought her hands to her wrists. Her fingers slid gently over the skin, right where they had been bound a few hours earlier. She closed her eyes for a second. A shock ran through her chest, like a subtle but profound shudder. Why couldn't she stop thinking about that moment? Why did she feel like something inside her had been activated without her permission?
"Bodies sometimes remember what the mind tries to forget. She understood that before I did."
Elphaba, meanwhile, arrived at her penthouse. A place as sober as it was elegant, where black firmly dominated the walls and decor. She left her bag on the sofa and tossed Morrible's folder onto the table. A sheet slid out, revealing in gold letters:
“Partnership approved with Senator Oz… – Resolution in effect until further notice.”
Elphaba skimmed it, not paying much attention. As if it were just another cog in a machine she no longer felt her own. She took a glass of wine and walked over to a shelf. There, an old framed photograph. Her family. A moment frozen in time. A foreign smile. Her lips pursed. She turned the photo abruptly and walked away.
“Everything I didn't say in that office started screaming in my head when I got home. I wasn't ready for it. For her. For myself.”
That night, Glinda was at a bar with her friends. Soft lighting, colorful glasses, a perfect atmosphere to forget everything. Pfannee and Shenshen talked nonstop, laughing boisterously, making comments about men and necklines, about how pretty one looked and how ridiculous the other looked. Glinda smiled, nodded... but her mind wandered.
Her cell phone vibrated. She picked it up reluctantly.
"So, are you having dinner with Fiyero tomorrow? I already confirmed that you're free 💕 – Mom."
Glinda rolled her eyes. Exhaustion spread effortlessly across her face. She put her cell phone down on the table in annoyance, as if it were burning. It was as if everyone knew what she was supposed to do. As if life had already been written and she just had to play the role of the perfect girl.
She looked up.
In a corner of the bar, two women were talking. They laughed softly, one of them brushing the other's wrist and then holding it firmly, with the kind of tenderness that comes from shared control. Glinda stared at them, mesmerized. It wasn't scandalous. It was subtle. Beautiful. Intimate. Something inside her throbbed strongly. She bit her lower lip.
"I didn't know what to call what I felt. But she... she began to see it clearly. She began to understand that what disturbed her wasn't just my presence. It was my reflection inside her."
Elphaba walked down her dark hallway, drink in hand. She stopped in front of a black door. She took a deep breath and turned the knob.
The room ignited with a dim red light. Inside, everything was in its place: ropes, whips, harnesses, shackles. There was no disorder, no chaos. Only precision. Order. Restrained beauty. Elphaba entered, set her glass aside, and began slowly unbuttoning her blouse. She let it fall elegantly, without haste. She picked up a black rope. Its texture was familiar, almost comforting.
"I didn't see her that night, I didn't know what she was thinking. But if I had been there… I would have recognized that look, because it was the same one I had… when I closed the door."
The atmosphere in the bar has changed. The music is lower, thicker, laden with bass notes that seem to stick to her skin. Glinda is still with her friends, but now there's something in her expression that has mutated. The forced laughter has subsided. Her eyes shine with a restlessness she can't quite understand.
In the corner, the two women continue flirting, but now one has leaned over the other, her wrist clasped in a firm hand, while the other whispers something in her ear. The tension is palpable. Their gazes lock. Control and surrender play out in silence. Glinda bites her lip, harder this time, and feels her skin prickle. As if something inside her is awakening, both violent and sweet.
Her breathing becomes faint. The bar's lights, golden and dim, cast an unexpectedly vulnerable shadow over her face. And in that instant… she remembers her.
"Sometimes you don't need to touch to feel. A glance is enough. A foreign scene. A memory woven into the skin, and desire enters like a current, like an invisible rope that already envelops you, even if you swear you didn't see it coming."
She takes the black silk rope and begins to tie herself with hypnotic movements. Each knot is slow, deliberate, as if following a secret rhythm. The loop around her wrist tightens with precision. Then another. The rope snakes down her arms, her chest, her abdomen. There is no clumsiness, only ceremony. The art of mastering her own body.
Her lips part. There are no words. Only a faint sigh that echoes in the room, soft as a confession. The gaze in the mirror is neither cold nor controlled: it is vulnerable, fierce, and hungry. As if she were searching her reflection for someone else. As if her desire wasn't just for the rope... but for an absent presence.
"I didn't do it out of nostalgia. Or fantasy. I did it because her name burned in my mouth without having spoken it. Because her eyes had remained glued to my skin. Because her wrist in my hand was more true than everything else that day. And even if I didn't know it, I was already waiting for her."
Glinda no longer listens to her friends. She doesn't even see them. Now she is alone in her mind. Her hand slowly lowers under the table, brushing the hem of her dress. Her legs are crossed more tightly. There is no shame. Only a sudden need to calm the storm Elphaba left inside her. She caresses her own wrist as if she still feels that pressure. And she closes her eyes.
"She felt it too. And even if she disguised it with confusion, annoyance, or silence... that night, her desire spoke louder than all her masks."
Elphaba leaned back on the dark leather couch, now completely bound by her own hand. Her legs tense. Her torso elevated. She breathes heavily, her lips parted. She closes her eyes. A barely perceptible smile crosses her face as she leans back, wrapped in her ritual.
"Maybe in another life I would have closed the door. Maybe I would have escaped what I felt. But in this one... I just let the knot form."
Notes:
Consider this a pilot for a longer story I have in mind. The continuation of this story will depend on the interest it receives. So I would greatly appreciate any comments, corrections, and suggestions. Thank you very much, and I hope you enjoy it.
Disclaimer: English is not my primary language, so I did my best.
Chapter 2: I HATE HER VOICE
Chapter Text
“I once bit a girl….
I was six years old. She had pulled my hair. It wasn't an accidental tug or a game. She did it with that casual cruelty that only very young or very rich children know how to use well. I didn't cry, or scream. I just looked at her. And I bit her. Hard. On the wrist.
I remember the metallic taste of her skin, the scream she gave, the chaos that followed. I got punished, of course. The headmistress called my father. “She's behaving like a wild creature,” he said. He said nothing. He just looked at me. As if instead of a daughter, I were a bomb that didn't know when it would explode.
I never bit anyone again. But that was the first time I noticed something inside me wasn't right. And the most disturbing thing is that… I didn't regret it. Not then. And not yet.
Yes, that's how I decided to start this part, with a personal confession…. I'm not sure why it took me so long talking about myself. I guess I find it more comfortable to analyze others, dissect their decisions, their contradictions, their desires... But not mine. Sometimes I think it's because, deep down, I always felt that if I started telling my story... I wouldn't be able to stop. That opening the door to my past was like unleashing something dark, something I'd rather keep locked away.
But enough beating around the bush. If I've learned anything, it's that true horror stories don't begin with a scream in the night or a figure in the shadows. They begin at home. With a crib. With a little girl who never quite fit in. So this time... I'm going to talk about me.
From the moment I was born, there was something strange about me. I couldn't explain what exactly. It wasn't something visible, at least not at that moment. But it was felt. Like an unease in the air. As if I didn't quite fit in with this world, or worse, as if the world didn't know what to do with me. It wasn't long before the whispers began. And the silences. My “father” was the first to sense it, or perhaps he simply chose not to ignore it. He looked at me with a mixture of suspicion and resignation, as if he had been given a punishment he couldn't repay.
Frexspar Thropp. Minister, conservative, moralist, admired by some, feared by others. A man of ironclad ideals, the kind who considers suffering a virtue if it's wrapped in obedience. And Melena Thropp… his wife, my mother. I have few memories of her. Her voice escapes me. Her face too. Most of my images of her come more from what others told me than from what I actually experienced.
My childhood was... cold. Not necessarily because of the climate, although that didn't help either. It was the kind of coldness that settles inside and never leaves. The other children avoided me. Sometimes out of fear, other times simply because they could. All kinds of things were said about me. That I had been conceived under suspicious circumstances. That I was punishment for some hidden sin. That I brought bad luck. Others simply said she wasn't pretty. And in that world, that was enough. Whatever the reason, children quickly learn to spot the odd one out.
But even a rejected child finds her refuges. Mine was books. The subjects no one else wanted to touch. I became an expert in everything others found boring or unsettling. And yet, no matter how much I excelled in class, it was never enough for my father. To him, I was a burden. A difficult child. An awkward daughter.
Things got worse when my mother died giving birth to my younger sister, Nessarose. She was born fragile, with health problems from her first breath. And suddenly, I was necessary. For the first time, someone needed me. And caring for her gave me a reason. A purpose. I became her shadow, her protector. It was as if by holding her, I could convince myself that not everything inside me was darkness.
But even that bond didn't last. As Nessarose grew, my father poured himself into her. I disappeared again. I became expendable. Again. And it was then, in the midst of adolescence—that confusing time no one wants to talk about honestly—that I began to... feel. Curiosity. Not for romantic love or the fairy tales we're forced to swallow. No. Mine was different. It was desire. For control, for surrender, for pain and pleasure merging into one. I didn't know what it was called. I only knew it made me feel alive. And guilty. And aroused. And confused. And curious again.
Of course, I didn't tell anyone. How could I? My father probably would have exorcised me. Or sent me to a convent. Well, actually, not that likely. He suggested it several times. "The nuns could channel you," he said. As if it could extinguish who I am.
So I knew I had to leave. Get out of that house, that name, that eternal judgment. My grades were impeccable, so I got a scholarship to Gillikin State University. It was my escape. My salvation. And my damnation. Because even though I was finally away, finally free, I still carried with me everything I'd kept quiet. In college, I shone. Academically, at least. My professors adored me; they said I was brilliant. Finally, someone was saying it out loud.
But while academic recognition was gratifying, it wasn't what kept me up at night. What truly obsessed me… was that other curiosity that had never gone away.
And that's when I dove headfirst into the world of what was commonly known as BDSM. I read everything I could. I studied it like I studied everything else: with hunger. But this time, I also lived it. Firsthand. In silence. In secret. Discovering in every rope, every word, every limit, something I never found in my father's sermons or in books on moral philosophy: freedom.
After graduating—and after many experiences that, for now, I'd rather not share—I got my first job at a small firm. Poorly paid, exhausting, thankless. But it was mine. My starting point. And from there, I didn't stop. I kept climbing. I climbed each step with effort, with rage, with ambition. Until I finally had what I'd always wanted: independence.
A life of my own. A space of my own. An apartment decorated to my liking. A collection of toys, accessories, and tools that spoke my language, the language I'd repressed for years. Finally, I was my own boss.
And for a while, I thought the worst was over. That that strange, lonely little girl had reached the other side. That there were no more monsters in the darkness.
But I was wrong.
Because the worst... was just beginning.”
CHAPTER 2: I HATE HER VOICE
The sound of the alarm clock erupted with its monotonous, flat, and persistent tone, breaking the stillness of the penthouse like a drop falling mercilessly in the middle of an empty room. A buzzing sound that lacked the decency to be violent, only constant, programmed to annoy with surgical precision. Elphaba opened her eyes without surprise or start. She had heard it many times before, the same sound at the same time, like an old enemy no longer feared, but no longer ignored.
She lay for a moment longer, staring at the ceiling, thinking of nothing in particular, just allowing her consciousness to finally align with the day. Then, with a gesture that was now more mechanical than human, she ran her hand over her face, her fingers caressing the edge of her jaw, as if she could erase the dream, or rather, what she had dreamed. She sat on the edge of the bed with a silent sigh, her feet touching the cold marble floor. The city wasn't yet roaring outside, but its shadow was already filtering through the windows.
The routine activated itself, like a Swiss clockwork. She headed to the bathroom without looking at anything as she walked by, turned on the shower with the precision of someone who knows every millimeter of her space, and let the hot water run over her body like a kind of daily purification. She didn't rush, but she didn't stop either. Everything had a rhythm, a duration, a purpose. After the bath came the clothes, chosen the day before, arranged on the chair like a war uniform: a fitted black suit, a crisp white shirt, low heels, hair pulled back in a high ponytail that revealed her long, slender neck, almost as if to show she wasn't afraid to expose herself. That she had nothing to hide.
Breakfast was another act of precision. Two boiled eggs, unbuttered toast, black coffee without sugar, the plain white cup, the spoon on the right side, the napkin folded in a triangle. Nothing was improvised. Not even the way she sat, crossing her left leg over her right, her back straight, as she ate in silence, not looking at her phone, only listening to the almost inaudible ticking of the clock hanging on the kitchen wall, more for decoration than utility. Every movement seemed rehearsed, as if repeating an invisible choreography, learned through necessity.
When she finished, she washed each utensil with the same meticulousness, drying them one by one before putting them away exactly where they belonged. Then she turned on her laptop, leaning it on the kitchen counter, and began checking her email. The cursor blinked as she read headings with the agile gaze of someone who knows how to separate the urgent from the irrelevant. Proposals, meetings, reports, reminders, appointment confirmations... until one made her stop.
The subject line read: "Family Matter – Urgent." The sender: Nessarose Thropp.
Elphaba stared at that line for a moment that lasted too long. She didn't click. She didn't read the content. She just let her sister's name float in her mind like a bubble that didn't quite decide to burst. She frowned slightly, with that expression that only appears when an old wound burns without opening. Then, without a word, she scrolled to another email. Ignoring wasn't forgetting. It was a decision.
She continued reviewing documents, signing some digitally, filing others, responding with brief, measured replies. Finally, she closed her email and focused on the tangible, specifically the folder of documents that her new boss, Madame Morrible, had given her the day before. She had already read the documents in detail but decided it wouldn't hurt to do another quick review before starting the day.
With just the right combination of speed and attention, Elphaba proceeded to review page by page, until she stopped on one document in particular. Inside, a sheet with the Senate's header, the golden coat of arms gleaming against the pristine white of the digital sheet. The joint operation with the senator's office. Elphaba read the first few paragraphs, scanning the information with surgical concentration. There were delicate details there. Words carefully chosen to sound legal and neat, but laden with hidden agendas. She already knew it by heart. Nevertheless, she read it again.
Finally, she closed the folder and headed to the foyer, picking up her bag, putting on her trench coat, checking the watch on her wrist. All ready to go... And then she saw it.
On the table, alone, out of place. A thin, black bracelet of worn leather with a steel clasp. Broken. With a clean cut, as if it had been torn from a wrist or a life.
Elphaba stood, not moving, staring at it as if it were a sleeping snake. She held it between her fingers with unusual gentleness, as if it might break further. She said nothing. She just breathed deeply. The texture of the leather against her skin brought something back: a memory, an image, a voice, a sensation. It wasn't remorse she felt, nor sadness. It was something else. Something more complex. Something that hurt and caressed at the same time.
"You still have it..." she murmured to herself, barely audible, almost as if she didn't want to hear herself say it.
She knew what that bracelet meant. She put it in the side drawer of her desk, closing it decisively. Not angrily, but firmly. Like someone promising herself never to open it again. Although they both knew she would.
She took a breath, composed herself, adjusted her bag over her shoulder, and walked through the door without looking back.
Another day. Another battle. Another mask... And that damn alarm would still be ringing tomorrow.
Despite this, Elphaba had to get on with her day and stepped into the elevator without looking around, like someone moving in a world of their own, oblivious to anything that isn't part of their mental itinerary. She pressed the button for the ground floor with the same meticulous precision with which she did everything. The doors closed with a metallic whisper, and the descent began, slow but steady. The sound of the engine was a soft, almost reassuring hum, and for a moment, Elphaba allowed her shoulders to relax and let routine envelop her again like a comfortable coat. But the movement stopped prematurely.
The elevator stopped mid-ride with a creak that wasn't alarming, but it was irritating. Elphaba made no audible comment, but her face—which rarely showed emotion without a conscious decision to do so—revealed a slight crease between her brows and a slow exhalation, as if anticipating that the interruption wouldn't be brief or silent.
The doors slid open with a groan, and barely opened a few inches, a high-pitched, vibrant voice filled the space even before the bodies appeared.
"I told you that coat makes you look like a rich grandmother in mourning!" snapped a slender figure, wrapped in a gold-sequined coat, bright red satin trousers, and knee-high boots.
"And I told you at least someone in this relationship has a sense of style!" —replied the other, more robustly built but elegant, wearing a navy velvet jacket, a neatly folded silk handkerchief in his pocket, and a cane he clearly didn't need to walk but did need to gesticulate dramatically.
Crope and Tibbett.
Elphaba let out a sigh, a mixture of resignation, amusement, and ill-disguised affection. If there was one predictable thing in her life, it was that this eccentric, loud, and utterly impossible pair wouldn't make an entrance without disrupting the world around them.
"Oh, please, let's not start again," said Crope, the more serene of the two, his voice soft but firm, his long, angular face framed by carefully swept-back hair, his dark eyes filled with gentle irony.
They entered the elevator still arguing, Tibbett raising his arm in a dramatic gesture as his voice filled the space with a stagecraft that seemed designed for theaters, not residential elevators.
“All I’m telling you, Crope, is that passionate red doesn’t go with striped designs! It’s not subjective, it’s an aesthetic tragedy!”
Elphaba watched the scene silently, leaning against the corner of the elevator, a half-smile breaking through her fatigue. It was a smile more resigned than joyful, but definitely charged with a certain tenderness. Crope saw her first, interrupting her train of thought with a slight nod and a knowing smile.
“Oh! But it’s our emerald panther,” Crope said, in that voice of his that could be both a caress and a whip, tilting his head and smiling at her with genuine affection.
Tibbett interrupted his speech to look where his partner was directing his attention. His eyes widened in recognition.
“Elphie! My goddess of darkness with a steel diary! Why didn’t you say anything, my love? I thought you were an elegant shadow!” "He exclaimed as he crossed the space with theatrical steps, circling her like a peacock flaunting its feathers.
"Good morning, guys," Elphaba replied, raising an eyebrow in amusement. She made no effort to stem Tibbett's emotional onslaught, knowing that resisting it would only make it more intense.
"So how was it? Did you survive your first day in the cave of the corporate lions or have you become the queen of the jungle?" Tibbett asked, without breathing between sentences, as if afraid of her own excitement escaping her mouth.
"Solid, structured. Too much paperwork, but nothing out of the ordinary. The office seems functional, the team competent," she replied, keeping her tone neutral, as if she were giving a report to a committee.
"Oh, for all the broken heels on Broadway!" Tibbett moaned, throwing his head back. "Was that your description?! Not one scandalous adjective, not one "and then she came in dressed like she was coming off a military parade and offered me a lit cigarette in a gold satchel!"
"Leave her alone, Tibb, not every story has to have an emotional striptease," Crope chimed in, amused.
"Bah!" Tibbett snorted. "I bet what she doesn't want to tell us is the interesting part. You know what I mean..."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow in feigned innocence.
"Interesting?"
"Yes, darling," Tibbett said, leaning closer as if about to tell her a secret, though he said it aloud. "Did you meet anyone?"
Elphaba blinked, feigning confusion with perfectly acted awkwardness, but a faint blush crept up her neck.
"Someone...?"
"Yeah, you know... someone. Intense stare across the boardroom. Unexpected encounter at the copy machine. Nervous giggles as they both bend down at the same time to pick up the same document..." Tibbett listed, moving ever closer to leaning on her shoulder. "An attractive girl, perhaps?"
Elphaba felt the faint heat rise in her cheeks. She wasn't much for blushing, but Tibbett had a surgical skill at piercing her defenses without permission.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said, too quickly.
"That's a yes!" Tibbett squealed, spinning around as if he'd won a prize.
"Not necessarily," Crope chimed in thoughtfully, as if truly weighing the options. "Maybe he's more attracted to men."
"Men?!" "Tibbett exclaimed, as if he'd been suggested to live without drama. "Elphie has class. I don't see her falling for a guy with a crooked tie and supermarket cologne. No, no, she's the kind who swoons over women in blazers with sharp eyes, eager to take on the world while simultaneously criticizing your latest fashion choice."
"Oh, sorry for assuming I might have broad taste," Crope snorted. "Not all of us were born with infallible gaydar like you."
"You think everyone is pansexual until they prove you otherwise with a doctor's certificate!" Tibbett responded theatrically, pointing at the ceiling.
Elphaba couldn't help it. She laughed. Not a laugh, but that soft, unexpected laugh that escapes without permission. The argument between Crope and Tibbett was as absurd as it was endearing, and watching them debate her love life as if they were expert analysts of her heart felt... comforting.
The elevator finally reached the ground floor with a soft "ding." The doors opened, and Elphaba glided gracefully toward the exit while Tibbett, still talking, barely noticed her leaving.
"Hey! You still owe us that dinner at home!" Crope yelled from inside, raising a hand.
"I know," she replied, walking toward the lobby, not turning around, but raising a hand in a promise.
"And bring wine! But not that cheap wine you bought last time, huh? My taste buds are still in therapy!" Tibbett added, his voice trailing off as the elevator doors slowly closed.
Outside, with the cool morning breeze caressing her face, Elphaba shook her head with a smile, the first genuine one in many hours. Those two were a mess, a whirlwind of drama, color, and eccentricity. But they were her mess. Chaotic, inadequate, brilliant. And, for lack of a better word, the closest thing to family she'd ever found.
A short time later, Elphaba arrived at the Shiz.Corp building, where the reflection of the tinted glass at the entrance distorted the silhouettes of the internal chaos she already sensed. She walked up to the main offices, her dry heels echoing amid the constant murmur of keyboards, phones, and intersecting voices. She entered amidst the typical office bustle, where every employee seemed twenty seconds behind on something urgent.
With a firm stride, she made her way through narrow hallways filled with mobile filing cabinets and desks too close together, until she stopped in front of the door with silver letters that read "Madame Morrible – General Management."
She stood still for a few seconds, considering whether to knock or wait, staring at the surface of the door as if it were going to give her an answer. Just then, she noticed a young redhead, short but energetic, arranging some files on a nearby shelf. He was wearing a neat gray suit, somewhat old-fashioned but well-pressed, and seemed so focused that he didn't notice Elphaba's presence until she gently approached.
"Excuse me," she said politely. "Do you know if Madame Morrible is available?"
The young man flinched, nearly dropping one of the files as he turned around.
"Oh! Sorry... I didn't see you coming." He composed himself immediately, smiling gently. "You must be Elphaba, right? The new analyst."
"Correct," she nodded, softening her expression. "And you're Boq."
He looked surprised.
"Did you know my name?"
"Yes." I heard him several times yesterday. But we hadn't formally met.
"Well, now we do. Boq Woodsman," he said, offering his hand with a cordial gesture. "Nice to finally meet you."
When Elphaba heard his last name, something struck a chord with her, like a word one remembers from a dream.
"Woodsman? Is your family from…?"
"From Gillikin, yes," he confirmed with a small laugh. "Are you too?"
"Yes, indeed. My family is originally from the northern hills, near the Three Lagoons."
Boq's eyes lit up.
"Wow! I was born in one of the nearby villages, in Emerald Valley. It's a small world, isn't it?"
"Too small, sometimes," Elphaba replied with a half-smile.
There was a moment of pause, comfortable, almost familiar, until Elphaba returned to her purpose.
"Anyway… I wanted to speak with Madame Morrible." I had some documents delivered yesterday afternoon, and I'd like to go over them with her, if she has a moment.
Boq adopted a look somewhere between embarrassed and resigned.
"Ugh... Tough. She's been on the phone since I got here this morning. No one's quite sure why, but it seems urgent. She has a Cold War face every time she hangs up."
Elphaba frowned, not in annoyance, more intrigue.
"Any leads? Legal issues? Nervous investors?"
Boq shrugged.
"Your guess is as good as mine. Although I saw her talking to someone from the Security Department recently, and that's never a good sign."
"Security?" she repeated, though more to herself than as a real question.
"Yes. But shhh, you didn't hear that from me," she teased, putting a finger to her lips as if sharing a deep secret.
Elphaba smiled, something she rarely allowed herself to do outside of controlled spaces.
"I'll remember. Then... I guess it's best to wait."
"Probably," Boq nodded. "But if you want, I can let you know when she's finished. I have access to the internal system; I get a notification when she clears the line."
"Would you do that?"
"Sure. It's the least I can do for a fellow countryman. Besides, I like you."
Elphaba tilted her head, slightly taken aback by the directness.
"Was that a passive-aggressive way of saying you don't like most of the office?"
Boq raised his eyebrows.
"What if it was?"
They both laughed softly, conspiratorially. And for a moment, between the distant sound of a jammed printer and the insistent ringing of an unanswered call, Elphaba felt a little less foreign in that world of glass, steel, and hierarchy.
"Then I'll let you work," she said, picking up her pace. "Thanks, Boq."
"You." And welcome to the jungle!
Elphaba walked away with a smile that didn't disappear as quickly as other times, and walked through the halls of Shiz.Corp with measured steps, but her mind was ahead, still entangled in the brief encounter with Boq. It had been... pleasant. An adjective she didn't use often, nor lightly. It was curious how a simple conversation, without sharp edges or twists, could feel like a respite among so many tense faces and plastic smiles. For a second—a very brief one—she thought that Boq might be the only genuinely kind person she'd meet in this place.
Immediately afterward, she mocked herself for the thought.
"God, Thropp," she told herself mentally, "you haven't even been here a week and you're already writing your emotional epitaph."
She told herself repeatedly that this job wouldn't be as complex as her instincts were trying to warn her. That if she remained steady, reserved, and competent, everything would flow. There was no reason to think it would be one of those corporate nightmares where everything turns into a war of egos, secrets, and betrayals…
And then she opened the door to her office.
Upon entering, without even looking, she placed her folder on the desk with the precision of someone who could do so with their eyes closed. The place seemed quiet, but something… something wasn't right. A faint creak. A presence. She turned, and that's when she saw it.
The swivel chair in front of her desk was upside down, as if someone had been there… waiting for her.
The chair turned slowly. As if in a carefully planned scene, theatrical to the point of absurdity. And there she was… Glinda Upland.
Sitting with her legs crossed, one arm elegantly resting on the back, the other on her waist, her back straight, her chin high, and that smile… that damn smile that looked like something from a propaganda poster, yet hid blades behind each white tooth.
Glinda's gaze was direct, as if Elphaba were an enemy she needed to study with surgical precision. Or worse: as if she already knew exactly where to stab. Elphaba stopped dead in her tracks, her left eyebrow rising as a knee-jerk reaction. Then, wordlessly, she rolled her eyes with a reluctance worthy of a Greek tragedy. And with a mental sigh, she said goodbye to any glimmer of hope she'd had about the possibility of a peaceful day.
"Good morning, officemate!" Glinda crooned, as if they were old friends reuniting for tea.
"Did you get lost?" Elphaba replied dryly, walking up to the desk without even looking at her.
"Don't be like that," Glinda said, slowly standing up, like a queen descending from her throne. "It's not easy to do what I'm about to do."
"Invading other people's spaces?" Elphaba raised an eyebrow as she organized some papers.
"Extending an olive branch." Glinda approached the window, whirling around with the measured theatricality of someone who knows she's being watched. "I'm ready to... start over. To put the misunderstandings of the first day behind us. To be... friends."
Elphaba stopped moving. She looked up. Friends. That word sounded as natural on Glinda's lips as "humility" or "tact."
"Friends?" Elphaba repeated with a dry smile. "Does it come with terms? Or do I just have to sign in blood?"
Glinda laughed, delighted by the sharpness.
"Nothing like that," the blonde insisted, with a sweetness that held more sugar than truth. "I know I behaved... not entirely well yesterday. I admit it. Of course, it was all a bit abrupt. Don't you think?"
"I don't know," Elphaba murmured, reorganizing her papers. I don't usually start my friendships with passive-aggressive accusations and shouting over coffee cups.
"Oh, please. Don't exaggerate. It was a tense day for everyone. Besides, my cup survived. That counts as a victory for fate."
Elphaba didn't respond. She just watched her out of the corner of her eye. Glinda was still staring out the window, her profile illuminated by the morning light. If she didn't know who she was, she'd think she was deeply reflecting on the state of the world. But Elphaba knew.
And then she noticed.
The conversation, that purported intention of peace, was carefully constructed. A velvet-wrapped courtesy that, little by little, veered in a different direction. Glinda wasn't there just to offer apologies. Or out of emotional charity. She was guiding the dialogue. Bringing her closer, yes, but not out of affection.
Out of information.
"Speaking of starting over," Glinda said with an innocence too polished to be real, "I was wondering if you'd been able to speak to Madame Morrible this morning. She's so hard to catch these days, isn't she? Always so busy..."
Elphaba smiled. Not widely. Not openly. But enough.
There it was. The turn. The queen move on a board Glinda thought she dominated alone.
"No, I haven't been able to see her yet," Elphaba replied, her voice now calm, almost silky.
"That's a shame." Glinda turned to her, gauging her reaction with her eyes.
"It's no secret," Glinda said finally, "that Madame Morrible is... demanding. That she doesn't always share her intentions. And that, well... not everyone gets the same treatment."
Elphaba leaned lightly on the desk, her gaze fixed on Glinda with a cold, calculating intensity.
"And do you usually offer your friendship to all new girls, or only to those you think can win her favor before you?"
Glinda gave a playful smile in an attempt to hide her true despair. "What do you want me to say? That it really surprises and frustrates me that, as the new girl, she already thinks of you more than me? If you want to call it professional envy, go ahead."
"Envy?" she repeated softly, resting her fingers on the table. "That's not what I saw yesterday when you tried to convince her with that special coffee you almost forgot. But don't worry. She liked it."
Glinda tensed slightly. A flash crossed her eyes. But she quickly recovered her smile. Always so quick to recover.
"Anyway…" she said, her tone less firm than she would have liked. "If you ever want to chat, about Morrible... or anything else, I'll be in the office next door... as fate would have it,"
Glinda turned her face slightly, with a small, almost satisfied smile.
"Oh, Elphie... never say never."
And with the same theatricality with which she had arrived, she headed for the door, deliberately leaving it open. Before leaving, she turned around for a moment.
"Oh, and by the way. That blouse... it looks spectacular on you. Honestly."
Elphaba let out an incredulous laugh.
"I see the charm campaign comes with gratuitous flattery."
"Consider that... a teaser."
The door closed.
And Elphaba, alone again, let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She slumped back in her chair, staring at the ceiling, and murmured, "Quiet day, huh?"
And then she laughed. Because if Glinda wanted to play... well, she knew how to have fun, too.
But Elphaba's satisfaction with her apparent victory that morning was short-lived when a small line appeared on her wrist. Her smile faded as her mind wandered, and she thought that even though she had seemingly won this morning's duel... for some reason even she couldn't explain... she still felt like she was losing in some way.
The fluorescent light flickered dimly as the rhythmic whir of the photocopier filled the room. Glinda, immaculate as ever, held a stack of papers in one hand while pressing the machine's buttons with the other, each beep an echo of her growing frustration.
"Who does she think she is?" she muttered, barely containing herself. "The queen of haughtiness? The goddess of passive irony? The patron saint of sarcastic comebacks?"
Another sheet fell into the tray.
Beep. Beep. Zzzzzip.
"Offer my friendship and have it spit back in my face with that arrogant little smirk..." she clicked her tongue. "Me, stooping to cordiality. Me, proposing a civilized arrangement. And her..."
"And what about her?"
The shrill, perfectly off-kilter voice belonged to Pfannee, who appeared at her side with her usual heavy perfume and hyena-catalogue grin. On her other side, Shenshen, equally enthusiastic, leaned forward to peer at the papers, as if they were state secrets and not mere reports.
"Come on, Glindie!" Shenshen said, dragging her syllables like cheap velvet. "Don't tell me the green girl beat you!"
Pfannee theatrically pretended to faint.
"Oh, no! Our queen of elegance bested by... a librarian with legs?"
Glinda didn't look at them. She simply pressed another button with almost vengeful fury.
"She didn't beat me," she said through gritted teeth.
"Of course not," Shenshen agreed, making an exaggerated gesture of support. "She just... publicly rejected you and destroyed your attempted rapprochement with her gaze. But that's not losing."
"It was... a strategic retreat," Glinda snorted.
Pfannee and Shenshen exchanged glances. And then they let out the most cruelly melodious laugh possible without a Casio keyboard.
"Oh, Glinda. No offense, but it came out like a deleted scene from 'Mean Girls: The Executive Cut,'" Pfannee laughed.
"Yeah! Just as you were about to offer her your eternal love, she looked at you like you were... what do you call this thing nerds hate?
"Carbohydrates?"
"Exactly!"
Glinda gritted her teeth and turned to them with a curt frown.
"Do you want to know the truth?"
They both nodded in unison, like two crows with lip gloss.
"That bespectacled bitch is my bridge to Morrible."
Pfannee blinked.
"The Morrible?"
"The only Morrible," Glinda confirmed. "I've been trying to get close to her for years. But she always runs away. Like a white cat with bodyguards." And now, the "I'm very smart and I don't wear eyeliner" lady comes to work, and suddenly she has a private meeting with Morrible in her first week. Her, not me.
Shenshen's mouth twisted.
"So, your move was... friendship with the nerdy witch?"
"Exactly," Glinda replied. "But even that didn't work."
Pfannee crossed her arms, thoughtful like a second-rate villain.
"Then it's Plan B. Gaslight, gatekeeper, girlboss?"
"An anonymous email saying Elphaba's a communist?"
"Or better yet! A fake meeting with Morrible, where she arrives and there's just an inflatable cow with her face on it."
Glinda looked at them as if they'd just suggested opening a coffee shop on Mars.
"No. It's useless. That girl has brain cells... to spare. She knows what she's doing. And if I'm going to gain her trust, I need to enter her world. Understand how she thinks. Meet her on her own turf."
"You mean... nerdland?" Shenshen said, horrified.
Glinda was already walking toward the door, papers in hand, when she heard one last stray comment from Pfannee:
"Oh, maybe you should hack it or something. Do you know how to use Excel?"
Glinda stopped dead in her tracks. She turned slowly. Her lips curved into a slow, feline, dangerous smile. That smile that meant only one thing: a wicked new idea.
"No," she whispered. "But... maybe it's time to learn."
And without another word, she left the room, leaving behind a cloud of expensive perfume and an intrigued silence. Pfannee and Shenshen looked at each other, completely disoriented.
"Do you think she's going to make a PowerPoint presentation to destroy her?"
"Oh... I wish. I love dramatic transitions."
As the minutes passed, Elphaba remained leaning back in her desk chair, her feet on the floor but her gaze fixed on the screen. Her inbox gleamed with the cruel white of Mondays and impatience. With a soft click of the mouse, she scrolled the sidebar once more. She'd checked that same email ten times. Twenty. Maybe more. And yet… There it was.
From: Nessarose Thropp. Subject: Family – Urgent
Elphaba let out a dry sigh, almost as if her body ached. She rested her elbows on the desk and, resigned, clicked.
The body of the message unfolded like a letter written in a honeyed voice and false tenderness. Nessarose began with formalities disguised as affection:
“Dear sister, it's been so long since we last spoke. I hope you're doing well in your new job…”
Elphaba tilted her head, reading without really reading. Empty words. Textbook courtesies. A familiarity that didn't feel like hers.
“…I imagine you're very busy with so many important things, but if you have a moment…”
Elphaba's hand instinctively scrolled down the mouse wheel. Something caught her attention.
“…There have been some conflicts at home recently, mainly related to Dad’s work. He’s wanted to keep it under the strictest secrecy; he probably wouldn’t even want me to write this to you, but the situation has been worsening since…”
She frowned. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. She was about to reread that last line when, suddenly:
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound shook her out of her bubble. She blinked, returning to the present. She looked up, and there, in the doorway, stood Boq, with his usual half-nervous smile and the air of someone carrying a message… or dying to say it.
“Forgive me if I interrupt,” he said with that mixture of awkward politeness and suppressed excitement, “but… Headmistress Morrible is now free. In case… well, in case you were still interested in seeing her.”
The screen still glowed with the open message. Elphaba glanced at it for one last split second, as if hesitating. But in a swift movement, she closed it without answering. The mail was lost among the others again.
"Thank you, Boq," she said, already standing up and taking the documents she had prepared earlier.
"Is everything all right?" he asked, in that casual tone that sought to sound disinterested, but couldn't hide his genuine curiosity.
"All right," Elphaba replied, terse but not rude. She passed him and headed straight for Morrible's office.
Boq watched her walk down the hall and murmured softly to himself, "Of course, everything's always fine when you frown like that..."
Elphaba knocked softly on the office door. Barely a second later, Morrible's voice echoed on the other side, firm and without excuses:
"Come in."
When she opened it, Elphaba found herself in a scene she hadn't expected. The office, normally immaculate, had a strange air about it. Papers were scattered on the dark wooden desk, some even sticking out of loosely closed folders. Three disposable coffee cups rested—inelegantly discarded—in an almost overflowing wastebasket. Behind the desk, Madame Morrible was quickly flipping through some reports, as if the act of reading could exorcise the stress from her body.
Her face was free of fresh makeup, nor her usual immovable demeanor. But despite all that, when she looked up and saw Elphaba, she straightened her jacket and smiled with her usual calm authority.
"Miss Thropp," she said matter-of-factly. "Just in time. What brings you here?"
"I can come back later if it's a bad time," Elphaba said, with cautiously, feeling like an intruder in the chaos.
"Oh no, no, please come in. I'm delighted to see you," Morrible replied, using a warm tone that didn't quite hide the tiredness in her voice.
Elphaba approached, handing her the documents she had given her the day before.
"I wanted to return these. I've already read them."
Morrible raised her eyebrows in pleasure and accepted the folder as if it were a trophy.
"Already? Wow... quick and efficient, as I expected." She smiled with satisfaction. "And what did you think of them? Do you agree with the assigned operations?"
"Mostly, yes. I even thought some were brilliant," Elphaba admitted honestly.
"Mostly?" Morrible asked, sensing the pause.
Elphaba took a deep breath, as if giving herself permission to speak without fear.
"There was one document that... I don't know if it confused me or made me a little uneasy. The agreement with the senator."
Morrible was silent for a second longer than expected. She lowered her eyes to the folder, and the sigh that escaped her nose was barely audible, but enough. Elphaba knew she'd struck a chord. Perhaps that explained Morrible's dark circles. Or the pile of coffee. Or both.
Still, the director resumed her imperturbable posture with the skill of a veteran.
"I understand," she finally said, putting the papers aside. "It's an unusual alliance. But also a rare opportunity. Did you read the fine print?"
"Yes." Elphaba nodded. "I understand that a collaboration with the senator can represent significant backing. Resources, visibility... even political protection. But I can't help but wonder if it isn't too risky to allow a public figure with such personal interests inside access to strategic decisions of a private company."
"You're correct," Morrible said with an approving, almost maternal smile. "And that's why you're valuable. You're here precisely to help us detect any potential conflicts of interest. Present or future."
The confidence with which she said this was so firm, so almost comforting, that Elphaba doubted her own judgment for a second. But not entirely.
"So... you think we can handle it?"
"I don't think so," Morrible replied, standing with unexpected energy. "I know."
Elphaba nodded slowly, but her face didn't show complete conviction. And Morrible noticed. Still, he didn't press further.
"Do your part, Thropp. The rest... leave it to me. I promise I'll know how to move the right pieces."
Elphaba forced a half smile.
"Of course, Madame. I don't intend to cause trouble."
"Of course not," Morrible said, his gaze steady and heavy. "No one has it. Until they do."
Elphaba nodded, a slight nod, and prepared to leave the office. As she did, she could swear she saw Morrible return his gaze to the papers with a mixture of admiration... and caution.
Because although he had hired her for her lucidity, he now knew that same lucidity could turn into something more: Dangerously difficult to manipulate.
Elphaba left Morrible's office with a frustrated grimace on her face. Her frown was a mixture of unspoken political disagreement and the helplessness of knowing that speaking the truth could cost her everything.
But what she found when she arrived at her sector made her completely forget about Morrible… Chaos.
Papers flying, phones ringing unanswered, screens flashing red graphics, employees running around. An office worker carrying three folders shouted to another:
"Where's the report from Section C?! You told me it was already signed!"
"No! I understood you were going to forward it! That's how I understood it!"
Elphaba stopped, stunned, staring at the scene as if it were a silent fire. She took a couple of steps toward one of the employees.
"What's going on?" she asked seriously.
The young woman, visibly upset, barely raised her head.
"Your last order, Miss Thropp! Everything went haywire because of that!"
"My what?"
Before she could get a clear answer, another interrupted:
"No one knows who was supposed to approve what anymore! The channels are duplicated! Someone authorized the same documents to be sent twice to two different committees, and now we have assignment conflicts!"
Elphaba remained silent. She hadn't given any orders. And yet, every time she tried to piece together what had happened, the "person directly responsible" seemed to fade away like a misquoted rumor.
She was about to raise her voice and demand clarity, when...
The doors opened gently, as if chaos itself parted to admit her: Glinda. Smiling like a virgin in a Renaissance painting, dressed in pale pink, her posture worthy of a heroine in a cheap drama. She walked gracefully, as if floating above the disaster.
"Everyone, calm down!" she announced with an artificial sweetness that bordered on comedy. "I've got the solution."
Everyone instantly surrounded her, as if a magic pill had materialized. Glinda pulled out a small document, a sort of improvised reorganization plan.
"We're going to reroute the channels according to this new coding, okay? No panic. Just follow this flow. It's what Elphie and I... worked on this morning," she said, turning her head slightly toward Elphaba, who was still frozen in place, her jaw nearly hanging loose.
"What?" she murmured, barely audible.
"Oh, right, right." Glinda let out a theatrical laugh. "She helped me see how an alternative strategy could simplify the internal channels. Thanks to you, Elphie! I said it well, didn't I?"
A shower of thanks rained down on Glinda as the employees returned to their places, relieved. Glinda greeted with theatrical modesty, waving her hand elegantly.
Elphaba watched her. Now it all made sense.
Glinda had caused chaos. A minimal change to the system, probably issued as a false order, camouflaged among the processes. And then... she presented herself as the savior. She stole the narrative, the glory, and the credibility. In broad daylight.
Elphaba gritted her teeth. And then, she forced a smile. Big. Wide. Bright. Taut as a guillotine cable.
"Glinda..." she crooned with poisonous sweetness. "Would you please come with me to my office for a moment?"
Glinda turned, surprised, the smile still on her face.
"Oh? Sure. Now?"
"Yes, of course. Now," Elphaba said, already turning, without waiting for a reply, knowing Glinda would follow her.
Elphaba opened the door, her gaze cold as steel. Her silhouette glided inside with surgical precision, and Glinda followed, trotting with that childlike cadence she used to diffuse tensions.
Elphaba closed the door with a slow, final click.
"How lucky we were able to resolve that crisis together in time!" Glinda exclaimed, her voice sugary and falsely cheerful. "It was crazy, but... we did it, didn't we?"
Elphaba watched her for a moment. Then she let out a small exhalation, like someone who no longer bothered to hide her disappointment.
"That was... pathetic. Ridiculous. Stupid. Immature. Desperate. Childish... and many other adjectives I'd rather keep to myself, out of respect for this office," Elphaba said without raising her voice or losing her composure.
Glinda's smile tightened slightly, like a rope nearing its breaking point.
"Oh, Elphie, you don't have to take it like that. It was just a mix-up... and it's over now, isn't it?" The important thing is that we work together...
"No, Glinda," Elphaba interrupted, crossing her arms with predatory calm. "You didn't work with me. You started the fire and then came in with a bucket of water to pose for the camera. And that's fine, if you want to play dirty to test yourself against me... I don't care."
She took a step closer. Glinda stepped back slightly, an unconscious reflex.
"But at least have the decency to do it on my lunch break..."
Glinda wasn't smiling anymore. Now she was pursing her lips uncomfortably, trying to contain what was overflowing. Finally, the mask fell away.
"And what do you expect? For me to sit there and watch you become a star? Because all you've done so far is walk around as if we all have to thank you for breathing. You want respect? Earn it."
Elphaba burst out laughing. One of those that burrows under your skin.
"Earn respect?" "—he repeated, approaching with calculated calm. "Oh, Glinda. You have no idea who you're talking to, do you?"
He turned his back on her for a moment, walking to his desk, toying with a pen as if it were a whip. Then he turned, leaning elegantly on the edge. He smiled, but not sympathetically. It was the smile of someone who knows the game... and always wins.
"If you're going to try to dominate the board, you first have to understand the rules. And I wrote them. Literally. Years ago. On someone else's skin." He leaned in slightly. "So if you're going to try to set me on fire, you'd better not bring wet matches."
Glinda swallowed. Something in the atmosphere had changed. Elphaba wasn't just in control: she was enjoying it.
And the worst part—or the best, depending on the angle—was that Glinda found she couldn't help but react to it. Elphaba was stripping her naked with words, and she didn't even need to scream.
"Do you want to play with me, Glinda?" Elphaba continued, walking slowly, so close she could smell her. "Go ahead. But don't get me wrong... I'm the one who ties the knot. Not the one who kneels."
Glinda stilled. Her breathing labored. Wide eyes. Hurt pride. Raging hormones. Fear? Maybe. Curiosity? Definitely. Excitement? Possibly, though she'd never admit it.
Finally, she straightened and held her gaze.
"All right. If this is a game..." she said, her voice deeper, more intimate. "Let the games begin."
"They've already begun," Elphaba murmured, her lips barely parting. "Only you only just noticed."
They both smiled. And in the silence that followed, both thought the same thing, needless to say:
"I don't plan on losing."
DAY 1:
Elphaba held her coffee cup in both hands as she chatted with Boq in the office common room. The morning was surprisingly peaceful. With a half-smile, she glanced at the clock on the wall: five more minutes and her video call with the market analysts would begin. Everything was under control, until a floral scent filled the air, announcing Glinda's presence before her heels even echoed on the polished floor.
"Oh, Elphie!" the blonde crooned as she strutted beside her as if the room were a runway. "It's so nice to see you so... relaxed."
Before Elphaba could process the subtext-laden sentence, Glinda tripped in a perfectly choreographed fashion, spilling the entire contents of her latte all over her rival's dark blouse. Elphaba froze for a moment, the soaked, hot fabric clinging to her skin.
"Ow! How clumsy! I'm so sorry!" Glinda exclaimed, covering her mouth in mock distress, though her eyes shone with malice.
Elphaba didn't respond. She just bolted upright, pushing back her chair, and walked like an angry shadow toward her office, determined to change before the video call. When she opened the door, however, she stopped dead in her tracks.
The interior of her office was no longer hers.
Everything, from the walls to the furniture, had been transformed into an aesthetic aberration of pastel pink hues. Tulle curtains fell over the windows, a shag rug lay beneath her feet, her desk was covered with glitter hearts, and a vanilla-scented diffuser bubbled in the corner, spreading its sweet stench like a suffocating cloud. Even the cup holder was shaped like a unicorn.
With growing horror, she opened her closet in search of her spare clothes... only to find a frilly pink blouse and pleated skirt that looked like something out of a second-rate romantic comedy.
As the video call began, her image appeared on the screen for the Council members: Elphaba Thropp, the eminent office worker, trapped in a Barbie-like environment and dressed like a doll, her face contorted in a grimace of suppressed rage. The faces on the other end of the call oscillated between disbelief, horror, and bewilderment. From somewhere, probably a nearby cubicle, muffled laughter erupted.
And Glinda, of course, wasn't on the call. But she saw everything. And savored it.
DAY 2:
The next morning, Glinda paraded through the halls as if nothing had happened, greeting everyone with charming smiles and accepting compliments on her impeccable attire. An aide approached her, a folder in her hands. "Miss Glinda, Chief Morrible assigned you to a special presentation with outside visitors. In Room 7."
Glinda nodded, certain this was her opportunity to shine. She adjusted her hair, fixed her smile, and walked confidently to the classroom. But as she opened the door, her heels sank into the floor with a squeak.
The room was packed with children.
Forty little gremlins were running, screaming, climbing tables, and throwing Play-Doh and drool at each other. A school field trip. Pure chaos. Glinda took a step back, but when she turned, she discovered the door had been locked from the outside. And just outside the window, like a figure from a personal nightmare, stood Elphaba. She calmly held her coffee cup. Then, with the same meticulous gesture with which one places an offering on a grave, she taped a sign against the glass:
“DO NOT DISTURB (or feed the gremlins)”
Glinda tried to maintain her composure. She welcomed the children, tried to speak in a sweet voice. But it was not used. An hour later, she emerged from the classroom a complete mess: her blouse stained with paint, her hair covered in gum, her makeup smeared from silent cries of despair. Some children had called her “old lady,” others had asked her to juggle and then threw things at her for not pleasing them.
Elphaba waited outside. She didn't say a word. She just looked her up and down and raised an eyebrow. Glinda swallowed.
DAY 3:
It was already noon, and Glinda still hadn't done “anything.” Elphaba was beginning to suspect that Glinda had let her guard down, which was dangerous in itself. When she got ready for Morrible's talk, she grabbed her makeup kit and applied a little foundation to correct her dark circles. Then she walked calmly into the classroom, unaware that someone had tampered with her makeup kit.
The conference began. Morrible spoke in his usual monotonous, judgmental voice. The lights dimmed to reveal the presentation. The room went dark… and then everyone turned around in unison.
Elphaba's face glowed.
Not figuratively: literally. Her face was covered in a layer of fluorescent makeup that responded to the black light from the projector. Phosphorescent greens, impossible fuchsias, and radioactive oranges lit up like a Halloween lantern.
A deathly silence fell over the room.
And then, laughter. Suppressed laughter at first, then openly hysterical.
Elphaba closed her eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and said nothing. But her clenched jaw spoke volumes.
DAY 4:
Lunchtime brought a tense calm. Glinda stood with her friends in the dining room, surrounded by whispers, still savoring Elphaba's fluorescent humiliation. Elphaba, for her part, sat alone, as always, albeit with a particularly calm smile.
When the two exchanged glances from a distance, Elphaba raised her glass of water with sinister elegance.
Glinda imitated her, bewildered… and then she felt it.
A rising heat, starting on her tongue and spreading throughout her mouth, as if she'd bitten the sun. She jumped up, babbling, taking off her jacket, and running across the dining room while her friends tried to understand what was happening. She shouted something unintelligible, asking for water.
Boq, confused, tried to help. He opened a bottle and threw it at her. But I have missed. The water didn't reach her mouth, but soaked her completely. Her perfect hairdo was dripping. Her makeup began to run in disastrous lines.
From her table, Elphaba lowered her glass and discreetly took a small bottle of hot sauce from her bag. "Inferno Kiss. Limited Edition."
She took a final sip of her water, savoring her small revenge.
DAY 5:
The clock on the wall read 11:04 when Elphaba and Glinda were summoned to Mr. Nikidik's office. The atmosphere of the office, normally neutral and almost clinical in its administrative sobriety, seemed to have been imbued with the electric tension they both carried. The light gray carpet, the smell of reheated coffee, and the artificial plants flanking the window failed to disguise the weight of the air that could be cut with scissors. The two sat side by side, so close that their elbows almost touched, but the emotional distance between them was abysmal. Each maintained a stoic and rigid posture, staring straight ahead, although from time to time, with barely perceptible movements, they shot each other venomous glances. Mr. Nikidik, head of Human Resources and one of the few sane souls still trying to maintain some moral order in that office that was already bordering on a Darwinian jungle, slowly adjusted his glasses on his nose. His voice was soft, careful, like that of someone walking through a minefield in slippers:
"Well... as you know, I've called you because I've received multiple reports of a... conflict of interest between you two. I'd like to think it's just a misunderstanding. Perhaps if we start with the basics... would anyone be willing to share what's been causing so much friction?"
That gesture of innocent diplomacy was the spark that lit the gas can. Before the poor man could finish blinking, they were both bolting upright in their seats as if propelled by an invisible force.
"She started it!" Elphaba bellowed, turning to Glinda with a mixture of fury and superiority. "She spread the rumor that I have an OnlyFans account! Do you know how many emails I've received this week with titles like 'Are you the green witch or the wicked green one?'"
"That was a misunderstanding!" Glinda retorted, with the theatrical indignation that only someone like her could feign so naturally. "And at least I don't have every report I get designed with Comic Sans font and cartoon teddy bears saying 'Good job, Glinda!' The whole office thinks I have the IQ of a school mascot!"
"You deserved it." Weren't you the one who told the new intern I read Kafka "because I'm a fan of insects"?
"Well, excuse me if I try to make the office have a sense of humor!" Glinda retorted, raising her voice and turning directly to her. "It can't all be drama, black leather, and poisonous sarcasm like your life, you know?"
Nikidik tried to raise his hand, but his words were drowned out by the weight of the insults. The two were already shouting over each other, their phrases becoming increasingly loud and personal. Accusations flew, some true, many exaggerated, and others so specific they made the imaginary listeners wonder what the hell had happened during those five nights of war.
"You're a manipulative narcissist with a superiority complex!"
"And you're a bitter woman with dominatrix delusions!"
"Oh, and that's what the queen of glitter-filter selfies says?"
"Too much filtering and too little substance! You can't even turn on the photocopier without help!"
Amidst this explosion of insults, Nikidik managed to make himself heard with a sudden bang on his desk.
"ENOUGH!" he exclaimed in a voice he hadn't used since he had to mediate between two managers who were throwing the contents of their coffee pots at each other six years ago. "This can't go on. If you can't find a mature solution to this conflict... we'll be forced to implement staff redistribution measures."
Silence fell for a few seconds. They both turned to him, still panting slightly.
"Measures?" Elphaba asked, not hiding her skepticism.
"Like a sanction?" Glinda added dramatically, already imagining herself being fired or, worse, deprived of priority access to the executive dining room!
Nikidik slowly shook his head.
"Nothing that extreme... yet. But we are considering a schedule restructuring." Specifically, a transfer of one of you to a new schedule. Splitting you into different shifts so you never overlap in physical space.
The proposal hung in the air for a few seconds. Then, as if she'd been offered a magical solution, Glinda smiled enthusiastically and sat up straight in her chair.
"That would be perfect!" she exclaimed. "I completely agree. It seems a more than reasonable option. I'm willing to accept any modification that will get me away from this witch once and for all."
"Excellent," Nikidik said, beginning to jot down notes in his notebook. "Then you'll be assigned the night shift."
Glinda's smile froze on her face like a poorly finished painting. She blinked several times, unable to process what she'd just heard.
"...Pardon?"
"Night shift. From 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM. Unfortunately, it's the only one available," Nikidik continued, with the neutrality of a functioning robot. Of course, they can dress however they want. There's no dress code. Many wear slippers.
Glinda looked at him as if he'd proposed sharing a cell with a cannibal.
"Slippers?"
Elphaba, who until then had remained on silent alert, let out a short, sharp laugh that echoed off the office walls.
"Oh, how ironic!" she said, leaning toward Glinda with a smile so sarcastic it could have been framed. "It seems the universe has a much crueler sense of humor than I do."
"This is absurd!" Glinda snorted, regaining some of her feisty demeanor. "I'm not working nights! I have a social life, you know! I have commitments. Events! Brunches!"
Elphaba continued to laugh like a victorious villain.
"Oh, Glinda... are you up for that?" I thought you were completely open to change.
"In your dreams, Elphie!" Glinda retorted, leaping to her feet. "If anyone deserves to be banished to the nightlife of this company, it's you."
"Well, then you can try to make peace in the next 24 hours," Nikidik said wearily, rising to end the meeting. "Talk, negotiate, have a coffee, hit each other with pillows if you want, but if you don't reach an agreement by this time tomorrow... one of us starts our new nightlife. And no, it's not optional."
Elphaba and Glinda stared at each other in silence as they stood up simultaneously, like two duchesses of a cursed court preparing to resume their duel. They walked toward the door, shoulder to shoulder, without speaking, without giving way, exiting through the narrow doorway as if neither was willing to be the first to retreat.
Elphaba walked down the hall with the same severe elegance as a death sentence advancing toward the prisoner. Each step was measured, every muscle in her face as firm as marble. Nothing in her bearing betrayed any emotion, only a cold, almost lethal determination. Beside her, out of tune like a saxophone at a funeral mass, Glinda stumbled, her heels clanging like an out-of-tune drum, her arms flailing with a desperation as absurd as it was theatrical.
"Do you think this is funny, Elphie?!" she yelled, pointing at her as if she were a criminal on the run. "Are you trying to ruin me?! What kind of psychotic maneuver is this?! This is workplace harassment, emotional torture, institutionalized cruelty!"
Elphaba didn't respond. She didn't even turn around. She kept her gaze straight ahead as if Glinda didn't exist, as if she weren't walking alongside a furious blonde, hysterical and dangerously on the verge of an emotional breakdown... or a Broadway performance.
"Listen to me, please! We can make a deal! A truce!" Glinda continued, her tone suddenly lowering. "We can go to Nikidik together, tell him it was all a big misunderstanding, that we've made up, that we're best friends now, we could even hug each other in front of him, do you like that? A big corporate hug! With a signed form!"
Nothing. Elphaba stood like a stubborn shadow. The silence of her gait was beginning to fill the hallway like a muffled threat.
"Oh my God, talk to me, damn it!" Glinda shouted, abandoning any pretense of composure. "You're an iceberg on legs! A wall of sarcasm! A... a column of emotional misery!"
They reached the elevator. Elphaba pressed the button with surgical precision. Glinda, her makeup already slightly smudged and her hair beginning to rebel against her hairspray, was panting, enraged, frustrated, almost childish. The door opened. They entered. Elphaba was still silent. Glinda was muttering insults under her breath.
But then, something changed.
The elevator began to descend. Elphaba, as always, remained unfazed. Glinda, on the other hand, was no longer shouting. She wasn't gesticulating. She stood still for a moment. Her reflection in the metal surface of the door confronted her with herself, and for a second… she let her guard down.
"What if... one of us really ends up on the night shift?" she said softly, as if the mere fact of saying it made it real. "What if this isn't just a silly war, but the beginning of the end? Of corporate oblivion? Of administrative exile?"
Elphaba glanced at her. For the first time. Out of the corner of her eye, barely. A gesture as subtle as a breath in a storm, but coming from her, it was practically an emotional confession.
But Glinda didn't notice. She mistook that faint gesture, that pause, for indifference.
And then she broke... Literally.
With a sound a mix of a suppressed moan and an operatic lament, she sank to her knees on the gray elevator carpet, raising her hands to Elphaba with a mix of dramatic desperation and involuntary comedy worthy of a Venezuelan soap opera.
"Please, I don't want to work the night shift! I'm scared of empty hallways and the echo of my own voice! Elphie, I beg you, I can't live without windows! I don't know how to operate a photocopier on energy-saving mode! Don't take away my sun!"
Elphaba took a step back, as if Glinda were a soaked cat climbing her legs.
“Are you… begging?” she asked, more puzzled than mocking.
“I don’t know! Maybe! I’m crawling out of pride, out of dignity, out of… my executive dining room keycard!”
Glinda shuffled a little further. With each movement, her heels swayed more miserably. One knee caught the strap of her bag. The other foot slipped slightly. It was a tableau of pastel pink misery and vanilla despair.
And then, the unthinkable happened.
Elphaba felt a pang of something. It wasn’t pity. It wasn’t guilt. It was… recognition. Because this ridiculous, humiliating, unpredictable scene… was territory she knew. A dynamic she’d explored and mastered in far less enlightened, far more consensual settings.
The pleading. The submission. The power drive. The vulnerability laid out on a silver platter.
"Glinda..." he said softly, his tone no longer sarcastic, but firm, dark, and, for a moment, almost... seductive. "Do you know what you're doing?"
Glinda raised her head, her eyes large and crystalline, and although her mouth said no, everything in her expression screamed yes.
Elphaba felt the universe play a card she hadn't expected. Because there was Glinda: defeated, humiliated, and at the same time, strangely provocative in her surrender. Not as a vanquished enemy, but as an improvised submissive, wordlessly demanding that someone take the reins of this situation.
And Elphaba, as much as she wanted to deny it, understood that role perfectly.
"If you're going to surrender like this," she murmured, taking a step forward. "Do it right. Stand up. Straighten your back. Look me in the eyes."
Glinda did so. Trembling, but obedient.
"I'm not your enemy," Elphaba continued. "But I'm not going to let you play me halfway. If you want this to be a game... then play it. But with clear rules."
"And what are... the rules?" Glinda asked, still on her knees.
"You need to be careful and know what you're getting into," Elphaba whispered with a strange mix of authority and compassion. "Because if you enter this game in that state… I can take you at your word. And you don't want to know what happens when I'm in control."
For a second, just one, Glinda was silent. Her breathing shaky. Her makeup now more smudged. Her lower lip slightly trembling. And, though she'd probably never admit it… something in her ignited… A spark.
Elphaba stood up, imaginarily dusting her hands, as if she'd just cleared an awkward situation with a single gesture.
"I'll meet in the break room. Bring your best attempt at reconciliation. Or surrender."
The elevator door opened. Elphaba stepped out. Glinda remained on her knees for a second longer, before letting out a long, dramatic, and deeply conflicted sigh.
"...I'm screwed," she said softly. And she wasn't sure if that was a good thing... or a very, very bad thing.
The break room was almost empty. Only the low hum of the refrigerator and the distant echo of a copy machine working after hours broke the heavy silence that hung in the air. The artificial white light of the fluorescent tubes tinged everything with a relentless gray, and the clock on the wall marked the end of a day that seemed to have stretched for centuries.
Elphaba, standing next to one of the small tables, had set her bag aside and was slowly turning on her laptop. Her serious, almost imperturbable face revealed emotion only in the subtle creases of frustration that formed between her brows. As she opened her email, her long, tapering fingers moved with surgical precision across the keyboard, until they reached a familiar sender: Nessarose. Her sister.
The subject seemed innocent, even affectionate. But as Elphaba read, her gaze hardened. The words about her father, about "doing the right thing," about "supporting the family," piled up like stones in her stomach. The passive-aggressive phrases, the tone that disguised manipulation as a moral plea, she knew all too well. And each sentence seemed like an echo of the same old story: she should give in, she should correct, she should save. Once again.
Elphaba closed the computer with a dry, harsh click.
She let out a long, tired, angry sigh. She stood up and walked over to the coffeemaker. The gesture of pouring a cup seemed almost mechanical, a way of containing the anger bubbling inside. Steam rose from the freshly brewed beverage, but it was her insides that were boiling.
And then, the inevitable: that voice.
"Oh, my! What an unplanned coincidence to find you here," Glinda said, leaning into the doorway with the theatrical clumsiness of someone trying to appear casual while dying to be there.
Elphaba didn't turn around. She didn't even react. She just raised an eyebrow as she poured the coffee into her cup with surgical precision.
"It's not like I was looking for you, of course," Glinda continued with a nervous laugh. "I mean... not really. I just thought maybe we could talk, or not talk, or shout a little, whatever. You know, like functioning adults do."
Elphaba turned her head slightly. Not enough to fully look at her. Just enough to let her know she'd heard her. That she was evaluating her. And that she didn't like what she heard.
"Glinda." Her voice was a sharp whisper, like a knife dragging across a metal table. "On your knees."
The world seemed to freeze on that sentence.
Glinda blinked, confused, uncomfortable, as if she hadn't quite understood. Her smile faltered. She took a small step back.
"Pardon...?"
Elphaba turned completely. Slowly, controlled. And with the cup still in her hand, she walked toward her with the calm, lethal cadence of a storm that knows it has already won.
"I gave you an order," she repeated. "On your knees."
The tone hadn't risen a decibel. But the effect was devastating. Glinda swallowed, as if her throat had suddenly tightened. Something in Elphaba's gaze had changed. It wasn't anger. It wasn't mockery. It was something much worse. Control.
Glinda laughed nervously, as if this were a joke. As if any second Elphaba was going to burst out laughing and say, "You believed it!" But that second never came.
Elphaba placed her cup on the nearest table with ritual slowness. She crossed her arms. And with a gaze that seemed to pierce Glinda completely, as if she were seeing her oldest fears, she waited.
Glinda felt her body refuse to move, caught between humiliation and something much stranger... a kind of dangerous, unknown excitement. Something the most primitive part of her brain recognized: she had lost control.
"I... I don't know what you're talking about," she tried, forcing a shaky smile. "Is this another one of your little games? Because if it is, I want to tell you that..."
"Shh," Elphaba interrupted her with a single raised finger. "Enough with the empty words, Glinda. I'm tired of your poorly written comedies. Do you want to play for real? Fine." But you're going to play by my rules.
Glinda's breath hitched. Not out of fear, not entirely. There was something about that moment that broke and reshaped her at the same time. Elphaba's quiet dominance, her poise, her ability to control her surroundings and herself with just a few words... left her without tools. Defenseless.
"You like it, don't you?" Elphaba whispered in her ear, her voice barely audible. "Not knowing what's next. Not being in control. Having someone decide for you."
Something inside Elphaba, something buried beneath layers of discipline, sarcasm, and restraint, awakened.
It was that part she didn't usually show. That she hid beneath the cloak of efficiency, coldness, and unquestionable logic. The one that only came out in her most private corners. The one that knew control, power, desire wrapped in dominance. And now that part whispered to her with intoxicating clarity: "If she wants war... you'll give it to her. But not the war she expected."
Elphaba placed her cup on the table with a dangerous softness. Her heels clicked slowly against the floor as she approached Glinda, who, still on her knees, seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.
"Look at you," she murmured, in a voice not the one she used in meetings, or in the hallways, or even when shouting. "All shiny and perfumed, all smiles and makeup... and now, what have you become? A doll waiting to be told what to do?"
Glinda opened her mouth, perhaps to defend herself, perhaps to retort, but no sound came out. Because Elphaba crouched slowly, until she was level with her, and with two fingers lifted her chin.
"You don't know what you're doing," Elphaba whispered, bending down slowly, until she was almost at her eye level. "But I do." And if you're going to play with me, you're going to face who I really am.
And then everything changed.
"You ruined my day. My week. You pushed me, you provoked me, you mocked me. And now you're here, at my feet?" He leaned closer, until his lips were barely inches from Glinda's ear. "You're going to understand what it means to provoke me."
Glinda swallowed, a blush covering her face like a mask. Her body trembled, but she didn't back down. Her trembling hands clutched at her uniform skirt as if clinging to her last vestige of dignity. But her eyes said otherwise….. And Elphaba noticed.
"There's no need to pretend. Not here. Not with me." He released her chin roughly, only to place his fingers on her shoulder, then gently push her down, until Glinda lowered her head further, subdued, disarmed. "You're already broken, Princess." Do you want me to show you what comes next?
Elphaba walked slowly to the table where a tray lay with the remains of the corporate breakfast. She took a bagel with one hand and raised it as if it were a trophy, or a tool of power. She retraced her steps, her heels clicking the floor like a relentless metronome, and stopped in front of Glinda.
"I opened my mouth." The command was so curt, so surgical, that for a moment Glinda froze.
"What...?"
"Like a puppy," Elphaba repeated, now with a crooked smile, laced with venomous sarcasm. "Come on, open your mouth. You say you're so brave, so strong, so mature... Let's see if you know how to obey too."
Glinda, as if in a trance, slowly opened her lips. And Elphaba, with a meticulous gesture, placed the bagel between her teeth as if it were a toy bone. She crouched down a little, at her eye level, and observed her. "Look at you," she murmured mockingly. "The great Glinda Upland... now my obedient little pup. You wanted war? This is war, my dear. This is what happens when you challenge someone who plays by a different set of rules."
And with that, she began to pace around her again, slowly, like a wolf that has scented blood. Every word she spoke was an invisible lash, every gesture an invisible chain tightening around Glinda.
"Where's your courage? Your motivational speeches? Your party-party self-esteem?" she mocked, without raising her voice, without needing to. "You're nothing but a broken doll who doesn't know if she wants to escape or stay in the box."
Glinda didn't respond. She couldn't. The bagel in her mouth had become symbolic: it wasn't just food, it was an emotional gag. And in her eyes, for the first time in this whole absurd battle, there was an expression Elphaba hadn't expected to see... Desire.
Not simple desire. Not carnal desire. It was something more dangerous: a desire to be seen, understood… emotionally possessed. A desire to stop pretending for a second who she was. A desire to surrender. And surrender to her.
Elphaba stopped. She looked at her. Her smile froze for a moment on her lips.
"Say it," she murmured, half accidentally, half in defiance.
Glinda, the bagel between her teeth, dropped it to the floor, almost without noticing. Her eyes shone as if all masks had been stripped from her.
"Please," she whispered. Barely. Like a prayer. Like a confession.
And Elphaba's world collapsed.
Because she understood that tone. She'd heard it before, in private, intimate moments, with other people. It was the exact moment when someone gave themselves completely. And Elphaba knew what to do with that. She knew how to guide, how to hold, how to dominate… But not her. Not Glinda.
Elphaba's breath caught. All the heat she'd felt like a fire of power turned to paralyzing ice. Not because she didn't want to continue, but because she knew if she kept going… there would be no turning back. Not after that. Not after seeing that look. That submission so real. So raw. And it terrified her.
"Get up," she said, in the firmest voice she could muster.
Glinda blinked, confused.
"What?"
"I told you to stand up," Elphaba repeated, taking a step back, as if she needed distance to regain the control she'd unwittingly lost.
Glinda sat up slowly, her soul still hanging by a thread. Elphaba wasn't looking at her. She couldn't. Her face was a mask of restraint, of shame, of fear of herself.
"Go away," she said, her gaze fixed on the floor. "There's nothing more to discuss."
Glinda remained motionless for another second, as if she didn't understand what had just happened. As if someone had promised her a story and then shut it down before the end. And then, with a final breath—a mixture of anger, disappointment, and an inexplicable longing—Glinda left the room.
Elphaba was left alone. Silent. Only the hum of the refrigerator filled the air again. She clenched her fists. What did you just do? he asked himself, with a mixture of guilt, vertigo, and a dark emotion he didn't dare name. But he knew.
The war wasn't a war anymore... It was something else. And that thing had just fully awakened.
The day was over.
The hallway lights flickered with that listless cadence of an empty office, as if even the electricity felt the fatigue of a week too long. Elphaba stood there, in front of the elevator door, motionless, her figure silhouetted against the dull reflection of the metal. She still held the empty cup in her hands, as if her fingers refused to let go of the last vestige of sanity or routine she had left.
His mind was a whirlwind. The scene with Glinda replayed over and over again, with the intensity of a lucid nightmare. The pleading face, the vulnerable whisper. Please. That sound kept hammering in his head, not like an echo, but like a wound still open. What had she done? What had she unleashed?
A faint, penetrating scent brought her out of her reverie. An elegant, controlled silhouette glided beside her. Madame Morrible's smile was like an antique painting: flawless, false, and deeply unsettling.
"My dear Elphaba," she said with a sweetness so carefully measured it felt like a spoonful of poisoned syrup. "How has your first week on the team been?"
Elphaba, still flustered, took a second to react. She cleared her throat, lowered her gaze slightly, and replied with a confident but empty sentence:
"Intense... but productive. I'm grateful for the opportunity."
Morrible nodded slightly, her expression one of feline satisfaction. But then, with an almost theatrical pause, Elphaba added, in a lower voice:
"Although I still have some doubts... about the agreement with the senator. I'm not sure the implications are entirely... transparent."
Morrible gave a short, dry laugh. Barely a sound, as if he'd allowed himself a second of true expression before putting his mask back on. Then he turned to her, inclining his head slightly with an air that mixed condescension and complicity.
"Oh, dear." His tone became softer, more intimate, like that of a teacher preparing to deliver a crucial lesson. "You see? Transparency isn't a virtue in our world. It's a weakness. Power, Elphaba, isn't about being honest. It's about knowing which pieces to move... and when."
Elphaba frowned slightly, but said nothing.
"Manipulation," Morrible continued, "is an art form. It's not lying... it's rearranging the narrative. Controlling the framework within which stories are told. Choosing what to sacrifice, and what to keep. If you have to get your hands a little dirty to stay in control... well, that's the price of being on top." Would you rather be just another piece on the board or the one who decides the rules of the game?
Elphaba felt a chill run down her spine. It wasn't just what Morrible said, but how he said it. With the serenity of someone who has already crossed all the lines, and has grown accustomed to the vertigo of unchecked power. Each word was a dagger, and each one seemed to point with cruel precision at her inner self: at her history with her father, at the decisions she avoided making, at the reflection she refused to see in the mirror.
The elevator gave a soft ding and the doors slid open.
Morrible took a step inside, but before the doors closed, she turned slightly on her heel, boring into Elphaba's sharp eyes.
"Are you coming?" she asked with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
Elphaba didn't move.
The silence between them grew thick, heavy with all that wasn't being said. Morrible kept smiling. She waited. But Elphaba, her mind still on fire, merely shook her head.
"I still have some things to organize," she murmured. Her voice didn't waver, but it didn't have the firmness of a final decision either.
Morrible watched her for a second longer, then nodded once, almost sympathetically. The doors closed with a metallic whisper.
Elphaba was alone again.
And in that solitude, the weight of the words, of the decisions made—and those she still didn't dare make—began to weigh on her chest. A part of her knew that what she had just witnessed wasn't a simple work conversation.
It was a warning.
Or worse: an invitation.
Elphaba remained alone in the hallway, in the same place where Morrible had left her, as if her shoes had fused with the polished marble floor. The silence of the empty office was beginning to weigh more than any noise. She still clutched her coffee cup as if somehow that tempered ceramic could give her back the drive she had lost during the afternoon. But it wouldn't. Nothing could.
She forced herself to move, even if it was a reflex, and pulled her phone from her pants pocket. Her index finger slid inertia across the screen. Unimportant notifications, automatic updates, junk promotions. And there, like a ghost that hadn't completely disappeared, it appeared. Nessarose's damned email.
A simple message, harmless at first glance. But Elphaba already knew it. She'd read that email hours earlier, sitting in the break room, her heart pounding and rage gnawing at her ribs.
Dad needs help, it said. Things are complicated, and you can't keep pretending we don't exist. You can't just brush it off like this.
There was more. Veiled reproaches, appeals to blame, old emotional blackmail disguised as concern. The same old thing. A demand without context. A plea disguised as a command.
Elphaba sighed. Not with resignation, but with an exhalation that sounded like she was letting go of a piece of her past.
Without another thought, she pressed delete. The message disappeared with a simple flick of her thumb.
That's it. Gone. As if it had never been there.
“I didn't know what I was doing. Or who I was doing it with. It seems ridiculous, I guess… to look back and think I thought I was in control. But that's the big lie you tell yourself when you're in that place, isn't it? When you have the power. When you lean toward someone and watch them fall apart for you. You think you're leading… but in reality, you're walking blindly along an edge where you don't know when you'll fall.”
Calling her exhausting day (or rather, week) a close, Elphaba headed toward the exit, still somewhat regretful.
“Being a dom isn't about having all the answers. Sometimes you don't even know what the question is. And the worst part… is when you don't know your own limits. When you don't know how far you can go until it's too late. Until you have someone on the ground, broken, shaking… and you realize it wasn't a game. That you've already crossed a line. And that maybe… maybe you don't know how to get back.”
Meanwhile, Glinda opened the door to her apartment with slow, almost mechanical movements. She didn't seem present in her own body. She closed it behind her without looking, left her purse on the floor instead of hanging it up, and took off her heels with a tired gesture. Her hair, impeccably styled hours before, now fell in tousled waves, trapped in the memory of what had happened.
She walked to the center of the living room with soft steps, without turning on any lights, allowing the darkness of the night to cover her face like a blanket. She sat on the edge of the armchair. Not gracefully, not with her usual theatricality. She sat like someone letting herself fall, as if she had reached the limit of the day... or of herself.
For several minutes, she simply stood there, staring into space, at a fixed point that didn't exist. She seemed not to think. Or perhaps she was thinking so much that her body had decided to shut down.
Finally, as if guided by a distant force, she leaned toward the piece of furniture opposite the sofa and opened a drawer. Inside, gleaming with a faint pinkish glow from the light outside, were the plush handcuffs.
She picked them up delicately, as if they were fragile. They weren't new. She'd had them stored there for a long time. They'd been a joke at the time, a birthday present from a friend with a double meaning. She'd never used them. She'd never felt she should.
But now, as she looked at them, something inside her stirred. She couldn't say what. It wasn't fear. It wasn't desire. It was... something more primal. Something more confusing. As if all the pieces of the puzzle suddenly began to fit together, and what they formed wasn't an image... but a feeling. A need.
Her cell phone vibrated.
She picked it up slowly. A notification. A message.
Fiyero: We have to meet. Tomorrow. It's important.
Glinda's gaze turned distant for a moment. She swallowed. And without fully understanding why, without rehearsing any justification, she slowly slid off the couch... and knelt on the floor, still holding the handcuffs in one hand.
She said nothing.
She thought nothing.
She just obeyed something she didn't understand, but that had already completely won her over….
Chapter 3: MY PULSE IS RUSHING
Chapter Text
“I've never been good with words, I confess. But there's a curious thing you discover when you start writing about yourself: at some point, inevitably, you stop writing about yourself.
At first, I thought all this was an attempt to put my thoughts in order, a therapeutic catharsis, a way to understand the chaos that surrounds me... but no.
This story began as mine, or so I thought. But sometimes stories aren't about the one who lives them, but about the one who disrupts them. So I guess it's time to talk about the other protagonist. About the princess. About the woman who turned my life around.
About Glinda.
Well... about Galinda Arduenna Upland, if we're going to be strict about noble titles no one asked for.
Like all princesses, she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Her family wasn't of royal blood—the state stopped recognizing those monarchies more than a century ago—but the Upland lineage could look down on the aristocracy of yesteryear without flinching. The daughter of Highmuster and Larena Upland, both as wealthy as they were ridiculously formal, she was the child born to be a symbol. A symbol. The perfect accessory in every photograph of power.
But what no one expected, what made them gasp in horror and murmur in whispers at country clubs, was that the child Galinda wasn't born with the quiet grace of a fairytale princess... but with the energy of a glitter hurricane with a built-in megaphone. Where she was, no one could ignore it. Not adults, not employees, not the poor children forced to attend her parties. Because if one thing was clear from the start, it was that Galinda didn't understand the concept of "low profile."
The other children avoided her as if she were radioactive, though they quietly said that being her friend would be "good for the social resume." But even that wasn't enough to withstand her intensity. It was too much. Too loud. Too bright. Too much of everything.
The problem was that no one dared say no to her. Because no one said no to her mother, Larena, either, a woman who made the walls straighten when she entered a room. And her father... well, he'd learned to assent to everything long before Galinda was born. Especially if it prevented a scandal before breakfast.
Still, Galinda knew one thing from early on: she was going to be a princess. Not just any rich girl, not an ordinary heir. A fairytale princess, with dresses, balls, magic, applause, and her happy ending. What she wasn't entirely sure of was what kind of prince she wanted. Or if she even wanted one.
But childhood, like all illusions, has an expiration date. And at twelve, Larena ripped off her fairy wings with a perfect smile and told her: if you're going to be a princess, you're going to behave like one.
That's when the training began. Parades, diction, reading aloud, languages, knowing when to smile, when to laugh (never too loudly), when to pretend to understand an economics conversation without yawning. What was a whirlwind of glitter became an immaculate silhouette, a young woman so refined she seemed painted with brushstrokes.
She made her debut into society at thirteen, wearing a white dress, an unwavering posture, and a smile that could slowly murder. And the world—that elitist, stuffy, empty world—applauded her. Finally, the Upland jewel shone as it should. But for Galinda… it was like dying of boredom with a smile.
Insipid gatherings. Recycled conversations. Trips planned by committees. And, above all, suitors. God, the suitors. Like flies to sugar, they arrived en masse: children of ambassadors, corporate heirs, athletes with more abs than brain cells. All of them smitten by her impeccable beauty and porcelain personality. And all of them, absolutely all of them, forgettable.
Everyone wanted to kiss the princess, but no one seemed capable of seeing her. Her name filled halls, but her interior was wasteland. It was the price of being the most glittering trophy: being untouchable. And alien. As if her beauty were a wall separating her from the rest of the world.
She was fifteen when a fellow cheerleader—one of those cruel girls with white smiles—mocked her for being “incredibly virginal and naive.” Glinda, of course, wasn't going to let that go.
That same night, she opened her laptop, typed with trembling fingers, click after click, until she stumbled upon an adult page. Five seconds… That was all she could stand. She slammed everything shut, her face red, her heart pounding, and ran away…
But a few days later, she came back… This time, she held out longer, went further, snooped, explored, laughed nervously… She frowned… She yawned. Everything was so… grotesque… And predictable… And masculine.
Until she saw a tab: "Chains, bonds, and more: just for you." And it was like entering a forbidden forest she never wanted to leave.
She discovered something that had no name. Something that excited her, yes, but even more… calmed her.
That secret world where the rules were clear, desire was order, and she didn't have to pretend to be in control.
Because someone else was. And that, for Princess Upland, was more seductive than any fairy tale with a happy ending.
It wasn't (just) lust she felt, not even instant fascination. It was recognition. As if that dark, forbidden, dangerous corner spoke her language without words. But she knew that world was taboo. That if it ever came to light, her mother would exile her from the country with a smile and a press release that would cover everything up.
So she hid it. She buried it and filled herself with distractions: brunches, gossip, trips, charity drives, theme parties, perfectly calculated photos. She was the perfect princess.
But at night… at night, she read.
At night, she dreamed.
So, Glinda built two parallel lives. And both of them were equally alone.
And then, when she finished high school, she discovered the truth: she wasn't the one writing her story. It was Larena, and that story was already completely scripted, with arranged weddings, jobs with a name, and an existence of obedience and smiles that didn't belong to her.
That's when she did what no one expected of her. The first proper decision of her life: she left.
She used her cheerleading scholarship to get into the most prestigious university she could find. She left without looking back, after a fight with her mother that no one witnessed forgot.
And in college, she was everything no one believed she could be: a party animal, yes. A social media queen, too. But also brilliant, hardworking, and ambitious. A combination no one knew how to handle.
Glinda wasn't just the prom princess; she was also the best public speaker, the debate leader, the student with a future.
And now, here she is. With an education. With a name. With a face fit for the cover. With everything expected of a modern princess.
And yet... when the clock strikes midnight, like every princess, the spell is broken. And that part of her, the one that creeps like a shadow behind the dresses, is still there. Knowing that no prince with a white smile has managed to extinguish it. And that perhaps—just perhaps—the only one who could truly touch her... was me.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is her part of the story...”
CHAPTER 3: My pulse is rushing
The morning sun filtered timidly through the ivory silk blinds, casting golden lines on the walls decorated in a rigorous palette of pinks, soft golds, and pearly whites. The entire apartment seemed an ode to the aesthetics of a porcelain doll: elegant, pristine, almost unreal. Every object had its designated place, and every corner exuded a delicate combination of artificial sweetness and planned rigidity. In the center of the room, a king-size bed with pale pink silk sheets welcomed its owner as if it were the last vestige of a children's fable carefully curated over years. The subtly transparent canopy hung like a veil of unspoken promises. All was silence and harmony. Everything seemed perfect. Until it wasn't...
“You were the popular one, the popular chick.
It is what it is, now I'm popular, bitch!...”
The song began to play with aggressive euphoria from the nightstand, like a declaration of war disguised as a pop song. The electric beat broke the silence like an off-key scream in the middle of an opera concert. And then, from between the tangled sheets that no longer looked so glamorous, an uncoordinated hand emerged, fumbling, clumsy, furious.
“Shut up, you stupid infernal contraption!” Glinda snarled in a voice that bore nothing resemblance to the perfect melody everyone knew. The sharp knock against the alarm clock was as precise as it was vengeful.
She sat up in bed with a sigh of resignation, roughly ripped the pink sleep mask off her face, and slumped her shoulders, as if the weight of perfection hadn't yet settled on her back. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a tangle of droopy buns and flattened waves that teetered between disaster and horror. She barely opened her mouth to drop her braces from her teeth, taking a few seconds to reach for her glasses so she could see her surroundings. At the same time, she was wearing a t-shirt three sizes too big with a faded image of a super-happy unicorn! Around her were pillows thrown haphazardly, a wrinkled pink robe at the foot of the bed, and a cup of tea forgotten from the night before that was still slightly steaming, as if she knew this was a ritual that had to be repeated every morning.
For a moment, Glinda simply stared into space, lost in the nothingness of the ceiling, as if waiting for some real-life fairy godmother to appear and sort her life out.
"Okay..." she finally murmured, taking a deep breath, in the tone of someone about to face a holy war. "Shine, bitch."
And so the process began.
First came the shower. The water had to be at just the right temperature—not so hot as to ruin her skin's elasticity, nor so cold as to close her pores prematurely. Her products were organized by order of use, tone, and purpose: exfoliating gel with gold particles, silk protein shampoo, sulfate-free conditioner, foaming face wash, Korean hydrating mask with black pearl essence. Every step was timed. Nothing was left to chance.
Then, breakfast. A perfectly balanced avocado toast with a poached egg and chia seeds. Cold-pressed cucumber, celery, and green apple juice. An oatmeal latte with heart-shaped foam that she perfected herself with a golden spoon. While she ate, she read the notifications on her phone, but only the important ones: the stories she was tagged in, messages from her closest contacts, comments on her latest gym mirror selfie.
—“You're so iconic”… “How do you always look perfect?”… “I'll kill myself if one day I don't see you on social media”… —she read softly with a satisfied smile—. Poor creatures, they still don't understand the price of this throne.
Once her body (and ego) had been fed, yoga came. Gentle, measured, elegant movements, as if at any moment a hidden camera could record her for a sportswear brand. “Inhale the light, exhale the bad vibes,” she repeated while stretching her body like a celestial dancer, although on more than one occasion a small back creak could be heard that didn't correspond to the divine image.
But none of that mattered. The important thing came next… The transformation.
In front of the vanity, an altar lit with Hollywood lights, she began the task of what Glinda had always considered her purest form of art: the reconstruction of her own reflection. First, she inserted her contact lenses with the surgical precision of a surgeon undergoing open-heart surgery.
Then, foundation was applied to her already perfect face with fine-bristled brushes—the same technique used in the restoration of Italian frescoes. The concealer followed a lighting technique she had learned from a Korean influencer with over 10 million followers. Her eyebrows were drawn like triumphal arches. The false eyelashes—made of faux mink, of course—were applied with surgical precision. The contour of her face slowly took shape, like a pink marble sculpture carved with devotion. Finally, a mist of setting spray sealed the work with the same mysticism with which an alchemist seals his spell.
In front of the mirror, Glinda smiled. And in that smile, there was no longer a trace of the disheveled creature who had slammed her alarm clock an hour earlier. No. The princess had been reborn. Hair perfectly styled in glossy waves. Makeup flawlessly. Jasmine and vanilla perfume floating around her like an invisible aura. Glossy lips, dangerous eyelashes, ballet-pink polished nails. She dressed in a champagne-colored silk blouse, a high-waisted skirt with subtle embroidery, heels the same shade as her lips, and a purse that cost as much as the average family's rent.
As she gathered her things to leave, Glinda moved with almost choreographic synchrony between the different corners of her apartment. Her bag was perfectly organized, as always: compact mirror, lip gloss in three shades, diary, perfume in a travel-size bottle, scented tissues, mints, a portable charger with rhinestones, and a miniature bottle of rosewater to "refresh the aura." Everything in its place, everything under control. As it should be. She paused for a moment by the entrance console, where her plush pink planner awaited her, a true relic of kitsch that no one would dare question, at least not without risking a withering glance. She opened the cover as if it were the sacred book of a glamorous priestess, and flipped through the day's pages with the same attention as someone reading an oracle.
"Meeting with the top brass at seven… brunch with influencers at ten… lunch with the PR team…" she murmured. "Professional and optimistic for the meeting, surprised but humble for the photos, conversational but authoritative for lunch. Perfect. As always."
She walked to the mirror, subtly adjusting her posture, and rehearsed the phrase in several tones, discarding the less charismatic ones.
"Oh, I didn't even realize… the latest reports were out…" she stopped herself. "No, that sounded like I cared." It has to sound like I obviously expected it, but I'm too humble to say so.
She rehearsed again. Perfect. Her voice was flat, but every gesture was precise. A measured smile here, a raised eyebrow there, a light, falsely spontaneous laugh. Glinda wasn't a person. She was a play on stage, and every moment of her day a different function. But then she reached the end of the page, and her gaze stopped with a slight flicker of annoyance.
"Meeting with Fiyero – 5:00 PM"
"Ugh... right. The boring prince," she said, rolling her eyes and leaning dramatically against the mirror. "Doesn't matter, Glinda. Professional, charming, interested, without seeming interested. You can do it. Go on."
She stood up straight, gently crossed her arms, lifted her chin, and spoke to the mirror as if it were itself.
“Fiyero, how nice to see you. I love what you did with… whatever it is you did,” she faked a laugh. “No, that sounded passive-aggressive. Try it with more air.”
She struck another pose and performed her best “nice to see you girl” routine, her voice high-pitched, her teeth pricking, her eyes glowing with fake interest.
“Fiyero! I was just thinking about you… what a coincidence, huh?” she intoned, with that timbre she knew melted him. “Your shirt… wow, so nice. It’s so… beige.”
She paused for a second, assessing the level of hypocrisy and glamour in the line.
“Perfect. Not a shred of truth, but he never notices,” she declared, closing the notebook with a satisfied pat.
But as she was about to stuff it into her bag, one last note scribbled at the bottom of the page caught her eye. Barely visible, written in fainter ink, as if she wanted to hide it from herself:
“Talk to Elphaba.”
And then, for the first time all morning, Glinda stood still. Silent. Staring at that line as if it were a veiled threat. The rehearsed expression vanished from her face. There were no more automatic smiles or calculated poses. Just a girl standing in front of a mirror, a piece of paper in her hands and a name that stirred too much.
She looked at herself in the mirror again. She tried something soft, casual.
"Hello, Elphie... do we have a moment to talk?" she said in a voice she didn't even believe.
It didn't work.
She tried something dramatic, theatrical.
"We can't keep ignoring this, Elphaba. We're not like the rest..." with a pause that was meant to be meaningful.
Nothing.
She crossed her arms, walked a couple of steps, and returned to her position in front of the mirror. She frowned. She took a deep breath.
And then she tried the exact opposite: a bolder tone, a little lower, laden with a feigned, almost flirtatious confidence. Her eyes narrowed, a half-smile curved deliberately. She placed a hand on her hip.
"Hi, Elphaba..." she whispered with a hint of mischief, even tilting her head slightly.
It lasted all of two seconds.
"What the hell am I doing?!" she burst out, blushing, as she turned away from the mirror as if her reflection had betrayed her.
She quickly slammed her notebook shut, stuffed it into her bag without her usual delicacy, and clumsily adjusted her coat. She said nothing more. She didn't rehearse any more lines. She left the apartment almost running, as if the very idea of thinking about Elphaba for one more second would upset her carefully maintained equilibrium.
In the hallway, as the elevator arrived, Glinda took a deep breath and murmured, "One thing at a time, Glinda. One thing at a time..."
But she knew that was a lie.
Because if there was one thing that wasn't like other things, it was Elphaba. And for that very reason... she had no idea how to be Glinda in front of her.
The clock struck seven, and the city outside continued its frantic course, but inside that meeting room lit with a cold, distant light, Glinda heard nothing. She stared out the large window on the twentieth floor, not really seeing the horizon. Her eyes followed a solitary cloud as if some kind of answer, some guidance, some meaning depended on it. But there were no answers, no signs. Only the constant hum of the air conditioner and the distant murmur of traffic, drowned out by an inner silence that washed over her like a tidal surge.
She was absorbed, so deeply immersed in her own universe of thoughts—an elegant, muted storm of doubts, frustrations, and unspoken gestures—that she didn't even notice the approaching voice, first as an echo, then as an insistence, and finally as a small cry disguised as politeness:
"Glinda... Glinda?"
She blinked. Once, twice. She returned to the present as if emerging from an uncomfortable dream and turned with a suppressed start.
Boq was at her side. With his small build, his perfectly ironed blazer, and a gaze that always seemed to beg for attention, acknowledgment... affection. He clutched a folder of papers to his chest, trembling slightly from his anxious fingers.
"Are you okay?" he asked with a mixture of genuine concern and chronic shyness.
Glinda hesitated. For a moment, her face revealed the crack: a shadow in her pupils, a small curl in her lower lip. She seemed about to say something real. But like a skilled artist in her act, she regained her composure, turned her head with a slight movement that made her golden curls dance, and looked at him with a smile as luminous as it was empty.
"Me? Please, Boq, of course I am. When am I not?"
And she gracefully bent down to align the brochures on the conference table with almost surgical precision. Colors coordinated. Fonts flawless. Everything had to be perfect. Like her. Like everything she touched. Although inside, each brochure weighed like a stone.
Boq wasn't convinced. He knew her too well. Or at least, he thought he did. And for months, he'd seen her smile while, little by little, it faded inside. So he tried again.
"Glinda, I..." he tried, lowering his voice a little, as if the softest tone could carry more than strong words. "I just want you to know that... I'm here. For you. Always. You don't need to pretend with me."
She paused for a second. Not much, just enough for him to think that maybe, just maybe, he'd managed to break through the wall. But when she looked at him, it was with a rehearsed, almost maternal sweetness.
"You're lovely, Boq. Really. But I'm fine, really. Just a little... focused. Okay?"
And she returned to her papers, letting the conversation dissipate like expensive perfume in the air.
Boq stood there, like a puppy who doesn't know whether it's been rewarded or ignored. He knew something was up. He felt it. But she denied it with such conviction that he doubted even his own intuition.
Then, like a fatal sentence, the parlor door opened. Glinda didn't even need to look. She sensed the change in the air. The subtle scent of authority. The different rhythm of the footsteps. The affected tone of cordiality. And then, the voice.
"Ah, how lovely to see you so organized! I always love to arrive and find my girls ready," crooned Madame Morrible, as pompous as ever, wrapped in a coat that seemed made of frozen clouds and well-kept secrets.
But she wasn't alone.
Beside her, walking with that mixture of clumsiness and strength that made her unmistakable, was Elphaba.
Glinda felt her stomach tighten. She bit her lip without realizing it, as if trying to contain an undefined emotion: anger, nervousness, anxiety... guilt? Her first reaction was to take a step back, to hide behind the table. But no. It was Glinda. She wasn't running away. At least not where others could see her.
Elphaba entered without looking directly at anyone. She scanned the room with studied caution, as if every chair might conceal a judgment, as if every glance were a latent threat. And when their eyes met—because they inevitably did—time seemed to stop for a couple of eternal seconds.
Glinda swallowed.... And she smiled.
A polished smile. Flawless. Completely useless.
"Well, let's begin," said Madame Morrible, sitting at the head of the table. "We have much to discuss, and I want to make the most of every minute."
Everyone took a seat.
And Glinda… Glinda was thinking about how it was possible that, of all the people in the world, she was the only one who took her breath away.
The meeting had begun like so many others, wrapped in that solemn air that Madame Morrible knew how to conjure with ease. Seated at the head of the conference table, with her haughty bearing and her voice measured like an awards speech, she spoke eloquently about the recent changes in the company, the achievements that, of course, she attributed to herself with elegant modesty, and the plans to come, plans so grand and brilliant that it almost seemed she was heralding the arrival of a new era.
Glinda nodded, took notes, smiled when she should… everything as always. At least, on the surface. Because behind the pink quill twirling between her fingers, behind her lips carefully curved in an expression of diplomatic interest, her mind was completely elsewhere. Every so often, without being able to avoid it—or even trying, to be honest—her gaze strayed toward her… Elphaba.
Sitting across the table, her back straight, her fingers crossed over a dark-covered notebook, that braid falling in a straight line over her left shoulder, she listened to Morrible with fierce attention. As if every word were a trap. As if she knew that, at any moment, she would have to defend herself.
And yet, Glinda couldn't stop staring at her.
There was something about her tense stillness, the way she frowned slightly at certain comments, or the way her foot moved under the table with restrained impatience. Even her clothes—so different from the parade of pastels worn by the rest of the attendees—seemed to have something magnetic about them. Dark, austere, but deeply hers. Unadorned. Unapologetic. Authentic to the bone.
Glinda tried to focus on her notebook. She underlined a title forcefully. She forced herself to follow Morrible's monologue. But then, as if the universe were determined to punish her attempt at distraction, Morrible turned the conversation around with a delighted smile and said, "And now, let's talk about our latest strategic acquisition," she said with a smile laced with honey. "Our new director of analytics and strategy, Miss Thropp, has fully integrated into the team, and I'm sure you'd love to learn more about her approach."
Everyone turned their heads toward Elphaba, who blinked once before standing up. Her voice, when she spoke, was direct, confident, devoid of unnecessary embellishment.
"Thank you, Mrs. Morrible. Over the past few weeks, I've been working with the communications and development departments to optimize internal feedback channels and design an analytics model that prioritizes social impact indicators in addition to financial ones." The idea is to generate a more comprehensive view of each project's performance...
Glinda watched her with growing discomfort. Not because of what she was saying—she knew she was brilliant—but because of what she felt. There was something inside her, a kind of pressure in her chest, that unsettled her. Was it irritation? Jealousy? Insecurity? Or something even more dangerous?
And just when it seemed the tension was beginning to stabilize, Madame Morrible launched her thrust with the ease of an expert manipulator.
"Oh, yes... and the agreement with the senator. Elphaba, why don't you share a little about that project with them as well? I think it was one of the most... revealing moments of your arrival."
Elphaba hesitated for a second. A longer blink. An almost imperceptible sigh. Only Glinda noticed it. And then, the smile.
"Of course," Elphaba replied, swallowing any objections. The agreement with the senator seeks to establish a framework for cooperation between the public and private sectors for sustainable development projects. We're currently reviewing the terms, but...
"And thanks to your efforts, we already have the green light for federal funds!" Morrible interrupted, delighted with her own version of the story. "It's truly impressive how well you've adapted to our dynamics. It's almost as if you've always been part of this team."
Elphaba smiled, but her eyes no longer matched the expression. She didn't deny anything, but she didn't reaffirm it either. She just stood, nodding with the minimum courtesy necessary. And there, in that exact second, Glinda felt it.
The discomfort. The tension. The way Morrible twisted the speech until it left Elphaba in a display case, like some kind of trophy that belonged to her.
And suddenly, Glinda found herself clenching her fingers tightly on her notebook. Because something about it all, that forced smile, those forced words, was intolerable.
Elphaba's voice continued to flow, clear, controlled, as if every word had been selected and reviewed in multiple previous meetings. And perhaps it had. Glinda knew it. Every technical term, every figure, every attempt at "progress" wrapped in polite jargon sounded less like a proposal and more like a carefully constructed PR presentation by Morrible. Once again, the boss spoke without speaking, putting words into someone else's mouth, as if the entire team were just an extension of her voice.
And Elphaba, for the first time since she'd met her, seemed to give in.
Glinda pursed her lips. This wasn't the woman she'd seen the night before issuing orders with total authority. This wasn't the same woman who'd brought her to her knees. This wasn't the same woman who'd made Glinda feel—for the first time in a long time—like she wasn't in control of anything.
NO… This was something else. A role. A mask. A dictated script.
And then, without thinking too much, like someone jumping into the void before checking if there's water, Glinda spoke.
"Could you be more specific, Elphaba? How do you expect this collaboration not to compromise the autonomy of the quality control departments?" she said, her voice loud and clear, cutting through the air like a knife.
Elphaba blinked. Morrible turned slowly, like an offended queen who can't believe someone dared to interrupt her ceremony. The other executives stopped writing, typing, pretending they weren't bored. The entire room paused.
Glinda felt the heat in her cheeks, the surge of adrenaline, and for a second, she thought she'd damned herself.
"That is," she continued, gently folding the pages of her notebook with an almost diplomatic smile, "if I understand correctly, you're saying that the model you're proposing will be implemented even if it means ceding some operational capacity to the state framework the senator is proposing?"
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. Her jaw tightened slightly. Morrible tried to intervene, but Glinda kept talking.
"Because that sounded—pardon me for putting it that way—like a fancy way of disguising a loss of independence. And you know better than anyone what that means for this company."
Elphaba looked at her. For the first time since she sat down, she looked away from Morrible.
"The legal framework of the agreement is still under evaluation," Elphaba replied, her tone still restrained, but with a hint of irritation. "What I'm proposing is an opportunity for growth with social responsibility, not a surrender."
"And who decides what part is surrender and what part is 'social responsibility'? You?" Or "someone" else? Glinda crossed her legs again, defiant.
"We're working on a proposal that determines that, and it will be reviewed next week by the appropriate department," Elphaba replied firmly.
"And who wrote it?" Glinda insisted, her voice sharp. "You? Or was it a 'team effort'? Or, rather, a dictation you're willing to repeat word for word?"
The silence became heavy, electric.
Morrible narrowed his eyes.
Elphaba took a deep breath. Something broke in her expression, very subtle. A muscle in her jaw twitched. She pursed her lips before answering.
"The initiative was a collaboration. As are all of them on this team."
"So if I asked you a direct question, you could answer it without looking at Morrible," Glinda replied, her tone now heavy with intent.
Elphaba's eyes narrowed slightly. For an instant, the polished professional disappeared. And there she was. That flash. That fury. That passion. That pent-up fire Glinda had seen the night before… that she had sparked without knowing why… and that now she couldn't control.
The debate raged.
Questions were followed by answers, contradictions by retorts. The two hurled arguments at each other as if in a duel, a battle of intellect and emotions where the rest of the room disappeared. The graphics on the screen ceased to matter. The murmurs ceased. There were only the two of them. In a crossfire from which neither seemed willing to back down.
And then, it happened… It was an instant. A gesture. A visceral reaction.
"Silence!" Elphaba exclaimed, with the firmness worthy of a general and louder than necessary, with an unchallengeable authority.
And Glinda… fell completely silent.
Out of reflex. Out of surprise. For something she couldn't explain at the time, she obeyed. She closed her mouth as if her lips had sealed themselves by someone else's will. A deathly silence fell over the room.
Elphaba instantly realized what she had just done. Her expression changed. Her mouth parted in a mixture of regret and shock.
Glinda was looking at her. And in that look, there was no anger… There was only… understanding. Unsettling. Painful. Intimate.
The silence that hung over the meeting room was not just any silence. It was thick, viscous, almost physical. And in the midst of that void suspended in the air, Glinda and Elphaba slowly shifted their gaze to the other side of the room, as if their eyes had been drawn by a magnetic force… or by pure survival instinct.
Madame Morrible was looking at them.
And her expression wasn't one of surprise. Not even anger. It was worse.
It was that kind of pre-storm calm that makes your entire body tense as if you know what's coming. That subtle, contained half-smile, as if her mind were already organizing her retaliation with meticulous precision.
Five minutes later, Glinda and Elphaba were standing in front of Morrible's desk in his office. Not sitting. Standing. Like two students about to receive the lecture of their lives. The atmosphere was charged, the clock on the wall seemed to be louder than usual, and the rug beneath their feet offered no comfort.
Morrible, sitting with her hands folded and her chin slightly raised, looked at them as if calculating the exact value of each one.
"Can you explain to me... what the hell was that?" she finally asked, her voice calmer than any scream.
Neither of them responded.
"A board meeting. A crucial presentation. Months, years of negotiations. And you two decide to turn it into a cheap soap opera episode in front of the international committee?"
Glinda swallowed. Elphaba stared straight ahead, as if refusing to blink was an act of resistance.
"Do you want everyone to start questioning the project?!" The room was divided. The investment committee has already requested a new review of the project. Thanks to you. Is the senator himself going to find out that two of my best collaborators can't even behave civilly in front of an impact graph?!" Morrible was no longer calm. Her voice rose with each sentence, and the words flew out like knives.
The accused tried to get a word in. She wouldn't let them.
"No! I don't want justifications, or excuses, or passive-aggressive tears. I don't care if you hate each other, if you love each other, or if you're waging a mutual sabotage campaign to get my attention. I care that you push my damn agreement through!"
Elphaba barely moved a muscle. But Glinda could see her jaw clenching.
Morrible stood up. The sound of her chair sliding back seemed louder than it should have been.
"If it were up to me," she said as she walked slowly to the window behind her desk, "I'd blacklist you for a month, send you to file documents from 2004 or correct drafting errors in internal policies. But HR... said it was unethical... Whatever that means."
Glinda swallowed. She was about to apologize when Morrible turned around, almost with a smile of false politeness on her lips.
"So... here's what we're doing. Since you've shown such interest in the loopholes, the long-term risks, and the social viability of the agreement, you're going to spend an entire day reviewing the agreement from top to bottom. Clause by clause. Projection by projection. And I want a report in my email before the next meeting."
Glinda blinked, horrified.
"Today...?" she whispered, almost involuntarily.
And then Elphaba, with that impeccable sense of the worst possible timing, raised her voice:
"I can't this afternoon. I already had something scheduled, I asked for permission in advance, and it was approved by HR."
Glinda felt a tiny laugh rise in her chest. For a second, she thought Elphaba was about to dig her own grave. But then Morrible smiled. That smile that predicted disaster.
"Oh, don't worry. We won't break any rules," she said gently. "It won't be this afternoon..."
Elphaba frowned. Glinda felt all the blood drain from her face.
"In fact," Morrible continued with icy elegance, "Mr. Nikidik from Human Resources suggested an interesting solution regarding your... situation. As a 'constructive disciplinary measure,' you'll be moving to the night shift. Tomorrow only... for now."
"Night shift...?" Glinda murmured, horrified.
"Yes," Morrible nodded, as if speaking of the weather. "No distractions, no social agenda, no interruptions. Just the two of you, a thermos of coffee, and 237 pages of legal documents. Maybe that will help you work together. Or... tear each other apart. Frankly, I couldn't care less."
"You may leave now," Morrible said finally, with that imposed calm that was more dangerous than any shout.
Elphaba and Glinda nodded slightly, not even daring to meet her gaze. They turned, ready to make a silent and dignified retreat in their shared defeat, their backs hunched in shame... but then, Morrible's voice stopped them one last time.
"Oh, and one more thing."
They turned slowly, as if trapped in an endless nightmare.
"Don't even think about leaving this office with your heads bowed like two detention-detained children. No. Nothing like that."
He took a couple of steps toward them, with that icy smile that only truly fearsome bosses can muster.
"You're going to raise your heads. You're going to straighten your back, puff out your chest with pride, and smile. You're going to walk out of here with the same confidence you came in with. And if anyone asks you, you'll be thrilled with your new assignment. Is that clear?"
Glinda and Elphaba glanced at each other briefly. It was a look filled with resignation, silent irony… and a bit of shared panic. They had no choice. So they inhaled deeply, lifted their chins, put on their best catalog smiles, and walked toward the exit as if nothing had happened.
"Perfect, now you look like two perfect little dolls, and now... off you go!" Morrible concluded, sitting back down theatrically, clearly pleased with her own performance.
The door opened gently, and the two stepped out into the main hallway.
They hadn't taken five steps when Boq, with a worried expression, quickly approached Glinda.
"Glinda? Are you okay? What happened in there?"
But no sooner had he finished the question than his voice weakened at the sight before him: Glinda with a bright, almost disturbingly radiant smile and a posture worthy of a queen on the red carpet. Beside him, Elphaba walked just as firmly, though with an expression that, rather than a smile, was a grimace of wounded pride disguised as confidence.
"Boq?" Glinda said in a sweetly venomous voice as she stopped beside him. "Everything's perfectly fine. Why do you ask?"
Boq blinked a couple of times, puzzled.
"I... no, it's nothing. Sorry."
But before he could say anything else, Glinda gave him a razor-sharp look, the kind you don't shout but feel. A clear warning: Don't ask any more. Don't insist. And get away while you still can.
Boq backed away cautiously, swallowing hard.
The two continued walking down the hall, smiling as if they'd just received a promotion and not a shared nightly sentence.
Elphaba stood in front of the mirror, silent, water running through her fingers as she rinsed her face. Beside her, Glinda was massaging her cheeks with an expression somewhere between frustration and exaggerated drama.
"I haven't had to maintain a fake smile for so long since that time my mother forced me to attend a third- or fifth-generation social gathering!" she exclaimed, with almost theatrical indignation. "I think I'm going to end up with permanent facial spasms. Do you know how much emergency Botox costs?"
Elphaba didn't respond. She just neatly turned off the faucet and grabbed a towel to dry her face.
Glinda narrowed her eyes, offended by the lack of reaction.
"Are you ignoring me? After everything that happened in there? Are you just going to act like nothing happened?"
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She simply straightened, folded the towel with irritating calm, and then, yes, she looked at her. Not just at her: she stared right into her.
"Glinda. Listen to me," she said in a firm, deep, unwavering voice. I don't care if you want to continue your childish pranks or your spoiled-brain tantrums against me for the next few days. But if you're going to play with fire in front of Morrible, if you're going to risk what I've spent years building to satisfy some emotional whim... this "game" you're playing with me is going to turn into something you won't be able to handle. Are we clear?
Glinda froze. For a full second, she said nothing.
But the silence didn't last long.
"Oh, please!" she snapped, crossing her arms. "Do you think this is all about you? Is it only you who can have a project, a plan, an image to uphold? Because from the way I see it, what you did was stand there like Morrible's perfect puppet, repeating every word as if you didn't have half an opinion of your own."
"And what do you know?" Elphaba replied evenly. "Did you even know what the agreement with the senator was about before this morning?"
"Of course not, because no one told us anything!" Glinda squealed. "But of course you do. You walk right into the meeting with a script in hand and applause included. Sorry I didn't learn my lines."
Elphaba narrowed her eyes.
"Is this jealousy, Glinda? Or are you just used to the world revolving around you and can't stand someone else having a voice in the room?"
Glinda snorted.
"You know what I think? That this was your plan all along. You made up that stupid excuse that you had 'something to do' this afternoon just to make sure I had to go on night duty. You wanted me there, trapped with you. Who knows what horrible things you're planning..."
Elphaba burst out laughing so loud and sudden it bounced off the bathroom tiles like a resounding slap.
"Do you really think my life revolves around you?" she giggled. That I spend my days devising ways to torture a spoiled brat like you? Please, Glinda. This afternoon I have something more important to do than waste time with you.
Glinda went blank. Her face, which had been flushed with rage a second ago, cracked subtly. Her voice came out low, tremulous.
"What... what's so important?"
Elphaba looked at her for a second and exclaimed with utter rejection, "Why the hell would I tell you?" Then she turned toward the door. "Besides... it's none of your business," she said, and with that, she closed the subject.
Glinda took a step forward, uncertain, but Elphaba had already left, leaving her alone in the bathroom, and Glinda was left staring at the door. "...ARE YOU REALLY NOT GOING TO TELL ME?... shit."
The atmosphere in the office was normal. At least, for everyone else. The constant tapping of computers, the murmur of hallway conversations, the hum of the air conditioning. But for Glinda... it was psychological warfare.
Sitting behind her desk, pretending to write something in her notebook, she kept her eyes fixed on a single target: Elphaba.
The brunette worked calmly on her computer, reviewing reports, answering emails, and writing with a concentration that only served to infuriate Glinda even more. Not a single glance toward her, not a suspicious gesture. A wall of impregnable coldness.
Glinda bit her lip, gripped her pen, crossed and uncrossed her legs. She couldn't stop looking at her. It was as if her brain needed to know what Elphaba was hiding, as if that secret were a key to understanding everything that had happened... and everything that was going to happen.
At one point, Elphaba stood up. So did Glinda.
Elphaba went to the printer. So did Glinda.
Elphaba went to get some coffee. So did Glinda.
Elphaba went into a small meeting room to take a video call. Glinda... pressed herself against the door, trying to hear something... Nothing.
At one point, Elphaba passed by her desk, and Glinda, casually, leaned toward her.
"Are you having coffee with someone or...?" she asked, as if she cared about a sudden social gathering.
Elphaba just glanced at her, with that lopsided smile that drove her crazy.
"I'm fine on my own, thank you," and continued on her way.
Glinda gritted her teeth.
Throughout the afternoon, Elphaba dodged, sidestepped, deflected, and outwitted Glinda's every attempt to figure out what the hell "this important thing" she had to do was. Each new theory of Glinda's ended up colliding with a new distraction or evasive maneuver.
In a moment of desperation, Glinda even went so far as to search Elphaba's trash can. She found only a granola bar wrapper and a note that read: "Remember: control yourself. It's not worth it."
What did that mean? Control yourself with whom? With her? Or with someone else?
Glinda felt like she was going crazy.
As evening fell, when Elphaba finally began to pack her things to leave, Glinda openly ran after her in the halls.
"Are you going to tell me once and for all where the hell you're going?!" she snapped, helpless.
Elphaba stopped right in front of the elevator and, without turning around, replied:
"What I do after work is none of your business, Glinda."
The elevator opened. Elphaba stepped inside.
Glinda took a step to follow her, but the glare she received from inside was clear: Don't you dare. And the door closed.
The day wore on, and Glinda paced back and forth near the building's entrance, like a caged lion with a raspberry smoothie in her hands, her frown deep enough to cause an emotional eclipse in anyone who approached.
"She's hiding something!" she muttered to herself. "She doesn't look at me, she doesn't answer, she doesn't flinch. And that laugh? That laugh is that of someone who has a dead body in the trunk of their car, or... or a secret lover, or... a double life. I'm dealing with a double agent!" What if she works with Morrible and at the same time for the opposition? Or worse... for Human Resources?
She took a vicious sip of her smoothie.
"And I'm the fool who's going to spend the night locked up with her! What if it's a test?! What if it's a trap, a setup? What if there are cameras?!"
At that precise moment, a shadow approached from behind. Glinda spun with feline reflexes, pulled a small pepper spray can from her purse like an FBI agent, and aimed in full defense mode.
“Move back or I’ll turn into your worst glitter nightmare!”
“Whoa, calm down, killer blonde!” a familiar voice exclaimed, raising both hands with a crooked smile.
Glinda slowly lowered the spray and blinked in disbelief.
“Oh no… no, no, no. Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any worse,” she sighed in exasperation. “What are you doing here, Fiyero?”
Fiyero, dressed like he’d just come from a casual party for rich influencers (though he’d probably just come to buy coffee), smiled with the confidence possessed by those who’ve never worked a single Monday in their lives.
“Relax,” he replied with a crooked smile. “I just came to remind you we have a meeting to meet. Or are you going to pretend you forgot that one too?”
Glinda’s grimace instantly twisted.
“Ugh!” "—he blurted out, as if the word gave him heartburn. "Of course I didn't forget her. It just... came up with something more important. Like, I don't know... breathing."
"Come on, Glinda. You can't keep avoiding me every time you don't feel like talking," he said, still smiling, but with a hint of seriousness. "We owe each other this conversation for a long time."
"For the last time, Fiyero! We are nothing. Nothing. Not what the tabloids say, not what my mother would wish, not what you still dream about at night. N-O-T-H-I-N-G."
His firm, sharp voice cut through the air like an emotional scalpel. And for a moment, Fiyero was silent. When he spoke again, it was without sarcasm, finally revealing an unusual sincerity.
"That's precisely why I want to talk, Glinda... Because it seems not everyone received that message you're trying so hard to shout." And now that my family is involved in certain... delicate business dealings, these kinds of "dramas" could complicate everything. It's not just me.
His argument was reasonable. Politically sound. Strategically logical.
Glinda couldn't care less.
Just then, her eyes fell on a figure emerging from the building: Elphaba, walking toward her car with that mysterious, imperturbable air that had become her signature.
Glinda's attention was completely diverted. Without even looking at Fiyero, she asked casually, almost innocently, "Did you come with your driver?"
Fiyero, somewhat puzzled, nodded.
"Yes, Feldspur is waiting for me at the entrance. Why?"
But Glinda didn't answer. She just smiled. One of those smiles that bodes ill.
With a hasty leap, Glinda and Fiyero tumbled into the back seats of the latter's limo, like two teenagers escaping a school dance. The chauffeur, the ever-polite and patient Feldspur, turned his head with his eternally professional smile to greet Glinda, but he didn't get the chance.
"Follow that car!" Glinda ordered in an action-movie tone, pointing at the car Elphaba had just taken.
Feldspur blinked, not fully understanding, and looked at Fiyero in the rearview mirror. Fiyero shrugged in resignation, as if to say, "I have no idea, but you'd better listen to him," and nodded.
And so, with a soft roar of the engine, the limousine took off.
The chase was on.
Between braking, impossible turns, and borderline illegal overtaking, Glinda was in full detective mode, her face almost pressed against the windshield, following Elphaba's car as if she were in the middle of an episode of Glamorous Murder. Every time Elphaba's car turned a corner, Glinda would point it out with an enthusiastic shout as if she were playing Mario Kart.
Meanwhile, Fiyero, trying to maintain his composure and not throw up in his own limo, used every second between shocks to try to get back to the topic:
"Glinda... what I said before. About my family. About the rumors. We need to clear this up. We can't go on like this—"
"SHUT UP! Left turn, Feldspur, quick!"
Fiyero slumped back in his seat with a sigh, gripping an armrest tightly.
" Finally, after a chaotic chase, Elphaba's car slowly turned into a large, gloomy parking lot covered in graffiti and lined with more rusty bikes than cars. Feldspur discreetly parked the limo a block away.
Glinda clapped excitedly like a child at Christmas.
"We have her! Now I'll know what you're up to, Elphaba Thropp..."
But her enthusiasm was short-lived. Because as she looked around, her smile began to falter. It was... a neighborhood completely out of her world. The streets were potholed. Clothes hung from rickety balconies. A man was selling suspicious-looking hot dogs on a corner. And, most disconcerting of all, there wasn't a single boutique in sight.
"Where... are we?" Glinda whispered with suppressed disgust.
That's when she heard the door lock click.
Fiyero, now with his arms crossed and his forehead slightly sweating, looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"Welcome to the other side of town, Princess. Are you sure you want to continue with this mission?"
Glinda didn't respond right away. But her eyes were fixed on the building where Elphaba had just disappeared. And when she turned back to Fiyero, her expression was a mix of stubbornness, curiosity... and a little bit of fear.
"Of course I do," she said, opening her bag and taking out her sunglasses, as if that would make her less detectable. "If Elphaba thinks she can lead a double life away from me... she's wrong."
"Incognito mode on," she whispered dramatically to herself.
But the effect was ruined by Fiyero, who was walking beside her with a mocking smile.
"Glinda... you still look like a cupcake who decided to dress up for Halloween."
Glinda snorted in annoyance, spun around, and reached through the half-open window for the chauffeur.
"Give me your jacket! Quick!"
Feldspur, without asking questions (he'd learned not to), handed her his enormous, wrinkled black chauffeur's jacket. Glinda slipped it on as best she could, swimming inside it, the sleeves trailing and a shoulder pad covering her left ear. Now she was ready for stealth.
"Perfect," she murmured. "No one will suspect."
"Except all humans with eyes," Fiyero commented.
When he tried to follow her, Glinda planted a hand on his chest.
"Not one step further! This is a secret mission. If you follow me, you'll ruin everything."
"What if I don't mind ruining it?"
"Then stay, and I swear that when this is over, I'll talk to you about anything you want!"
Fiyero threw up his hands, defeated, and leaned back in the car in resignation.
"You better keep it, Miss Spy."
And so, Glinda trotted off toward the most uncomfortable adventure of her life.
She crossed the street and arrived in front of the building where Elphaba had entered. From a distance, it looked like any other establishment... but the windows were completely tinted, the door had a heavy grille, and a security camera hung like a mechanical eye from above. Elphaba had casually walked past a man dressed in a... peculiar, if not suspiciously eccentric, way. Clearly, something shady was going on.
"I'm about to uncover a scandal, I know it," she muttered to herself as she clumsily hid behind a lamppost that didn't even cover half of her body.
That's when luck smiled on her: a man wearing a trench coat almost identical to the one she was wearing (though without the chauffeur perfume and three sizes too small) pushed open the door to leave just as Glinda launched herself like a dazed ninja toward the entrance.
She slipped inside just before the grille slammed shut again. And when she turned, ready to face the unknown... She froze.
She stood so still that a woman on the corner thought she was part of the decor.
Neon lights, shelves shaped like they defied all logic, mannequins in overly intimate poses, soft saxophone music playing in the background, and a faint scent of artificial vanilla with… something else. Glinda slowly lowered her sunglasses, as if her eyes couldn't believe what they were seeing.
She was in a sex toy store.
And not just any store. A high-end fetish-themed boutique, decorated like a retro cabaret and an art exhibition had gotten drunk and had an argument over glitter lubricant.
"What kind of kinky Twilight Zone is this?!" she exclaimed softly.
But there was no time to be shocked (yet), because there she was: Elphaba, walking toward the back of the store alongside a thin man with shoulder-length braids, heart-shaped glasses, and a lab coat that looked more like something from a circus runway than a laboratory.
"Can I get you something, ma'am?" a saleswoman asked, her voice seductive and her smile as if she knew exactly what Glinda was doing there.
"Me? Oh no! I'm just... investigating. I mean, observing. I mean... buying. Yes, of course, for a friend. Very liberal, you know. Sexual freedom and all that. Where are the... nail products? Do they sell nail polish here? No? What a shame..."
Glinda, still swaying in her makeshift costume and with dignity hanging by a very, very thin thread, began to move down the aisle as if she were a self-confident regular customer... if that customer were starring in a sitcom.
"Oh, how interesting... this is clearly a... neck... massager!" she said, accidentally turning on a huge suction-cup device that began making disturbingly vivid noises.
The employee followed close behind, one eyebrow arched so high it seemed to pop out of her face.
"Can I help you find anything specific?"
"No, no, I'm perfectly fine! I'm just exploring this... environment, yes, very... enriching to the female soul... is this an air freshener?" she asked, pressing a button that shot a burst of perfumed air directly into her phallic-shaped face. Glinda gasped, coughing and thrashing as if she'd inhaled tear gas.
The hallway became a minefield of embarrassment. With every step, her enormous sack snagged some toy or lace garment, which clattered to the floor. One even got stuck on her arm like a particularly offensive Christmas ornament.
"Oh my God, what is this, a sexual death trap?!" she muttered, red-faced and her ego turned to mush.
Finally, as if emerging from a tunnel of erotic nightmare, Glinda reached the end of the hallway, where a large metal door bore a sign in red letters that read: "TESTING AREA: Authorized Personnel Only." The clerk quickly stepped forward, trying to interfere.
"Miss, that area is completely off-limits to the public—"
"I have an appointment!" Glinda exclaimed impulsively, interrupting her. Seeing the clerk's incredulous face, Glinda gulped and added the worst lie of her career:
"With... the doctor. Yes. Doctor... Placerstein. For a... spinal. Experimental. Treatment."
The clerk blinked slowly. Glinda, feeling her soul melt from sheer embarrassment, raised her head with a false dignity and, without waiting for a reply, pushed open the door and slipped inside with a clumsiness worthy of a sitcom.
The door closed behind her with a heavy click... leaving her alone in a dimly lit room with soft violet lights, velvet curtains, and... was that a motorized saddle?
Glinda swallowed, took off her sunglasses, and muttered to herself, "I hope this is worth it..."
Slipping down the hall with stealthy steps—or at least as stealthy as someone in heels, a strange jacket, and the stress of a soap opera could manage—Glinda slipped into the cubicle next to Elphaba's, her heart pounding as if she were about to discover a state secret... or worse, an unspeakable personal taste.
The dim purple glow and muffled echoes of the room did nothing to calm her nerves. She peered through the small gap between the panels, as if she were a spy on a classified FBI mission... but a kinky version.
There was Elphaba, standing in front of the strange man who accompanied her.
"All right, Turtleheart, show me what you've got for me today," Elphaba said matter-of-factly, turning to her companion.
Turtleheart, she'd called him. Is that his real name? Is he part of a secret hipster tribe? A code? A joke? Glinda's mind spun like she had sugar in her blood and tequila in her veins.
But what confused her most wasn't the name, or even the place... but how comfortably Elphaba moved. She listened attentively as the eccentric inventor spoke to her matter-of-factly about his “latest creation,” using phrases like:
“The tensioners automatically adjust to the dominant’s body pressure…”
“The grips were made with reinforced vegan leather, you know you’re particular about that…”
“If the motor vibrates too much, the control can be calibrated with the power ring…”
Glinda didn’t know if she was listening to an advanced engineering lecture or a technical guide for a sex demon summoning device. Her mind screamed, WHAT’S HAPPENING?!
And then it happened.
Elphaba nodded with a subtle smile—the kind she only used when she really liked something—and murmured:
"It's exactly as I imagined, Heart. You've outdone yourself."
To which the engineer, delighted but modest, replied:
"You're my best client. But you know how it is... you have to try it first. The calibration must be done with you, to avoid accidents."
Glinda put her hand to her mouth to keep from screaming. "Try it!? Now!? Here!? In front of me!?"
"Of course," Elphaba said matter-of-factly. It clearly wasn't her first time.
Turtle-Heart wished her luck and left with a gallant gesture, leaving her alone.
And then, as if nothing had happened, Elphaba began to remove her coat, revealing a set of black leather lingerie with metallic details. With serene and controlled movements, she positioned herself in front of the swing, like someone entering her private office to do what she does best. And what she did best, it seemed, was… dominate.
Glinda stopped breathing.
Her jaw dropped in slow motion and her pupils dilated with the impact of a thousand truths colliding at once. Her brain tried to deny it. This doesn't make sense! She's serious! She's cold! She's a political genius! She's my archenemy!
But something... about that confidence, that dark elegance, that absolute command of space... ...didn't upset her.
And that, that's what disturbed her more than anything else.
The scene Glinda was witnessing was beyond compare. It wasn't vulgar, it wasn't explicit... it was art, technique, control. Elphaba, without a hint of doubt or hesitation, glided on the swing with pinpoint precision. Every movement was measured, as if choreographing a silent dance with the laws of physics and desire. It was nothing more than a technical test, yes, but for Glinda, it was an emotional earthquake.
The swing chain creaked softly, the hooks turned fluidly, the tethers responded to the pressure of Elphaba's body as she experimented with angles, positions, and tension. She was like a violinist trying out a new instrument before a concert, tuning the strings... only in this case, the strings were leather, and the symphony was pure provocation.
From the narrow slit in the cubicle, Glinda wasn't breathing anymore: she was panting.
Her face was so red that even the purple LEDs in the hallway seemed pale next to her.
Her dry lips kept biting them.
Her hands, clenched, didn't know whether to hold on to the wall or cover her eyes.
Her heart, that traitor, was beating hard enough to rattle her earrings.
"Why do I feel this way? Why can't I look away? What the hell is going on?"
When Elphaba stretched out in a pose that blended total control with undeniable sensuality—head high, one leg in the air, her left hand playing with one of the harness pulleys as she spun slightly on her axis—Glinda simply collapsed.
"Oh my god..." she whispered, shaking like a leaf.
Her legs gave way. She slid backward without resistance, allowing herself to fall backward onto the red bed that adorned her cubicle like an altar.
The material felt luxurious, but also dangerously warm, as if it knew things. Glinda squeezed her eyes shut, trying to contain the emotional chaos inside her. Her breathing was rapid, uneven. Her heart seemed to thump against her ribs.
"This isn't happening," she muttered through gritted teeth, but her body didn't believe her.
And then... CLICK
A soft sound, like a mechanical sigh. Glinda, in her trance, had accidentally pressed a button on the side of the bed. "Huh?"
The bed came to life as if awakening from a deep erotic slumber. In a split second, before Glinda could even utter a dignified scream, motorized straps activated from the headboard, clamping her wrists with mechanical precision, as if the bed knew exactly where to immobilize her. The buckles closed with a ceremonious metallic click. Glinda screamed, her mouth open in an "O" of horror as she struggled uselessly, her heels still dangling halfway off.
"WHAT IS THIS, A SATAN'S BED?!" she stammered, between gasps and ineffectively thrashing at the air.
Then came the first blow.
A small heart-shaped mechanism, hidden beneath the velvet mattress, activated with a cutesy little tune and an ominous whirring sound. Suddenly, it emerged like a romantic jackhammer, and with a precise mechanical motion, it began to smack her bottom with ridiculously rhythmic intensity. Pom-pom-pom, as if celebrating the worst birthday possible.
Glinda screamed so loudly her voice came out in falsetto.
"THIS IS TORTURE! A TECHNOLOGICAL DESTRUCTION OF MY DIGNITY!"
But the bed wasn't finished. Far from sympathizing, it seemed to have more hidden functions than a demonic Swiss Army knife. A new mechanism emerged from the side: a vibrating roller that unsubtly massaged the back of her thighs. Another robotic arm deployed a fan from the headboard, blowing synthetic pheromone-scented wind directly toward her face. And then… colored lights flickered to the beat of background music that, for no apparent reason, became a mix of erotic jazz and circus music.
Glinda squealed, writhed, cursed under her breath, and pleaded as the bed slowly rose. The headboard rose, pulling her with it until she was in a near-vertical position. Hanging there, her wrists tied above her head, her body barely supported by the harness that had been adjusted at some point without her permission, Glinda looked like the protagonist of an absurdist comedy written by a pervert with too much money.
The humiliation reached a new level. Every jolt of the bed, every sparking mechanism, every whispered voice coming from the internal speakers ("Surrender your inhibitions, goddess of pleasure...") made her feel like she was in a perverse version of an amusement park. She was on the verge of emotional collapse, on the verge of tears, hysterical laughter, or both.
It was then that she saw her. A shadow beneath the door. Slim. Firm. Unmistakable. It had to be... Elphaba.
Her heart sank to the floor with a thud. Her eyes widened. Her entire body froze, though the bed continued to move as if nothing had happened. NO. NO. NO. NO. Elphaba couldn't see her like this! Not in this position, not with this depraved device vibrating her soul!
Her breathing became faster, more frantic. But it wasn't just terror that gripped her now. It was… something else. Something dirty. Unspeakable.
Her mind—which had long since abandoned all logic—began to project scenarios. Elphaba entering with that look of hers, somewhere between haughty and scathing, crossing her arms as she watched her hanging there, helpless, defeated by the technology of desire. She imagined her crooked, mocking smile, like that of an ice queen who had finally won a secret battle. She imagined her voice, husky, firm, saying something like:
"And you were judging me, Glinda?"
And yet… she couldn't deny the other part.
That hidden corner, that fragment of a rebellious mind that kept producing scenarios. Absurd scenarios, yes. Outrageous. But also electrifying. Scenarios where Elphaba strode forward, taking control of the situation, with a crooked smile and a dark gaze that said, "Since you're like this..."
Glinda blinked, horrified by her own thoughts.
"What's wrong with me?!" she whispered through gritted teeth, as her mechanical heart continued its rhythmic beating. Her cheeks burned, but this time she didn't know if it was from embarrassment, adrenaline... or something else.
And right at the height of her existential crisis... The door opened.
Glinda closed her eyes, ready to die of pure humiliation.
"Excuse me... is everything okay?"
The voice wasn't Elphaba's.
Glinda cracked open one eye. The store clerk stood in the doorway, holding a tablet, clearly confused but not alarmed, as if this kind of scene wasn't the first in her work week.
The disappointment Glinda felt was so profound that for a moment she forgot she was still being attacked by mechanisms lubricated with essential oils. The air seemed to leave her body like a deflated balloon.
"What? You?" she gasped, her voice cracking.
"Yeah... it's just... this bed is a new model, touch-sensitive. You must have accidentally pressed something," the woman replied, almost bored.
"'Accidentally'?! THIS MADE ME SHAKE LIKE JELL-O!"
The clerk sighed and calmly approached, pressed a sequence of invisible buttons on the side, and the mechanisms shut off one by one with obedient whirring sounds. The straps loosened. The bed returned to its original position as if nothing had happened. Elphaba was still nowhere to be seen.
Glinda sat up slowly, trembling, her makeup smeared, her hair disheveled, her dignity in tatters. She sat on the edge, staring into space like someone who had survived a very specific and traumatizing war.
"Do you need an energy drink? A painkiller? A lavender sachet for anxiety?"
"Do they have a black hole?" Glinda asked emotionlessly, still sprawled on the bed.
The attendant laughed.
"No, but we have a jacuzzi that does interesting things. Do you want me to see it?"
"NO!"
Glinda left the cubicle as gracefully as she could, walking as if she were wearing an invisible crown and hadn't been slammed in the buttocks by a mechanical heart five minutes ago.
It was obvious that Elphaba had long since left with her latest "acquisition," but there was something that troubled Glinda's mind even more: what would have happened if Elphaba had found her like this?
And worse yet... why did part of her still want it? Glinda burst out of the club like a whirlwind contained within a glamorous body, though at that moment there was no trace of her usual charm. The door slammed shut behind her, and without looking anywhere, she threw herself into the limo, panting as if she'd just escaped from a horror movie... or worse, a very peculiar sci-fi erotic comedy. Fiyero, who had been sitting there for a while, with his usual relaxed pose, straightened up when he saw her enter. His expression at first was one of surprise—her makeup smeared, her hair disheveled, that strange gleam in her eyes that was a cross between fury, trauma, and something she didn't dare put a label on. She was about to say something, anything, even a "Is everything okay?" but Glinda raised a sharp hand.
"Not a word. Just... let's go."
The well-trained driver didn't wait for instructions. The vehicle pulled away elegantly, taking them away from that cursed corner of the city center, where smart beds conspired against human dignity.
A while later, they were sitting in a small Parisian café, the one Glinda used to frequent when she wanted a moment of "authenticity," as she put it, between walls that smelled of espresso and real butter. Still, at that moment, she looked like a bombshell in high heels. He held his coffee cup as if he wanted to suck the soul out of the liquid, and every time he brought the drink to his mouth, it seemed as if the universe had to hold its breath.
Fiyero, across the table, watched her with almost surgical care. He knew that choosing his words poorly could be his doom. But staying silent was also a risk: Glinda's silence was so tense it could be broken with a blink.
Finally, without thinking too much about it—as he usually did—he cracked the stupidest joke he could think of:
"So... the bed attacked you out of jealousy? I mean, not everyone can compete with a Glinda."
The silence that followed was deathly.
Glinda looked at him. Not just any look, but one that under other circumstances would have been used to melt steel. A mixture of hatred, exasperation, and warning. Fiyero swallowed. Maybe this time he had really screwed up. But he didn't back down.
"Come on, Glinda. It's not that bad," he said, with that half-smile of his that seemed designed to soften even the apocalypse. "Remember when you tried to use that Japanese bidet in the Kyoto hotel and turned it on backward?" You ended up on the roof!
She narrowed her eyes.
"It was a design trap, and you know it. The controls were in Japanese, Fiyero."
"Yeah, right... and your excuse was that you thought the button said 'head massage.' You were yelling for someone to stop the 'rear typhoon.'"
Glinda pressed her lips together. Her indignation was still there, throbbing, but there was a crack. A tiny tremor at the corner of her lips. Fiyero noticed it. This was his chance.
"And then you came out of the bathroom, your dress clinging to your body like a cursed siren, demanding a diplomatic audience with the hotel manager. I've never seen a Japanese man sweat so fast."
Glinda glared at him, but now her lips could no longer contain it. It was a sigh at first, one laden with helplessness... and then, suddenly, it exploded.
A laugh. Sincere, resounding. Irritated, yes, but real.
"You're an idiot, Fiyero!" "He laughed, covering his face with a hand as he tried to compose himself. "A complete, utter, irredeemable idiot."
"Yes, but I'm your emergency idiot. I'm good for high-stress situations and bed-haunted attacks."
She laughed again, this time with less resistance. She put her cup down on its saucer with a small clink and looked at him, more relaxed now, although traces of shame still marked her cheeks.
"I swear, if you ever tell anyone about this, I'll have you removed from all the guest lists for next year's fashion shows."
Fiyero put a hand to his chest, feigning horror.
"That's such a cruel threat! Not even dictators dare to do that."
Glinda shook her head, finally smiling genuinely. She still had so many conflicting emotions stuck in her chest, but for the first time since this all began, she felt like she could breathe again. "Thanks... I guess," Glinda murmured, her gaze fixed on her cup, which had already cooled. Despite their shared laughter, something inside her still lingered. Fiyero noticed—of course he did. He knew her too well, and the way she twisted her fingers in her skirt, as if trying to make the fabric disappear between her hands, was proof enough that something else was simmering beneath the surface.
He leaned forward with an unusual gentleness, abandoning his teasing tone and adopting a sincere, almost sisterly expression.
"Glinda..." he said cautiously. "What's wrong? Not in a funny way. Not through a filter. What's really wrong with you?"
She looked up slowly, as if emerging from some kind of trance. Her mouth moved, but no words came together in time. The confident mask she usually wore with such pride cracked for just a moment. Her voice, when it finally came, was a whisper laden with a vulnerability she rarely displayed:
"I don't know... for the first time in my life, I don't have a clear answer."
She laughed, but it was a hollow, nervous laugh. A laugh that wasn't a laugh at all.
"I don't know what I want. I don't know if I can have it. And... I don't know if I even deserve it." She ran a hand through her hair, fretting, ruffling the blond strands. "I'm sure you don't know what that feels like."
Fiyero looked at her, and a pang of something that seemed a mix of guilt, nostalgia, and tenderness ignited in his chest. He looked down for a moment, collecting his thoughts, and then spoke with unexpected gentleness:
"Yes. I think I do."
Glinda raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"What are you talking about?"
Fiyero shrugged, undramatic, but with an honesty that required no embellishment.
"I felt the same way... when I realized you didn't want to be with me."
She remained still. For a moment, her lips parted as if she wanted to say something, but nothing came out. She hadn't expected it. Not from Fiyero, who always seemed to float through life without carrying anything.
"You..." she began. "Had you already accepted it?"
"Of course," he replied, without rancor, without irony. "It was hard, I won't lie. But I understood. And I respect it. I've never been one to force anyone to stay where they don't want to be."
Glinda was momentarily speechless upon hearing that... but as always, she found new ones. "Wow, I... listen, even though I usually say you're an idiot, and you are, that's not why things never worked out between us. I... wanted something else... and I'm not even sure what I want, which is even more pathetic, but..."
"Okay..." Fiyero interrupted with a kind smile. "I also have many doubts about my life... and what I want. I just know that I wouldn't want someone to force me to choose something I'm not looking for." Glinda looked at him with fresh eyes. For the first time, she saw the maturity behind his carefree attitude, the man beneath the charming facade. She felt indebted to him in an unexpected way. She wanted to say something to make up for it, something to balance that invisible scale between them.
"Fiyero... thank you. And listen... if anything about "this" between us or whatever turns into a scandal, if it gets out in the press or someone wants to tarnish your name or your family's, I promise I'll do everything I can to support you. This is... this is mine too. I'm not going to leave you alone."
But he shook his head with a gentle smile, as if that worry was a thing of the past.
"Glinda... you're not the problem." He sighed, leaning back a little in his chair. "The problem is... your mother. She keeps calling my family. Insisting. As if she could revive something that no longer exists."
And then it happened. Something inside Glinda clicked. The entire sea of doubts that had consumed her in the last few hours—the images of Elphaba, her emotional chaos, her insecurity—dissolved in a second, consumed by a wave of pure, white rage.
Her mother. Of course.
It wasn't enough for her to manipulate from the shadows. It wasn't enough for her to push her to impossible perfection or maintain absurd appearances. Now she was also messing with Fiyero, pressuring his family, causing chaos with her archaic demands. That woman… that woman!
Glinda stood up so abruptly that the chair creaked against the floor. Her purse almost fell, and the coffee trembled in the cup. Fiyero looked at her in surprise, but she only gave him an icy stare, directed not at him, but at a ghost very present in his mind.
"Excuse me for a moment," she said in an icy, firm voice, tempered like a newly forged sword.
Without waiting for a reply, he walked firmly toward the bathroom. The echo of her heels sounded like gunshots. There was no trace of the broken Glinda of minutes before. Now she walked with the fire of a queen headed to war.
And that war had a name: Mother.
Fiyero watched with some perplexity as Glinda walked away with determined steps filled with suppressed fury. He took a sip of his drink, sighing, when the bell over the cafe door rang with a soft jingle. A cool breeze accompanied the entrance of a figure he couldn't immediately identify, but whose presence would soon change the dynamics of that dull place.
Meanwhile, in the bathroom, Glinda paced back and forth as if the simple act of moving could dissipate the anger coursing through her blood. Each step made the floor shake with her frustration. In her hand, she held the phone with a grip that could have cracked the screen. The voicemail was now on its third attempt.
"Hello, Mother!" "She spat, with suppressed sarcasm, gripping each word like sheathed daggers. "You know what? Thank you, thank you so much for continuing to interfere in my life like it's your personal experiment. Thank you for talking to Fiyero's family as if we were still engaged! Thank you for not respecting a single decision I make for myself!"
Her voice rose and fell, like waves crashing against a shore of enforced control. Rage bubbled out between pauses, ragged breaths, and the echoing bathroom noise that made her seem even more alone... and more determined.
“I don’t know when you decided my life was yours,” she continued with a dry laugh, “but I’m letting you know that it’s over. It’s over. When I get back, we’re going to have a very, very long conversation. And this time, you’re not going to yell at me until I shut up. This time, you’re going to listen.”
She hung up with a final tremble in her fingers. The message had been left, irreversible. A heartbeat resonated in her chest as if the entire air in the bathroom had changed. She stood there for a few seconds in silence, her gaze lowered, her heart racing, and a strange feeling of emptiness. She had snapped, yes, but also… she felt lighter.
She walked over to the mirror.
The image that returned to her wasn’t that of a perfect doll. It was that of an exhausted, disheveled woman, her mascara barely intact and her lips trembling from everything she hadn’t said in years. But it was also that of someone who, for the first time in a long time, had set a boundary. She closed her eyes. Breathed in. Exhaled. She opened them again.
And then, like a flash of lightning in the middle of an emotional storm, a fleeting memory came to her, so intense it made her smile without realizing it… Elphaba.
The memory of the heated debate at the morning meeting that showed Elphaba's ferocity, the memory of the two of them facing Morrible's reprimands together, the moment in the bathroom when Elphaba stood up to her, cutting off her breath, and the ridiculous chase to that bizarre tent. And Glinda, hiding like a schoolgirl spying on something forbidden, feeling things she didn't yet fully understand… things that still throbbed, there, under her skin.
A smile crossed her lips, honest and small, but intense like a secret confessed in the dark. Despite all the ridiculousness, the chaos, and the humiliation of the day, that image remained. Warm. Strangely comforting. As if, in some illogical way, it had been the most real thing that had happened to her in weeks.
"It's often believed that those who submit do so out of weakness. That those who kneel do so because they can't stand. But that's only what those who have never tasted the depths of that other power want to believe. The submissive doesn't seek to obey. They seek to be seen. They seek a place where they don't have to pretend to be invulnerable. Where their will isn't a burden, but an offering."
And then she heard something sadly just as real... a laugh, Fiyero's laugh to be exact... and someone else's.
Glinda let out a small sigh laden with resignation as she rolled her eyes with a mixture of annoyance and wounded superiority. Of course, she thought, how could she not? The town's playboy never wasted time. Surely he'd already snagged his next conquest—some clueless young woman, perhaps a barista dazzled by the golden smile of an idle prince. The scene was clearly outlined in her mind: Fiyero laughing with false modesty, leaning toward her, making some witty comment about the coffee being too strong, the city being too cold, or his heart being too lonely. She, with sparkling eyes, laughed louder than necessary, surrendering to the fleeting enchantment of someone who knew exactly how to dispense his charm.
Without much energy, but with dignity, Glinda emerged from the bathroom, slightly adjusting her hair in the reflection of the glass, raising her chin as if she were about to enter a stage. Her decision was made: she would approach, say goodbye gracefully, make it clear to Fiyero—without saying so—that his trick didn't impress her, and go about her day with her head held high.
"Submission isn't simply surrendering. It's choosing to surrender. It's building a structure so firm, so meticulously calculated, that it seems impossible for it to crumble... and yet, surrendering it with your eyes closed, with absolute faith in the person who will hold it up. That false sense of security... is, ironically, its truest strength."
As she reached the table, his laughter was even more vibrant, genuine even. Glinda was taken aback for a moment. There was something more relaxed about his tone, as if he were truly at ease. And across from him, sitting with his back to her, was the woman. Not a barista. Not some random girl. Her posture was too firm, her presence too solid, even with her back to him. There was something about the silhouette that felt vaguely familiar, but Glinda didn't allow herself to question it. She's probably another frustrated actress or a wannabe writer she played existential debates with in college, she thought wryly as she forced a diplomatic smile.
"Glinda!" "Fiyero exclaimed with carefree, almost childlike joy. "Just in time! I want you to meet an old friend from college. You won't believe it, we just ran into each other and..."
And then, the woman turned around.
Glinda's world, so well held together until a few seconds ago by threads of self-control and false certainties, crumbled with a silence that roared inside her. Her expression froze, her smile fractured halfway between politeness and bewilderment, and her heart—that stubborn traitor—turned completely when she saw her standing before her... she saw… Elphaba.
"And there is a truth that almost no one admits, not even in whispers. That he who submits, who gives himself with his soul naked... is also jealous. Not of the power of the one who dominates, but of their attention. Of their time. Of their gaze. Because when you have been seen so deeply by someone, the thought of no longer being seen exclusively by that person... becomes unbearable."
Chapter 4: YOU'RE WITH ME TONIGHT
Notes:
Warning: This chapter is going to be quite long. I really went on a bit too long with the narrative this time. I hope you don't mind. If you want, consider it a mid-season of the first season of this story (yes, I'm planning on it as a story in seasons).
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“I've always found it curious how some people enter your life like a whisper—ephemeral, circumstantial, irrelevant—and then disappear with the same subtlety with which they arrived. But even more fascinating is what happens when that whisper returns years later, transformed into a symphony that changes everything. Not as you expected. Not when you wanted it. But just when your narrative needs a twist.
And if there's an expert in unexpected twists… it's Fiyero Tigelaar.
Yes, I know. It's not the first thing you think of when you see him. The young man has a magazine-cover face, a pop-star smile, and the charisma of a car salesman who convinces you to buy something you don't need. But beneath that cheap charm, there's more to the story than meets the eye, and if this is an honest account—as I intend it to be—then it's only fair to present it accordingly.
Like a certain character in this story, Fiyero Tigelaar was also born with a last name that weighed more than his body fresh out of the womb. His family had spent generations building their power with the precision of a surgeon: they abandoned obsolete noble lands and bet on political connections, strategic dinners, convenient marriages. No kings, all influence. Their lineage was less of a castle, more of a diplomatic cocktail party.
And, of course, that meant only one thing for the youngest Tigelaar: pressure.
From the time he was old enough to hold a fork, Fiyero was trained to be someone. But being "someone" in a family where three older brothers already vie for the patriarch's affection and approval is a losing battle. Marillot Tigelaar, his father, was the kind of man who didn't utter the word "pride" unless it concerned himself. And Fiyero... Fiyero was the wild card. The one who had everything to succeed but never found a real reason to do so.
And not because he couldn't. On the contrary: he was good at everything. Languages, horsemanship, fencing, music. He tried everything. But nothing could hold his interest. Well... almost nothing.
By thirteen, he was already famous in the county's elite circles as "the untamed rebel." He had the face of a cherub, but the attitude of someone who knew he could break the rules and get away with it. Schools expelled him, teachers hated him, and girls sighed. At seventeen, after the now-legendary prank of hiding a horse in the dean's office (yes, a real horse), he was expelled from his last college, and his father, with the help of many favors and a few veiled threats, enrolled him at Gillikin State University.
And guess what? That's where we crossed paths.
I remember the day. I was distractedly reading while walking when a convertible almost hit me. Fiyero, with his dark glasses and that teen-star swagger, didn't even brake. I looked at him and knew two things: one, he was an idiot. And two, we were going to crash more than once.
Ironically, at first, our worlds didn't touch. He lived in parties and scandals, I in books and lonely cafes. We barely exchanged words, except in those strange situations where one ended up in the other's path. But one day everything changed.
It was a hot afternoon, filled with boredom. One of those silly girls who feed on gratuitous malice pushed me in the hallway, and my drawings fell to the floor. Laughter, mockery, young idiots pointing. The usual scene. I bent down, hurried to pick them up before someone stepped on them or, worse, looked at them too closely. And then, there he was. Fiyero. On his knees, helping me.
I didn't understand it at the time. But then I saw it: he had frozen, staring at a sheet of paper. A drawing. One of mine. Very explicit. Man and woman, naked, tied up. BDSM in ink and paper. I snatched it from his hand and ran away as if my skin was burning.
I thought he'd never look me in the face again. I thought it would be another reason for gossip. But no. For days he sought me out. He spoke to me. He insisted. I avoided him like the plague, until he managed to intercept me—and almost got elbowed for it—and said something that threw me off.
"I know I don't understand that drawing... but I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop thinking about you."
And against all logic, I believed him.
Thus began our... friendship. Or whatever that was. Strange. Sincere. Secret. We began to explore that world together. BDSM. The dynamics, the readings, the tests. He as a submissive, curious, clumsy, charming. I as a dom, still hesitant, learning, but firm. We stayed up late in the library or in my bedroom, playing with limits, rules, desires. We had fun. We challenged each other. We discovered each other.
But every fantasy ends. And when reality hits, it hits mercilessly.
Fiyero's grades tanked. His parents threatened to pull him out of college and turn him into just another bureaucrat in the Tigelaar machine. I offered to help him. I offered to keep him. He wouldn't. He said I'd shown him something he'd never had: someone who truly saw him. And that, precisely because of that, he couldn't drag me down with him.
We said harsh things to each other, yelled at each other, and made promises we didn't know we could keep... And then we broke up...
But if I've learned anything during this time, it's that no one comes back for no reason... Not even Fiyero."
CHAPTER 4: You're with me tonight
Fiyero's laughter echoed in Glinda's mind, as if she weren't really there, but trapped in an alternate dimension where time and space dissolved with the aroma of the warm coffee in her hands. She stared at her cup as if it were a vortex, a black hole of white earthenware with amber eddies swirling endlessly, a silent hypnosis that, deep down, longed to be devoured. Because if there was one way to disappear without making a fuss, it was this: to be absorbed by the coffee. To be swallowed by the cup. To be exploded. Anything but this.
She sat next to Fiyero, who chattered away with the enthusiasm of a teenager who had found an old scrapbook and couldn't wait to reveal each page. Across from them, Elphaba—yes, Elphaba, the very figure who had haunted her mind over the past few hours, minutes, days—listened with a serene smile, so oblivious to the tension in Glinda that the It made her look even more confident, even more in control. Her hair was tied back with elegant carelessness, and her eyes—those eyes Glinda recognized all too well—had that sparkle that was curiosity, but also something else... interest? Fun? A game in which Glinda was the only pawn who didn't know the rules?
"And then you remember the professor who found us on the roof of the auditorium with the Christmas lights?" Fiyero said between laughs, while Elphaba let out a short, closed laugh, like someone who has told this story many times, but who enjoys watching someone else do it. "I swear, Glinda, I thought we were going to get arrested for vandalism, and all because Elphaba said the angle from above was better for seeing the meteor shower!"
"Don't make me look like a lunatic. You said you wanted to impress a girl," Elphaba replied, raising an eyebrow as she turned the cup in her hand, still staring at Glinda. Fiyero laughed even louder, as if he hadn't noticed the small short circuit occurring right next to him. Glinda tried to smile, but the expression that formed on her face was a cross between the grimace of someone stepping on a nail and the fake smile of a tired flight attendant.
It would have been enough for any halfway attentive person to ask if everything was okay, but Fiyero was too busy wallowing in nostalgia, and Elphaba… Elphaba would look at her.
Every now and then, in the middle of an anecdote, she would give her that sideways glance, that slight arch of her eyebrow, as if trying to solve a riddle. She didn't insist. She didn't ask. She just watched. And that was infinitely worse.
Suddenly, like someone remembering there were others at the table, Fiyero lowered his voice and turned his gaze with a mischievous glint. "But anyway, enough about me, okay?" She said as she placed her cup on the table. “How do you two know each other? Since when? Don’t tell me you also went to college together and I didn’t even realize it.”
Glinda, still immersed in that state between the present and the abyss, was slow to register the question. When she did, she barely uttered: “We’re… cellmates.”
There was an awkward silence.
Fiyero blinked, disoriented, as if unsure he’d heard correctly. “Cellmates?”
Elphaba burst into a hearty, genuine laugh, amused in every way. “We work together,” she clarified, putting a hand to her chest. “Although it sounds the same sometimes, honestly.”
Fiyero laughed even harder, delighted. “Are you telling me you work together? Oh, come on, it’s a small world! If someone had told me you two, of all people, would end up working together, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
Elphaba’s smile tilted with that touch Glinda knew all too well: an awkward question was coming. “And you two… how did you meet?” she said in a casual, playful tone, but with the precision of a dagger stuck between the ribs.
Glinda paled. Literally. As if a bucket of ice water had been poured over her back. Her face, already uncomfortable, turned red in less than a second. The cup trembled slightly in her fingers, and for a moment she considered pretending to faint. Not that story. Any story but that story. Elphaba couldn't know. She shouldn't know.
But before she could invent an excuse, a distraction, Fiyero, always so opportune, exclaimed: “Oh, yes! That's a good one! You'll love it, Elphaba. You see, it was at a charity event my mother organized at the equestrian club…”
“Fiyero, it's not that interesting…” Glinda tried to intervene, her voice higher than usual, a note of urgency that only fueled Elphaba's curiosity further. “Of course she is!” he insisted. “Glinda was dressed like a cupcake with cleavage. Remember? And she was arguing with the manager of the place, as if she were the President of the Senate. I thought she looked so ridiculous, I went to interrupt her.”
“Because you almost knocked over a tray of champagne on me!” Glinda protested, but her voice had no strength; it sounded more like a plea than a defense.
“Exactly!” he said, as if it were the best thing in the world. “And then she said something like, ‘I don’t have time for rich kids playing important!’ And of course I knew I had to ask her out!”
Elphaba looked at Glinda with a mixture of surprise and barely contained amusement. “And you said yes?” she asked, with feigned innocence, but her eyes shone as if she’d just opened a secret book.
Glinda, cornered, pursed her lips. “No. Not at first.”
Fiyero laughed again. “It took me three weeks! And a horse.”
“A what?” Elphaba raised her eyebrows.
“A horse. I told her if she agreed to go out with me, I would give her a horse. I thought it would be a romantic gesture.”
“It was emotional blackmail,” Glinda murmured, sinking further into her seat.
“And not only that! When I promised her the horse, she told me that if I could get it, she would ride it to our date… imagine her face when I showed up at her door with the steed!” Fiyero exclaimed proudly, as if he had won an Olympic medal.
“Oh, please tell me you didn't…” Elphaba was biting her lip to keep from exploding.
“And for eight blocks to the restaurant, Glinda rode the horse, wearing a huge white dress… it was my most memorable first date, I have to say.”
Fiyero burst out laughing again, and Glinda felt the ground beneath her feet slowly crumble.
Elphaba burst out laughing, now genuine, almost tender. “What a… you story,” she said, turning to Glinda with a smile that had more layers than Glinda could unravel at the moment.
And while Fiyero continued to recount the details of his frustrated efforts to get them to let him “park” the steed at the restaurant entrance, Glinda wasn't listening. She couldn't hear. Because even though the noise continued around her, the only thing that echoed in her head was the echo of that laughter. Elphaba's laughter. His laughter.
And the impossible fact that, of all people in the universe, she was sitting across from Glinda. Listening to her. Watching her.
As Fiyero began another of his “couple anecdotes,” Glinda stood up so abruptly that the chair squealed against the floor like a dissonant note cutting through the air. Her sudden energy clashed with the entire setting, as if an electric current had jolted her from within.
“Oh, look at the time!” she exclaimed with exaggerated enthusiasm, her eyes wide and her smile stretched, almost painfully. “It’s so late! I think it’s best if we get the check. I don’t want to be any late.”
Fiyero stared at her, surprised, one hand still raised in the air, poised in an attempt to summon the waiter. He blinked twice, as if he needed to process what had just happened.
“Do you want me to…?”
“No, no, no!” "Glinda interrupted with an agility that can only be born of desperation. I'll take care of it, okay? It'll be faster. Don't worry!"
And without giving them time to reply, she turned on her heel, her smile still shining with a tension that seemed about to explode, and walked briskly toward the counter, as if her life depended on it. She didn't look back. She couldn't. If she did, she wasn't sure she could hold on.
She stood there in front of the manager, muttering something about bills and cards, pretending to be interested in the details of the purchase while her hearing sharpened, trying to catch every word of the conversation she had inevitably just left behind.
At the table, Fiyero and Elphaba exchanged a look, puzzled at first. Then, as if they had shared the same thought, they burst out laughing in unison, softer this time, the kind of laughter that comes when complex emotions mix with genuine affection. Elphaba, still smiling, tilted her head slightly.
"How are you?" she asked, her tone softer, more honest. There was a warmth in her voice that wasn't meant to comfort, but simply to be present.
Fiyero looked at her for a moment, as if he hadn't expected the question, or didn't know how to answer it authentically.
"Fine... I guess," he murmured. "You know. Things are working out."
But Elphaba didn't let the evasion go.
"The last time we spoke, there was still so much unresolved," she said with quiet honesty. "And now your face is all over the magazines. It's hard not to wonder if you're really okay."
Fiyero gave a nasal laugh, somewhere between irony and resignation. He looked down at his empty cup as if he could still find something comforting there.
"Since we grew apart, no matter what I try to do, no matter where I try to go... I always end up coming back. In circles. As if everything I do brings me back to the same place."
"I understand you," Elphaba said softly. "More than you think."
There was a brief silence, not awkward, but full of understanding.
Fiyero looked up at her, with a mixture of embarrassment and genuine interest.
"And you?" he asked cautiously. "Are you still pursuing... your interests?"
Elphaba gave a small laugh, not joyful, but not bitter. It was more of a sigh transformed into sound.
"Yes," she nodded. "Although it's not easy to find people to share them with. I always had trust issues... you know that."
Fiyero nodded slowly, as if that sentence weighed as heavily on him as it did on her.
"I try to keep that part of me hidden as much as possible," Elphaba continued. "Most of the time it's safer that way. But sometimes... pretending becomes exhausting."
"Yes," he said, barely above a whisper.
They fell silent again. And then Fiyero looked up, a hint of doubt in his eyes.
"Does Glinda know about that?"
Elphaba opened her mouth to answer without thinking.
"No. Of course not."
But something in his tone changed mid-sentence. His gaze faltered, and the confidence with which he spoke cracked. He frowned slightly, as if he'd just doubted a truth he'd always assumed to be true.
"I don't know..." he admitted quietly. "I guess not. If I did know... I would have told everyone by now, wouldn't I?"
Fiyero shook his head with a soft, almost knowing smile.
"Don't be so sure. Glinda may be more confidential than you think. Especially with those closest to her. Truly close."
Elphaba looked at him silently, without replying, without nodding. Only a small smile appeared on her face. A smile that contained many things: suspicion, hope, a little fear... and a shred of faith.
Fiyero stood with a long sigh, taking his coat.
"It was good to see you," he said. "It really was."
"Likewise."
They bowed slightly, a simple but sincere farewell. Then he walked to the door, to wait for Glinda.
But neither of them knew that, hidden behind a column in the café, her fingers curled around her bag and her heart pounding so loudly she could almost hear it in her ears, Glinda had heard every word.
And for the first time in a long time, she didn't know if she should feel betrayed... or relieved.
Because there was something that wove through her thoughts like a persistent murmur: What part of Elphaba was it that she really didn't know... and how much of her had already begun to interest her without fully understanding it?...
The city slid by on the other side of the glass like a river of liquid lights, distorted by the thin layer of fog that was beginning to settle over the streets. Inside the limo, the silence was thick, heavy with unspoken thoughts, and the faint instrumental music coming from the stereo barely managed to cover the tide of emotions churning beneath the surface.
Glinda leaned her head against the window, her cheek cooling on the glass, while her eyes followed the buildings without really seeing them. The images of the café repeated in his mind like a frantic carousel: the laughter shared between Fiyero and Elphaba, the complicity in their glances, that smile that Elphaba only seemed to show when she looked at him... and then, those words that he thought he hadn't heard but that now echoed loudly: Does she know about... that?
That?
That what?
And why did he say it in that tone?
Why didn't she know anything?
The questions were like fine knives, cutting threads of tranquility in her mind. Glinda squinted, focusing not on the lights, but on her reflection. They were hiding something from her, she was sure of that. And if Elphaba wasn't going to tell her... maybe Fiyero would.
Slowly, like someone who doesn't want to wake a sleeping cat, she turned her head toward him. Fiyero was checking his phone with a calm expression, though there was something in his gaze that suggested nostalgia, as if he wasn't really reading what was in front of him.
With a casual tone—too casual to be casual—Glinda broke the silence:
"So... you and Elphaba get along, huh?"
Fiyero barely looked up, still sliding his finger over the screen.
"Yeah, I guess. We always get along."
"Always?" "She persisted, tilting her head slightly with a half smile. "Since college?"
"Uh-huh," he replied, still distracted. "Since then."
There was a pause. Then Glinda added, feigning disinterest, "So... have you talked a lot lately?"
"Not as much as before," he said, without looking up.
"Why?" Glinda asked, her voice high-pitched, too quickly.
Fiyero finally looked up, frowning a little.
"I don't know. Just life."
Glinda crossed her legs, adjusting herself as if that gave her more authority.
"It must be difficult... when someone you know so well changes so much, right?"
Fiyero put his phone aside, clearly sensing something else was brewing.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing," she crooned. "Just... well, Elphaba seems so... reserved." Not like when you first met her, right?
Fiyero studied her for a few seconds before answering.
"Elphaba was always reserved, Glinda. It's just that some people prefer to see what they want to see."
Glinda pursed her lips. This wasn't going as expected. But she wasn't going to give up that easily.
"And that something you were talking about before?" she said, lowering her voice a little, as if the car could hear. "That 'thing' you said made it hard to trust people?"
"What? How you... Shit... Glinda, I don't think..."
"Is it some kind of secret club?" she continued, trying to sound funny. "A midnight cult? Because honestly..."
"Glinda."
Fiyero's tone changed, serious, patient, but firm.
"What?"
"Why do you want to know that? It's none of your business."
"That's not fair!" she exploded, no longer feigning calm. "Half an hour ago, you were telling the whole story of my embarrassing, fleeting relationship with you as if it were a fun urban legend, and now you suddenly go into silent protector mode."
Fiyero raised his hands, not angry, but visibly uncomfortable.
"That was different... And it was funny."
"Funny to whom?!"
"To everyone but you," he replied with a lopsided smile, trying to decompress.
But Glinda wasn't in the mood for smiles.
"So... you're not going to tell me what she's hiding?"
Fiyero sighed, leaning back in his seat.
"It's not my place, Glinda. This isn't a fun secret or an anecdote to share between laughs. It's personal. Very personal."
"And what am I?!" he exclaimed. "An extra in her story? An accessory? I'm there, just like her! I deserve to know!"
"Do you deserve it?" "He asked, without sarcasm, but with that calmness that hurt more than any scream. "Or do you just want to feel like you weren't left out?"
Glinda clenched her fists, staring out the window as if she could escape through it. But instead of an escape route, she found her apartment building lit up.
"What?!" she blurted out, surprised.
"We're here," announced the driver, Feldspur, from the front seat in his usual monotone.
"Damn it..." Glinda muttered, her shoulders slumping.
Fiyero took the phone and swiped the screen without interest, as if the subject were closed.
"Good night, Glinda," he said in a sharp, but not harsh, tone.
"Good night," she replied, almost like a gunshot.
She grabbed her purse and opened the door, but as she was about to get out, Fiyero's voice filled the space again.
"If you really want to know more about Elphaba..."
She froze for a second.
"...try talking to Elphaba. But make it a real conversation, not an interrogation."
Glinda said nothing. She didn't turn around. She just nodded, very slightly, and got out of the limo.
The doors closed, and the car started moving, gliding down the street like a thought yet to be spoken.
As she climbed the steps of her building, Glinda wasn't thinking about what she didn't know. She was thinking about everything she hadn't yet dared to ask.
In another corner of the city, removed from the gilded bustle of the city center and closer to the serene elegance of the upper echelons, Elphaba stood in the spacious and gleaming lobby of a luxury residential building. Unlike the frenetic pace of the street, a warm silence reigned inside, accompanied by the soft ambient melody that drifted between the modern furniture and dark marble walls.
Leaning calmly on the reception desk, she carefully signed a sheet of paper with firm, clear strokes. The black, discreetly designed fountain pen glided across the paper with almost surgical precision. Elphaba didn't seem to be in a hurry; each movement had a restrained calm, like someone well acquainted with the routines of the night.
Once she had completed the last stroke, she looked up and smiled gently at the young receptionist, who regarded her with a mixture of respect and discreet nervousness. Despite her always serene face, there was something about Elphaba—perhaps her upright demeanor, her sharp gaze, or that air of calm authority—that commanded a silent presence.
"Here," she said, extending the paper to him with long, delicate fingers. "When the package with my name on it arrives, give this to them. They should take it directly to the penthouse, okay?"
The receptionist, a young man in his twenties in a perfectly ironed uniform, nodded immediately, carefully placing the paper in the appropriate folder. His smile was friendly, if slightly strained.
"Of course, Miss Thropp. I'll keep that in mind. Have a very good night."
Elphaba looked at him for a moment longer, as if gauging whether anything else needed to be added, but finally just nodded gently.
"Good night," she replied with a smile, and with that same silent, elegant gait that seemed to hover above the ground, she headed toward the elevators.
Fatigue enveloped her like a coat that was too heavy. The day had been long, filled with meetings, awkward silences, old memories, and conversations that revived feelings she thought she had under control. She walked calmly toward the elevator, ready to let the walls of her home protect her from the world for a few hours.
But then, a soft, familiar voice floated from one of the lobby chairs:
"You shouldn't smile so much. They'll start thinking you're nice."
Elphaba turned her head and saw him: Crope, elegant and disheveled as always, a glass of whiskey in his hand, his jacket open, his gaze lost somewhere beyond the glass entrance.
"Crope?" she asked with surprise and a hint of amusement. "What are you doing here at this hour?"
He looked up with a half-smile, though his eyes were heavy with a heaviness that wasn't entirely new.
"Your lobby has better whiskey than my living room," he joked. Then he looked down and sighed. "I had an argument with Tibbett. Nothing serious." I just needed a little space.
Elphaba frowned, worried.
"I'm sorry. Are you okay?"
Crope nodded, swirling the whiskey in his glass.
"It was a stupid thing, as always. And knowing him, he's probably planning some dramatic and ridiculously romantic gesture to make up for it right now. He's probably already filled the apartment with rose petals or adopted a cat in my name."
They both laughed, with that complicity born of years together, of having been there for each other through their worst and best versions of themselves.
Elphaba nodded, breathing more easily. She took a step toward the elevator, but something stopped her. She turned on her heel and, in a softer, almost timid voice, asked,
"Crope...? Can I ask you something?"
He looked at her, curious.
"Sure."
"You and Tibbett... how did you know you could make it work? I mean... you're so different." And they've had... their things. But they always come back to each other. How did you know it was... real?
Crope didn't respond immediately. He rested his glass on the arm of the chair and settled in more thoughtfully.
"I didn't know at first. I just... felt it. That silent certainty that, even when everything was in chaos, he was my center. No matter how much we argue or how far we drift apart... when something important happens, it's his voice I want to hear first. He's the one I want to tell. Even if I'm angry at him."
Elphaba stared at him silently. Each word fell within her like drops in a lake, causing soft, deep ripples. Crope, noticing her so quiet, tilted his head.
"Why the question?"
Elphaba lowered her gaze, as if confessing something without words.
"I don't know. I think... I'm trying to understand something."
"Don't tell me you're already pining for someone..." Crope asked with disarming gentleness.
She didn't answer. But she didn't have to. Crope knew it by the way she pressed her lips together, the way her shoulders lowered, the way her gaze wandered to an indeterminate point on the floor.
"Just please tell me it's a woman, otherwise you'll break Tibbett's heart."
Elphaba nodded, and this time the smile she gave him was warm and sincere.
"Good night, Crope."
"Good night, El," he replied with a wink.
She turned and entered the elevator. The doors closed in front of her with a soft whisper, and in that confinement of steel and mirrors, Elphaba couldn't help but see herself reflected in every direction.
Her face seemed serene, but her thoughts were a whirlwind.
She couldn't ignore it any longer.
She couldn't pretend any longer.
She had to solve this.
She had to solve it with her.
And that certainty, as silent as it was undeniable, accompanied her as the elevator doors opened onto the top floor.
Thus, at opposite ends of the city, two figures were preparing for sleep, each wrapped in their own silence.
Glinda, in her elegant apartment, slowly removed her makeup in front of the mirror. Her blouse, her heels, everything fell softly, as if she were shedding not just her clothes, but the entire day. With a cup of tea in hand, she approached the window and leaned her forehead against it, gazing at the city glittering below. But her mind wasn't on the lights.
Elphaba, in her imposing penthouse, did the same with her routine: a loose T-shirt, her hair untied, her hands under hot water. She also ended up in front of the window, watching without really looking, thinking about things she couldn't say out loud.
Glinda, standing facing the city, placed a hand against the glass and let her head tilt slightly to one side. She watched without looking. Sometimes she closed her eyes for a second. Or she took a deep breath. Or she frowned, as if a question had formed on its own and refused to be answered.
Elphaba, in her corner of the urban sky, crossed her arms over her chest, an unconscious habit of protection. Her gaze was steadier, more focused… but no less lost. Because she wasn't thinking about the building in front of her. Or the neon lights on the avenue. Not even the reflection of her face in the glass. She thought of that soft laugh that wouldn't leave her alone. Of that perfume she sometimes thought she smelled on the street. Of that way a single person could make her world—so structured, so armored—seem to tremble with a simple gesture.
And on the other side, Glinda thought of a look. Of a half-spoken word. Of a moment frozen in time, of the kind of things that one part of her forced herself to forget and another refused to let go. There were so many questions, so many doubts… but one feeling was beginning to dominate them all: I need to talk to her.
Two women, two different perspectives, but the same thought haunted them stubbornly.
Both looked at the city. Both thought of someone else.
The next morning, the sun had barely peeked over the edges of the city, tinting the skyscrapers a dull, somewhat lazy gold. At that same hour, two alarm clocks rang, marking the beginning of a new day. One did so with a strident burst of pop music, laden with synthesizers, catchy choruses, and an almost violent energy, as if trying to force life to begin with rhythm. The other, on the other hand, emitted a perfectly calculated digital tone, monotonous and predictable, like the routine that accompanied it.
In different, but not so different, apartments, Glinda and Elphaba opened their eyes at the same time.
Glinda stirred between the soft linen sheets, stretching a lazy arm toward the nightstand to turn off the din. Her hair was disheveled but still smelled of expensive perfume, and her nightgown, though somewhat wrinkled, maintained a certain nonchalant elegance. She sat up in bed with a long, stifled yawn, rested her feet delicately on the floor, as if cameras were still watching her, and rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. On the nightstand, next to her pastel pink phone charger and a small, half-burned scented candle, lay a card written in gold marker: "Today: Night Shift." Glinda frowned at it, turned it slightly as if it would magically say something different, and sighed.
Across town, Elphaba was already sitting up in bed, perfectly upright, her dark hair falling over one shoulder and her eyes still half-closed from sleep. She reached out with precision, turned off the alarm clock without looking, and let the silence of her apartment envelop her for a few seconds. On her austere and tidy bedside table, there was a reading lamp, an analog clock with a soft second hand, a half-finished book, and a small note in sober handwriting that read: "Night shift confirmed." She read it, though she didn't need to, and nodded slightly to herself. She also sighed.
They each got up and began their routine, as they had so many other times. Elphaba walked to the bathroom with firm steps, and Glinda disappeared into the fluffiest robe she could find. But something... something was different.
Glinda washed her face more gently than usual. In front of the mirror, she paused for a second, wiping the cotton ball with toner, and stared at her eyes. Not to correct the dark circles under her eyes. Not to reassure herself that she was still beautiful. Just... to look at herself. As if searching for something. And as she brushed her hair, her mind betrayed her with an image: a tall figure with a discreet smile and an intense gaze, who used to correct her hairstyle with impatient fingers whenever it was messed up. She shook her head sharply, as if she could get it out of her mind with a couple of quick shakes, but it didn't work. She looked down at the floor, muttered "ugh" under her breath, and continued on her way to the dressing room.
There, Glinda was leafing through her endless collection of blouses. Normally, her choice was quick, automatic, almost theatrical. But today, her hand lingered. She would pick up a garment, hold it in front of her, and then put it back. Something changed in her choices. Softer colors. More subtle lines. As if she were unconsciously seeking to impress someone she had never admitted to wanting to impress.
Elphaba, on the other hand, dressed with her usual sobriety. Black shirt, gray pants. But when she looked in the mirror, she hesitated for a second. She searched among her shirts for one with a small embroidery at the collar, something she would normally consider unnecessary, even frivolous. She tried it on. She wasn't sure it was appropriate. But she left it on. She looked down at herself, raised an eyebrow… and half-smiled.
Glinda, dressed in a carefully elegant outfit, poured herself some unsweetened coffee—something she detested, but which someone had told her was “a sophisticated custom”—and drank it lamely. She winced at the first sip. And then, against all odds, she tried it again. She made a mental note to buy some brown sugar, though she wasn't sure why. Perhaps because she'd heard a certain someone mention its benefits with a mixture of passion and stubbornness that at the time seemed adorably ridiculous.
Elphaba, for her part, made her coffee with the exact same measure as always and drank it from the same plain black cup without pictures or words.
Finally, they both stopped in front of the mirror before leaving. And in that last moment before facing the day, they both asked themselves the same question: Will I see her today?
And they didn't answer. They just put on their respective armor: a smile, a haughty look, a firm step. But now, deep down, something was trembling. Something was slowly shifting from their meticulously constructed routines.
A slight change. Almost imperceptible.
But big changes always begin like this.
Like every morning, Elphaba got into the elevator, pressed the first floor, and waited... But halfway there, the elevator suddenly jammed.
"Ugh... Now what?" Equally confused and annoyed, Elphaba pressed the door button and stepped out into the hallway, but what she found in front of her... Well, it definitely wasn't what she expected...
Elphaba wasn't one to be easily surprised. She'd seen enough of metropolitan chaos to be unfazed by most eccentricities, but nothing prepared her for finding, at eight-twenty in the morning, what could only be described as a floral explosion blocking the elevator exit.
At first, she thought it was an art installation by the building. Then she heard Tibbett's voice on the other side of the enormous cluster of pink, red, and violet petals.
"What kind of mythological creature designed this elevator?!" he screamed in a mix of Greek tragedy and musical comedy. "How am I supposed to fit this monument to forgiveness and my dignity in at the same time?!" Elphaba, half amused and half incredulous, squeezed her way around the side, skillfully twisting her body until she was standing before the scene: Tibbett, his face slightly flushed, surrounded by confused delivery workers, trying to maneuver a floral arrangement as tall as he was and as wide as a refrigerator.
"I didn't know they'd opened a new branch of the Botanical Gardens in the building," he commented with restrained irony.
"Oh, heavenly salvation!" Tibbett exclaimed as soon as he saw her, his eyes wide. "Elphaba, my emotional backbone, my moral guide, my... impromptu assistant!"
"The last one sounds more appropriate," she replied, crossing her arms with an almost imperceptible smile.
Tibbett didn't waste a second. With the precision of a desperate choreographer and the effusiveness of a Venezuelan soap opera director, in a matter of seconds he handed her a box of handmade chocolates, a bag of scented candles, a heart-embroidered pillow, a smaller (though still excessive) bouquet, and what appeared to be a handwritten letter in the typeface one only finds in the most dramatic love letters.
"Hold this, this, this... and this too, in case I need it for a final dramatic touch. And be careful with the bag of candles; it's made of imported sandalwood!" he shouted as he rearranged the path for the entrance of their floral memorial.
Elphaba, her arms completely full and a look of amused resignation on her face, only managed to murmur:
"Yes, of course... the usual for a Tuesday morning."
Together—or rather, she behind, balancing, and he in front, directing as if he were putting together the choreography of his life—they walked down the aisle. Tibbett greeted the neighbors as if he were leading a sacred procession. A delivery man stumbled, and he forgave him with an impromptu blessing. Elphaba followed silently, though every so often she couldn't help but chuckle inwardly at how ridiculous and charming it was to see someone love so much... and yet be so outrageously bad at restraining themselves.
When they reached Crope and Tibbett's apartment door, he opened it grandly and stepped back as if he were hosting a gala.
"Welcome to my sanctuary of forgiveness. May I ask one more favor?" he said, turning, his eyes shining with pleading. "Will you help me set everything up? I want Crope to feel like he's entered a temple of aesthetic worship and genuine repentance when he arrives. I have a plan. Well, five. But one involves incense!"
Elphaba hesitated for a moment, glanced at her watch, and then at Tibbett's pleading eyes. She knew she had the day off until the night shift. She also knew she was probably going to leave that apartment with a shine on her face, petals in her hair, and a headache from smelling so much jasmine. But she also knew something more important: it had been a long time since she'd started her day with something so human, and so absurd.
"Okay," she finally said, carefully placing the bouquet on the entry table. "But if I ever have an allergic reaction, I'm writing your name in my will."
"Noted!" Tibbett exclaimed, already arranging candles in circular patterns. "You're a saint! A modern-day martyr!"
And so, Elphaba stepped into Tibbett's floral and emotional chaos, wondering—with some tenderness and resignation—how she'd ended up there. Although, deep down, she also knew the answer. Because while she helped prepare this romantic display, she kept thinking about someone who, although she would never apologize with flowers, made her feel as if it were all worth it if it was resolved with a heartfelt conversation. With her.
An hour later, and with the plants strategically relocated for the third time according to Tibbett's mental map—a plan as abstract as a Cubist painting—Elphaba felt her senses were on the verge of an aesthetic collapse. Between the overflowing bouquets, the candles arranged with mystical precision, and the decorative hearts glued to surfaces that should never have seen glue, the scene was beginning to look more like a baroque altar than a romantic gesture.
"Does that heart look better on the mantelpiece or hanging from the fan?" Tibbett asked with complete seriousness as he balanced himself on a stool.
Elphaba looked at him without answering. Then she looked at the heart. Then at the fan. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"This is my purgatory."
But despite the absurdity, she couldn't stop her mind from wandering. Between every changing of the vase, every rearranging of pillows, and every new piece of advice from Tibbett on "visual energy," she would appear. Always her. That person whose critical smile would know exactly what was wrong with the candle arrangement, who would move two objects and magically make everything work better. That person who would probably be laughing out loud if he saw her now, carrying a tower of stuffed animals shaped like lovelorn hedgehogs.
Glinda would know how to do this. Glinda would do this better. Glinda would make Tibbett feel like a romance hero… she thought, as she placed the last box of chocolates at a perfect angle next to the cup of rose petals.
She sank onto the couch, as if her soul had left her through a secret escape route behind the curtain. Tibbett appeared seconds later with two cups of steaming hot chocolate—one with marshmallows, one with cinnamon—and plopped down next to her with a theatrical, content sigh.
“Look at it…” Tibbett said, with a mixture of excitement and self-congratulation. “It’s perfect. Every detail, every gesture, every petal. It’s too much, of course… but also too perfect.”
She paused.
“Or not? Maybe I should change the candles to taller ones. Or…” She jumped up.
"No!" Elphaba exclaimed, bolting upright as if she'd just been electrocuted. "Tibbett, stop. That's more than enough. This isn't a Broadway production!... Besides, Crope has surely forgiven you for whatever it is..."
Tibbett froze halfway between the carpet and the altar of chocolates. He blinked. He laughed softly. And then he looked down.
"I know Crope forgave me. He always forgives me. Sometimes we're not even done fighting and he's already sending me penguin memes," he said in a lower voice. "But... what if one day he doesn't?"
Elphaba looked at him. Something in that tone, that tentatively revealed insecurity, made something in her soften.
"And what if that day comes?" she asked, more gently. "Are you going to try to make up for it with an entire garden?" Tibbett laughed, but it was a sadder laugh.
"No... I guess I'm just trying to let him know how much I care, even if I don't always know how to show it without fireworks and musical stuffed animals."
Elphaba nodded, lowering her head slightly, looking at the mug in her hands.
"It's not a bad thing to want to show it... but you also have to know when to listen. And not just what they say. Listen carefully. With... intention."
Tibbett turned and looked at her curiously.
"Are you talking about me or...?"
"I'm talking in general," she said quickly, her tone more abrupt than necessary.
Tibbett raised his eyebrows with a crooked smile.
"Sure. 'In general,'" he repeated, taking a dramatic sip of his hot chocolate. "And does 'generality' have a name or...?"
Elphaba looked at him sideways.
"Do you want me to go?"
"No, I love having you here," Tibbett laughed, touching her arm affectionately. "And Crope too. Although when he sees I moved the blue chair... he's going to give me an hour-long aesthetic lecture. But it'll be worth it."
They both laughed. It was a small, warm, and simple moment, so rare in the whirlwind of their lives.
"Doesn't it happen to you," she said suddenly, "that when you truly care about someone, no matter how ridiculous, unnecessary, or even counterproductive what you do is... you just have to do it?"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, half mockingly, half intrigued.
"Like spending half your salary on flowers and creating a field of emotional battle in your living room?
Tibbett laughed.
"Exactly. It's just...! If what I feel overwhelms me, what choice do I have but to let it spill over a little? Isn't it worse when you bottle it up? It's like plugging a geyser with a yogurt lid. It's no good. It comes out anyway, sooner or later, and probably at the worst possible time. So I prefer to let it all out in a big way, even if it's a disaster, even if no one understands me. Because I need to. Because I feel it."
There was a second of silence. Elphaba looked down at her cup, which was still steaming slightly. She didn't dare look up. Something in Tibbett's words had seeped under her skin without permission, like a warm electric current spreading through her chest.
"Sometimes," he said quietly, "I feel like if I admit I care about something... it breaks. Or I break."
Tibbett turned to her, calmer this time.
"And other times, if you don't admit it... it breaks just the same. But silently. Without a sound. And that, my dear, is much worse."
Elphaba swallowed. She didn't know if she wanted to hit him or hug him. She looked at him with a mixture of tenderness and disbelief.
"You're an idiot. A poetic kind."
"Thank you. I hear that often."
They both laughed, and then she knew.
That thought that wouldn't go away. That image that returned every time she closed her eyes. That damned feeling in her chest, a mixture of anguish and hope, anxiety and tenderness. That smile that wasn't his, but that she couldn't stop remembering. That person.
It didn't make sense. It wasn't logical. And it was probably a terrible idea. But Tibbett was right: the feeling was there. And it wouldn't go away. And the more she ignored it, the stronger it throbbed.
But then Elphaba saw her watch and her eyes widened as if she'd remembered leaving a potion on the stove.
"Damn! I'm running late."
"Work?"
"Night shift. But I have a lot of things to organize before then."
Tibbett winced in sympathy and stood up with her.
"Thank you for helping me build my apology chapel."
"Thank you for reminding me that love... is exhausting," she replied, brushing a couple of petals off her coat.
They said goodbye with a brief but genuine hug. Elphaba walked out the door, and as she walked down the hall, she could still smell the scent of flowers, the warmth of chocolate... and the echo of her own laughter. She wasn't entirely sure if she had helped Tibbett or if Tibbett had helped her. But something in that morning chaos was clear to her: whatever happened tonight... she couldn't keep running away; she had to go and face it with fervor... But, as always, she would do it on her terms.
Almost at the same time, as if by a cruel twist of fate, in another part of the city, a coffee shop was the setting for another act that could change the script of this play...
The coffee shop had that typical mix of minimalist modernity and feigned warmth: perfectly arranged hanging plants, soft jazz pouring from the speakers, and employees in beige aprons who smiled more with their teeth than with their eyes. Glinda sat in a bright corner by the window, holding her phone, waiting for her order. She was absentmindedly checking her messages, her mind elsewhere. When she saw Fiyero's name on the screen, she hesitated. Her finger hovered over the chat icon.
I could text him, she thought. Just to chat... or I don't know... get this out of my head... he'd understand.
But just as she was about to open the message, two shimmering, perfumed shadows loomed over her.
"GLINDI-GLINDA-GLAMOROUS!" Pfannee crooned, almost splashing her coffee as she dramatically bent down.
"We thought you'd vanished!" Shenshen added, with that smile that looked like it was painted on with a knife. "Or should we say... banished?"
Glinda barely managed to hide her shock. She tried to discreetly put her phone away, but the two of them had already settled on either side of her chair as if they were part of the furniture.
"Oh, my breakfast is just coming, I have to go really fast," she said, standing up, although her order hadn't appeared yet.
"Where to?" Pfannee said with fake surprise. "But you're free until the night shift today! Or aren't you?" Glinda froze for a second, then pursed her lips.
"How do they know that?"
"Please," Shenshen said, rolling her eyes. "The whole office knows. Ever since you and that... 'person' became a trending topic among the office interns. It was so tragic. So humiliating. So... iconic."
"You don't have to hide," Pfannee added, patting her arm. "Your friends are here. To support you. To listen. To dissect every moment of the catastrophe with an emotional scalpel."
"To laugh together at each other's bad luck, you mean," Glinda murmured with a forced smile, sitting back down while taking a spoonful of the yogurt and granola she no longer wanted.
They both pretended not to hear that comment.
“So…” Shenshen said, interlacing her fingers as if she were about to preside over a corporate meeting, “tell us: what really happened yesterday with the… unmentionable person?”
Glinda blinked, confused for a second.
“Who?”
“Oh, please,” Pfannee snorted. “Elphaba. Who else?”
“Come on, Glinda dear, we already know all about what happened at the meeting yesterday,” Shenshen added, leaning in as if sharing a secret. “Morrible was as red as hell, but you… you were green. And not like her, of course. Green with rage.”
“And now that you’ve both been punished with the night shift…” Pfannee stopped with a venomous smile. “Well. That can’t just stand there, can it?”
“Exactly.” Shenshen leaned in even closer. “So, Glinda… what’s your plan?”
Glinda looked down at her cup. Suddenly the coffee tasted more bitter. She took a deep breath, as if she needed to dig deep within herself for some automatic response, something with an edge, something that fit with what was expected of her.
But nothing came out.
"I don't have a plan," she said finally.
They both laughed.
"Oh, come on, Glinda. You always have a plan," Pfannee crooned.
"Aren't you going to get revenge? Aren't you going to show her she can't make you look bad in front of everyone?" Shenshen pressed, her eyes shining with anticipation.
Glinda looked up slowly, her blue eyes meeting theirs. But something about her gaze was different. More... serene. Or maybe, more exhausted.
"This isn't about revenge. Or about looking good or bad. And it's not about 'her versus me,' either," she said slowly.
Pfannee and Shenshen exchanged an unknown look, as if they were listening to Glinda speak in another language.
"Are you okay?" Pfannee asked, her tone suddenly more curious than friendly.
Glinda closed her eyes for a second. She thought about the meeting. She thought about Elphaba, her words, her gaze. How everything burned, and at the same time... something inside her lit up with a different kind of fire.
But Pfannee's incessant voice had become a drone, as if her words were bouncing off the padded walls of Glinda's mind without settling anywhere. Shenshen wasn't far behind, with that theatrical tone that alternated between indignation and morbid enjoyment, speaking fervently about how Elphaba had made a fool of her, how her image—her personal brand, as they insisted on calling it—was on the verge of collapse, how this woman was sabotaging her from within, silently, like an insider in a war of appearances and power.
"You can't just leave it like that, Glinda!" Pfannee repeated, waving a coffee spoon as if wielding a golden sword. "She humiliated you in public, in front of Morrible, in front of everyone. And now you're going to share the night shift with her, as if you were equals! You and her equals?! Please."
"This isn't just personal!" Shenshen added, banging the table with a perfectly manicured manicure. "It's professional! It's strategic! If you don't do something now, she'll wipe you out. She'll leave you looking like the dumb blonde in the corner, and all the promotions will go to her. Her! The one in the jumpsuit and muddy boots!"
"You have to take advantage of tonight, Glinda," Pfannee insisted, approaching like a Machiavellian confidant. "That wretched prison she put you in... use it! Put her in her place! Make it clear who you are!"
Each word was like a drop of wax falling on her chest. She wanted to scream at them to shut up, that they didn't understand anything, that things weren't as simple as a revenge plot or an image maneuver. But she couldn't. Because a part of her—the most fragile, the most confused—was beginning to wonder if they didn't have a point.
"Make her point?" she thought. That phrase floated in her mind like a puzzle piece that suddenly seemed to fit somewhere. What if it wasn't revenge? What if it was simply... making clear what she felt? What she thought. What she wanted.
Then, suddenly, a vibration. A familiar sound. Glinda's phone, on the table. A cheerful, harmless melody, and a screen that lit up with Fiyero's face, smiling from the photo they'd taken at that party on the pier, where he'd made her laugh so much her mascara ran.
Glinda reached out, but Pfannee was quicker. She snatched the phone with feline agility and squealed,
"AHHH, FIYERO!"
"Prince Charming calls his Chaotic Princess!" Shenshen added, covering her mouth as if she couldn't believe the level of emotion.
"Give it back!" Glinda snapped, her tone annoyed, her eyes flashing with real fury. She leaned over, gripped the phone firmly, and stepped back a few steps, the screen still trembling in her hand.
She took a deep breath. Once. Twice. She didn't feel like talking to anyone. Much less having to pretend she was okay. But she also couldn't just not answer. It was Fiyero. And... maybe, after all, he might be the only one she could let all this out to.
She tapped the screen. The call came through.
"Hi..." she said, her tone more subdued than she'd expected.
On the other end, Fiyero's voice came through warm, familiar, and strangely calm.
"Hey, Glinda... I'm sorry about how things ended last night, and I thought I'd call to see if... You're okay?"
For a moment, she didn't know how to respond. She glanced at Pfannee and Shenshen, who were whispering to each other like crows in high heels, feeding off the drama. She turned away from the rest of the coffee and leaned her forehead against the cold window frame.
"I don't know," she said finally, in a whisper. She didn't fake it. She didn't soften it. She didn't embellish anything.
There was a pause on the other end. Then Fiyero answered in that voice of his, a little ironic but also deeply empathetic:
"Is it because of Elphaba?"
Glinda closed her eyes.
"It's because of... everything." The word floated on her tongue for a moment before falling silent. "I don't know if I'm angry, if I'm sad, or if I just can't think straight. I feel like everyone is yelling at me about what I should do. What I should feel. How I should... punish her. As if this were a war."
"And you don't want a war, do you?"
The constant murmur of Pfannee and Shenshen had escalated again, like an old, broken radio that couldn't shut up, even when someone was on the phone. From her corner by the window, Glinda tried to focus on Fiyero's voice, to let herself be enveloped by that clumsy, well-intentioned warmth that had so often comforted her. But even he seemed to lose his bearings in the turmoil.
"Glinda... I know this is complicated," he said from the other side. "But I don't think Elphaba meant to hurt you. She's... that's just how she is. Rough, clumsy. She doesn't know how... to express herself. But I don't think she hates you. If anything... it's more likely that... I don't know, that she cares for you. In a strange way, of course."
Glinda said nothing. She just listened, staring, unable to see her reflection in the glass. But Fiyero continue getting tangled up in his attempt to explain something he didn't fully understand.
"Look... Ugh, our relationship..." he added with a nervous chuckle, "if it ever was that... it was always a game, you know? A silly teenage game. She and I needed... a distraction, some drama... It wasn't anything serious. It was never deep. Because sometimes things don't have to be... "
The silence that followed was so sharp, so sudden, that even Pfannee and Shenshen fell silent. Glinda's back tensed. Her shoulders rose slightly. She wasn't blinking. She wasn't breathing. She just stood there, rigid as a porcelain statue, the phone still pressed to her ear.
Because that phrase—so casual, so unconscious—had lit a light. Not a warm light, but a stark, white, hospital light. A revelation.
"A silly game..."
Of course. Of course. It all made sense now. The attention, the glances, the sharp words with a hint of electricity. The constant tension between them. The arguments that burned hotter than they should have. The silences that weighed as if they hid something else.
"Glinda was her new game."
Fiyero, on the other end, noticed the change. Maybe it was the sound of her breathing. Maybe it was the fact that Glinda didn't say anything in response. Maybe it was just intuition.
"Glinda... are you okay?"
She took the phone away from her ear with almost mechanical gentleness. She looked at it for a moment, as if she no longer knew what it was. Then, without emotion, she touched the screen and hung up. The phone went dead. The moment was broken.
She turned slowly to Pfannee and Shenshen, who had been watching her with the same expectant gaze as two little girls waiting for the explosion of a firework.
But what they encountered wasn't fire. It was something colder. More lethal.
Glinda straightened. Her back was straight, her chin high, her eyes icy and shining. And then, in a voice that held not a trace of sweetness, she said,
"You're right."
They both looked at each other with a mixture of surprise and triumph.
"Pardon?" Pfannee said, just for the pleasure of hearing it again.
"You're right," Glinda repeated, slowly crossing her arms. "Tonight... she's going to find out. Who I am. Who she's dealing with."
A pause. A silence in which only the distant hum of the city could be heard behind the glass. And then, Shenshen smiled.
"I knew you wouldn't let her walk all over you."
Glinda didn't respond. Her gaze remained fixed somewhere beyond the café, beyond them. Beyond even this conversation. A spot where Elphaba, unknowingly, was waiting for her. Perhaps with another battle. Maybe with something more.
But one thing was certain: that night, Glinda wouldn't go to the night shift prison like a victim... She would arrive like a storm.
Hours later, the sun, like a gold coin melting on the horizon, cast its last rays over the city, tinting the glass windows that covered the tall skyscrapers orange. The shadows lengthened and the bustle began to fade, giving way to that vibrant whisper that announced the arrival of night, the night in which everything transforms, where calm doesn't mean the absence of tension, but the prelude to something deeper. In the midst of that transition, in front of the gigantic Shiz.Corp building, two female figures burst in like two soldiers summoned to a duel arranged by destiny.
Glinda arrived in a shiny red car, with smooth but intimidating lines. Elphaba walked with long, firm strides, her dark coat floating behind her like a living shadow. Their styles were opposites, as always: Glinda glowed, her pearly blouse and fitted skirt had that sophisticated air that screamed "I'm unattainable," while Elphaba wore a dark suit with a precise silhouette, sober but with a touch of elegant rebellion, as if defiance were part of her moral code.
Their eyes met. They didn't greet each other with affection or courtesy. Just a minimal inclination of the chin and a curt "good night," like two swordsmen clashing weapons before beginning a duel. The silence was louder than any words.
They entered the elevator together. The metallic sound of the closing doors was like the opening bell. They stood at opposite ends, staring stoically ahead. Their reflections in the mirrored walls of the elevator betrayed them: sidelong glances, as if studying their opponent. Glinda noticed the slight ruffled look in Elphaba's hair, that natural rebelliousness impossible to tame. Elphaba detected the faint excess of floral perfume on Glinda, as if she were trying to cover something else with sweetness.
And yet, in that silent analysis, something else seeped through. An involuntary curiosity. Why had she chosen that color? Why did she wear that hairstyle? Had she always walked like this, with that tension in her shoulders? They were tiny details that would go unnoticed by anyone else, but between them—with their attention sharpened by recent days—they shone like signals. Annoying. Fascinating.
The elevator ascended unhurriedly. The floors passed one by one, and with each changing number, the tension seemed to rise as well. Upon reaching the main level, the sound of the "ding" broke the spell, and they both stepped out at the same time, their heels tapping a steady rhythm on the polished marble of the hallway.
The office was empty, or nearly so. Only a few dim lights flickered in the background, the desks were silent, the monitors turned off. The space felt like a deserted cathedral, and they were like two priestesses at odds with an ancient disagreement.
They walked in sync, firm, determined. There were no words, but an unspoken script guiding them. No one else should be there. This shift was theirs. And although the business, the night, and responsibility had forced them to share the space, the air between them was filled with something denser, more charged.
The office doors opened. Elphaba took the left, Glinda the right. Each to her desk. Each to her own trench.
But the night was just beginning. And there was nothing more unpredictable... than a war without shooting...
Both, located at opposite ends of the same office, were beginning to unfold their small preparation rituals. The stillness of the space, interrupted only by the faint hum of the fluorescent lighting, contrasted with the meticulousness with which each arranged her things: Elphaba aligned her folders, adjusted the angle of her desk lamp, tested her fountain pen three times before deciding if the stroke was just right. Glinda, for her part, had emptied the contents of her purse onto the surface: a pocket mirror, a mini makeup kit, a pocket perfume, two designer pens, a velvet-bound notebook, and a facial steamer that she activated while checking her digital calendar. All in perfect aesthetic harmony.
And yet, despite all that appearance of focus and efficiency, an underlying tension permeated every small movement. Elphaba, try as she might, couldn't help but sneak glances at Glinda. She noticed how she bit her lower lip when checking an email, how she wrinkled her nose if she didn't like something, and how this exaggerated concentration was somewhat feigned. Was she deliberately ignoring her? Playing a game?
Finally, she let out a soft sigh, like someone surrendering an internal battle, and stood up with a folder tucked under her arm. She strode purposefully up to Glinda's desk and, without much preamble, dropped the folder with a thud right in front of her.
Glinda immediately looked up. Her expression was a double-edged sword: a radiant, flawless, almost theatrical smile, accompanied by a honeyed voice dripping with courtesy.
"Yes, dear?" she said, as if nothing could faze her.
Elphaba narrowed her eyes for a moment, then shook her head as if she regretted it right away.
"If we're going to be here all night, we'd better get started." She opened the folder and turned it toward Glinda. "These are the documents for the agreement with the senator. Introduction, terms, preliminary clauses. Everything needed for the final report."
"Perfect," Glinda said, smoothing her hair with practiced elegance. "Nothing like a little bureaucracy to liven up the evening."
Elphaba took the first document with the neatness of a surgeon and held it up in front of her.
"This is established, in accordance with the current bylaws of Shiz.Corp, the inter-agency cooperation agreement between—"
"Good heavens," Glinda murmured, slowly lowering her makeup mirror. "Are you going to read the whole thing in that voice?" "It's the standard way to review agreements," Elphaba said, without taking her eyes off the paper. "We need to make sure we're both aware of the contents."
"And we also need a general anesthetic to endure it?" Glinda quipped, leaning her elbow on the desk, her chin between her fingers. "You'll kill the soul of this document."
Elphaba didn't flinch. She continued reading in the same flat, formal tone: "...Section Three stipulates that in the event of a review by the evaluation committee—"
"Enough!" Glinda interrupted with a twitchy smile. "Give me that."
She snatched the document from him in a swift motion, her shiny nails gleaming under the desk lamp. She unrolled it elegantly, as if it were a play script, and cleared her throat.
"By virtue of the established commitments and for the purpose of fostering a mutually beneficial relationship, both parties agree to—"
She paused dramatically, changing her voice to something more engaging, like a charismatic announcer selling an irresistible product.
"...establish a collaboration that will change the future of our institutions!" And then she lowered the document as if expecting applause.
Elphaba watched her, arms crossed.
"Was that a reading or an audition for the seven o'clock soap opera?"
"Both!" Glinda replied with a carefree laugh. "But at least someone's staying awake."
Elphaba rolled her eyes and extended her hand for the document.
"If we're going to suffer, at least let it be in style," Glinda murmured as she elegantly sat back down and continued her "narration."
Elphaba gritted her teeth. She didn't know exactly what was exasperating her. It wasn't the document's contents—she'd already read things three times more technical and four times more useless without losing patience—it was Glinda's voice. That perfectly trained voice, which moved between affected sweetness and epic tone as if she were hosting the Oscars instead of reading clauses about infrastructure permits. Every inflection, every breath, every modulation the blonde gave to the words made Elphaba's blood boil, and she forced herself not to clench her fist.
—“…therefore, both parties agree to the provisions of section eight, guaranteeing that—”
"Will you stop reading like that?!" Elphaba burst out suddenly, interrupting her with a mixture of irritation and desperation that took her by surprise.
Glinda raised an eyebrow, slowly lowering the document as if reacting to the tantrum of a rude child.
"Excuse me?" she said, feigning politeness, though her eyes were already shining with the start of the fire. "I'm reading the documents, which is what we're supposed to be doing. I'm sorry if your sense of drama isn't up to par."
"It's not drama, it's precision. You're not reading a play script, Glinda; this is a legal review. And I don't need every clause to sound like a divine revelation."
"Then excuse me for trying to make this martyrdom not a slow-motion funeral!" "I give life to words," Glinda snapped, elegantly crossing her arms, like someone sheltering herself from a storm of someone else's stupidity.
"I don't need to interpret to read a contract, Glinda!"
"And I don't need you to tell me how to do it!"
They glared at each other, fire against ice. It was obvious nothing was going to be resolved with diplomacy.
"Very well," Glinda declared, taking a breath with theatrical determination. "How about we do this like adults?"
"Are you going to ask your fan club for help again?" Elphaba shot back sarcastically.
"No, witch," Glinda said, in a low, venomous tone. "We're going to compete."
They both opened the folder and, without another word, dumped its entire contents onto the desk. An avalanche of papers flew through the air and landed in an orderly mess of contracts, reports, addenda, and clauses. They glared at each other fiercely. The challenge was on.
"First one to finish wins," said Glinda.
"And without skipping a thing," added Elphaba, her gaze fixed on her.
They both sat down, picked up the first page in unison… and the race began.
Their eyes moved with superhuman speed. The pages flew by in bursts. Elphaba, her mind trained in precision, absorbed each line with surgical precision. Glinda, with a brilliant memory disguised beneath her frivolous exterior, skimmed each word with lightning speed, a haughty smile on her lips.
And then, as if an invisible metronome struck the same beat for both of them, they both raised their voices at the same time:
"Done!"
They froze. Silence.
"That was at the same time," said Glinda, lifting her chin.
"You finished a split second later. I heard you breathe," declared Elphaba, pointing her quill at her like a dagger.
"Breathe? Is that your argument?! Please don't be ridiculous!"
"You skipped clause four point five! I saw it!"
"LIE! You quietly read "condition" instead of "provision" in the second section of the second block. That's cheating."
"It wasn't cheating, it was a slip of the tongue!"
"Then admit you lost!"
"Never!"
The argument surged like an unstoppable tide. Accusations, rebuttals, and mockery were hurled at each other with an energy that was completely out of step with the cold formality of the room. It was like watching two gladiators fight using tax terminology.
The argument grew increasingly absurd and increasingly personal. But then, amidst the shouting and scolding, Glinda asked a question in an almost mocking tone: "Let's see, know-it-all, what's the clause that covers the cases of disagreement between the committee and the advisory board?"
Elphaba didn't even blink.
"Clause 9, Subsection D. Conflict resolution must be mediated by a neutral third party chosen by internal vote, with veto power from the senior senator."
"Correct," Glinda said, and for a second she seemed almost genuinely impressed, though the competitive glint in her eyes didn't dim one bit. "Your turn."
Elphaba didn't need to review any documents.
"What is the article that establishes the redistribution of funds if the second fiscal cycle doesn't meet the expected growth indicators?"
Glinda smiled.
"Article 12. The fund is redistributed proportionally among areas with performance below 10%, prioritizing educational infrastructure. Obviously. Do you want something more difficult?"
"Color of the original envelope that contained Annex A?" Elphaba said with a raised eyebrow.
Glinda blinked... just once.
“Dark blue with a gold stripe. And the handwriting was awful.” Next: What’s the deadline for submitting preliminary reports?
“First Monday in September. But only if the committee approves the initial draft by July 20th. Which, by the way, almost never happens,” she added with a bitter smile.
“Ugh, I know,” Glinda retorted, rolling her eyes in annoyance and forgetting for a moment that they were still in war mode. But only for a moment.
“What’s the date assigned for the official presentation?” Elphaba exclaimed, almost screaming.
“MARCH 12TH, BITCH!” Glinda yelled, but in the midst of her verbal fury… she stopped, blinked, and slowly lowered a document. Her brow furrowed.
“Wait… wait a minute. This… this isn’t right.”
Elphaba stopped too, raising an eyebrow.
“What?”
Glinda held the paper in front of her and pointed to a line.
"It says here that the agreement is dated March 12th. But that's impossible. The meeting with the senator was on the 18th. The document was signed before the meeting."
Elphaba snatched the paper from his hands and examined it carefully. Then she pulled another sheet from the stack and compared it.
"And here... this completely contradicts what was supposedly discussed at the meeting. This paragraph talks about an investment in urban development, but the senator made it clear it was for energy infrastructure."
They both fell silent. Elphaba walked to her desk, took out her original folder, and began removing documents. Glinda did the same. Their looks were no longer defiant, now alarmed.
"There are... errors," Elphaba said softly, barely above a whisper.
Glinda didn't answer immediately. She just nodded, very slowly, her previous smile fading from her face like paint running on wet mascara.
They both looked at each other.
Elphaba was the first to say it.
"Someone... forged this document."
The two remained motionless for a few seconds, as if the weight of what they had discovered had just collapsed on their shoulders with the force of an iron hammer. The air between them became thick, charged with static electricity and bated breaths. The documents floated on the desk like dead leaves, witnesses to a truth as absurd as it was dangerous: someone had forged the agreement. And that error... that tiny weak spot they had just found... wasn't just a flaw. It was an opportunity.
Glinda was the first to speak, her voice low but suddenly lively, like someone finding a light in the middle of a maze:
"If... if someone reports this to Morrible first..."
Elphaba slowly turned her head toward her, instantly understanding.
"I'd win her favor," she murmured. "I could get out of this nightmare of night watches, get back to the important projects..."
"And the other one... is stuck here," Glinda concluded with a smile that felt sweet as poison.
The two of them stood still. Absolute, deadly silence. Like an Old West duel just before the shot.
And then, at the same time, they both looked toward the door... And they ran.
They shot out as if an invisible explosion had catapulted them, stumbling over chairs, scraping papers, and pushing each other with the clumsiness and chaos of two little girls fighting over the last piece of cake. The elegant poise of their heels echoed like gunshots in the empty Shiz.Corp hallway, but nothing mattered anymore: the war had begun.
"Move out, witch!" Glinda screamed, throwing her bag back like a projectile, forcing Elphaba to duck and dodge.
"Glitter manipulator!" Elphaba replied, pushing her shoulder past her.
The two of them turned the corner as if they were in an obstacle course, their heels slipping on the marble floor, their folders wobbling under their arms, strands of hair ruffling in their frenzy.
Finally, Glinda reached the door to Morrible's office. Her hand closed on the handle with the desperation of someone reaching the top… only to feel a sharp impact on her hip.
"Ugh!"
Elphaba had slammed her hip into the doorway with no shame or dignity, sending her slamming into the doorframe. Glinda screamed indignantly as she readjusted her blazer, her expression equal parts outraged and furious.
"All for the cause!" Elphaba huffed, panting as she turned the handle and yanked open the door.
Inside, Morrible's office was quiet, almost solemn. The hotline glittered on the desk like a forbidden jewel. Elphaba moved forward without hesitation... until something froze inside her.
She stopped. She swallowed. She looked at her hands.
The sheet of paper wasn't there...
She spun slowly around, and there was Glinda, standing in the doorway, panting with laughter, one hand braced against the wall and the other triumphantly raising the document with the error like it was the torch of Olympic victory.
"Are you looking for this?" she said in a sing-song voice, waving the sheet of paper like a mocking white flag.
Elphaba pursed her lips, her eyes turning to glowing coals.
"Give it here."
"Oh, right, now that you've pushed me like we're on a school bus," Glinda replied, pretending to think. "Hmm... No."
Elphaba lunged.
Literally. Like a bolt of black lightning, she launched herself at her, arms outstretched, as if her sole mission in life was to retrieve that piece of paper before Morrible knew anything. Glinda let out a high-pitched squeal as they both tumbled to the carpeted hallway floor in a sort of whirlwind of legs, heels, and high-pitched screams laced with sophisticated insults and elite sarcasm.
"Your elbow's in my hair, stupid!" Glinda yelled as she struggled to hold the paper up, pulling it away from Elphaba's desperate hands.
"Your existence is an insult to intelligence, Glinda! Give me that!" Elphaba snarled, gripping her arm tightly while reaching for the document with her other arm. They rolled once, twice, three times along the carpeted hallway, pushing each other as if they weren't two brilliant executives of a megacorporation, but teenage sisters fighting over the remote control.
Glinda screamed, shrieked, and kicked violently, her tight skirt impeding her freedom of movement and her designer blouse wrinkling with every clumsy push. Elphaba, on the other hand, fought with a more restrained, more focused, but equally desperate ferocity, as if her entire pride were at stake.
Through twists and struggles, and with a precision born of years of... well, certain unconventional hobbies, Elphaba managed to slip underneath Glinda, wrap her arms around her waist, and reach one of the desks. In a matter of seconds, and with a skill that would make a magician blush, she took a piece of elastic security tape, looped it around Glinda's wrists, and with a firm tug secured it to the metal handle of the furniture.
Glinda froze for a second, blinking as if she didn't understand what had happened. Then, of course, came the tantrum.
"What kind of crazy a-----?! That thing is leaving marks on me, Elphaba! MARK---!"
"Oh, for god's sake, shut up," Elphaba huffed, a mixture of exhaustion and irritation, and without thinking twice, she grabbed a clean rag from the desk—probably one they used to clean screens—and stuffed it firmly into her mouth.
Glinda squealed a muffled complaint, indignant like a princess trapped in an unglamorous fairy tale. Her eyes glared with fury, but Elphaba simply straightened her shirt, brushed the dust off her trousers, and took the damned paper with the same solemnity with which a general gathers the flag in the middle of an enemy camp.
"Thank you for your cooperation," she murmured with a half-smile. "Be sure not to move too much, you might mess up your hair."
And with that, without further ado, she ran down the hall.
Morrible's office was shrouded in elegant dimness, lit only by the twilight that filtered through the large windows. Elphaba pushed the door open forcefully, her ragged breathing echoing in the empty room. She walked over to the desk, placed the paper on the polished wood with reverential delicacy, as if she had just placed the Holy Grail, and reached for the direct dial telephone.
She took it. She smiled. And then…
…nothing.
The device was completely dead. No tone, no signal, no light on the screen. It was as if it were disconnected from the world, a useless ornament in the scenery of power.
She frowned. She hit the line button. She turned the device. And that's when she saw it.
The cable..... Unplugged.
Surprise spread across her face slowly, like a storm approaching slowly but surely. She blinked. She looked around. And then, the door creaked.
She spun around, just in time to see Glinda march in, unleashed and glorious in her fury, like an avenger in high heels. Her slightly tousled hair gave her the air of a diva tousled by chaos, and in one of her hands she held a roll of duct tape with a wicked gleam in her eye.
"Surprised?" she said liltingly, her tone dangerously cheerful. "Oh, Elphie, you forgot I'm not just a pretty face."
"You... you unplugged the phone!" Elphaba snarled, taking a step back.
"Of course you did. What did you think? That I'd just sit there tied up like a fool while you got all the glory?"
"This isn't about glory!" Elphaba roared.
"Then what is it about?" Glinda retorted, striding forward with the roll of tape raised like a knife. "Justice?" Redemption? Please don't insult me.
"I'm warning you, Glinda!" Elphaba said, raising her hands, as if that would stop her. "If you take one more step..."
"Are you going to quote another clause of the agreement?" Glinda replied with a mischievous smile.
And with a war cry—one more melodramatic than intimidating—she launched herself at Elphaba.
Minutes later, Morrible's office, that majestic and severe space with its dark bookshelves, designer carpet, and privileged view of the city, had been transformed into the scene of a painstaking, capricious... and completely unnecessary revenge.
Glinda, standing in front of her masterpiece, contemplated the result of her labor with her hands on her hips, a mixture of pride, triumph, and a hint of childish cruelty. Elphaba, completely tied to a swivel chair, her wrists crossed with packing tape and her torso held together with what looked like a spare tie, had her face covered in a combination of bright blush, fuchsia eyeshadow, and eyeliner that seemed designed specifically to ruin her soul. On top of it all, a bright pink lipstick added a final touch of utter humiliation.
"There you are, beautiful," Glinda said, gently turning her chair with a gleaming smile. "The Witch of the office ready for the after-party. And you didn't even thank me. How rude!"
Elphaba shot her looks that, if they could, would have reduced Glinda to ash. But gagged as she was, with a pink bow decorating her hair , all she could manage was a low, threatening growl.
Glinda cackled as if she'd just heard the best joke of the night. She walked gracefully to Morrible's desk, picked up the sacred blade—that mistake in the covenant, her key to redemption and her boss's absolute favor—and then, with her other hand, picked up the direct line receiver.
"Time to shine," she muttered dramatically, and dialed the number.
Elphaba jerked in her chair, her fierce gaze fixed on her, like a caged beast begging to be free, even for a second—just one—for revenge.
Glinda winked at her as the ringtone sounded, so self-assured she seemed to be starring in her own spy movie with blonde stilettos.
"Yes?" —answered a young, sleepy, and obviously listless voice on the other end of the line.
Glinda blinked.
—Oh, hi. This is Glinda Upland, with some crucial information for Morrible. It's urgent, having to do with the agreement with the senator, and…—
—Ah… uh… sorry, the voice interrupted, Ms. Morrible is at an important dinner with members of the board of directors. She can't attend.
—A dinner? At this hour? But it's vital! It's a corporate emergency!
—Yes, of course, I understand, the assistant said, her tone indicating she didn't understand at all. Let me see if I can interrupt you for a moment.
There was a moment's pause on the line. Then, a distant sound, as if the assistant were moving the receiver away to consult Morrible directly.
—Boss? It's Ms. Upland says she found a problem at the agree—
A voice was clearly heard in the background, authoritarian, dry, with no hint of patience:
"Glinda? The blonde from the night shift? For God's sake, not again! Tell her that if she really wants to be useful, she should finish what she was assigned and stop calling at this hour with nonsense. I don't have time for little princess tantrums!"
The line went silent for a few seconds. Then the assistant returned, uncomfortable:
"I'm... I'm sorry. The director can't see you tonight. Have a good evening."
Clack.
The call ended. The silence that followed was deathly.
Glinda froze, the receiver still pressed to her ear, her smile slowly crumbling like a cake left out in the sun.
The phone fell off the desk with a soft clack, rolling slowly to a stop at the edge of the carpet like a useless piece in a game no longer worth competing in. Glinda said nothing. She didn't protest, she didn't throw one of her melodramatic tantrums, she didn't even utter a muffled scream like she usually did when something didn't go as planned. She simply turned silently, walked slowly to the dark leather sofa in the corner of the office, and plopped down as if her body no longer had the will to hold itself up. She didn't even look in the direction of Elphaba, who was struggling with her knots and makeup with the expression of someone who had just emerged from a pointless battle. Elphaba, finally free, angrily ripped the remaining tape from her wrists, huffed, and wiped her face with the sleeve of her blouse as if she wanted to remove not only her makeup, but every trace of humiliation. Her gaze fell on Glinda. Something about her posture, her hunched shoulders and her hands crossed on her knees, struck her as odd. Unsettling, even. Glinda wasn't like that. She never gave up. She never stayed silent.
"Here..." Glinda murmured, without even looking at her, holding out the crumpled sheet of the agreement to her as if she were handing her a trophy she no longer wanted. "Go on. You call. I'm sure she'll answer you. She always does."
Elphaba took the paper, still panting slightly, her body tense. She walked purposefully toward the desk, with a kind of suppressed, triumphant rage. Finally! Finally, she would be acknowledged! Finally, the brilliant, meticulous, efficient Elphaba would have her moment of glory, and not that blonde with the squeaky voice and the plastic smile. But… she stopped. Right in front of the phone. With her hand still extended toward the receiver, Elphaba's gaze shifted, as if an invisible force were forcing her to turn her neck, and she looked back at Glinda.
The blonde remained on the couch, her head bowed, her eyes lost in a corner of the rug, as if the floor were confessing something terrible to her. Her makeup was slightly smudged around the edges, not from the sweat of the fight, but from something deeper. Something more broken.
Elphaba pressed her lips together. She felt it. That nagging, contradictory, uncomfortable feeling. It wasn't triumph. It wasn't relief. It was… something else. An unwanted pang that reminded her that not everything about her was steel. She approached Glinda cautiously, as if approaching a wounded creature that might bite her. "Hey," she said, her voice a little softer than she'd liked to admit. "It wasn't that bad... You don't have to give up on this."
Glinda barely turned her face, her eyes still lost somewhere on the carpet.
"Why not?" she replied with a bitter laugh, without raising her voice. "No matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I try... I always end up being the ridiculous blonde that no one takes seriously. And you know what? I'm tired. Tired of pretending not to notice. Of putting on this makeup like it's armor. Of smiling like it doesn't hurt to be ignored. Of competing with you like it means anything."
Elphaba stopped, not knowing what to say. She looked at her silently, her expression a mixture of surprise and... understanding. Or something too close to it.
And then, without another word, she walked to the corner of the office, to a low piece of furniture, the kind no one touches for fear it might be part of Morrible's sacred furniture. She surreptitiously opened it, reached inside... and when she straightened, she was holding a bottle.
A dark glass bottle, labeled with dusty gold lettering and a date neither Glinda nor Elphaba had been born to see.
"Is that what I think it is?" Glinda asked, sitting up, her body still heavy but her eyes slightly more lively.
"Collectible whiskey. Seventies. I saw it once when Morrible thought no one was looking. He kept it here like it was his ring of power." Elphaba shook it a little. "And yes, he'll probably condemn us to cleaning toilets for the rest of our careers if we even smell this... but honestly..."
She looked at Glinda and raised the bottle solemnly.
"...it's the least you owe us for making us come to this damn night shift."
For a moment, Glinda seemed to debate whether to yell at her, run away, or kiss her out of excitement. But instead of doing any of the three, she let out a short, free, almost childish laugh.
"You're a dangerous witch, you know that?" Glinda said between peals of laughter, while Elphaba searched for two crystal glasses with the same care one would use to handle a forbidden relic.
"So they say."
Elphaba poured two shots of whiskey into two crystal glasses. She approached the sofa and handed one to Glinda. She took it with a delicate gesture, still smiling, though somewhat shyly now.
The silence between the two became somewhat strange, but not uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence that settles when there's nothing urgent left to say, when the night stretches on calmly and the first sip begins to warm the chest. They both looked out the window, each immersed in her own whirlwind of thoughts, but for the first time... the mental chaos of one seemed to beat at the same rhythm as the other's. Neither spoke, but each was very aware of the other's presence, of the slight gestures, the touch of glasses as they moved, the sigh in the air.
It was Glinda who broke that silence with a question that tried to sound casual, but came out too forced, as if she'd been holding it in for days.
"So... you and Fiyero," she said, looking into her glass with a feignedly innocent smile, her eyes filled with curiosity disguised as indifference. "What's up whit that?"
Elphaba let out a short, muffled laugh, one of those that comes not from joy but from mock wonder.
"Does that still bother you?" she replied, turning her face slightly to look at her. "I thought you'd gotten over it."
"It doesn't!" Glinda replied instantly, her tone betraying itself. "Just... well, it intrigues me. I find it curious you didn't mention it before."
"I didn't hide it either," Elphaba murmured, before raising the glass to her lips.
Glinda, with a look of pleading that was half theatrical, half genuine, clasped her hands as if pleading for a story on the edge of a cliff.
"Please. Just a summary. I beg you, okay? Nothing long... but I need to know."
Elphaba sighed, closed her eyes for a second, and then, like someone choosing to trust the night, let the words come out slowly.
"We met before Shiz, long before," she began, her voice low, almost as if speaking to herself. "It was in college... He almost ran me over, actually. At first, we practically ignored each other; there was no reason to talk; we were from different worlds, but then he discovered a side of me that no one else knew about, and... I'm not judging me. I thought he would, but he didn't. And then... well, we shared a lot of things. The kind you can't explain without sounding corny."
Glinda didn't look away. She'd lowered her glass and wrapped her arms around her legs. She was so attentive that she didn't realize she was holding her breath.
"With Fiyero," Elphaba continued, "for the first time, I felt I could be myself without it being a problem. That I could express my thoughts, my quirks, my anger... and that I wouldn't be punished for it. That had never happened to me before."
There was a pause. A whisper of silence between them.
And then, almost without thinking, Glinda asked with that involuntary sincerity that sometimes escaped her when she stopped acting:
"And... do you feel that way about me too?"
Elphaba slowly turned her head toward her. The question hung on her face like an impossible-to-dodge mist. The words rose to her throat, but they stuck. Not out of pride, not out of annoyance... but out of fear. Because she didn't know. Because a part of her wanted it, sensed it, felt it throbbing in the depths of her chest every time Glinda spoke, laughed, complained, or challenged her. But the other part... the one trained not to trust, to protect herself from the world, to never let her guard down... that part didn't know how to answer.
"I..." she began, but stayed there. On the edge.
And Glinda, as if she understood—and in part she did—didn't press. She just nodded gently, with a half smile, and raised her glass again.
"Okay. You don't have to answer. Not now, anyway."
They poured another drink in silence, and this time they drank more slowly, the whiskey burning slowly and the ice melting between their fingers. And then, as if the conversation had opened a rift, they began to really talk.
"You know what the saddest thing is?" Glinda said, turning her glass in her hand, watching the amber swirl around itself. "Sometimes I feel like I don't even know if what I want is really what I want... or what other people expect me to want."
Elphaba stared at her. Something in her voice was no longer theatrical, melodramatic, or stage-queen. It was... something else. Rawer. More human.
"And what did they expect of you?" Elphaba asked in an odd tone, as if she didn't want to sound interested, but couldn't help it.
Glinda sighed, leaned back against the sofa, and for a moment she looked very, very small.
"To be perfect. Beautiful, brilliant, charming, desirable. Always having a smile, always the right dress, always the right word. My mother said the world opened up to women who knew how to play the game well. And my father…" her voice broke a little, but she recovered, "he really did always try to show me his support… but in our world it seems even that isn't enough."
Elphaba nodded slowly, looking down at her empty glass. She turned it once between her fingers before murmuring,
"And you thought I was the one carrying the burden."
"I thought so!" Glinda smiled sadly. "Sometimes I still think that. But now… I don't know. Maybe it wasn't so different, was it?"
"No," Elphaba replied in a soft voice that surprised even herself. "It isn't."
They poured themselves another drink. The whiskey no longer burned. They were no longer drinking to quell frustration or stifle competition. It was something else.
"And you?" Glinda asked, turning to look at her closely. "What did they expect of you?"
Elphaba hesitated for a moment. Then she laughed, humorlessly.
"That I wouldn't cause trouble. That I wouldn't make noise. That I wouldn't attract unnecessary attention. That I would be useful. Silent. Like another cog in the machine. And the worst part is... I tried. I really tried. But there was always something wrong. I was always too intense, too clever, too weird, too green."
Glinda looked at her sideways, a little sadly.
"They never told you they were proud of you, did they?"
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. The truth was so obvious it hurt even to say it.
"No," she said finally. "Not once."
Silence fell between them again. But it was different from before. Now it was a silence filled with shared understanding, as if the air had been charged with everything they'd said to each other.
"Do you know something?" Glinda said suddenly, with a half smile. "I spent years thinking that if someone found out I wasn't really perfect, everything would fall apart. That if for one second they didn't see me as the adorable, popular, charming girl… I would cease to exist."
"And nothing happened," Elphaba said with a faint smile. "You're just stuck in a bureaucratic office, on a night shift, with the antisocial witch you despised the most."
"Not the most," Glinda replied, raising an eyebrow. "Maybe the second most. Or third. Well… fifth at most."
Elphaba actually laughed this time. A dry, sharp sound, but real.
"And what did you want to be?" Glinda asked after a moment. "Really. Before all of this."
Elphaba thought for a moment.
"Someone who would change things. Who would leave the world a little less rotten than she found it. Who wouldn't have to ask permission to exist...... And you?"
"I just wanted to be heard," Glinda said, almost in a whisper. "That someone, for once, would truly listen to me without thinking about how I look or how nice I am."
"I'm listening to you now," Elphaba said, looking directly at her.
Glinda blinked. Her lips trembled slightly, as if she were going to say something else, but then she thought better of it. She just nodded, and lowered her gaze, a little embarrassed by how much that simple gesture meant.
"And you too," Elphaba added, her voice lower. "You're listening to me."
"I try," Glinda admitted. "I don't always understand everything you say, but... I care."
The two of them looked at each other, and for a moment there was no trace of the competition, the resentment, the cruel teasing. Just two women who had been carrying too much on their own for too long.
"You know," Glinda said, raising her glass, "maybe tonight wasn't completely horrible."
"Do you mean before or after you gagged me and tied me to a chair?" "Elphaba replied with a mischievous little smile.
"Both."
They both giggled, like guilty little girls in the middle of a prank.
"Promise me something," Glinda said suddenly, her tone more serious. "That if I ever... if I ever let all that stuff people expect of me control me again, you'll remind me. Remind me of who I really am when I'm not acting."
Elphaba looked at her for a long moment. Then, with a small smile, she nodded.
"And you promise me that if I ever shut down completely again... if I start hiding behind my anger, you'll make me talk."
"Done," Glinda said, and held out her hand.
Elphaba looked at it as if it were the most ridiculous thing in the world, but she extended hers anyway, and they sealed the pact with a shake. Long. Firm. Almost... too much.
"Good," Glinda said, looking down at the bottle. I think one more glass and I'll start reciting poetry or crying about my ex.
"Just one more glass for that?" Elphaba mocked.
"You're laughing so hard today! Are you sure you're not going soft?"
"Don't ruin it, blonde."
And amidst laughter, their confessions, and the warm buzz of the whiskey, the two continued talking. Because sometimes, on the most absurd nights, the most unexpected alliances are born.
Glinda jumped to her feet, the bottle almost rolling to the side of the sofa. Her face flushed with whiskey and a spark of madness in her eyes, she stood with her hands on her hips and declared, as if she were on a theater stage:
"The night is still young, Elphie! And if fate has condemned us to this hellish night shift... at least we can choose how to live out our sentence."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, half amused, half skeptical. "I thought we were already living it up 'existential conversations and stolen whiskey' style?"
"Please!" Glinda retorted with a dramatic snort. "That was the emotional interlude. Now the main show begins."
Without giving her any more time to protest, Glinda took her hand—a gesture so sudden that Elphaba barely had time to tense—and pulled her out of the office. The empty halls of the department seemed to come alive with their stifled laughter, bouncing off the silent walls like a prank the entire building was conspiring to keep secret.
The first act of their night of insurrection began in the copy room. Glinda, with a devilish smile and without the slightest sense of modesty, she climbed onto the desk, theatrically lifted her skirt, and plopped down on the glass of the machine.
"What the hell are you doing?" Elphaba exclaimed, half horrified and half fascinated.
"A classic," Glinda replied with the air of an expert. "If you've never photocopied your butt, you haven't lived. Do it for history!"
The machine emitted a long, drawn-out whir as it projected a bright light beneath Glinda, who burst out laughing at the image on paper: a perfectly abstract, ridiculous, and irreverent shadow.
"Look at that! It's modern art! I'll call it 'The Shadows of the Night Office'!"
"Gods of the North..." Elphaba murmured, but she was already laughing. In a way she couldn't remember laughing in a long, long time.
"Do you dare?" Glinda taunted, waving the paper in front of her.
And against all odds, Elphaba raised an eyebrow... and climbed on top too. Her gesture was clumsier, more tense, but she did it. And when the copy came out, Glinda mentally framed it.
"I will never let you destroy this," she told her with mock solemnity. "This is going straight onto my altar of iconic moments."
Afterward, back in the office, they pulled out the infamous contract with the senator that had been left for them as punishment. Glinda handed it out with the grace of a fortune teller preparing a ritual and said:
"I propose a new game: for each suspicious or potentially immoral clause, one point. Whoever accumulates the most... wins the right not to write the final report."
"Tempting," Elphaba replied, drawing her quill like a sword. "You're about to enter my territory, blonde."
And so they began to review the document line by line, unearthing shady favors, ambiguous wording, phrases used to hide negligence, and bureaucratic traps. Each discovery was celebrated with a symbolic toast and a laugh.
"This clause basically gives him the power to expropriate specific locations if he needs it for the company's 'strategic uses!'"
"My God! And look at this one!" They promise "citizen consultations," but there's no mention of delivering on their results!
The most unusual thing was that, while they were playing, they also finished the damn report. In their own way, between sarcasm and marginal notes, they had been more efficient than they had been in weeks.
Glinda, in her next burst of creativity, redirected the night: she unbuttoned her jacket, turned it into a cape, and declared it was time for a fashion show.
—Midnight shows. The official catwalk of doomed assistants.
Amidst piles of papers and dim lighting, Glinda improvised music with a pen tapping a box of paper clips. Elphaba, visibly embarrassed but no longer resisting, paraded with a folder under her arm like a designer handbag, while Glinda cheered her on as if she were in Paris. Then they reversed roles: Glinda paraded wearing Morrible glasses and an archival scarf wrapped like a turban, playing a character worthy of mockery. Elphaba couldn't contain herself and nearly choked with laughter.
And so, amid the chaos and unbridled creativity, the two ended up exhausted. They both lay on the carpet of their shared office, breathing heavily between dry giggles. Elphaba ran a hand over her forehead, still laughing silently, but with her gaze fixed on the ceiling. Glinda turned her head to look at her, and at that moment Elphaba let out a softer laugh, laced with something different.
"Gods..." she murmured, covering her eyes with her forearm. "I'm only now realizing that report we wrote isn't a report. It's a letter of complaint for corporate terrorism with an official heading."
Glinda burst out laughing and placed her hands on her stomach.
"Oh, absolutely!" she nodded, laughing. "They're going to fire us. No doubt about it. In a public ceremony. With banners and everything."
“And a band playing ‘Goodbye, Incompetents,’” Elphaba added wryly, before sighing. “Although… I don’t mind that much. If I’m honest… I always wanted to do something that would actually change things. Something real. That’s why I’m killing myself trying to move up in this damn career.”
Glinda fell silent, watching Elphaba fiddle with the pen cap.
“But with these systems…” Elphaba continued, her voice dropping a little, “unless I can one day stand face to face with Senator Zoroaster and tell him what I really think, I doubt anything will change. And that… well, that seems impossible.”
Glinda lowered her gaze, silently understanding. The dim lights overhead seemed to dance above them, like a distant comfort. A moment of truth amid the chaos and delirium.
Then, with a somewhat melancholic smile, Glinda took a lighter breath and said mischievously:
"What if we stop thinking about the immediate future of our ruined careers... and play something more fun?... Truth or Dare!"
Elphaba turned her head toward her, her face still lit by the glow of adrenaline.
"Are you still alive to play that?"
"I will be until Morrible fires me."
"Okay. True."
Glinda immediately turned over her shoulder, looking sideways at Elphaba.
"What was your first kiss?"
Elphaba gave her a cynical, mocking look. "Really? That level of cliché?"
"I need it. Give me something cheesy to sleep with," Glinda exclaimed, pouting like a puppy in the rain.
Elphaba rolled her eyes and let out a small, confessed laugh.
"A boy in the library. He asked me if I believed in love at first page. It was ridiculous... but sweet."
Glinda's jaw nearly hit the floor when she heard that.
"Did you like it?"
"For a few seconds. Then he ran off with the substitute librarian."
Glinda was hysterical and indignant at the same time.
"Damn! I love that story!"
Elphaba twirled slightly on the carpet, stretching her arms above her head. The hum of the fluorescent lights was barely audible amid the slow beats of the night, as if time had stopped in this office-turned-refuge.
"My turn," she said in a husky but mischievous voice. "Truth or dare, Glinda."
"Dare, of course!" Glinda replied without thinking, raising one hand in the air as if she were entering an Olympic competition.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Very well, Rainbow Princess..." She sat up slightly and smiled. I dare you to read aloud the cheesiest note you've ever written to an ex.
Glinda placed a hand over her heart as if she'd been stabbed.
"Cruel! Cruel and heartless!" But she was already crawling over to her purse, from where she pulled out her pink glitter planner. "I don't have cheesy notes... just... strategically designed romantic musings."
Elphaba giggled.
Glinda flipped through them with trembling fingers, found a page marked with a heart, took a deep breath, and read dramatically:
"Darling... I WILL NOT MENTION NAMES... every time you hold my hand, I feel like the universe is a cosmic choreography and I am the lead dancer in the show of your love."
Elphaba placed a hand over her mouth.
"Cosmic choreography?!"
"Shut up! I was 17 and in the metaphysical ballet phase!" "Glinda defended herself, covering her face with her diary as her laughter seeped through her fingers.
They both laughed until their stomachs hurt, and the game continued with more silliness and laughter, until...
"Your turn, Elphie. Dare. Come on, dare," Glinda demanded, the word trailing off like a forbidden chant.
Elphaba narrowed her eyes.
"You're going to regret this," she murmured with a hint of dry humor.
"I don't think so," Glinda said. She sat back on her legs, her back straight, her eyes shining despite her tiredness. "But... if I do it, I'll let you know."
Elphaba sighed, resigned.
"Fine. Dare."
Glinda swallowed. Her expression changed slightly, as if she were unsure of what she was going to say. But then, her voice quiet, laden with a strange mix of shame and determination, she murmured,
"Tie me up again... like you did before."
Elphaba froze. For a moment, all the air in the room seemed to still. The joking evaporated from their faces. They were no longer two girls laughing on an office floor. They were two people confronting something that had been brewing beneath the surface for much longer.
"That's what you like, isn't it?" Glinda asked, her voice low but clear, a sincerity that made her cheeks flush.
Elphaba looked away, uncomfortable for the first time in hours. Then she nodded, slightly.
"Yes... but... do you really want that?"
The question wasn't inquisitive. It was... protective. Almost vulnerable.
"Yes," Glinda said. Firmer than she expected. "I don't know why. I just... want to understand what it was that I felt. And I trust you."
Elphaba finally looked at her, and there was something different in her gaze. A deep respect. An admiration that went beyond desire. She sat up slowly, setting the empty bottle aside, and in a tone softer than any she'd used that night, she asked, "Do you trust me?"
Glinda looked her straight in the eye. "Yes. I do."
Elphaba nodded gravely. "Then choose a word."
"One word?"
"An easy word, one you'll always remember. It'll be your safe word. If something doesn't feel right, if you have doubts, if you want to stop... just say it. And I won't ask any questions. I'll stop immediately."
Glinda seemed to think about it for a second. Then she smiled tenderly. "Popular."
Elphaba couldn't help a short, incredulous laugh. "Really?"
"I always hear that word on my alarm clock, so I'll remember it. And it always makes me feel... good."
"Okay." "Popular," Elphaba repeated with a solemn nod, as if the word took on real power from that moment on.
She stood up and searched through the desk drawers. It didn't take long for her to find an old, navy blue, slightly frayed tie. She held it between her fingers as if it were a surgical instrument. When she turned to Glinda, she was no longer just a bored office worker dealing with a report. She moved with a different kind of concentration. Absolute respect.
Glinda knelt slowly, offering her hands back with measured movements, breathing deeper. Elphaba approached slowly, with careful steps, as if she didn't want to break the trust that floated so fragilely between them.
"I'm going to tie your wrists. Gently. If it feels too tight, just say 'Popular.' Okay?"
"Okay," Glinda whispered.
Elphaba placed the fabric against her skin with a delicacy Glinda hadn't expected. The tension wasn't painful. It was symbolic. A voluntary surrender of control. The way Elphaba tightened the knots, how she checked for harm, spoke more of care than play.
Elphaba felt her breathing quicken, her senses overwhelmed, every fiber of her being attentive to the woman before her. The game had begun as an innocent joke, a daring provocation in the midst of solitude, but now, with Glinda on her knees before her, her eyes shining with emotion and surrender, the atmosphere had changed completely.
Glinda didn't look away. There was no shame, only a genuine desire to please, to give herself to Elphaba not as an act of blind submission, but as a pure display of absolute trust.
Moved in a way she couldn't name, Elphaba leaned forward slowly, bending down to her level, her knees touching the carpet while her hands framed Glinda's face with unexpected tenderness. They gazed at each other like that, not speaking, just breathing the same air, sharing the same erratic heartbeat.
With a gentle tug on the knot, Elphaba brought Glinda's hands to hers, and they closed around Elphaba's wrists, trying to immobilize her between breathy laughs and sighs, while Elphaba, in response, pushed her down onto the carpeted office floor. Their bodies intertwined in new, deliciously awkward ways, their faces barely inches apart, their breaths mingling.
"What are you doing?" Elphaba murmured, her voice husky, her tone no longer carrying its usual harshness.
Glinda smiled, that dangerous smile that only appears when a momentous decision has already been made in silence.
"I don't know..." she whispered. "But I don't want to stop."
Elphaba looked at her, searching for any trace of doubt in her eyes, any sign to stop. She found none. Only desire. Only absolute trust. Only her.
She leaned in slowly, allowing Glinda to push her away if she wanted. But she didn't. Quite the opposite: it was Glinda who closed the last few inches between them, brushing her lips like a breath, barely a provocation.
Elphaba needed no more.
The kiss was clumsy at first, filled with the tension accumulated over all the hours, the days, the unspoken touches. Then, like a broken dam, everything flowed: their hands sought each other, explored each other. Glinda tangled her fingers in Elphaba's unruly hair, urgently drawing her in, while Elphaba ran her hands around Glinda's waist with trembling hands, as if discovering forbidden territory.
"People think the relationship between a dom and a sub is about control and submission... and, in part, it is. But the essential thing is trust. There is no greater commitment than entrusting your body, your fears, your pleasure, to another person. And there is no greater responsibility than holding everything in your hands without breaking it."
Elphaba lifted her easily and gently laid her on the floor, amid scattered folders and papers. The outside world ceased to exist. There were no reports or authorities. Only the touch of skin against skin, clothes being clumsily removed, amid muffled laughter and deeper sighs.
Glinda gasped slightly as she felt Elphaba's hands trace her curves with reverent adoration, as if she wanted to memorize every inch. Elphaba, for her part, was spellbound: every sound Glinda made, every shudder she provoked, was like fuel poured on a fire she had never imagined so ravenous.
And then, they began to undress. Slowly at first… And then not anymore.
It wasn't clumsiness now, but a ritual. Elphaba's hands unzipped Glinda's skirt with an almost reverent slowness, letting the garment slide off her legs like a sigh. Glinda, in turn, undid the buttons on Elphaba's blouse, one by one, her fingers trembling with suppressed emotion.
The skin was revealed like a secret, like a silent confession in the gloom.
Every caress was a question. Every kiss, an answer.
"That night, as Glinda knelt before me, and I knelt before her in return... I understood something I'd never felt with anyone else. It wasn't domination. It wasn't power. It was belonging. It was the mutual need to be seen, accepted, loved, even in our cracks."
Glinda let out a small moan when Elphaba brushed against a particularly sensitive spot, and she clutched at her shoulders, pulling her even closer, as if afraid the moment would unravel. Elphaba responded by burying her face in Glinda's neck, leaving a trail of soft kisses, savoring the taste of her skin.
They lost themselves in each other. Again and again. The pleasure was slow, cumulative, like waves crashing over each other, growing stronger, deeper, until there were no more barriers, no more games, no more pretenses. Until the desire in both of them erupted, Elphaba caressed and kissed every part of Glinda with passion, while she held onto her partner with great force as if she didn't want to let go.
With every kiss, touch, caress, and… movement of fingers, there was a moan that followed. It wasn't vulgar, nor sporadic… It was a confirmation, of a delight, of a passion… of a love.
And this moment was theirs alone.
"She needed to feel guided, protected. I needed to be needed. We complemented each other in such a perfect, cruelly beautiful way, that from that moment on, I knew that, no matter what happened, we would never be the same."
When the frenzy finally subsided, the office seemed suspended in a whisper of stillness…
The jumbled papers, the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the desk, the dim light from the hallway seeping under the door… everything seemed so distant, so insignificant compared to the small universe the two of them had created in that corner.
Glinda and Elphaba lay on the floor, almost naked, covered only by the unbuttoned shirts they had refused to fully remove, as if the touch of the fabric against their skin made the memory of what had just happened even more acute.
Elphaba, lying on her side, slid her fingers with unprecedented gentleness down Glinda's arm, tracing invisible shapes that seemed to both soothe and ignite the electricity between them. Glinda, her eyes half-closed, responded by stroking Elphaba's jaw with an almost reverential gentleness, as if she feared that once she stopped touching it, it would vanish like a mirage.
They didn't speak.
They didn't need words.
Their exhausted bodies, their even breathing, their hearts beating in sync, said it all.
Elphaba lowered her forehead to rest against Glinda's, and their noses touched in a gesture of pure, almost childlike affection. Glinda let out a small laugh, barely a sigh, and closed her eyes, smiling against Elphaba's lips.
The world, with all its cruelty, its broken ambitions, and its impossible expectations, could wait a little longer.
There, on that cold floor, they had found something they hadn't known they were looking for. A truce…. A home.
Minutes or maybe hours passed like this, tangled together, time not caring.
Until, breaking the silence with a soft, mischievous voice, Glinda asked,
"And you?" she whispered, her eyes sparkling like a curious child's. "What's your safe word?"
Elphaba opened her eyes, surprised by the question. She remained silent for a moment, thinking it over, as if she knew that answer would carry special weight.
And then, with a small, crooked smile, he whispered against Glinda's lips:
—Wicked…..
Notes:
If you made it to the end of this long chapter, my sincere congratulations and thanks. I truly hope you enjoyed it. I'm also sharing a beautiful fan art I saw online and that reminded me of this part of the story, and I took it as inspiration...
I'm sharing it with the artist's permission: @PotionMaster502
https://x.com/PotionMaster502/status/1914009798460453293
Chapter 5: YOU DESERVE EACH OTHER
Chapter Text
“Opening yourself up to another person is one of the bravest—and most dangerous—acts you can commit. There is no safety net, no guarantees; only blind faith that the other person won't let go when you're most vulnerable. Because that's what trust truly entails: betting everything you are in the hope that you won't be destroyed. Sometimes that faith is rewarded in ways you can't even explain. And other times… well, other times you learn the oldest and cruelest lesson of all: that even those you want to trust the most can be the first to betray you.
If anyone knew betrayals, broken expectations, and silent battles, it was my boss at the time. You've probably heard of her. Madame Morrible, CEO of Shiz.Corp. Her name still echoes in certain hallways as a warning, though almost never accompanied by fond memories.
Morrible's story is not, as some believe, that of a villain who always knew how to be one. It is, like almost all tragedies, the story of A girl who was never taught to be anything else.
The daughter of a high-ranking military officer and a mother who believed her only virtue should be obedience, Morrible was made clear from a very young age that her voice would not be appreciated. Every attempt to excel was crushed, every flash of ingenuity ignored or punished. She grew up in a home where intimidation was the currency, where authority was enforced through shouted orders and disapproving glares. So she learned something crucial: that if she wanted to be someone, she would have to tear it from the world with her own hands.
Despite family expectations pushing her to seek a husband of status and money, Morrible decided to do something radical: ignore them. She locked herself into her studies with relentless determination, refusing to follow the script written for her. She became a straight-A student, one of those people who not only knew the answers but understood the system well enough to question it. But, as is often the case, excellence guaranteed nothing. Her father, unable to accept that a daughter had higher aspirations than a convenient marriage, refused to pay for her college. The capricious and biased scholarships didn't fall her way. So Morrible did the only thing she knew how to do: fight. She rolled up her sleeves and took any job she could find, no matter how humiliating or exhausting, until she scraped together every penny necessary to pay for her education. Every early morning, every extra shift, every swallowed scorn was another stone in the edifice of her resentment... and her strength.
Finally, she graduated with honors in Economics, understanding something her father had never understood: modern battles weren't fought with rifles, but with contracts and balance sheets. If power lay in signatures, then she would sign her own destiny.
But even then, reality soon hit her. The jobs she got were mediocre, not for lack of talent, but because there was always someone else's "son of a bitch" to promote ahead of her. Her career seemed destined to languish in dark corridors while others, more awkward but better connected, rose. And when her savings dried up and options seemed to close, Morrible did what she had always done: she didn't give up.
Shiz.Corp was, at the time, a failing corporation, barely surviving. They offered one last chance: five interns vying for a real position among the middle managers. Morrible harbored no illusions; she knew that big names always outweighed effort. But this time, she promised herself, she wouldn't take second place.
She attacked first. She studied her competitors, found their weaknesses, and exploited them without remorse. If one was late, she made sure her superiors noticed. If another was sloppy with the data, she corrected them in public. Every small advantage was another brick on the ladder she was building to the top.
And yet, a week before the final decision, Morrible knew she could lose. She knew she could do everything right and still be invisible. That night, in a shabby bar, while filling out forms that someone else should have completed, she heard a clumsy, pretentious voice attempting a political speech from a small stage. He was a clown, a failure foretold. At first, like everyone else, Morrible scoffed. But when she listened closely, something in his delusions caught her attention. Not his ideas—which were few and bad—but his desperate need to be taken seriously.
She didn't believe in him. But she did believe in what she could do with him.
She bought him a drink. They sat down. They talked. And between empty promises and fake laughter, they forged an agreement: they would help each other. She would propel him to places he'd never go alone, and in return, when he arrived, he would make sure she had a reserved seat in the shadow of power.
Three days later, Shiz.Corp received a surprise audit. Many executives fell from grace. Only two people emerged stronger: the failed politician, whose name appeared in every newspaper overnight as the champion against corruption, and Morrible, whose swift action saved the company from the most serious consequences. From then on, Morrible's career was a meteoric rise. From a dark cubicle to the penthouse overlooking the city, always accompanied by that old acquaintance in the highest political circles. Shiz.Corp took her over, transforming it into a titan of power and resources. And Morrible, the once invisible girl, was now untouchable.
Today she rules her empire with an iron fist, without apologies or remorse. No one taught her compassion. No one rewarded her for being fair. So she learned to be strong. To be ruthless. To crush before being crushed.
And woe to those idiots who try to stand in her way... Can you guess their names?”
CHAPTER 5: You deserve each other
A pair of hazel eyes opened with difficulty, blinking against the dim light that filtered into the room, as if the entire universe had held back to allow that moment to exist. Glinda blinked, confused at first, until an unusual peace enveloped her as she realized the warmth surrounding her, the comforting weight of another body entwined with her own. She was in Elphaba's arms, their bodies warm, naked, barely covered by shreds of wrinkled clothing, breathing in unison on the office carpet. For a perfect instant, everything ceased to matter: not the schedules, not the risks, not the world out there. There were only the two of them, an improbable unity woven in silence.
Glinda closed her eyes again, allowing herself to float in that silent bliss, imprinting it on her mind with despair, like someone who fears that a dream too beautiful will vanish with the first blink. But life, impatient and cruel, demanded her attention with a cramping pull that ran through her wrists. She sat up slowly, amidst moans of protest from her aching muscles, feeling the mess that was her body. She stretched as best she could, untying some knots, as a flickering light caught her attention in the corner of the room.
She dragged herself to the still-on computer, the screen shining like a beacon. The document they had both drafted during the night was still open, the words dancing before her tired eyes. She smiled, remembering the laughter, the arguments, the frantic impulse that had driven them to write, to talk, to... love each other. But then, like an icy bolt of lightning, a new idea struck her. And she hated herself for thinking it…
Elphaba stirred beside her, muttering something unintelligible before snapping her eyes open, instantly panicking as Glinda began to shake her urgently. "Get up, Elphaba, it's almost time! The relief will be here any moment!" she whispered with suppressed fury.
It took Elphaba a second to understand, but when she did, she jumped as if she'd been electrocuted. She looked around, taking in the mess: scattered clothes, the whiskey bottle, the papers... the chaos! They couldn't be discovered like this; it was unthinkable; it would be her downfall.
"What happened to Morrible's whiskey?" she snapped as she picked up a shirt from the floor.
"I already filled it with water! It's back in its place!" Glinda retorted, clumsily buttoning her blouse inside out before cursing and starting over.
Elphaba fumbled for her skirt while her other hand tied her hair back into a messy bun. Glinda threw an item of clothing at her from across the office, nearly hitting her in the face.
"There are your stockings, quick!" "And the report? The document?"
"All closed and put away! Focus!"
They ran around the office, stumbling over each other, panting, cursing under their breath as they tried to compose themselves. Elphaba tugged at her skirt as she shoved her still-untied shoes into her shoes; Glinda tried to tame her golden hair with her hands, her skirt getting caught in her torn stocking. The scene bordered on the absurd: two elegant figures transformed into a desperate parody.
When they finally staggered out into the hallway, the metallic sound of the elevator brought them to a screeching halt. They exchanged a horrified glance: relief personnel were seconds away. At top speed, Elphaba ran a hand over her face, trying to erase any trace of what had happened, while Glinda dusted her blouse as if that would be enough to erase the night from its wrinkles.
The elevator door opened with a mechanical sigh. On the other side, several employees looked at them: fresh, flawless faces, laden with folders and coffees. Elphaba, icy as an actress on stage, forced a serene smile, slightly inclining her head in greeting. Glinda, at her side, imitated the gesture with nervous grace.
"Good evening," Elphaba greeted, her voice dangerously controlled.
"Excellent shift!" Glinda added, almost in a cheerful squeal that convinced no one. They slipped into the elevator, pressing the down button as if their lives depended on it. As the doors slowly closed, they both kept their smiles frozen, greeting each other with a small wave until, finally, they were alone.
But when the elevator stopped on the ground floor with a metallic whisper, and when the doors slid open, Glinda and Elphaba stepped out together, walking side by side, erect as statues. Every muscle in their tense bodies maintained a perfect performance, a mask of serenity that contrasted starkly with the turmoil they felt inside. They feigned calm, indifference, as if they didn't carry with them the weight of the most unlikely, most beautiful, and most feared night of their lives. They crossed the spacious lobby, greeting the few employees on duty with brief nods, as if it were all part of their routine, as if their hearts weren't about to burst. When the heavy glass doors closed behind them and they were finally left in the cold early morning air, it was as if an invisible cord had been cut. They both let out a sigh almost in unison, long and shaky, as if releasing all the oxygen they'd been holding in for hours. They looked at each other, their faces lit only by the lamps on the deserted street, and then, without being able to stop themselves, they burst into laughter.
They laughed like little girls, they laughed like crazy, they laughed until their stomachs hurt and tears streamed down their cheeks. They laughed because it was the only way they couldn't break down, because they couldn't believe what had just happened, because the entire evening—the report, the whiskey, the madness, the love—was a chain of glorious absurdities. It was madness, yes... and they loved it.
The laughter gradually faded, turning into trembling smiles and shining gazes. And then, inevitably, the question arose between them, hanging in the air, palpable like a mist neither dared to cross. "What now?" They didn't say it aloud at first; they didn't need to. They both felt it echoing in the space between them. What would happen next? How would they move forward after having crossed a line that could not be retraced? Was this the beginning of something new or just a single moment, doomed to fade with the dawn?
Glinda lowered her gaze, playing with her own hands before, timidly, daring to break the silence.
"Will I... will I see you again?" she asked in a trembling whisper.
And, as if fearing the answer, she immediately added, her voice even lower:
"I mean this part of you... will we ever be together again... like this?"
Elphaba felt panic creeping up her throat, choking and cruel. Never in her life had she felt so afraid as in that moment. Words choked on her, thoughts ran circles in her mind, colliding with each other without forming a coherent response. Her eyes glazed over, her breath labored, she barely managed to utter, "I don't know."
The raw sincerity of her words hung in the air, almost painful. Glinda, instead of crumbling, smiled. It was a small, almost imperceptible smile, like a flower sprouting between the cracks in the asphalt. She nodded silently, accepting the uncertainty, understanding that, perhaps, some things simply couldn't be forced.
They said goodbye with a final glance filled with things left unsaid. Glinda turned, starting down the sidewalk, her small figure receding in the pale light of the streetlamps. Elphaba watched her go, each step taking her a little further away from everything she didn't dare ask for.
But then, when Glinda had barely moved a few feet, she stopped. She turned slowly, her golden hair catching a flash of light. Elphaba felt her heart stop.
"Can I change my answer?" she asked, her voice barely a thread.
And before Elphaba could form a coherent thought, before reason or fear could intervene, Glinda ran to her… And kissed her.
But this kiss was like no other. It wasn't the impulse of a desperate night nor the overflowing passion of a stolen moment. It was a gentle kiss, laden with silent promises, tremors and certainties that needed no words. It was a commitment, a seed planted in fertile soil, a pact sealed in the cold breeze of early morning.
When they finally separated, they gazed into each other's eyes for a long second, as if etching each other in memory. Then, with a warm smile, they each went their separate ways. Glinda, radiant as a star, walked to her car, looking back at Elphaba one last time before disappearing behind the wheel.
Elphaba remained still, feeling the emptiness his absence left like a sweet pang in her chest. Just as she was about to turn and leave, something in the air stopped her. She reached out a hand to the sky, surprised to see small white flakes gently drifting down, like silent blessings.
It was starting to snow.
And, for the first time in a long time, Elphaba greeted tomorrow with a smile.
A few hours later, the sun was beginning to rise lazily behind the city buildings, tinting the sky a pale, faded gray. It was a typical early winter morning, when the light seems to filter barely, warm and weak, over the still half-asleep streets. The previous night's snowfall had been light, barely a touch of white on the rooftops and roadsides, but the chill in the air, sharp and firm, announced that winter was here to stay. In the middle of the park, among the paths lined with bare trees, Fiyero ran. His silhouette, wrapped in dark workout clothes and a hood that barely revealed his face, moved with disciplined efficiency. His strides were long and regular, the steam from his breath forming small clouds in front of him, and the rhythm of his heartbeat in time with the tapping of his sneakers against the icy asphalt. It was his sacred routine: every morning, regardless of the weather, he went for a run to clear his mind and keep his body agile.
He didn't expect anything—or rather, someone—to break that serenity.
"Fiyeroooo!" a high-pitched voice shouted, brimming with energy.
Before he could even turn his head, a figure burst from the side of the path and, with a clumsy, reckless leap, landed almost on top of him. Fiyero barely had time to dodge it, his instincts keeping him moving while his mind processed the scene.
"Glinda?" he asked, bewildered, without pausing his trot.
Beside him, trotting in the most uncoordinated way possible, was indeed Glinda. She was wearing a tracksuit that, while intended to be functional, looked more like something from a runway than an athletic catalog: sparkly pastel leggings, a fitted jacket with gold accents, and a sequined headband holding up her perfectly styled hair. Fiyero could barely hide a smile of disbelief as he watched her huffing and puffing and stumbling to keep up.
"Damn... Were you raised by gazelles? I've been trying to catch up with you for half an hour." Glinda, panting as if she'd run a full marathon, seemed to have been chasing him for quite some time without success. Still, her determination was evident. "I need to talk to you!" she said between gulps of air, struggling to keep up.
Fiyero raised an eyebrow, not slowing down.
"About what?" —she asked, already suspecting the answer.
Glinda tilted her head with a nervous smile, trying to cast an unnecessary veil of mystery.
"Oh, you know... things... life... important and fortuitous events..."
Fiyero glanced at her, unconvinced. Knowing her as he did, and knowing which two people she'd left together in that office the night before, he didn't need to be a genius to guess what it was about.
"Glinda," he said patiently. "Is this about Elphaba?"
Glinda stumbled slightly, then let out a defeated huff. She looked down, her hands clenched in a nervous gesture. Finally, unable to pretend any longer, she blurted out in a single rushed breath, "Yes, yes, it's about Elphaba. Something happened! Something... important."
Fiyero, maintaining his trot, waited. But when Glinda didn't continue, he tilted his head with a wry smile.
"So?"
Glinda grimaced, as if each word were a confession forced out of her.
"We... last night..." she inhaled deeply, "we were together... Elphaba and I."
Fiyero stopped dead in his tracks, as if struck by lightning. His breathing, until then controlled, abruptly stopped, and the inertia almost made him take a false step. He turned to look at her, his eyes wide, his mouth parted in an expression of utter disbelief.
"What...?" he stammered, as if he needed time to process it.
Glinda, now still as well, hugged herself to protect herself from the cold... and perhaps also from the magnitude of what she had just admitted. Her cheeks were flushed, not only from the physical exertion, but also from the emotion and shame boiling inside her.
Immediately, as if the words were spilling out of her mouth uncontrollably, Glinda began to ramble. She spoke rapidly, mixing excuses, irrelevant details, justifications that she didn't seem to believe herself, babbling like a teenager caught in the middle of a prank and now trying to explain the inexplicable to her parents. She waved her hands frantically, gesticulating exaggeratedly, while Fiyero, still shocked, he looked at her with a mixture of bewilderment and resignation.
"It wasn't planned!" Glinda said, her cheeks flushed, her voice on the verge of hysteria. "I mean, yes, there was... tension... but it's not like we'd... well, planned anything. It happened! It was a very... emotional, very intense situation, and there were reports, and pressure, and everything got out of hand, and... and Morrible's whiskey didn't help much either!"
Fiyero raised a hand, asking for silence, though it was more out of mercy than because he really needed to hear more. He understood perfectly what had happened—in fact, he'd seen it coming for a long time—but seeing her in that state of nerves was as strange as it was amusing.
It was then, with all the calm he could muster, that he asked the first logical question of that entire absurd morning:
"Why are you telling me?" Glinda blinked, as if she'd just realized that she was indeed confessing all this to Fiyero in the middle of a half-empty park, out in the open and freezing to death. She opened her mouth once, twice, three times, as if searching for an intelligent comeback, but all she managed to come up with were clumsy excuses.
"Because... you're my friend... and... well, I thought you should know... and, besides, you were also Elphaba's friend... and... and maybe you could give me some advice... or... or..."
Finally, she lowered her head, surrendering to the simplest and most brutal truth:
"Because I needed to tell someone, or I was going to explode," she confessed in a whisper. Then, barely raising her gaze, she added timidly, "And you're the only one who... sort of... knows what's going on between us."
Fiyero let out a short, resigned sigh and nodded. Yes, he'd noticed something. He wasn't blind. It was obvious there was something between Glinda and Elphaba, a strange tension that went beyond friendship and beyond any rivalry. However, what he hadn't imagined was that the connection had become so... definitive.
"I knew there was something between you two," he admitted, crossing his arms as he adjusted the hood over his perspiration-damp hair. "But I didn't think it was... this big."
Glinda let out a strangled moan and hugged herself as if she wanted to disappear into her own shiny workout clothes. For a moment, they both stood there in silence, only the cold wind whispering around them. Until Fiyero noticed something on her face: it wasn't just embarrassment... it was downright panic.
He frowned.
"What's wrong?" he asked, confused. "It's not like this is your first relationship, is it?"
Glinda squirmed uncomfortably on her own feet, kicking an invisible pebble on the ground.
"No..." he admitted in a barely audible voice. "But it is the first time..." He stopped, swallowed, and confessed with an expression of anguish so sincere it was almost tender. "It's the first time they haven't called me the next morning."
Fiyero looked at her, at first not fully understanding. Then, as the words made their way to his brain, his eyes widened in disbelief... and he burst into laughter.
A deep, uncontrolled laugh that escaped his chest like a torrent, as he brought one hand to his stomach and the other to his forehead, as if the situation were too much to process. Glinda, red as a tomato, tried unsuccessfully to silence him, stretching out her arms to give him weak, almost childish slaps.
"Fiyero, please!" she begged, biting her lip in sheer embarrassment. "Don't laugh, this is serious! I need help!" But her plea only fueled Fiyero's laughter, as he could barely stand.
"Oh, dear, Glinda!" he gasped between giggles. "You... you of all people! The queen of triumphant farewells, the sentimental PR expert... caught without an etiquette manual!"
Glinda covered her face with her hands, wanting to disappear.
"I don't know what to do now!" she moaned, her voice trembling. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say... or expect... or not do..."
Fiyero finally managed to calm himself, wiping away a tear of laughter that rolled down his cheek. His smile, though still mocking, softened a little at the sight of her so helpless. With a sigh, he walked over and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Calm down, Glinda," he said. "If there's one thing I've learned from Elphaba..." He paused, smiling sideways. "It's that with her, things are never, ever that simple or obvious."
Glinda lowered her hands, looking at him as if this were the worst—and at the same time most comforting—truth she had ever heard.
"So... what do I do?" she asked in a whisper.
Fiyero smiled softly.
"Be yourself. And let her be herself. The rest... you'll figure out together."
Glinda returned a warm smile, a simple but effective way of showing her gratitude, but, though she didn't say it, that wasn't the only thing tormenting her mind. The usual din of ideas, plans, and banal worries quieted for the first time in a long time, giving way to a much more intimate thought.
Elphaba... had done more than just kiss her.
Last night, amid all the chaos of emotions and unspoken confessions, Elphaba had helped her discover a side of herself that Glinda had always kept hidden, even from her own reflection. A vulnerable, fearful, but also powerful side. It wasn't simply the physical act; it was the quiet trust, the freedom to be imperfect, to be real, to be herself without masks.
Glinda had never felt so... alive.
She smiled, biting her lip sweetly, a twinge of nervousness tingling with her. She wanted to thank him. Not just with words, not with a superficial gesture or a random gift. She wanted to do something meaningful, something that would show how much she'd changed. But at the same time, fear gnawed at her. What if Elphaba didn't agree? What if she ruined everything they'd built on that magical night?
The idea, crazy and dangerous, had already germinated in her mind. And although everything in her screamed that it was a terrible idea... there was an even stronger part that told her she had to do it. Because some things simply deserved to be said... or shown.
Meanwhile, in another part of the city, she had just woken up one day covered in a thin veil of gray clouds.
Elphaba crossed the lobby of her building, absorbed in her bag as she fumbled for her key card. She paused briefly in front of the gleaming metal elevator door, and her reflection surprised her.
She looked herself up and down.
Her clothes were... different from usual. Less rigid, less formal. The black sweater was tight without being provocative, the modern-cut pants discreetly enhanced her figure, and—almost unintentionally—her hair, loose and combed with intentional carelessness, had a... daring air. She blushed slightly, a shy smile lighting her face as she thought about the cause of this small transformation.
The elevator door opened with a sharp click, and Elphaba stepped inside. Inside, Crope held two steaming coffees while Tibbett, leaning against the wall, looked at his phone with an expression of extreme concentration, as if the device held the secret to life.
"Good morning," Elphaba greeted discreetly, immediately turning to look at the button panel, as if it didn't exist.
However, her presence didn't go unnoticed.
Tibbett looked up, and upon recognizing her, his eyebrows immediately rose. He began gossiping quietly with Crope, who was trying to restrain him, like a parent who knows their child is about to put a foot in it. The discussion, though whispered, wasn't exactly subtle.
Elphaba let out an exasperated sigh, not turning around.
"What's wrong?" she asked, not needing to look at them to know they were watching her.
Crope let out a defeated groan, as if he'd lost a battle he didn't even want to fight.
"Last night..." he began heavily. "We heard you came in very late."
Tibbett, unable to stop himself, added, "And smiling a lot."
Elphaba tensed, her shoulders rising almost imperceptibly. She turned to face them, her expression carefully neutral.
"I went out to work the night shift at the company, just me... and a colleague," she said, using her "official" voice, the same one she used to defend impossible projects in front of the university council.
However, her words faltered, stumbling awkwardly in the air when she mentioned Glinda's name. And in that moment, Tibbett, who knew her only too well, had a devastating revelation.
Her eyes widened.
"Your hair!" she exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at her while Crope giggled incredulously. "It's different! You styled it so flirtatiously! You never do that!"
Elphaba, panicking, instinctively slammed her hands into her hair, as if she could undo it with a simple gesture. She shook her head vehemently, stammering meaningless excuses:
"It's not... It wasn't on purpose! I just... couldn't find my hat! And then the wind...!"
But it was useless. The truth, that truth that not even she had fully accepted out loud, had uncovered itself like an unstoppable wave.
Crope, amused but also with genuine tenderness, spoke up.
"Elphaba..." he said, smiling sideways. "Are you dressing up for someone?"
The question hung in the air, suspended between the three of them like a time bomb.
And Elphaba, who could defend impossible theses, who could face multitudes with just a glance, found herself unable to lie.
Her cheeks turned a darker green, her eyes lowered to the floor, and in a nearly inaudible whisper, she admitted:
"Maybe."
The elevator continued to rise in silence, while Crope and Tibbett exchanged triumphant and utterly satisfied smiles, like two parents who had just found their daughter in love for the first time.
The awkward calm in the elevator lasted only a few seconds.
Suddenly, as if a dam had burst, Crope and Tibbett unleashed a veritable storm of questions.
"Since when?"
"What's her name?"
"Where did they go?"
"Did they say nice things to each other?"
"Did they hold hands?" Tibbett exclaimed theatrically, as if it were the most important moment in the world.
"Did they look into each other's eyes for more than three seconds? More than five?" Crope added gravely, as if that confirmed a lifelong commitment.
Elphaba's eyes widened, trapped between the two of them, her brain completely unable to keep up with the barrage of questions. Her face felt like it was on fire. She had never wanted to disappear so much.
In a desperate attempt to escape, she began frantically pressing the button for the top floor, as if she could summon salvation by pressing it again and again.
"Go, go, go, go!" —she muttered under her breath, while Crope and Tibbett continued their relentless interrogation.
—Did they say "I love you"?
—Are they already planning to move in together?
—What are you going to call her? Girlfriend? Partner? My glorious Queen of the Universe?
DING!
The elevator door finally opened, releasing her.
Without waiting another second, Elphaba practically shot to her penthouse, ignoring Crope and Tibbett's voices shouting behind her:
—We want details, young lady!
—We want photos, proof, and everything!
Elphaba slammed the door to her apartment, leaning against it as she tried to catch her breath.
For a few seconds, only her labored breathing could be heard.
Finally, a light, nervous laugh escaped her lips.
It was ridiculous, childish, outrageous... and yet, a part of her—a part she normally kept under lock and key—felt ridiculously happy.
She sank slowly against the door, hugging her knees.
And with a trembling smile she couldn't and wouldn't suppress, she murmured to herself, "What are you doing to me, Glinda...?"
Finally, Elphaba entered her home and sank onto the plush sofa, letting out a sigh that seemed to drain every last shred of pent-up tension from her. She could still hear the storm of Crope and Tibbett's incessant questions in her head, like a distant echo.
Now, finally safe within the walls of her sanctuary, she tried to regain her composure. She took a deep breath. Once, twice, three times. Then, like a teenager caught between excitement and panic, she pulled out her phone.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she unlocked the screen. Almost without thinking, she opened Glinda's profile. Her photos shone on the screen like tiny flashes of sunlight: radiant smiles, playful poses, moments of absolute, spontaneous beauty. Elphaba couldn't help but smile as she looked at them, her heart pounding with a mixture of nervousness and tenderness.
But just as she was about to text him—when she had even half-written "Hello"—something caught her eye.
Her laptop was still on, its screen glowing softly in the corner of the room. And on it, like a ghostly reminder, was the report file. The report.
Elphaba sat up slowly, approaching as if facing a silent enemy. She studied every word she and Glinda had painstakingly written the night before: every complaint, every accusation, every piece of evidence gathered against the injustices and corruption they had encountered.
Her stomach lurched.
She remembered the laughter they shared as they wrote it, the moment when, amid knowing glances and sarcastic remarks, they realized they were doing something dangerous. Something real.
And she also remembered the cruel consequence of it all: if she filed that report, it would likely be the end of her at the company. Her career, her stability... everything was at stake.
She looked at her phone again. Glinda's profile was still there, illuminating her screen like a distant promise.
For the first time in her life, there was something—someone—more important to her than her job. Not out of dependency, not out of weakness... but because she wanted it to be.
She wanted a future where she wouldn't have to choose between being true to herself and being happy.
With a resolve forged in the fire of her indomitable soul, Elphaba straightened. She walked to the printer, plugged in her computer, and, without hesitation, began printing each page of the report.
The pages came out one by one, the mechanical sound filling the department like a war drum.
When she finished, she calmly stacked the pages, carefully smoothed them with the palm of her hand, and smiled with a determination that was almost frightening.
If she was going to fall, she thought, it would be on her own terms. And this time, for the first time... she wouldn't be alone.
Hours later, Elphaba strode firmly through the Shiz.Corp lobby, the folder tucked under her right arm like a battle banner. She wore a dark, perfectly tailored suit, simple but with sharp lines that highlighted her presence as an impossible figure to ignore. Each footstep echoed on the marble floor like a drumbeat marking the arrival of change. People turned to look at her, some with curiosity, others with fear, and still others—those who truly understood what was brewing—with quiet respect.
But Elphaba saw none of that. Her mind was an arrow fired toward a single goal: to deliver the report. To finish what she had started. To put an end to a rotten system, even if it cost her everything.
Well, almost all of her mind was there. A small, untamed, and increasingly insistent part wondered where Glinda was. They hadn't been able to speak since the brief, vibrant exchange of messages that early morning, and although she knew this mission was important, a part of her longed to see her, to tell her what she was going to do, to share that last spark of courage together.
She felt movement behind her, a quickened footstep, and a familiar presence. She turned around, her heart pounding, expecting to find Glinda's golden hair and unmistakable smile... but she only saw Boq.
Boq, nervous as ever, almost tripped in his haste to catch up with her. He clutched a folder identical to hers to his chest like a shield. His tie was slightly askew, his shoes freshly polished, and his glasses were sliding down the bridge of his nose.
"Elphaba!" he exclaimed, a little louder than appropriate in that solemn hallway. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. "Good morning... uh, how was the... night shift? For you... and Glinda."
The mention of Glinda sent an involuntary tingle through Elphaba, but she forced herself to maintain her composure. Her lips curved into a small, sincere smile. It was rare for Boq to ask something with genuine concern, and even rarer for her to feel inclined to answer.
"Let's just say it was... a defining night," she said, choosing her words carefully.
Boq nodded, not entirely understanding, but with that silent loyalty he'd always shown, that desire to be of use in some way, even if he didn't always know how. Seeing him there, Elphaba felt an unexpected impulse: she had to do something for him. If she was going to fall today, if everything was going to fall apart for her, she wanted to make sure someone else could rise from the ashes.
She leaned slightly toward him, lowering her voice in a conspiratorial confidence that seemed to break all the unwritten rules of their distant relationship.
"Boq... listen. Soon things are going to change here. Very soon," she said, her eyes glowing with a dangerous mix of warning and hope. "And when it happens, I want you to be ready. It's no longer time to stay in anyone's shadow. When the opportunity comes... fight for it. For everything you want to achieve. Don't let anyone tell you you can't."
Boq blinked, confused. Elphaba wasn't one for motivational speeches, much less for giving anyone hope. Slowly, as if the pieces of a puzzle were fitting together in his mind, he understood that she wasn't just talking about a promotion or a change of office. It was something bigger. Something imminent. Something that could change the fate of everyone who worked there.
He smiled. For the first time in a long time, he truly smiled.
"Thank you, Elphaba," he said, and although his voice was barely a whisper, it was filled with an unexpected determination.
Before he could add anything else, a mechanical, ceremonious sound broke the tension: the door to the conference room slowly opened. A breath of cold, artificial air escaped through the gap. The administrative assistant's metallic voice announced:
"The meeting is about to begin."
Without hesitation, without looking back, Elphaba squared her shoulders, clutched the folder to her side, and moved forward...
When Elphaba crossed the threshold of the meeting room, the tension in her chest was like a string stretched taut to the breaking point. She had prepared herself for a brutal confrontation, for disapproval, for threats, and shouting. But not for this.
A burst of applause engulfed her like a dull thud. The sound echoed off the glass walls, rattling in her bones. Morrible, radiant as a carnival hostess, she rose from her seat at the back of the room and, with a big smile that failed to hide the false warmth in her eyes, extended her arms toward her as if welcoming a hero.
"Elphaba, darling! How wonderful to have you here!" she exclaimed, her voice so cloying it was almost offensive. "Your report was absolutely brilliant! Invaluable work for the future of our company and the senator!"
Elphaba froze in the doorway. Her muscles refused to move, her mind slow to process what she was seeing. The executives at the long marble table, some of the same ones who wouldn't have hesitated to fire her weeks ago, applauded her enthusiastically. Smiles, nods, even the occasional admiring glance.
No. It couldn't be.
She tried to open her mouth to speak, but Morrible didn't give her the chance. He took a few steps forward, with that meandering gait that always concealed a lurking ambush behind every cordial gesture.
"I've already sent the report to the senator," she announced pompously. "And he's delighted. Delighted! In fact, he's already begun implementing the suggestions you proposed. Everything is going perfectly, thanks to you!"
Elphaba could barely breathe. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.
She forced herself to take a step toward the table. Her desperate eyes took in the papers everyone was holding. Without asking permission—or even really seeing it—she snatched a copy from an executive's hands and, trembling, began to read.
Every word felt like a slap.
This wasn't the report she and Glinda had written, the document that exposed the corruption, that exposed the irregularities, that demonstrated how the agreement with the senator was riddled with fraud and hidden damage. No. This was... an insult. A ridiculous little pamphlet of clumsy flattery, of hypocritical suggestions on how to modify the shadier aspects of the agreement to make it look like honest profits. It was, indeed, help to keep things as they were, but in an even more covert way. Complicity disguised as reform.
Elphaba felt her stomach sink into an icy pit. Her heart pounded wildly in her ears.
"What is this...?" she muttered, barely able to make a sound.
Morrible, charmed by her willful blindness, she gave a light laugh, as if Elphaba were simply modest.
"Oh, don't be humble, my dear! I got the mail this morning. A file sent by you two!" she said, waving her hands in a grandiloquent gesture. "You and Miss Upland did exactly what we needed!"
Elphaba, on an act of pure instinct, turned around. And then she saw her.
Behind her, standing by the door, was Glinda. Radiant, flawless as ever. But her posture was rigid, and on her face—normally so radiant with confidence and charm—was a barely contained expression of guilt. Her eyes searched Elphaba's with wordless desperation, trying to convey a silent apology, an invisible justification that Elphaba couldn't—wouldn't—understand.
Elphaba felt as if something inside her had cracked, a dull, definitive sound.
It wasn't rage she felt first. It was betrayal. A deep wound that didn't bleed, but that left her soul trembling. She had trusted her. She had believed that, for once, she wasn't alone against the world. That she had found someone capable of fighting by her side, of seeing the truth and choosing it, no matter the cost.
But no.
Glinda had chosen the easy way out. Acceptance. Applause. Fear disguised as pragmatism.
And she had done it in her name.
She had betrayed not only the cause... but also Elphaba herself.
Elphaba didn't move a muscle. Her face showed no expression. She just slowly lowered the mutilated report, as if it weighed tons, and let her arm fall to her side. The room was still applauding, smiling, cheering for the unwitting heroine who couldn't find air to breathe.
In front of her, Glinda took a step forward, her hand trembling slightly as if she wanted to reach out, explain, apologize. But Elphaba didn't move. Not an inch. Her gaze was icy. Not of hate, not of anger. Of utter disappointment. Of a pain that needed no words to be understood.
Elphaba could barely feel her legs as she moved forward blindly, pushing through doors, dodging hands seeking congratulations, ignoring the murmurs of astonishment she left in her wake. The conference room dissolved behind her in a deafening echo of fake applause and hollow smiles. Her heart was beating so hard she felt the pulse in her temples, each beat hitting her like a cracked bell about to shatter.
She didn't know how far she ran, or how she managed to reach the far side of the Shiz.Corp offices. Only when her forehead thumped heavily against the cold glass of one of the enormous windows did she stop. She stayed there, leaning back, breathing in ragged gasps, her gaze lost in the city horizon that stretched indifferently beyond the morning mist.
The lights of the skyscrapers seemed to flicker mockingly, as if reminding her of her insignificance, her defeat.
Everything she had dreamed of, everything she had wanted to say to Glinda, the words she had rehearsed to confess her feelings, her fears, her faith... now fluttered in her mind like ashes from something that had burned too quickly and left only soot.
Was this all a mockery?
Had it all been just a game for Glinda? A strategy? A mask of affection to get her exactly where she wanted and then plunge the knife into her back?
Elphaba closed her eyes, fighting the pain, when she heard the voice she most wanted and most feared to hear at that moment.
"Elphaba..." Glinda whispered, almost as if she were speaking a sacred and forbidden word.
Elphaba didn't move. She didn't need to turn around. Every fiber of her being recognized that voice, that suppressed trembling, that barely concealed guilt.
But she didn't want to see her. She couldn't. Not now.
"No," Elphaba growled, her voice dry and cracking. "I don't want to see you."
The silence that followed was almost unbearable. Then, Glinda's guilty murmur filled the empty space between them.
"Please... let me explain..." she pleaded, her tone brittle, shaky, like glass about to break.
Elphaba bolted upright, turning her head slightly to glare at the window, not looking directly at her.
"Explain to me? Explain to me what, Glinda? How you used me like a fool? How you trampled on everything I believed in to get your damn applause?" Her voice rose in pitch, spilling over like a broken dam. "How were you smiling at me while you were planning this?"
Glinda took a desperate step forward.
"It's not like that! It wasn't like that!"
"It wasn't like that?!" Elphaba finally whirled around, her green eyes blazing with fury and betrayal. "Then what was it, Glinda?! Tell me! Convince me that I wasn't a complete idiot for trusting you! For... for feeling... for believing that you..."
She choked. She couldn't finish the sentence. She couldn't utter what truly hurt more than everything else.
Glinda, her eyes glassy, raised her hands in a gesture of supplication, of defeat.
"I did it for you!"
Elphaba froze, as if those words were a physical blow that knocked the wind out of her.
Rage sizzled, confused, inside her. The need to understand warred with the pain burning in her throat.
"What...?" she managed, her voice barely audible.
Glinda took a deep breath, searching for strength somewhere within herself before she began to speak.
"Last night..." she began, her voice breaking. "You said it yourself. You said nothing would truly change unless someone could stand up to the senator. That words on paper weren't enough! That we needed more!"
Elphaba frowned, vaguely remembering her own words, spoken in private, between sighs of hope and resignation.
Glinda continued, approaching with hesitant steps.
"This... this report, this stupid summary I sent, changes nothing. It's not important. It was just a tool. Something to open a door. The senator will see us... will see you... and you can talk to him. You can put him up against the wall, tell him everything we truly learned." Her blue eyes shone with unshed tears. "It was our best chance, Elphaba. It was the only way."
Elphaba stared at her, her lips pursed, her hands trembling at her sides. Every word from Glinda was like a spark falling into her already fractured core. Part of her wanted to believe it. Part of her desperately wanted to believe it hadn't all been a cynical betrayal.
But the wound was there, raw and brutal.
"Our chance?" she spat out bitterly. "And you decided you could take it alone? Without me? Using me? Lying in my name? Betraying who we are?"
"I didn't want to betray you!" Glinda moaned, taking a step closer, holding out a trembling hand. "I wanted to protect you! I wanted you to have a real chance, not just... not just this pointless rage at the world!"
Elphaba took a step back, shaking her head, as if trying to clear a nightmare.
"I didn't need you to protect me," she whispered bitterly. I just needed you by my side.
Silence fell between them like a final judgment.
And though Glinda continued to reach out for her, Elphaba didn't take it.
Instead, Elphaba let out a sigh not only of exhaustion, but of something deeper, more dangerous.
For an eternal second, as Glinda stood there, her eyes pleading for the forgiveness she didn't know she deserved, a part of Elphaba stirred.
A part she had always carefully restrained, like a beast on a leash. A part very few knew about… and that only Glinda had truly seen.
The side of her that didn't hesitate. The side that knew exactly what to do with a submissive who had disobeyed. The side that, with a single word, could reduce Glinda to what she had secretly learned to be with her: obedient, trembling, ready to redeem herself by kneeling at her feet.
Because yes, a part of Elphaba wanted to reprimand her, to subdue her, to punish her not only for what she had done, but for how she had done it. She wanted to see her right there, humiliated, acknowledging that her betrayal deserved a lesson. She could feel it in her stomach, in the tension in her hands, in that lightning bolt of power pulsing behind her eyes.
But no… Not like this… Not now.
That side of her—the one that controlled, guided, and corrected with unquestionable authority—could not be swept away by anger. Never out of revenge. Never as impulsive punishment.
She couldn't allow her role as dom to dominate her. Because then that part of her would cease to be a game and would become simple cruelty and abuse toward someone who trusted her even though she should… And Elphaba wouldn't allow that…
Elphaba's mind was in chaos, but she remained serious; she didn't say a word.
There was so much in her that she wanted to believe Glinda. She wanted to be convinced, to cling to that explanation, to that spark that still burned between them. She wanted to feel again what she'd felt for her just an hour ago: that fierce admiration, that silent affection, that unspoken promise that, together, they could change something.
But another part of her, an older, deeper part, more hardened by accumulated disappointments and broken promises, couldn't. Not yet. Not after seeing her name used as a banner for something she would never have approved of. Not after feeling that stab in her chest while everyone applauded what they believed she had done.
"I'm sorry... I have too much on my mind right now..."
Without another word, Elphaba turned on her heel, her lips pursed and her eyes dry from sheer stubbornness, and walked away. Her green silhouette melted into the reflections of the glass and the cold walls of the hallway. Glinda didn't stop her. She couldn't. He just watched her leave, anguish tightening in his chest, his hands trembling as if he'd just dropped a fragile treasure that now lay in pieces.
He wanted to go after her, to explain further, to tell her what he hadn't had time to articulate...
But he didn't get far. He barely turned when, like hyenas sniffing at prey, Pfannee and Shenshen appeared, hovering around him with smiles too wide and eyes flashing with venom.
"Glinda darling!" Pfannee crooned, taking her arm with false tenderness. "What a brilliant move! Simply brilliant."
"We were so impressed," Shenshen added, tilting her head like a well-trained puppet. "Who knew you had such a political edge hidden beneath all that... sweetness!"
"How did you do it? How did you get Morrible to listen to you?" Pfannee prompted. "And what about Elphaba?" Was it part of the plan from the start, or just a useful accident?
The words hit her with a cruel echo.
"Useful accident?"
"Brilliant move?"
Glinda felt the walls close in. She couldn't breathe. Every fake smile, every compliment laced with venom, reminded her of the worst version of herself. The one she was beginning to fear was the real her.
"Oh, sorry, girls," she faked a smile. "I have to... see someone."
And before they could stop her, she turned on her heel and walked down another hallway, narrower, emptier. She climbed the stairs without thinking, just wanting to get away from it all, until the emergency doors at the end opened and the wind greeted her like an icy slap.
The roof.
There, alone, surrounded by antennas, cables, and the distant hum of the city, Glinda hugged herself and looked at the horizon. The sky, gray and still, seemed to reflect her own state. The entire city glowed like a model, alive and distant. Down below, Shiz.Corp continued with its noise, its politics, and its monsters disguised as executives.
And she... she was there, questioning every step.
Had she really done it for Elphaba?
Or had she just done what she always did, what she was good at: surviving, pleasing, standing out, even if it meant sacrificing something—or someone—along the way?
The tears wouldn't come. Not yet. She was too stunned by herself to cry.
"Cupcake?"
Glinda turned in surprise, and there was... Boq.
The little assistant was there, with his shy smile and a napkin in his hand. On it, a blueberry muffin, probably taken from the buffet they'd set up to celebrate the "triumph."
"I thought maybe you hadn't eaten anything," he said gently, handing it to her.
Glinda looked at it for a moment. That tenderness, so simple, so genuine, so... agenda-free, disarmed her inside.
She took the pastry and smiled at him, with a tiredness she didn't bother to hide.
"Thank you, Boq."
The pastry trembled slightly in Glinda's fingers, as if reflecting the fragility of her inner moment. She continued to stare into space with lost eyes, the cloudy sky reflecting the opaqueness of her thoughts. Beside her, Boq shifted nervously, swallowing hard, his hands clenched on his knees. Finally, he took a breath and spoke, in that soft, measured voice he rarely used for anything important.
"I'm so sorry about what happened with Elphaba," he began, without looking directly at her. "I know that... well, I know it can't have been easy. But you'll be okay. You always are." You are... strong. Brilliant. I've always thought so.
Glinda closed her eyes for a moment. She appreciated the attempt, she really did. Boq was sweet, in his way. Harmless. But now she couldn't handle anything else, not even well-intentioned words. Still, with an effort, she mustered a tired half-smile.
She blinked, a little surprised, a little spent. She turned her face slightly toward him and managed a weak, forced smile.
"Thank you, Boq. I appreciate you trying to cheer me up, I really do, but... I'm not in the mood for sweet talk today." He raised the pastry ironically, then lowered his hand. "I feel like the only thing that truly mattered to me... the only thing that felt real... is falling apart."
There was a brief silence, and then, as if he'd been preparing his whole life for this moment, Boq spoke with a firmness that surprised even himself:
"Glinda... I love you."
The sentence fell like a bucket of ice water. Glinda froze, the pastry stopped halfway to her mouth, her wide eyes fixed on him. Had she heard correctly? Had that just happened?
"What the...?" she stammered.
"I've always loved you," Boq said quickly, his voice growing increasingly choked with urgency and the panic that was rising in him at her reaction. "Since the first day I saw you in Shiz. You were... you are everything I ever dreamed of. And I know you're hurting now, and that it's not the best time, but Elphaba told me to fight for what I want, and I thought maybe... if you knew how I felt, you could..."
"Boq, no," she interrupted awkwardly, holding up a hand. "No, please. This is... this is too much. Not now. Not... never, really."
But Boq didn't stop. The courage that had driven him to confess his love transformed into pure desperation. He took a step closer, his eyes shining with a mixture of hope and stubbornness.
"Why not?" he insisted. "I could take care of you, Glinda. It would be different. We'd be a great team, you and me. I wouldn't make you suffer like the others. Think about it: you and me, together. What happened today doesn't have to be the end, it can be a new beginning..."
She stepped back a little, almost tripping over the edge of the roof. She searched for a way out, an excuse, something to make him stop. But nothing seemed to work. Boq was blinded by his own impulse, by years of accumulated silences that were now all coming out at once.
"Boq, you don't understand," he said finally, his voice cracking with anguish and exhaustion. "It's not just that I can't... or won't... it's that there's someone else."
And there, for a second, the silence was absolute. Even the wind seemed to fall silent.
Boq's eyes widened. The color drained from his face.
"Fiyero?" he said with a mixture of disbelief and revulsion. "That idiot in every magazine? He saw you get into his car the other day when you were out. Is he stalking you? That's it, isn't it?"
Glinda blinked, confused.
"Fiyero? No... it's not—"
But Boq didn't let her finish. Rage surged across his face. He took a step closer, his voice thick with jealousy and frustration.
"He doesn't deserve you, Glinda! He has no idea who you really are. He just fanatics around like a fanatic! He probably doesn't even know how to take you seriously! Can't you see that you... you're worth more than that?"
Glinda closed her eyes. She was trembling. This was too much. First Elphaba, now Boq... everything felt like a spiral of personal chaos, a twisted caricature of affection.
"Boq," he said finally, with a harshness he rarely used. "He's not Fiyero. He never was Fiyero. And I can't do this now. I need to be alone. Please."
He stood there, mute, his mouth half-open, as if trying to find some word to reverse what he'd said. But he couldn't find it.
And Glinda, still holding the pastry—now completely crumbled under the pressure of her fingers—turned and walked toward the roof door. She closed it behind her without looking back.
At the top of the building, Boq was left alone, the wind rustling his jacket and the bitter taste of a late confession… and anger burning in his chest.
Meanwhile, just a few floors below, Elphaba paced her office like a shadow, busily gathering her things whit rapid, automatic movements. She wasn't thinking clearly—she couldn't. Her entire body seemed to respond to a single need: to get away from there. Her mind was a storm of conflicting emotions: anger, sadness, betrayal, confusion, understanding… and even, cruelly, love.
She stopped in front of the elevator and pressed the button with unnecessary force, her fingers clenched around her folder. That's when she felt it. The presence. A familiar scent, a towering figure at her side. She didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
"Ah, Miss Thropp!" Madame Morrible exclaimed, with a charming smile and a falsely maternal tone. "Just the person I was hoping to find." She placed a light hand on Elphaba's arm. "I want to congratulate you again, sincerely. The report you and Miss Upland submitted was simply... masterful."
Elphaba nodded stiffly, not returning the smile.
"Thank you," she replied coldly.
"Oh, don't be modest," Morrible insisted. "The senator was delighted. He read it twice, can you believe it?" She laughed briefly. "He told me it was exactly what he needed to finally push the bill through."
Elphaba pressed her lips together. The words were like nails.
"I'm glad you found it useful," she murmured.
"Although, of course," Morrible continued lightly, "I can't help but wonder. That style... that clarity, that coherent argument... It's so you, Elphaba. And, well, we all know Glinda has other talents. More social than strategic, let's say."
Elphaba slowly turned her head toward her.
"What are you insinuating?"
Morrible raised an eyebrow and gave a smile laden with hidden venom.
"Nothing, my dear." It's just that some people shine for what they think, and others... for knowing who to take their picture with. Although sometimes those people know how to move well, don't you think? They put their name where it belongs. They hang on to those who do the real work.
The words stabbed into Elphaba like a dagger, and for a second, she felt she couldn't breathe. Was that what everyone thought? That Glinda was taking advantage of her? Using their relationship—whatever it had been—as a stepping stone?
But then… Morrible made a mistake.
"Don't get me wrong," she continued with an icy smile. "You and I both know Glinda is lovely, sure, but she's not on the same level as women like you. Or me."
That was when something exploded inside Elphaba.
With a deliberate turn, she faced Morrible fully. Her eyes were cold, but they blazed with a suppressed fury. Her voice was low, precise, and sharper than any shout.
"With all due respect, Madame Morrible... you're mistaken."
Morrible's smile faltered, barely for an instant.
"Excuse me?"
"Glinda doesn't need to take advantage of anyone to shine. She has a light of her own. She makes mistakes—many—but she's not an opportunist. And some of her actions I still don't understand, not yet. But I know who she is. And you clearly don't."
A tense silence fell between them. Morrible regarded her with the same smile, though now her eyes no longer shone with false sweetness, but with a hint of cold assessment.
Finally, she nodded slowly.
"Interesting," she murmured. "I love seeing women stand up for each other. Although, of course, it's not always worth it. But anyway... The Senator was so impressed with you, he extended a special invitation to his annual Christmas gala."
Elphaba frowned, puzzled.
"Both of us?"
"Yes." She wants to meet the authors of such a brilliant report." Morrible tilted her head. "I think it will be an... illuminating evening."
The elevator doors opened. Elphaba stepped in without another word, but as the doors closed, her mind was sharper than ever.
Morrible was no fool. Nor was the senator. And this gala... wasn't a celebration. It was both a test and an opportunity... And Elphaba wouldn't waste either...
But as the elevator descended, Elphaba felt the adrenaline of her small rebellion ebb and the pressure in her chest become unbearable. The confrontation with Morrible replayed in her mind like a constant echo: his defiant tone, his staunch defense of Glinda... Why had she done it? For a woman who had betrayed her? A woman she'd argued with loudly, accused, turned her back on?
And yet…
That same woman had given her the most honest, most human, and sweetest night she'd experienced in a long time.
Elphaba clenched her fists. Her thoughts betrayed her relentlessly. Every image of Glinda she'd tried to bury returned with a vengeance: her nervous laughter, her shining eyes as she spoke passionately about what she believed was right, her trembling voice as she begged him to listen. The rage she felt… was dissolving, dissolving into something deeper, sadder, more real.
She wasn't angry with Glinda. Or rather… she didn't want to be.
For the first time in her life, a betrayal didn't feel like a complete breakdown. She wanted to understand. She wanted to believe her. She wanted to see her again, hold her, tell her that… that they would try again. That maybe together they could find a way to mend what was broken.
The elevator doors opened. And without thinking, Elphaba took off.
She ran through the lobby, almost tripping over a decorative plant, and arrived at the reception desk.
"Glinda!" she asked, with an urgency in her voice that the receptionist hadn't expected. "Did you see her? Did she leave yet?"
The young man, surprised, nodded.
"Yes… yes, she left a while ago. She seemed… in a hurry."
Elphaba took a step back, her heart now pounding in her temples. Where had she gone? Home? With Fiyero? Was she okay?
And then, a pang of doubt. Of fear.
Was she running away from her?
Meanwhile...
Glinda drove with a tense face, pursed lips, and dark glasses that barely hid her eyes, red from crying. She didn't know what she was feeling; she only knew she didn't want to be there. Not in the city, not in that building, not near Boq, or Pfannee, or Shenshen. And much less Morrible.
The city lay behind her like a gray blur in the rearview mirror.
She gripped the steering wheel tightly, feeling her nail polish chip against the leather.
She drove until she reached the gated communities on the outskirts. Wide, quiet streets with perfectly trimmed trees and guards who needed only to see her to open the automatic gates.
She drove until her car stopped in front of the imposing Upland mansion.
A cold, white palace with bay windows that looked more like museum display cases than a home. Elphaba would hate this place, she thought immediately. So perfect, so empty.
Glinda stopped her car in front of the stately golden gates of the estate. She pressed the intercom button and waited.
"Who is it?" an elderly voice inquired, rough as the bark of an old tree.
Glinda closed her eyes for a second. She recognized her. Of course she did.
"It's me... Mrs. Clutch," she replied, making an effort to keep her voice steady.
"Me?" The gardener? The girl with the gluten-free bread?
"Glinda," she said more firmly.
"Glinda who?"
Glinda pursed her lips, holding back an outburst.
"Galinda Arduenna Upland."
"What did you say, dear?"
Glinda gripped the steering wheel tightly.
"GALINDA ARDUENNA UPLAND! THE DAUGHTER OF THE HOUSE! WHOSE DIAPERS YOU CHANGED!" THE ONE WHO GAVE YOU A SILVER BRACELET FOR YOUR EIGHTY BIRTHDAY!
There was a pause. Then, quite normally, the voice returned:
"Oh, yes. Welcome, my dear."
The gates opened with a slow creak, as if even the metal refused to let her in without resistance. Glinda sighed and walked up the immaculately polished stone driveway that led to the mansion's main entrance.
She parked the car in front of the large carved wooden double doors. No sooner had she gotten out than Mrs. Clutch was already there, waiting in her pale gray dress and white bow, exactly as she remembered her as a child, like an old household ghost who refused to go away.
"Well," the old woman murmured, narrowing her eyes, "you're... you're taller, my dear, aren't you?"
"I've been the same height since I was seventeen," Glinda replied without pausing.
"Yes?" Well, maybe it's just that you're thinner. Or maybe it's those clothes. They hang on you like a hospital sheet.
Glinda just pursed her lips and kept walking, going deeper into the house without looking back.
The air inside was colder than she remembered, though it had always been that way. Or maybe she just noticed it more now. Each step led her through hallways adorned with family history: framed portraits, display cases of awards, Chinese vases no one remembered buying. A museum of other people's achievements, coated in the frost of perfection.
"She's in the main hall," Mrs. Clutch called from behind her. "Ordering a new Rothbart. Whatever that is."
Glinda nodded to herself, resigned. She didn't need to see her mother to know what face she'd wear when she saw her.
The main hall was a riot of icy elegance. Red velvet curtains fell from the soaring ceilings, a large bay window illuminated the room with stark white light, and in the center, surrounded by two nervous staff members, stood Larena Upland.
Dressed in white like a priestess of good taste, with her hair perfectly lacquered and a glass of champagne in her hand, Glinda's mother gave instructions as if conducting a porcelain symphony.
"No, no, no," she said sharply. "More to the left. My left. The balance of color needs to converse with the marble fireplace, not shout at it."
Glinda stopped a few feet away. She took a deep breath, as if preparing for combat.
"Mother."
Larena turned with the slowness of someone who doesn't allow herself to be interrupted, assessing her daughter with a clinical eye, as if trying to discover which part of her had failed.
"You're too thin," she said without preamble.
Glinda raised an eyebrow.
"Hello to you too."
Larena approached with an elegant and studied gait, more theatrical than maternal.
"Are you eating well? I can tell from your face that you haven't slept." That blouse... they hang on you like a hanger. And those sunglasses... Are you coming from a party or a clinic?
"I came because I needed a place to think," Glinda said, fighting the urge to flee.
Larena tilted her head, watching her as if she'd just mentioned an abstract concept.
"Thinking. Interesting. You always said thinking gave you migraines."
"I've changed."
"Again?"
Glinda ignored the provocation. The glass in her mother's hand clinked softly as Larena turned back to the painting.
"If you came for money, we can talk about it," she continued, without looking at her. "But if you came for the drama... you'll have to wait. I have a meeting with the foundation at five."
"That's not why I came. I didn't come for anything. I just needed... a place to remind me of who I was. Or at least who I was, before..."
She didn't finish. The words caught on the edge of her lips. Elphaba's name caught in her throat, along with everything she hadn't dared say to her.
For a moment, the silence between them was almost intimate. Almost.
Larena looked at her. Her eyes narrowed as if trying to decipher a dead language.
"Then if you don't want anything," she said finally, returning her gaze to the painting, "go up to your room. And be careful not to touch anything valuable on the way."
Glinda was about to explode. They'd been there for five minutes—maybe less—and she already felt the pressure rising in her chest like toxic gas seeking a crack to escape. If her mother said one more thing about her weight, her clothes, or her life, the explosion would be imminent. Her jaw was already clenched, her brow furrowed, her expression frozen. She was about to respond, to utter a stinging phrase that she knew would be repeated guiltily in her head for days afterward… when a different, warm voice sounded from the top of the stairs.
"Is that my golden girl who barged in unannounced?"
Glinda looked up and saw him there: coming down the stairs with a youthful enthusiasm that his years couldn't dim, was her father, Highmuster Upland. Tall, wearing a casual suit, with his white hair perfectly slicked back and reading glasses dangling from his neck, he was smiling as if he'd just received the best gift of the week.
"Popsicle!" Glinda exclaimed, the hardness in his body melting immediately.
She ran to him and, without thinking, wrapped him in a tight hug. The kind of hug she didn't give anywhere else in the world, or to anyone else. Only with him. Highmuster put both arms around her, stroking her back with a tenderness he'd learned over the years, because in his youth, it hadn't been like that either. Life—and probably Larena—had softened him.
"Look what the wind brought," he said, stepping back a little to get a better look at her. "You look beautiful, my dear. Although... I don't know if you're a little taller."
Glinda laughed, shaking her head.
"Don't you start it too."
"Too? Who was it?" he asked, as if the answer weren't obvious.
"Who else?" she replied, casting a sidelong glance toward her mother.
Larena, who hadn't fully turned around yet, raised her voice with the same authority a general might call for artillery fire.
"Highmuster, please. Come closer. I want your opinion on the Rothbart."
Highmuster winked at his daughter with an air of resignation and went over to where his wife was looking at the painting.
"What do you think?" Larena asked, crossing her arms. "It's a collector's item. There are only five in the world."
Highmuster studied her for a moment. Then at the painting. It was… definitely a painting. An explosion of abstract brushstrokes, smears suggesting some unintelligible emotion, and a gilt frame that probably cost more than Glinda's car.
"Well… it's certainly… bold," he said finally, frowning with an intellectual effort.
"'Bold.' Way to dodge an opinion," Larena commented dryly. "But I suppose not everyone can have an eye for art."
"That's why I married you, my dear," he replied with a smile. "To compensate for my cultural shortcomings."
Larena snorted, but the retort didn't come. Sometimes even she knew when to give up a battle for family peace.
"So tell me, Glinda," he said, turning back to his daughter. "Are you staying for dinner? Clutch can make those gnocchi you loved so much as a child!"
Glinda hesitated. She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could utter a sound, her mother's voice cut through.
"Of course she's staying," Larena declared without even looking at her. "She can barely stand. She's starving."
"Mother, I don't..."
"Clutch," Larena called, her voice penetrating walls. "Make dinner. Something nutritious. Not some of that bland, salty, modern nonsense. This child needs real food, and she needs it badly."
"Like you're going to cook it?" Glinda murmured through gritted teeth.
"Did you say something, dear?"
"Only that I'm starving," Glinda replied with a fake smile, while Highmuster looked at her with sympathetic eyes, as if he knew exactly what she was feeling.
And he did. Because he was the only one who, despite everything, still saw beyond the hairdo, the designer shoes, the rehearsed smile. I knew that when Glinda came home, something in her world was about to shatter.
And maybe... it already had.
Dinner passed in a strangely peaceful atmosphere, a silent truce sealed by the taste of the food and the warmth of a well-told family story. Highmuster Upland, holding a glass of red wine and sporting his signature smile, was recounting one of his now famous—and probably untrue—hunting anecdotes.
"And then, just when I thought the boar had circled me, I slipped in the mud and fell backward... but instead of running, the beast stopped in front of me, sniffed me... and licked my face like I was a dog!"
Glinda burst out laughing, genuine, her mouth still half-full of the gnocchi Mrs. Clutch had prepared with surprising skill for her age. She dabbed the corner of her lips with her linen napkin, smiling sweetly at her father. For a moment, she felt like a child again, sharing the family table, listening to the same old stories but with the comforting security that their exaggerations provided.
Larena, sitting poised across the table, crossed her arms and openly rolled her eyes.
"You should have been a novelist, Highmuster," she commented coldly. "Too bad you chose finance."
"And I did well!" he said theatrically. "Enough for you to collect meaningless paintings and for our daughter to eat Clutch gnocchi with silverware."
Larena faked a smile.
"I can't argue with that."
Silence returned for a moment, broken only by the sound of cutlery and the faint crackle of the distant fireplace. Until Larena, with her usual surgical precision, aimed for the center of her daughter's soul.
"And you, Glinda? How's everything going in your life?"
The question fell like a stone in a pond. Glinda, who had been about to shove another bite into her mouth, slowly lowered her fork and stared down at her plate.
"Good," she replied after a brief silence. "Work's still going strong, lots of meetings. Shiz.Corp keeps growing. I'm working on some new projects. Some charity work. Pilates. Stuff like that."
Highmuster nodded enthusiastically.
"That sounds amazing, Glinda." I'm proud to know you're leaving your mark. Your projects always have a touch... of yours. They shine. Are you still working with that girl you mentioned on your last call? What was her name...
"Elphaba," Larena interrupted in a dry voice, without even looking at her husband. "That green girl."
"Elphaba." The name was like a pinch in Glinda's chest, unexpected and full of vertigo. But she let it pass, and forced a smile.
"Yes... we're still working together."
Larena merely nodded indifferently.
"But anyway... more importantly. Have you met anyone yet?"
Glinda let out an internal sigh that almost escaped her lips.
"Mom..."
"It's a simple question," she replied, tossing an olive onto her plate like someone marking a strategic move. "You look alone in a lot of photos lately. Although... I saw that Fiyero Tigelaar is still single. What a coincidence, isn't it?" It was as if the air in the room froze. Glinda slammed her fork into her food with such violent precision that it rattled the plate. Her eyes, cold and withering, lifted and met her mother's. Highmuster, sensing impending disaster, looked away and drank in silence.
"Really?" Glinda asked, her voice more controlled than she felt. "Are you really suggesting that?"
"Suggest what?" Larena played dumb with that false softness of hers that was sharper than a knife. "He was a lovely boy. From a good family. Attractive. You were very close to him a few years ago. What happened?"
"What happened," Glinda replied, her voice now rising hopelessly, "was that I got tired of hanging out with shallow idiots, obsessed with their reflections, and utterly incapable of seeing a woman as anything more than a decorative piece. That's what happened."
"Oh, please." "You're exaggerating," Larena said, unfazed. "Just because it didn't turn out perfectly doesn't mean you should lock yourself in your tower like Rapunzel waiting for someone ideal to come flying by on a carpet."
"Lock myself away?" Glinda laughed in disbelief. "Do you think this is what independence means? Do you think I need someone like Fiyero to make my life worthwhile?"
"I didn't say that, dear," her mother replied, sitting up straighter. "But women like us don't have the luxury of waiting. Not if they want to keep their place."
"Larena..." Highmuster whispered softly, unsure of whom he was trying to calm.
"Our place?" Glinda repeated, now with suppressed fury. "Mother, your world is dead. It's over! I don't have to smile at dinner parties like this anymore with men who only want to add me to their list of trophies. I don't have to marry a Tigelaar to be someone!"
"So what are you doing? Are you dating that... 'girl'? That Elphaba?" Larena asked, her tone not inquisitive but condemning.
The silence became absolute. Elphaba. Again.
Glinda clutched the napkin tightly in her hand. Her chest rose and fell. She looked at her mother and saw not concern, but judgment. Then, without further ado, she stood up from the table.
"Thank you for dinner," she said coldly. "It was delicious, Clutch."
The elderly housekeeper peeked from the kitchen and nodded sadly.
"Where are you going?" Highmuster asked, standing up as well.
"Where I won't be reminded every five minutes that I don't belong in this mausoleum of labels."
And without looking back, Glinda left.
Larena didn't even move. She just picked up her glass and sipped elegantly, as if nothing had happened. As if it were all part of a common conversation.
But in Highmuster's gaze, as he watched her leave, there was regret. And in Clutch's eyes, peering from the kitchen, there was an old sadness. Because they knew what all the gilded walls of that mansion would never acknowledge: that Glinda was made for so much more than this closed world.
Glinda walked down the main hallway with a firm stride, her heels clicking against the marble as if each footstep were a declaration of independence. Her silk jacket flapped behind her like a retreating battle flag. The tall windows let in the evening light, dyeing the hallway a soft gold that contrasted with the ice burning in her chest. She'd been through this before. Countless times. Dinners with her mother were usually minefields disguised in fine china and silverware. But this time... this time it hurt differently. As if the words hadn't just hurt, but ripped away something she no longer wanted back.
Just as she reached the foyer and reached for the brass handle of the front door, the sharp, vibrating sound of her phone stopped her like a command. Her heart tightened in her chest. For a fleeting, absurd moment, she hoped it was her. Elphaba. Her name echoed inside her mind like a repressed plea. But as she fumbled with her cell phone, with trembling fingers and nervous haste, her purse slipped from her forearm and its entire contents spilled onto the floor with a thud that seemed to mark the climax of her damned night.
"Damn it!" she exclaimed in a strained whisper, falling to her knees on the carpet, her blond hair falling over her face like a curtain trying to hide her frustration.
Her hands swept through cosmetics, keys, an eyeglass case, a small notebook... until she found her phone. The screen was still on. It wasn't Elphaba.
It was Fiyero.
Glinda felt the air rush from her lungs as if she'd been punched in the stomach. She tried to remind herself not to get angry. That it wasn't his fault. That just this morning she had come to him for advice, with the clumsy and absurd hope that talking to someone "neutral" would help her think better. And it did, in a way. Fiyero had always been a strange balance between the superficiality that had surrounded her all her life and the empathy that was so lacking in her surroundings. But right now, reading his name was like seeing a mistake. A failed choice.
"So you talked to Elphaba in the end? How did it go?"
The message was brief. Casual. Friendly. Harmless. But in that instant, it felt like a dagger. Glinda read it once, twice, and then locked the screen without responding. She couldn't. Not now. Not with his mother's voice still echoing in his head like a poisonous echo.
As she stood up, gathering the rest with trembling but resolute hands, her gaze fell almost involuntarily on the large display case that dominated the foyer wall. It had always been there, one of her mother's prides. A shrine carefully designed to reflect Glinda Upland's success, perfection, and public image. Dozens of photographs in expensive frames, of all sizes and styles, lined up like frozen witnesses to every achievement, every event, every important moment.
A tired smile formed on her face as she looked at some of them. The science fair where she won first place at age twelve. The inauguration of her first college campaign. The award for her philanthropic work in her sophomore year. Always impeccable. Always smiling. Always accompanied.
And that's when she noticed it.
A photograph, placed in the center, showed her senior prom. Gold dress, perfect smile, arm in arm with the captain of the football team, whose name she barely remembered now. Right next to her, another image: the first society party she attended, with a young heir with a long surname and ancient ancestry. Then another. And another. And another. Always men. Always smiling. Always appropriate. As if her entire love life had been painstakingly edited to fit a narrative she hadn't even written.
The weight of the revelation fell upon Glinda with brutal force. The pride she had felt for years in that wall began to crumble like a house of cards in a storm. Her mother hadn't collected moments of happiness. She had collected proof. Evidence. A carefully curated narrative of heterosexuality, of social correctness, of belonging. The altar of a carefully constructed lie.
Disgust rose in her throat. Rage burned in her eyes. For a moment, she wanted with all her heart to break everything, to kick the furniture, throw the frames to the floor, scream into the echoes of that house that she was fed up. But instead, she closed her eyes.
She breathed. Once, twice. Then she opened them.
She knew what she had to do.
She knew what she should have done since waking up that morning with her chest full of anxiety and unanswered questions. She knew she couldn't keep letting others decide what her life should look like.
She took out her phone again. This time, her fingers weren't shaking. She searched for the contact. The name that, when it appeared on the screen, didn't send a stab to her stomach, but a throb that ached because it mattered so much.
"Elphaba."
On the other side of the city, under a dull sky that seemed to have forgotten how to let light in, Elphaba walked with her shoulders slumped, as if each step dragged her closer to an abyss that was opening slowly, slowly but surely. The long, merciless day replayed itself in his mind with the cruel precision of a recycled nightmare: the words he didn't say, the glances he avoided, the decisions he pretended he wasn't making. He had walked for hours with no real direction, searching the cobblestones for some kind of answer he knew wasn't there. Now, back home, all he longed for was the darkness and silence of his penthouse, that luxurious cage that at least had the decency to make no demands on him.
When he turned the corner and his building appeared in the night mist, he immediately noticed a scene that broke with the lobby's usual routine. A few steps from the main entrance, Tibbett—his unofficial doorman, his secret informant, his dramatic accomplice, and, on his best days, a kind of friend—was gesticulating like a deranged opera director, arguing with a young man whose path he was blocking with his body, as if he were an impenetrable wall. Elphaba frowned and quickened her pace, a mixture of annoyance and concern tightening her stomach.
"I told you you can't come in, you dark and mysterious gentleman!" Tibbett exclaimed, waving his arms. "If you want to leave something for Elphaba, I'll give it to her. That's how things work around here, and we're not going to change just because you come dressed as an urban vampire!"
"I have direct orders," the young man replied with implacable calm, his voice deep and polite, though obviously irritated. "I can't leave the message with anyone else. I must deliver it in person and confirm that Miss Thropp has received it."
"Who does he think he is? Some kind of comic-strip butler?"
"Please..." Elphaba sighed, joining them with a thread of patience hanging on the last shred of her self-control. "What the hell is going on here?"
"Oh, Elphaba, thank God you're here! This guy showed up a few minutes ago and started demanding to see you. He wouldn't identify himself, he wouldn't leave anything... do you realize?" He could be a stalker! Or a mafia messenger! Or worse, an actor!
"I'm not an actor," the young man interrupted, sounding almost offended. "I'm Minister Thropp's assistant. I work for his father."
Elphaba felt her world close in around her in an instant.
That last name. That word. Minister. The invisible burden on her back suddenly grew heavier, as if someone had dumped another bag of sand on top of her just for fun.
"Oh... right," she murmured with a sigh she couldn't contain. She looked at the young man. "So?"
"My name is Corven. I'm here representing your sister, Nessarose. She's been trying to contact you for weeks. Since you haven't answered any of her messages, she's sent me personally to deliver this letter. She asked me to make sure you receive and read it."
Elphaba felt a bitter pang. She knew exactly which messages he was talking about. She'd seen every one. Mail, voicemails, even a note written in shaky blue ink that had arrived by intermediary a few days ago. She hadn't responded to any of the messages.
She reached out with almost ceremonial slowness and took the envelope. It was thick, made of expensive paper, embossed with the Thropp family crest in gold. A symbol of opulence, of unsolicited duties, of blood ties that weren't always blessings.
"Thank you, Corven," she said neutrally, trying not to sound rude. "I received it. Good evening."
"Good evening, Miss Thropp," he replied, bowing slightly before leaving with a methodical gait, as if he had just delivered a diplomatic document.
"Are you all right?" Tibbett asked, finally lowering his voice and abandoning his usual histrionics. His eyes, though curious, showed genuine concern.
Elphaba carefully tucked the letter into her coat, as if carrying it in plain sight was too dangerous.
"I don't know," she replied, with a sincerity she didn't often allow herself. "But I can't deal with this right now. Thanks for trying to help, Tibbett. Good night."
"Are you sure you don't want me to make you some tea? A tea, a bath, a battalion?"
"Good night," she repeated, with a small, grateful smile that belied the tiredness on her face.
Tibbett nodded, resigned, as she passed through the glass doors and headed for the elevator.
The ride to the penthouse was silent. Elphaba looked at herself in the elevator mirror for just a few seconds before looking away. The letter weighed in her pocket as if it were hiding emotional dynamite. She knew her sister didn't send letters like that for no reason. And that if she had, if she had called on her father to intervene, it was because something serious was going on. Still... she couldn't. Not that night.
Upon entering her penthouse, she didn't turn on any lights. She walked straight to the front window and sank down onto the sofa without even removing her coat. From high above the city, the lights flickered like artificial stars. Beautiful, distant. Cold.
With the letter still in her hand, she leaned her head back against the back of the armchair and closed her eyes.
There were too many open doors that night. And they all led to places she wasn't sure she wanted to visit again.
Elphaba held the sealed envelope against her face, the thick edge of the paper pressing just above the bridge of her nose, as if she could extract answers by osmosis, as if the paper could tell her its contents without forcing her to face it. There was something cruelly predictable about Nessarose's letters: a mix of complaints disguised as pleading, unsolicited expectations wrapped in the language of guilt, and a constant tone of disappointment disguised as concern. Elphaba knew that tune by heart. She knew what it sounded like, how it hurt, and how much effort it took not to let herself be dragged back into the same familiar pit.
And yet, there he was. Holding her. Hesitating.
She let out a long breath, one of those that springs from the exact center of the chest and, rather than liberating, wears down. Her fingers felt the spine of the envelope, searching for the place to tear, when her phone vibrated on the coffee table. It was a soft, almost insignificant sound, but in the stillness of the attic, it resounded like thunder.
She looked up.
Her body tensed. The illuminated screen displayed a name she hadn't expected to see again that night, perhaps not so soon, perhaps not in this way. Glinda.
For a moment, she didn't move. She just watched it, as if the word itself might vanish if she stared at it long enough. And in that tiny instant, everything inside her stopped. Was this a sign? A warning? A cruel play of fate? What if she answered and everything fell apart again? What if she didn't answer and she was lost forever?
The answer wasn't simple. She'd spent the entire afternoon wanting to talk to Glinda. Imagining what she would say, what her voice would sound like, if it would still be as sweet and strong as she remembered, if that "us" that had once been between them still existed in some form. But now that the opportunity presented itself, now that her name shone on the screen like a beacon and an abyss at the same time, fear crept between her ribs.
She pressed her lips together, as if holding a confession. Then, without further thought, she dropped the envelope. The sound of the paper sliding across the sofa, disappearing beneath it like a shadow that didn't deserve light, was almost liberating.
She picked up the phone and slowly brought it to her ear. She didn't manage to utter a greeting.
"Elphaba... please, let me speak first." Glinda's voice came through, shaky at first, but firm, resolute. "I don't want you to say anything yet, not until I'm finished. Please."
Elphaba didn't respond; she just closed her eyes. Hearing her voice again was like opening a window in a room sealed for years. The air changed. Everything changed.
"I want to apologize. For everything," Glinda continued, leaving no room for interruptions, though her breathing revealed how hard it was for her to maintain her composure. "For betraying you behind your back, for not trusting you, for making decisions that weren't my own." I thought I was helping, but really… I only thought about myself… As always…
Each word was a needle, precise and painfully honest. Elphaba felt the knot in her chest tighten with each one, but she didn't put the phone away. She needed to hear it. She had to hear it.
"And most of all… I want to apologize for staying silent after that night. For being so afraid. Afraid of what I felt, of what you made me feel. You showed me parts of myself that I'd buried beneath layers and layers of perfect smiles and expected decisions."
There was a pause. Not awkward, but heavy. Full of truth.
"I thought it would be like my dates always were and I'd just fall back into the mold… but I can't. Not without you. Not after I've truly gotten to know you. After I've seen myself through your eyes." Glinda took a deep breath, and her voice lowered, more intimate, more vulnerable. Elphaba, you made me feel like no one else had before. You gave me the courage to question myself, to feel without asking permission. And now… I just want to know if there's still a chance. To try. To… have a date with you.
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. Not because she didn't want to. But because the words crowded her throat without a clear form. Because the contained force of that confession, the raw honesty of each syllable, had crumbled in seconds the wall she'd built for days. The only thing she managed to say, in a whisper so low it seemed like an escaped thought, was:
"A date?"
"Yes." Glinda's voice was barely a thread, but this time it didn't tremble. "A real one. No secrets. No lies. Just you and me. The way it should have been from the beginning."
Elphaba let out a low, incredulous laugh, unsure if it was relief, irony, or something deeper.
"You... want a date with me?" "She repeated, as if she still couldn't believe it.
"Yes," Glinda said again, firmly. "And if you don't want to, I'll understand. I just needed to tell you. This time I don't want to hide anymore."
Elphaba lay back, staring at the ceiling, her heart pounding. And for the first time in days, she smiled.
"Then yes," she said, almost without realizing it. "Yes, I want a date with you, Glinda."
Glinda felt her heart beat in her throat when she heard Elphaba say yes. Such a small, simple word, and yet capable of moving her whole world. It was real. She had said it. Elphaba wanted to go on a date with her.
But Glinda wouldn't settle. Not this time.
"There is one condition," she said, her voice soft but determined, the kind of voice she used when she was dropping unvarnished truths. "I want it to be a date on your terms."
Elphaba blinked, confused.
"My terms?" "Yes," Glinda insisted, lowering her tone but keeping her hand steady. "Your world. Your rules. Like that night... when you let yourself fall. When you didn't pretend to be the serious, distant girl, nor the woman who carries the burden of being the brightest in every room. That Elphaba... the one who made me tremble with just a look. I want that woman to tell me what she's going to do to me. I want that to be my date. My punishment, if you will. For everything I did to you."
Elphaba fell silent. The phone line vibrated with the silent electricity of the unspoken.
She knew that world. That dark, silent corner of herself, where the mask of academic stiffness and distant sarcasm fell away like an unnecessary cloak. It was a space she rarely showed, reserved for moments when her power wasn't a defense but a choice, an expression. On that night, she had shared it with Glinda. And now... Glinda claimed it.
"Glinda..." she murmured, unsure for a second, "I don't know if..."
"I don't want an answer out of politeness," Glinda interrupted, softly, but with a fierce clarity that cut like a sharp blade. "I want to hear her. Her. The Elphaba who doesn't ask permission."
Elphaba closed her eyes. She breathed in. She let herself go. Not into the doubt, but into the certainty that existed beneath. Where there were no questions, only commands. And when she spoke, her voice changed. It became deep, measured, incisive. As calm as the edge of a dagger.
"Very well," she said. His tone was firm, commanding the space, charged with an intensity that sought not to please, but rather to compel obedience. "Then listen carefully, Glinda."
There was a sigh on the other end. Almost a barely suppressed moan. I had been waiting for those words.
"You will come to my apartment tomorrow at eight. Not a minute earlier. Not a minute later. But you will not have a silly smile on your beautiful doll face. You will not hide what you are. I want to see your bare face when you walk through the door, and when you do, you will leave behind that honeyed voice you use with the world. That perfect woman does not come here. Only you."
He paused, savoring the silence.
"You will kneel. And you will say 'I'm sorry, Elphaba.' Not once, not twice. As many times as I deem necessary. Until I believe it. And then, only then, will I tell you what your punishment will be. Because, yes, Glinda... this will be a punishment. And you will be grateful for it."
On the other end of the line, Glinda couldn't contain the tremor that ran through her body like a jolt of tempered electricity. Her breathing became ragged. It wasn't fear. It was something much deeper. Desire, yes. But also surrender. Liberation. The absolute joy of having awakened that part of Elphaba... and that it hadn't rejected her.
"Yes, Elphaba..." she whispered, like a promise, like a surrender.
And for the first time in a long time, Elphaba smiled.
A real smile.
Not the sardonic one. Not the resigned one. Not the defiant one.
But a full smile. Of someone who allows herself to be. Of someone who is ready to take what belongs to her.
The date was agreed upon. And this time, neither of them would pretend to be what the world expected.
But while the two young women rewrote the rules of their history together, with the clumsy hope that this time it would be different, that mistakes could become foundations, and pain a compass… atop a tower crowned by steel, glass, and ambition, others had already begun to write for them.
The restaurant rose like a temple in the clouds, a modern altar to power disguised as exquisite taste. The walls were frameless glass, and the city unfolded beyond like a model beneath the satisfied gaze of its architects. The snow hadn't begun to fall, but the winter clouds gathered thickly like a contained threat. In the center of the room, isolated from the artificial murmur of other high-profile diners, two figures toasted with thick crystal glasses and aged whiskey.
"To you, my dear," Senator Zoroaster said in a honeyed voice, raising his glass and showing off his perfectly whitened teeth, as if his smile had been designed by engineers rather than emotions. Without you, my dear Morrible, this capricious project would never have seen the light of day with such... elegance.
Madame Morrible, dressed in a wine-colored velvet jacket and jewels as old as the mistakes she had learned to repeat with mastery, also raised her glass.
"And to you, Senator, for giving purpose to so much scattered talent. The system needed direction... and you are the compass."
They both laughed. Not the natural laughter of pleasure, but that of shared power. A measured, choreographed, rehearsed laughter. It was the dance of those who no longer had to feign humanity toward each other.
Zoroaster took a sip and turned the glass between his fingers with the same care with which one might handle a time bomb.
“They say what a dom fears most is losing control. I believed that at first. I thought what kept me upright, strong, was that illusion of mastery over chaos. But it's not true. The real terror isn't losing control... it's discovering you never had it.”
“By the way… those two young women? The ones who wrote the last technical report, the one that forced us to rethink the entire privacy clause of the experimental protocol… what were their names?”
Morrible raised an eyebrow and toyed with an olive in her glass of mineral water, as if weighing how to respond.
“Elphaba Thropp and Glinda Upland. Brilliant young women, though… temperamental.”
“Did you get the invitation to my Christmas party?” the senator asked in a casual voice, as if talking about two other attendees. As if he didn't know exactly who they were.
“Yes.” Although...—Morrible leaned slightly toward him, lowering her voice—unofficially, I recommend, sir, that you keep a close eye on them. They've been too active these past few weeks. I have no proof, of course... but they're up to something.
Zoroaster showed no concern. On the contrary. A mischievous sparkle shone in his dark eyes.
"What if that's exactly what I'm looking for?" he asked with that cursed smile of his that was both a threat and a caress.
"That everything you did to build your power was just part of a dance plotted by others. That you were skilled, yes... but not free. That your rules were valid only on your little stage... while out there, others toyed with your destiny like children with chess pieces."
Morrible looked at him, now slightly bewildered.
"Excuse me?"
"My dear Headmistress," he said, resting his elbows on the table, linking his fingers like a weaver of invisible threads. You understand systems, paperwork, laws. I understand people. And I'll tell you something: people who think they're out of control... are the most useful of all. Especially when they're desperately trying to get it back.
He drank again, then continued, now in a deeper, more intimate tone.
"If what you've told me about them is true, they're both brilliant but insubordinate. A danger, of course. But if you give them a cause to believe in, if you make them think they're fighting against something... they'll give themselves more than you could imagine. Fire becomes a weapon if you know where to light it. Prestige, charm, and marketable vulnerability. The people would adore them. Companies would buy them. Perfect faces for the ideas we decide are worthwhile."
“And the worst… the most unbearable… is when you realize that control, if it ever existed, no longer depends on you… but on someone else. On whether that person decides to protect you… or sell you out. On whether they choose to fight you… or leave you alone in the fire.”
Morrible smiled, finally understanding.
“And if they oppose us…” she ventured.
“Then even better,” Zoroaster replied. “Because nothing gives a system more legitimacy… than those who believe they are challenging it from within. Who believe they are changing the world, when in reality they are only walking through the labyrinth we designed.”
They both raised their glasses one last time.
“To a fruitful future… For all,” they said in unison.
And they drank as the city sank into an ever-more opaque gray. Winter had arrived…
Chapter 6: IF ONLY BECAUSE DUST, IS WHAT WE COME TO!
Notes:
Warning: This chapter contains explicit scenes of (consensual) sexual relations and BDSM moments.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“There are moments that divide your life in two. Some arrive with a roar, others with absolute silence. But what defines them isn't their volume, but our ability to recognize them… and the courage we have to face them. They don't always present themselves clearly. Sometimes they seem like simple details: a word, a look, an unexpected call. But beneath their surface beats the heartbeat of something greater, something irreversible. And if you're not willing to step out of the shadows—those you've cultivated to protect yourself—then those moments fade, and with them, the people who could have changed your life.
Because opening up to others is an act of faith. Trusting… allowing yourself to be known… is leaving your soul without armor. And yet, it's there—in that emptiness—where the magic happens, where we meet the faces that will be with us forever… or at least, where we discover those who promise to do so.
Although sometimes… even that isn't enough.
Especially if you're someone like Boq Woodsman.
Boq, unlike other figures in this story I've told so far, was never center stage. Not because he didn't want it—we all do, in one way or another—but because the world seemed to have decided from the start that he wasn't the protagonist. The cards were simply not stacked in his favor.
The son of European immigrants, Boq was born in the middle-class, working-class neighborhoods of the Gillikin district. There, among aging brick buildings and always damp streets, he grew up without much promise. His parents worked themselves to exhaustion, busy trying to maintain the stability of a life that always seemed on the verge of collapse. And Boq, the red-haired boy with anxious eyes, spent most of his afternoons under the sleepy care of his grandmother, a woman so overcome by time that she barely woke up.
The other children ran along the sidewalks, shouted, played, lived with that unconscious intensity of childhood. But Boq, short, thin, and almost painfully shy, never managed to become part of that hustle and bustle. Not because he didn't try. But because they didn't see him. So he learned to live on the margins: reading used books, watching old black-and-white movies, dreaming of happy endings while listening to the neighborhood noises from his closed window.
And then adolescence arrived... that small, everyday hell that unravels even the strongest. For Boq, it was worse: his body grew awkwardly, his acne appeared like a Greek curse, and his words—especially in front of girls—came out in a pathetic stutter. While the others were discovering the game of seduction, Boq was only learning the game of shame.
But he had something else. He had dreams. And in them, he was the silent hero of a perfect romantic story, with a girl who—like Judy Garland in his favorite movies—would see in him what no one else could. That longing was his beacon. His reason.
Driven by that dream, and with the long-suffering support of his parents, he achieved what no Woodsman had achieved in generations: getting into college. It was, in his own words, the beginning of his real story. But life rarely follows the script we imagine.
From the first day on campus, his parents made clear the magnitude of the burden he carried: he was their hope, their legacy, their living proof that their sacrifice had not been in vain. And Boq, who had always obeyed, took it as law. He studied with discipline, behaved properly, endured heartbreaking criticism. And still… it wasn't enough. It was never enough. While others were making friends, going to parties, discovering sex, love, or even just friendship, Boq remained that strange boy who walked alone between classes, the one he forgot to invite, the one whose name almost no one remembered. Girls looked at him, yes… but as if he were furniture. Or worse: as if he didn't exist.
Eventually, even his own fantasies began to crumble. What was the point of being "good" if no one saw him? Where was his reward? His moment? His big story?
The pressure nearly destroyed him… until a teacher came along who saw something in him—or maybe just saw someone helpful enough not to ask questions—and got him a modest job at a small assistance company. Boq accepted with hope, thinking he'd finally escape the burden of his family. But instead, he spent three years carrying packages between desks, printing reports, and cleaning up other people's mistakes. Invisible. Inconsequential.
He almost quit. He even fantasized about disappearing. Literally. But then, one ordinary morning, fate—or the cruel and capricious chance that guides our lives—gave him a break.
The company was bought by Shiz.Corp, and Boq was transferred to headquarters. His first day there was a nightmare. Everything was intimidating, cold, too big. Until he saw her. Golden hair, dazzling smile, pink dress straight out of another world. He walked into reception, handed in his resume with that mix of sweetness and determination that only the truly dangerous possess… and within minutes, she was working by his side.
Glinda Upland.
From that moment on, Boq had a purpose. Everything in his life took shape, direction, meaning. He worked twice as hard, volunteered for impossible tasks, memorized names, dates, routes, hallways. If Glinda breathed in one direction, Boq had already turned to follow her. It was, in his mind, confirmation that the story he had dreamed of since childhood was possible. That she—she—would see him for who he was and love him for it.
And yes… it's true that she never gave him clear signals. That she was often distant, even condescending. But he knew that narrative: love that begins with indifference and blossoms into redemption. He'd seen it hundreds of times in his favorite movies. That's how it was meant to work.
That's how it was meant to be. Or maybe… not?
Maybe Boq Woodsman isn't reading the story correctly. Maybe this isn't a romantic comedy. Maybe… it's a tragedy. And the most painful thing isn't that no one else knows it. It's that he doesn't want to admit it.
And that, for someone like him, could be the moment that defines a lifetime.”
CHAPTER 6: If only because dust, Is what we come to!
His breathing was labored, his chest tightened as if the air had turned to lead, and his thoughts—disordered, insistent, overwhelming—threw over one another in a desperate race to find meaning. Boq had walked aimlessly for hours, unable to see, unable to think clearly, propelled only by that trembling, cruel spark that ignites when a heart breaks. The last twenty-four hours had been a spiral of emotions impossible to classify: frustration, hope, rage, tenderness, humiliation... but each one always led him back to the same moment, to the same face, to the same smile that wasn't meant for him.
Because finally, for the first time in his life, he had mustered the courage he had so often lacked. He had finally emerged from the shadows he had learned to inhabit, raised his voice between whispers of indifference, and told her what he felt. Everything. Absolutely everything. He had opened his chest and offered his heart without masks or embellishments. And Glinda...
Glinda had smiled at him sweetly, with that tenderness that seemed heavenly to him, but her words were daggers wrapped in velvet. She had told him she appreciated him, that he was very special to her... but in the end, she said... No.
"It's not just that I can't... or don't want to... it's that there's someone else," she had said, with a gesture somewhere between amusement and resignation, as if what she had just said was merely a light joke, something unimportant, something he could gracefully digest and move on.
But no.
Boq couldn't. Not after everything he had felt, everything he had dreamed of, everything he had built up inside himself for years. In his world, Glinda was the reward, the promised light at the end of the dark tunnel. She had to acknowledge it, she had to see it. Because he had been good. Because he had been there. Because she had waited and waited, like in those movies where love comes like a lightning bolt to reward the simple man who never stops believing. Wasn't that the right thing to do? The right thing to do?
But of course, none of that could happen while he was still lurking around. That usurper. That intruder who walked like he owned the world. Fiyero. Damned Fiyero. The guy from the magazines, from the covers, from the rumors. The one she'd seen leaving the office building with Glinda, the one who drew sighs and admiration with every step. That idiot with the perfect smile, the body of an advertisement, and the confidence of someone who'd never had to beg for attention.
It was obvious, evident, painfully clear: Fiyero was manipulating Glinda. No one could have liked her that much willingly. It had to be a trap, an illusion. And Boq… Boq had to do something about it.
The city streets still held the sticky heat of dusk, the sky turning a dirty pink and dull orange when she saw him. There was Fiyero, leaving a bar amid laughter and backslapping, surrounded by a group of friends as perfectly dressed as they were empty. He laughed with that carefree, charming voice that seemed to be music to everyone, except Boq.
And then, without thinking, without planning, with his heart turned into dynamite, Boq crossed the street. He didn't hear the honking of cars or the scream of a cyclist who had to dodge him. He just walked straight toward the golden boy.
"You!" he shouted, his voice cracking with rage and despair.
Fiyero, confused, turned his head and raised an eyebrow at the clumsy but determined redhead approaching.
"Pardon?" he replied in an incredulous tone, not even hiding his smile.
"You... you think you can have it all, don't you?" Boq continued, stopping in front of him, his face red and his fists shaking. "You think you can just show up and steal people like they're prizes. As if Glinda were just another trophy to show off."
"Brother, what are you talking about?" Fiyero stepped back, still amused, crossing his arms. "Who are you, even?"
Boq didn't respond. He just threw a punch with all the force he could muster. His fist sailed through the air... and was stopped with absolute ease by Fiyero's hand, who held it in the air like someone catching a rubber ball.
"Really?" he asked, now with a laugh more incredulous than mocking.
But Boq, blinded by everything he didn't understand and that hurt, continued. He pushed, he screamed, he launched another blow with his free hand, which Fiyero easily dodged. And then he said what he shouldn't have said.
"She doesn't love you! She's just afraid. You manipulate her, you make her feel small! You probably forced her to go out with you! Glinda is too much for someone like you, you damn shallow idiot! You're just a pretty face and a name inflated by fame!"
Fiyero blinked. His expression changed in a second, the nonchalant expression vanishing like cigar smoke in the wind.
"What did you say?" he asked, his voice suddenly cold.
Boq didn't understand. Or maybe he did, but he didn't want to stop.
"You don't deserve her!" She needs someone who will listen to her, who will understand her, who will respect her! And I'll teach her what…
And before he could continue speaking, Fiyero moved forward with a single movement and struck him with a sharp, swift, precise blow. It wasn't violent or uncontrolled. It was a clean blow, aimed with the precision of someone who has had to defend himself more times than necessary.
Boq didn't have time to defend himself, or to react. The world turned around, and for a second, there was only darkness.
His body fell to the ground like a broken puppet, and the last thing he heard before everything faded was Fiyero's voice, deep, annoyed, but still restrained:
"Don't ever talk about her like that again. Never."
And then… silence.
But there was another place in the city where there was anything but silence.
That corner buzzed with soft music, dim lights, and overflowing emotions hidden beneath layers of fabric, expensive perfume, and crucial decisions. Because while Boq and Fiyero resolved their own drama on the streets, our true protagonists found themselves immersed in their own emotional labyrinths, each on different sides of the city, but united by the same unease.
It was their night…. Their first date.
But not just any date.
Elphaba stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror with surgical concentration. The black leather hanging from a hanger seemed to regard her with the same judgment she cast herself. She'd tried on three different jackets, two pairs of boots, and debated for half an hour whether the whip should be hanging in plain sight or if it would be better to save it as a middle-of-the-night surprise.
"Dom, huh?" she murmured, crossing her arms. "You're a dominatrix, not a lovesick teenager. Act like one."
And yet, her heart squeezed in an almost corny way when she thought of Glinda. Her Glinda. The bubbly, brilliant, eternally charming Glinda. How could he maintain his cold, domineering demeanor in the face of that smile, those eyes that seemed to challenge all his self-control with a simple glance? And what if Glinda didn't take him seriously? What if she laughed? What if she got scared? Or worse... what if she gave up too easily?
"No," she said resolutely, giving herself one last look in the mirror. She was wearing a dark leather corset, fitted trousers, and knee-high boots. A subtle—but menacing—belt laced her waist with keys dangling from it. She had discreetly scented the "playroom," the most hidden room in her penthouse, with a vanilla and wood fragrance that Glinda would never identify as seductive—but it was.
Across town, in a suite that looked like something out of a fairy tale (if that tale had been sponsored by every fashion house in Paris), Glinda was at war with her own wardrobe.
Blushing pink dresses, sheer lingerie, skirts that looked like clouds of tulle, heels like works of art. And yet, nothing seemed right.
"This is a disaster!" she exclaimed for the fourth time, tossing a satin blouse onto a mountain of clothes she had already discarded. Her dressing room looked like the battlefield of a romantic comedy: sparkly dresses hanging on hangers, mismatched heels on the floor, accessories scattered like debris after an emotional outburst.
This wasn't just any date. Not a cocktail party at the usual club, not an afternoon of social media photos, not even a gala evening where her only concern was whether the dress highlighted her shoulders enough. This was... something different. This was Elphaba. And with Elphaba, the rules were different.
"Am I supposed to dress sexy? Intellectual? Submissive? How the hell does one dress for a date... like this?!" she asked aloud, as if her clothes would answer her.
Finally, after what felt like a dress rehearsal for five different plays, Glinda opted for a dress. Cherry red, fitted, with a neckline just daring enough to say "I'm ready," yet elegant enough to scream, but still in control. Her hair was styled in soft waves, her makeup flawless but not overly so. Around her neck, a thin black choker, subtle but symbolic.
And when the clock struck eight, Glinda stood in front of the imposing door of Elphaba's penthouse. Not a minute earlier. Not a minute later.
She took a deep breath. She smoothed her hair one last time. And rang the doorbell.
The sound echoed inside the apartment like an amplified heartbeat. On the other side, Elphaba closed her eyes for a second. Then she walked with a firm stride, opening the door with a smile that was pure control.
When Elphaba opened the door, Glinda was absolutely speechless.
Elphaba stood in the doorway like a vision from a dream—or perhaps a delicious nightmare, depending on how you interpreted it. She wore her dominatrix outfit with an elegance and authority that needed no announcement. The tight-fitting black corset defined her figure with mathematical precision, while knee-high boots accentuated the firmness of each step. The keys dangling from her belt gleamed in the dim hallway light, a silent reminder of what lay beyond that door. Her makeup was minimal but precise: dark lips and eyes lined with razor-sharp precision. She was pure presence.
Glinda felt her throat go dry. For a moment, she didn't know whether to take a step back or fall to her knees.
Elphaba also allowed herself a second—just one—to process the image of Glinda. The almost heavenly delicacy of the red dress under her pearl coat, the way her hair seemed to fall with an almost divine intention, the expression somewhere between nervous and enchanted... It was like watching a porcelain doll that walked, breathed, and had secrets that even she didn't fully understand.
But Elphaba was disciplined. She straightened her shoulders, and in a controlled voice, said,
"Punctual. I like that," she said, her voice soft, firm, and dangerously seductive.
Glinda smiled, barely biting her lip.
"I was taught that punctuality is a virtue. And I... I came with many virtues tonight."
They stared at each other for an eternal second. A subtle, electric tension rose between them.
And then, without another word, Elphaba stepped aside.
"Come in, princess. The night is just beginning."
Glinda, still entranced, nodded and crossed the threshold, feeling as if she had entered another world.
Elphaba's home was... unmistakable. Every corner spoke of her. From the dark furniture with its sleek, solid lines to the shelves of books that seemed selected not by theme, but by character. Everything was neat, balanced, and charged with intense energy, as if even the silence had been carefully chosen. A pair of candlesticks illuminated the room with a soft, warm, yet dramatic light. On a side table rested a pair of objects whose purpose Glinda didn't dare imagine yet.
"Wine?" Elphaba asked, walking confidently toward a small built-in wine cellar. Her tone remained firm, her bearing unwavering.
"Yes... please," Glinda replied somewhat awkwardly. Her fingers toyed with the hem of her coat as she followed her with her gaze, like someone observing a panther in its element.
Elphaba poured two glasses with precise, controlled movements. She offered one to Glinda, who accepted it like a trophy.
"Thank you... wow, this feels like... like a casting call for a sexy vampire movie," she said, without thinking much.
Elphaba looked at her. A laugh escaped her. A genuine, brief laugh that pierced the air like a flash of humanity.
"Sorry, sorry," she added, putting her hand to her mouth and closing her eyes for a second. "I shouldn't laugh in character."
Glinda laughed too, more relaxed than she had been in the last thirty minutes.
"No, please, laugh all you want. Honestly, I came here afraid I'd put my shoes on backward."
"That would have been interesting," Elphaba murmured, before composing herself. She took a step back, regaining her upright figure. "But let's get back to the basics. Tonight isn't about chaos... it's about control."
The conversation progressed with a delicious mix of stiffness and awkwardness. At times, Elphaba tried to maintain the character with a deep voice, firm posture, and cutting phrases; but then Glinda responded with such absurdly charming honesty that it shattered any attempt at mystique.
"And what's that for?" Glinda asked, pointing to an object on the mantelpiece that looked like a cross between a giant feather and a toy whip.
"For... sensory stimulation."
"Oh, like a threatening caress?"
"Something like that," Elphaba replied, a smile escaping without permission.
Finally, after several barely suppressed giggles and a second glass of wine, Elphaba sat down with Glinda on the long gray velvet sofa. She settled in, elegantly crossed her legs, and gazed at her with all the gravity she could muster.
"Good. I know this is your first time... at this. So I need your total and complete commitment. Are you ready?" Glinda nodded, straightening slightly.
"I'm ready. Well, mentally. Physically, my legs are still a little shaky, but I think that's part of the charm, too."
They both smiled. And for a second, the game was suspended, leaving only two women revealing themselves through masks that weren't entirely false, but partial. And then, with measured grace, Elphaba stood and extended a hand toward her.
"Do you want to see the game room, Glinda?"
Glinda took her hand.
"More than anything in the world."
And with slow steps, laden with a vibrating tension, they crossed the threshold of the room whose door had remained closed... until now.
The night was just beginning.
We will briefly interrupt our favorite witches, who at this very moment may be exchanging reassurances between sips of wine and tension-filled glances, to return to another corner of the city... where the drama takes a much less elegant and rather more painful form.
Boq came to with a gentle slap—more of a tap than an assault, but firm enough to shake him out of his stupor. He blinked several times, as if reality were a fogged-up mirror, and the first thing he noticed was the velvety texture of the seat beneath him, the subtle hum of an expensive engine, and a masculine fragrance that combined Italian leather, cedar wood, and bottled arrogance.
His eyes widened and he winced.
"Where am I?! What's this?! Who kidnapped me?! Is it because of Glinda?! I take it back! I take back everything I said! It was just romantic frustration, I swear! Don't harvest my organs!"
"Please calm down before you make me spit out my drink," Fiyero said, reclining stylishly in the next seat, a crystal glass in his hand and a smile that oscillated between mockery and exhaustion.
Boq stared at him like he was a ghost.
"You? What... What's going on? Are you about to kill me? What is this? A symbolic punishment? Are you going to make me confess my sins before I jump into the river?"
Fiyero snorted and handed him a small, cold bottle wrapped in a linen napkin.
"You've got a pretty big swelling on your forehead." This will do you good before you look like a gnome with the mumps.
Boq accepted it with trembling hands and rested it against his temple, still staring at his unexpected host as if a medieval torture device might be deployed from the roof of the limousine at any moment.
"Listen," Fiyero finally said, placing the glass on a marble tray inserted into the door. "I didn't like what you said about Glinda at all. Not at all. I nearly knocked your teeth out with my bare fists. And honestly, if you try that again, I will."
"I won't! I won't do it again! Glinda is a free and glorious being, and you are... you are... very strong!" Boq babbled like a student reciting an apology written by his mother.
Fiyero raised an eyebrow.
"But..." he continued. "I'm going to give you another chance."
Boq blinked.
"What?" “I'm not entirely sure why, either. Maybe it's pity, maybe it's punishment… or maybe, deep down, I know what it feels like to be rejected by Glinda.” Fiyero paused, looking at him sideways with something that for a second seemed… human. “Not like you. Not in that… awkward, obsessive way. But still, I know how it hurts.”
Boq, completely disoriented by the narrative twist in his life, simply remained silent.
“You're an idiot,” Fiyero continued. “Immature. And quite misogynistic, if I may say so. But anyway, this is your night of redemption. Or at least… distraction.”
“What… does that mean exactly?” Boq asked, with the tone of someone afraid of the answer.
“It means I'm taking you to a club. We're going to drink. And you're going to forget about your fantasies of a martyred prince with an operatic martyr complex.” Boq straightened.
"A... club? I don't know if you noticed, but your kind of club and my budget are two different species that don't even live in the same ecosystem, okay? Unless your definition of "club" is a fried-food-scented karaoke bar in a laundromat basement..."
Fiyero laughed, genuinely this time, as the limo veered down a neon-lit avenue.
"Two things, Boq. One: I'm paying. Don't get too excited, it's not out of generosity, it's for narrative convenience. Two..." He paused and smiled wickedly. "This club isn't what you're thinking."
Boq swallowed.
"What is it, then?"
Fiyero leaned back again, staring straight ahead with a grin that suggested mischief of biblical proportions.
"You'll know when we get there. I'm just telling you this: if you thought Glinda had secrets... this place collects them."
The limo continued on its way in silence, save for the barely audible trembling of ice in the glasses, as the city left behind its more pristine facade and entered what could only be described as its alternative side.
Boq stared out the window, wondering what the hell he was getting himself into… and why, for the first time in weeks, the ache in his chest seemed to have turned into an absurd curiosity.
Because if one thing was clear, it was that tonight… nothing was going to be normal.
But, back to what was truly important…
Glinda walked with short, attentive steps, her eyes closed in enthusiastic obedience, suppressing the widest—most childlike, most deliciously absurd—smile she'd had in a long time. She was excited, of course, but there was something else: a perfect mix of nerves and desire, of long-suppressed fantasy and, at the same time, blind trust in the one guiding her.
Elphaba's voice was her only compass, soft but firm, the exact balance between a hostess and an experienced Dom who knows every corner of her domain.
"A little more to the left... That's it. Now straight ahead, very good," she heard her say, her tone both caressing and commanding. "Stop. Now... stay like that."
Glinda felt the floor shift beneath her shoes as she entered a softer area, like a thick rug, and the echo of the hallway slowly faded. She knew they were close. And her heart began to beat so loudly she was sure Elphaba could hear it. Elphaba's hand—firm, warm—rested for a second on the small of her back, guiding her.
A door creaked softly as it was opened. Glinda, still with her eyes closed, felt the change in temperature. A wide space. A thick, delicately scented atmosphere with leather, incense, and a faint hint of dark flowers.
"Are you ready?" Elphaba asked, her voice lower, almost reverent.
Glinda nodded, breathless.
"Yes."
Elphaba gave a small, satisfied laugh and murmured,
"Welcome to my playroom."
And with that, Glinda opened her eyes.
She went completely still. Her jaw dropped uncontrollably, her lips slightly parted in an expression of utter stupefaction.
It was... beautiful. Powerful. A temple built with precision, passion, and years of meticulous experience. The room was spacious, lit with soft, warm lights, perfectly placed to create dramatic shadows in just the right places. The walls were covered in dark paneling, some padded, others with shelves stocked with implements Glinda had only seen on her most daring quests, carefully arranged like works of art. There was a black velvet divan in the center, surrounded by a metal frame that rose like an open cage. In one corner, a glass-fronted cabinet displayed an exquisite collection of silk ropes, leather whips, masks, collars, velvet handcuffs, feathers, gags, and objects whose uses Glinda could scarcely imagine. Every detail was thought out. Nothing was vulgar. Everything was... elegant, dark, sensual.
And all of it, all of it... was for her.
"Oh... my... Oz," Glinda murmured, almost voiceless, her eyes darting from one corner to the other with devotion.
Elphaba, standing beside her, arms crossed and chin high, wore an expression that oscillated between proud confidence and unexpected shyness.
"Is it... too much?" she asked, as if it were possible that such a thing could not be perfect.
"Too much?" Glinda let out a high-pitched, almost incredulous laugh. "It... is everything I fantasized about and more! Elphaba, this is... this is... divine!" The green witch tilted her head, barely hiding a smile that broke her facade of authority for just a second.
"Good." Her tone firmed. "Because you have no idea how long it took me to get that shelf to support the weight of the chains without compromising the structure of the building."
Glinda whirled toward her.
"Chains? Where? Can I see?"
"Easy," Elphaba said, stopping her with a finger in her chest. "First, the rules."
"The... rules?" Glinda gulped. Something inside her thrummed with anticipation.
"Yes." Elphaba began to pace slowly across the room, her heels clicking with the cadence of a purposeful metronome. "Every game needs structure. This is no exception."
Glinda followed her with her eyes as if looking at a goddess. Elphaba spoke with a perfect blend of authority and pedagogy.
"First. There's a safe word." If you say it, everything stops. It doesn't matter the timing, the tone, or the situation. That word is 'Popular.'
"Again?" Glinda asked, amused.
"Yes." She looked at her intensely. "You chose it last time, so I suspect you won't forget it."
"Fair enough."
"Second. Trust. There's no shame here. No judgment. This is a sacred space. If you don't like something, you say so. If you like something… you do, too."
"And if I love something… can I shout it out?"
"Preferably, yes." Elphaba smirked.
"I like these kinds of rules…"
"Third," Elphaba continued. "I'm in control. Always. As long as you're here, you obey me."
Glinda shuddered, lowering her gaze with a suppressed smile.
"Yes, Elphaba..."
"Mistress Elphaba," she corrected, moving closer until she was just inches from her face.
Glinda swallowed.
"Yes... Mistress Elphaba."
A thick silence formed between them. The air seemed to have changed density. Elphaba watched her with a mixture of desire and respect, of absolute control and veiled tenderness. Her hand slid gently across Glinda's chin, making her lift her head to look directly into her eyes.
"Then, my sweet Glinda... the game can begin."
Glinda smiled, now completely submissive to the moment, the place, to her.
"I am ready, Mistress Elphaba."
And with that single sentence, a night began where secrets turned into confessions, the limits in explorations, and desire… in a language they both understood perfectly. With everything in place, the stage set, the rules spelled out, and desires simmering just below the surface, Elphaba moved with the grace of a priestess in her sanctuary.
Her gait was steady and serene, almost feline, and each step toward the small table at the side of the room echoed with intent. There, carefully arranged like instruments on an altar, rested her riding crops: leather, suede, decorative metal, some elegant, others brutal, each with its own story and intent.
Her fingers slid slowly over the handle of each one, caressing them purposefully. Finally, she stopped in front of a black leather riding crop with gold details. The design was clean, restrained, yet still emanated authority. She took it with reverential delicacy, closed her eyes, breathed deeply… and when she opened them, she was no longer Elphaba.
She was Mistress Elphaba.
Her gaze changed. Her shoulders squared. Her body exuded absolute control. The figure of the dominant witch emerged with the force of suppressed thunder. She turned with calculated slowness, her silhouette casting long shadows on the padded walls. In her hand, the riding crop hung with the same lethal elegance as a silk dagger.
Glinda, still standing where Elphaba had left her, swallowed with a visible shudder. Her hands trembled slightly, not from fear… but from pure anticipation.
Elphaba began pacing in circles around her, the riding crop marking her stride with small cracks in the air.
"Back straight. Chin up. Legs apart. Hands behind your back." Her tone was sharp, precise, absolutely irrefutable. "You are mine, Glinda. In this room, you have no will other than the one I allow you."
Glinda obeyed like a reflex. Her body trembled as she aligned herself with the commands, but her expression… was an explosive mix of nerves and delight.
The crop traced an agile path, whipping swiftly and precisely against her thighs, her hips, her calves. Short, measured strokes, just enough to remind her of her place.
"Every part of you is here to serve me," Elphaba continued, closer now, her voice a sharp whisper. "Every breath you take is because I allow it. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Mistress Elphaba…"
Another stroke, this time on the back of one of her thighs.
"Harder."
"Yes, Mistress Elphaba!"
Elphaba smiled. Not a gentle smile, but one that belonged to a queen sadistically pleased with her new subject. Finally, she positioned herself behind Glinda, raised the crop… and gave her a sharp, sharp smack on her bottom.
"Kneel."
Glinda fell immediately, graceful even in submission, her knees touching the carpet reverently. Elphaba walked calmly in front of her, enjoying every moment, every small shiver her mere presence caused.
The whip gently descended upon Glinda's face, caressing her cheek, trailing down her neck, then rising to gently hook her chin and force her to look up. Their eyes met: Elphaba's were a suppressed fire, absolute dominance; Glinda's were pure supplication wrapped in adoration.
"Now, you arrogant little creature," Elphaba said in a deep voice. "I want you to apologize for what you did."
Glinda, without hesitation, obeyed.
"I'm sorry, Mistress Elphaba. I was wrong. I'm deeply sorry…"
A crack in the air, then another lash.
"No. I don't want you to apologize. I want you to beg for it. I want to hear it in your voice. I want you to show me how much you want to be punished. Come on. Do it properly."
Glinda swallowed, her face flushed. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them with a different expression. She bent down even further, placing her hands on the ground, as if seeking to humiliate herself completely.
"Mistress Elphaba…" she whispered, her voice trembling. "I beg you to forgive me. I beg you not to abandon me. Punish me, please. I was wrong, and I deserve… your punishment. I want to feel it. I need to feel it…"
Elphaba leaned slowly toward her, so close that her lips brushed Glinda's ear.
"That's much better."
With a mischievous, dark, almost dangerous smile, Elphaba slowly lowered her gaze to her prey. Still on her knees, Glinda was breathing heavily, but not from fear. Her cheeks burned, her chest rose and fell sharply, and her eyes shone with an overwhelming mix of anticipation, nervousness, and desire. And Elphaba adored it. Savored it.
"Good girl..." Elphaba murmured, her voice like velvet on a sharp blade. She bent over a small black velvet box on a nearby shelf. She opened it ceremoniously, and there it was: the necklace.
It wasn't vulgar or grotesque. It was beautiful. Deep black, with silver accents and a ring at the front, simple but with an elegant air that made it almost a symbol of dark jewelry. With measured firmness, Elphaba took it between her fingers and brought it to Glinda.
The blonde's gaze flickered between the object and the imposing figure of her Mistress. She said nothing. She only slightly bowed her neck, a silent surrender that made Elphaba exhale with satisfaction.
"This collar is not just an ornament, Glinda," she said slowly, fastening it behind your neck with a click that sounded like an unbreakable seal. "It is a reminder of who you belong to when you step through that door. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Mistress Elphaba…"
Elphaba gently tugged on the ring with two fingers, only to watch as Glinda allowed herself to be pulled forward as if there were no more powerful force in the universe. The willing obedience was intoxicating.
"Perfect," she whispered with a smile that was all control and suppressed fire. "Now then. Phase one of your training begins… now."
She straightened, turned, and walked poised to a wall covered by dark curtains. She pulled one of them aside, revealing a panel containing shackles, straps, a spreader bar, and an assortment of implements arranged like surgical instruments in a sterile room. Only here, the goal wasn't a cure... but a transformation.
"Before we move on to the physical," she continued, with the tone of a meticulous instructor, "I want you to understand the rules. I want you to obey without thinking. To respond precisely. To accept with humility. Not because you are weak, but because you have chosen to surrender. That is your power here, do you understand?"
"Yes, Mistress Elphaba..."
Elphaba walked slowly toward her, sliding the riding crop along the side of Glinda's body. Then, without warning, she took the collar strap, wrapped the end around her hand, and gently tugged upward, forcing Glinda to her feet.
"Come on, bright pearl..." she murmured, with that predatory smile. "Time for you to learn to behave like my obedient doll."
Each footstep echoed in the room like the beat of a carefully rehearsed ritual. Elphaba, the leash firmly in her hand, guided Glinda with the precision of a director in her most anticipated scene. And Glinda, far from resisting, followed suit with a mixture of trembling nerves and almost reverential surrender, as if walking toward a long-dreamed-of destination.
"Don't look at the ground," Elphaba ordered quietly, with barely an edge in her tone. "Your place is here, but your dignity... will be shown by how you accept it."
Glinda raised her head as best she could, swallowing hard. Her breathing had already become erratic, not from fear, but from the adrenaline that was beginning to course strongly through her veins. This was no ordinary date. This was no ordinary night. And Elphaba, dressed in shadow with shimmering dark details, was anything but an ordinary woman.
They stopped at the back wall, where an extravagant device awaited: a metallic structure, padded in strategic places, with black leather straps and purple details, the device looked like something out of a Gothic design delirium. A work of art that had only one function: to restrain, display, punish… and transform.
"You will remain completely still," Elphaba instructed. "I'll take care of the rest."
Without breaking character, Elphaba began to hold Glinda in the star position. First her wrists, pulling firmly but not roughly, adjusting the straps around each delicate joint. Then her ankles, opening them just a little wider than natural, forcing Glinda into a vulnerable position, completely exposed.
"That's how I love you. Proud, docile… and with no escape."
Glinda couldn't fully see her from her position, but she felt Elphaba's presence moving around her, confident, without hesitation. She felt the touch of the leather, the precise fit of each buckle, the faint scent of wine and wood that seemed to envelop everything.
When Elphaba finished, she paused for a moment to observe her work. Glinda, her Glinda, was completely contained. Not like a prisoner, but like an offering. Her body tense, her limbs spread in a star position, her chest rising and falling with anxiety, her blush flushed, and her eyes closed as if awaiting a storm… or ecstasy.
With a half smile, Elphaba approached, briefly caressed Glinda's cheek with the tip of the riding crop, then bent her face… and placed a soft, unexpected, fleeting kiss, like a signature on a newly completed painting.
"Perfect."
She moved away slowly, allowing the silence to fill with anticipation. The moment was about to explode. Every buckle securely fastened. Every limb fully extended. Every emotion on the verge of boiling over.
Elphaba took her position. And with the voice of a woman who doesn't expect obedience... but devotion, she murmured:
"Now, Glinda... let's begin your punishment."
Suddenly, Elphaba turned around to face Glinda, and pulling a small zipper on her corset, the top of this fell... Just like Glinda's soul when she saw with both eyes Elphaba's breasts completely exposed, pointing directly at her.
Glinda felt a shiver run through her body; she could no longer process or act in any way.
"What? Do you like them?" Elphaba said with a mixture of delight and malice that characterized her role, as she approached Glinda, who couldn't take her eyes off... Elphaba's "spotlights." Elphaba stopped inches from Glinda's face as she stroked it. "Oh... poor little doll, she thinks she can play with big boys' toys..." But these two beautiful toys here aren't for you... you haven't earned them yet, have you? —. The dom added, playfully pressing Glinda's nose as if it were a cute button.
Glinda gulped and with difficulty managed to answer. "No... of course not... Mistress Elphaba... I don't deserve it."
"Oh, but that can be fixed... Just tell me... how much you regret it," Elphaba ordered as she began to slide her face along Glinda's neck, gently nuzzling it with her nose.
"I... I'm... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry for what... I did.
"Come on... try again." Elphaba stopped her movements and began kissing Glinda's neck. At first, they were small, sporadic kisses, but with each plea from Glinda, the kisses increased in intensity.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Glinda was on the verge of collapse as Elphaba passionately kissed her neck, almost as if she wanted to bite it and never let go.
Glinda began to tremble like crazy as she continued apologizing, then Elphaba grabbed her still-tied hands and held them tightly, continuing to bite and kiss her neck.
"OH MY MISTRESS... I BEG YOUR FORGIVENESS!" Glinda cried, feeling each kiss as if it were an arrow, until Elphaba suddenly stopped. With both hands, the dom grabbed Glinda's face and fixed her gaze on her. "Now show me your loyalty... kiss me, like you've always wanted to be kissed." At the command, Glinda opened her mouth and brought her lips closer to Elphaba's, but Elphaba stopped her at the last second. "I never said on the lips... do it where it truly matters... where your desires truly lie now..."
Fully understanding what she meant, Glinda lowered her gaze directly to Elphaba's two breasts, which were practically hypnotic to her, and in a swift movement began to kiss them. Elphaba moaned in pleasure and pressed her breasts against Glinda's face, who couldn't stop herself... not that she wanted to.
"YES! YES! SHOW ME YOUR DEVOTION!" Elphaba exclaimed, immersing herself in delight. "And now... IT'S YOUR TURN!"
With a strong tug, Elphaba pulled down Glinda's neckline, exposing her breasts, and before Glinda could say anything or even understand what happening, Elphaba threw herself at her, grabbing her head and kissing her lips with overwhelming passion. But she didn't stop there... She began to move down, kissing Glinda's neck, then her shoulders, her breasts as she grabbed them, then her abdomen, and finally she reached her target...
With a disturbingly accurate precision somewhere between ferocity and calm, Elphaba began kissing Glinda's vagina. At first they were small kisses, but then her tongue entered into action and Glinda... felt her world explode.
In her entire life of having relationships with others or even trying to satisfy herself, she had never felt this... This intensity, passion, desire, and above all... Uncontrollable satisfaction.
She felt the adrenaline and orgasm surge through her body, her bones trembling, her muscles tensing, the energy coursing through her like an electrical overload, all the way to her mouth, which was wider than a horn, and she let out a muffled scream so thin that only a highly trained ear could perceive it.
Glinda closed her still-tied hands and pressed her fingers against her palm until she left a mark, but she felt no pain because every part of her brain was overstimulated by the sensation that ran through her entire being, starting with her clitoris, which was mercilessly penetrated by Elphaba's tongue in a sensual waltz that caused an eternal shiver. Finally, Elphaba stopped, took a step away from Glinda's body, and stood up, facing her, a Glinda who was struggling internally to compose her thoughts and whose breathing was like a boiling kettle.
"... Do you like me?" Elphaba asked, in the midst of her own struggle to control her breathing and agitation.
"... Yes... Love..." Was all Glinda could manage in her state.
"Good... Let's move on to the second part..."
And with a swift, precise movement, Elphaba pulled Glinda's shackles, and she was freed. She probably would have fallen face first onto the floor, her body having forgotten how to function normally, but Elphaba caught her before she collapsed.
And in that moment, when the two women's bodies were pressed against each other, almost naked and dripping with sweat, Elphaba did the unthinkable and, whispering into Glinda's right ear, broke character for a second. "Are you sure you want to continue? Just say it, and we can stop for today."
Shaking her head slightly, Glinda glanced at her, and in her gaze, Elphaba saw only one thing... longing. "I haven't said the word yet..." The game must go on.
"Good..." Elphaba quickly regained her composure and with a firm gesture, made Glinda stand upright beside her as well. "Now join me, doll..."
Glinda, still flushed, followed Elphaba with measured steps, her heels barely clicking against the floor. Her breathing was slow, but charged with electricity, as if each breath contained an unasked question. Her eyes scanned the walls, every chain, every hook, every detail decorated with an aesthetic that combined brutality and art.
Elphaba, on the other hand, moved with the composure of someone in total control. Her gaze never left Glinda, studying her with the same care with which a sculptor contemplates marble before the first stroke of the chisel. She still held the leash delicately, not as a tug of power, but as a subtle link between two distinct universes that were beginning to intertwine.
"Here begins the next stage," Elphaba said in a deep, lilting, almost ritualistic tone. Her fingers barely touched the harness that hung on the side of the device, checking it one last time with almost surgical precision. "You've been through your initiation... now for your baptism."
Glinda said nothing. Her half-open mouth seemed about to form words, but her voice couldn't reach them. There was a part of her that still couldn't quite believe she was there, that this was really happening, that the world she'd imagined so many times was now unfolding before her with an intensity beyond all imagination. "You don't have to understand this all night," Elphaba continued as she approached, slowly circling Glinda. "You just have to listen... trust... and obey."
Glinda swallowed, lowering her head slightly, partly in acceptance, partly as a way to keep Elphaba from noticing the mix of nerves and excitement in her eyes. But Elphaba saw it. Felt it. And smiled with just a flicker of pride.
With a firm nod, Elphaba stood behind her. She slipped the purple corset-like harness over her shoulders with patient movements, adjusting the straps with an almost ceremonial reverence. Long, cool fingers glided over her back with a cadence that was more statement than caress. Next came the handcuffs, chosen not for their cruelty, but for the perfection of their design, for the exact way they fit Glinda's wrists, lifting them upward with the pre-prepared straps.
Suspended, gravity blurring the balance she'd known, Glinda stood upright in a position that was not only physical, but symbolic. At the mercy, yes... but also at the center of everything. Elphaba took a moment to contemplate her, circling her as if every angle revealed a new facet of the person before her.
"Look at you..." she murmured, her tone more one of fascination than mockery. "So perfect. So mine, now."
Glinda closed her eyes. Not out of shame, but to feel. To engrave every moment, every sound, every word in her memory. When Elphaba used her index finger to lift Glinda's chin so she could look into her eyes.
"Ready, princess? It's time for Your Majesty to become a commoner," Elphaba decreed, and suddenly placed two of her fingers in Glinda's vagina, moving them with the precision of a skilled surgeon controlling a scalpel in the middle of an operation.
Suddenly, every ounce of air in Glinda's body disappeared completely, as she opened her mouth wider than she had ever done before, in an attempt to express what she felt... or breathe, when Elphaba took advantage of the open flank and... kissed her!
But with an overflowing passion that made both of their bodies tremble, their lips sealed together releasing a heat that radiated throughout their bodies, while their tongues fought and danced with each other inside, uniting like two soul mates... like two women who have just found their place in the world NO! Their place in the universe and for the first time... They feel the satisfaction they have longed for all their lives... And that sensation in both cases has the name of the woman in front of each of them... Elphaba and Glinda... The dom and her sub… a couple capable of defying gravity…
But while high above the city soft echoes of gasps could be heard amid laughter and whiplashes, in a more hidden and eccentric corner of the city, another story was being woven beneath neon and velvet lights…
The dull roar of Fiyero's limousine engine died away in front of a building that didn't say much from the outside: an inconspicuous facade, no visible windows, just a small sign with warm, flickering lights that read "Ozdust Club." Boq watched with a frown from his padded leather seat, breathing raggedly, as if he'd just woken up from a nightmare… or entered one. His face still ached from where Fiyero's fist had caught him a few hours earlier, and the coldness of the metal container the blond had given him wasn't enough to cool his anxiety.
"What is this place?" he asked in a low, nervous voice, still staring at the flickering sign behind the tinted glass.
Fiyero glanced at him, smiling with that air of playful superiority that never seemed to leave him.
"Come down, carrot. Trust me," he replied as the door opened with a soft electric click.
Boq descended with suspicion, feeling like a child on his first day at a new school… but certain that no one wore uniforms here. As they descended a spiral staircase—covered in emerald-green velvet with soft lights integrated between the steps—Boq began to hear music. It wasn't ordinary music; it had a hint of jazz, a hint of cabaret, a hint of drama, as if someone were singing not with their voice, but with their soul… and a lot of glitter.
As he reached the main hall, Boq stopped dead in his tracks.
"What the hell…?" he muttered.
The place was, quite simply, another world. The walls were covered in mirrors and sequins. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, reflecting pink, purple, and gold lights at every possible angle. The stage in the background had thick red curtains that barely allowed anyone to see the figure behind the scenes. The audience was as diverse as it was eclectic: from elegantly dressed couples to eccentric performers with impossible wigs. Everyone seemed to be part of an unconscious choreography, drinking, laughing, waiting for... something.
Fiyero placed his hand on Boq's shoulder and gently pushed him toward one of the round tables near the stage.
"Come on, man. Don't stand there like a post. No one's going to bite you here... unless you ask for it."
Boq walked forward with tense steps, scanning every corner, as if expecting to see some disguised demon emerge. When they finally sat down, Fiyero leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs casually, and cast a casual glance around the room.
"What's this?" "Boq asked in a tight, almost complaining whisper. "A cabaret? A theater? Some kind of... pagan temple?"
Before Fiyero could answer, a powerful, high-pitched, enchanting, and absolutely unmistakable voice cut through the air like a crystal note.
"Well, he's my favorite customer!"
They both turned at the same time. Boq blinked twice, not quite believing what he was seeing. In front of them, walking with a theatrical grace that bordered on the unreal, stood a tall, imposing figure, an hourglass silhouette highlighted by a dazzling pink dress, full of glitter and feathers. A sequined crown rested on her perfectly curled blonde wig. She was like an alternative "good witch" straight out of a camp fantasy from another universe: a drag queen in all her splendor.
"The Wiz!" Fiyero exclaimed, rising to hug her with charming familiarity. "You're more magical than ever, darling."
"And you're more cheeky than ever, Prince Charming!" The Wiz replied with a musical laugh. "And who is this freckleface hottie you brought me? Your secret date?"
Boq immediately blushed.
"No! I mean... no." I'm not... he... I...
Fiyero laughed heartily as he sat back down.
"His name is Boq. He's having a rough night. I thought it was time he saw the funny side of life."
The Wiz tilted his head, assessing Boq with dagger-lined eyes, but the smile remained genuine.
"Hmm, rough, huh? Well, you've come to the perfect place. We've all had a bad day here... until the show starts. Something to drink, sweethearts?"
"The usual for me," Fiyero said. "And for Boq, something sweet but strong. He looks like he needs it."
The drag queen turned away with an exaggerated sway of her hips, blowing air kisses as she moved between the tables. Boq's mouth fell open.
"What is this place?" he persisted, now sounding more astonished than annoyed.
Fiyero leaned toward him, lowering his voice as if sharing a precious secret.
“This, my dear Boq, is the Ozdust Club. A sanctuary for the soul, a stage for what society sweeps under the rug. Here, no one judges you, no one expects you to be anything other than yourself… or whoever you want to be for one night. It doesn’t matter if you’re a nobleman or an idiot,” he said, looking at him pointedly, “the only thing that matters is that you applaud with your heart.”
Boq barely had time to process those words before the lights suddenly dimmed, plunging the room into an expectant gloom. A spotlight illuminated the stage. The red curtain was theatrically parted, and a voice echoed dramatically, announcing,
“Ladies, gentlemen, and creatures of the realm between… Prepare your souls for magic, because tonight… all the stars will shine brightly!”
The audience erupted in applause. Boq felt a chill run down his spine, somewhere between bewilderment and anticipation. Fiyero simply smiled, raising his freshly poured glass to Boq.
"Relax. Tonight, you're going to have fun... whether you like it or not."
And with that, the music began.
The curtain opened with a velvet sigh and a thud of music. Immediately, a troupe of drag dancers burst onto the scene with the overflowing energy of a sequin storm. Their costumes—feathers, cinching corsets, and thigh-high boots—glittered with every movement as they glided through exaggerated burlesque steps, acrobatic spins, and outrageously seductive poses. Everything was perfectly choreographed to a frenetic jazz beat that made the walls of the club shake. The audience clapped loudly, whistled, shouted names, and Boq… was simply in shock.
He felt like he'd been thrown without warning into a dreamlike carnival. Between the music, the lights, and the euphoria, he didn't know whether he should applaud, hide under the table, or find a way out. His gaze jumped from the choreography to the patrons, to Fiyero, who made no attempt to hide his joy at being there.
Fiyero grinned like a kid in a candy store, sipping his drink with the satisfaction of someone who knows exactly what's coming. When Boq looked at him with wide eyes, Fiyero simply shrugged, amused.
"Have you never seen real beauty before?" he said, raising his glass. "It's as close to paradise as you'll get, Boq, believe me."
Boq didn't have time to respond when the music stopped abruptly, giving way to a single spotlight that illuminated the center of the stage. The rest of the room fell into an expectant silence.
A deep, melodramatic voice boomed from the shadows.
"Ladies, gentlemen, and magical beings still undecided!" Tonight we have the pleasure of presenting the most beloved and most… cowardly comedian in town. So cowardly, he only dares to perform here, where no one can judge him… give Sir Brrr a big round of applause!
The place erupted with applause, whistles, and the banging of glasses against the tables. Boq, completely bewildered, could barely comprehend the devotion with which the people were reacting. Then he saw it.
From between the curtains emerged a peculiar figure: tall, with a theatrical gait, and a leonine mane of hair that fell to his shoulders in perfectly styled curls. He wore a beige suit with subtle pinstripes, straight out of the 1930s, and a porkpie hat tilted insolently. His mustache was thin and perfectly trimmed. He walked with a mixture of exaggerated confidence and self-imposed fragility, as if he were playing both a cowboy and a nervous grandmother.
Sir Brrr raised the microphone with a gloved hand and smiled, showing all his teeth.
"Good evening, creatures of the night and of dubious decisions," he began, his voice deep but playful. "I come in peace... and in search of free emotional therapy."
The audience roared with laughter. Boq looked around, still not understanding the joke, while Fiyero was already wiping away a tear of anticipatory laughter.
“Tonight I want to talk to you about the greatest enemy of modern man… no, I’m not talking about income tax or Fiyero’s ex,” she said, winking at the prince, who raised his hands in mock indignation. “I’m talking about this thing we call masculinity.”
There was spontaneous laughter throughout the room.
“Ah, yes, masculinity… that sweet curse that tells you you can’t cry, but you can yell at a television for three hours if your team loses. Because of course, showing emotion is wrong… unless Ozball United loses, then it’s a national tragedy.”
More laughter.
“I grew up in a pride where crying was for lionesses. Males roar, they told me. So there I was, eight years old, crying silently in the shower because I broke my favorite stuffed animal and didn’t want my “alpha lion” dad to think I was “weak.” Although of course, he cried for three days when his favorite wagon lost a wheel. But that was valid! Because he was made of hardwood, you know?
The audience was howling. Fiyero elbowed Boq.
"See? The guy's a genius. There's no better medicine for a bad day than him."
Sir Brrr walked around the stage, interacting with the audience.
"And what about that great institution of 'being a real man'?" he continued, imitating a deep voice. "A real man doesn't apologize." Ah, how convenient! And he doesn't pick up his clothes off the floor, ask for directions, or say "I love you" without looking like his throat is melting. A real man is an emotional iceberg with abs!
Laughter, shouts, clapping.
"I don't have abs. I have emotions. And a cat. And a vinyl collection of romantic ballads. Does that make me less of a man? No! It makes me a real threat to the patriarchal system. And a marvel at karaoke." Fiyero almost spat out his drink. Boq, without realizing it, began to laugh. First it was a shy smile, then a brief chuckle he tried to hide, and finally, a hearty laugh that escaped him unfiltered. For the first time all evening, his shoulders relaxed, his body stopped tensing, and his mind, always so preoccupied with duty, order, and "correctness," simply surrendered to laughter.
Sir Brrr, onstage, noticed.
"That's the spirit, my confused redhead in the background!" he said, pointing at him without missing a beat. "Welcome to the club of those who laugh so they don't scream. There's room for everyone here."
And with that wink, the act continued. Laughter filled the air like bubbles in a warm bath, and for the first time in a long time... Boq felt alive.
As Sir Brrr's act continued with its delirious comedy, each new joke drew even louder laughter from the audience. The entire club vibrated with that magical energy that only occurs when people laugh at themselves unashamedly. The spotlight flickered back and forth as Sir Brrr joked about what it meant to "be a man" in a world that still insisted on old-fashioned formulas. But Boq, though laughing, was no longer looking at the stage.
He had shifted his gaze to Fiyero.
He watched him silently for a moment, capturing something he hadn't noticed before: behind that charming, relaxed, carefree princely facade… there was a shadow. A faint melancholy hidden among the laughter, a tiredness in his eyes that wasn't due to late parties, but to something deeper.
"Why?" Boq suddenly asked, almost whispering, without taking his eyes off him.
Fiyero gradually stopped laughing. Her smile remained frozen on her face for a few seconds, as if it wanted to stay there, but then it slowly melted. She rested her elbows on the table, turned the glass between her fingers, and looked up with a sincerity Boq hadn't expected.
"Why do I come here?" he repeated, softly, without irony. "Because I need to."
The hubbub of the club seemed to recede, as if the conversation between them were encapsulated in an invisible bubble.
"I met Brrr in an improv class in college. No one took him seriously... you know, always acting awkward, funny. But one day, in the middle of a dynamic, I saw him stop… fall silent. And suddenly, he said something so real, so raw, that it stuck with me. I don't remember the exact words, but… it was as if, for a few seconds, he'd taken off all his masks.
Fiyero lowered his gaze, as if searching through his thoughts.
"I realized I was wearing too many masks, too. The perfect son. The popular guy. The unapologetic conqueror. The heir. But inside... I felt like if I showed certain parts of myself, if I opened up, if I stopped acting like the man everyone expected, I would lose everything. Friends, respect, even the love of my family. And that scared me."
Boq listened intently. It was like watching a book open that he never thought anyone would allow him to read.
"But here, in this place, no one calls me 'Your Highness.' No one expects me to sit up straight or speak with a deep voice. Here, they accept me as I am. They fuck me with affection. They hug me without judgment. Here... I can love without question. Love anyone. Be loved for who I truly am."
He was silent for a few seconds, then turned his glass once more and looked back at Boq, with a mixture of tenderness and resignation.
"And you?" Fiyero asked, his voice softer. "Why do you think you're here?"
Boq swallowed. The weight of the conversation had taken him by surprise. It was as if suddenly all the external noise meant nothing, as if only that conversation, that question, mattered. It took him a moment to answer.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I just know that... this is weird. For me. I don't understand why you brought me."
Fiyero smiled, but this time it was a sadder, more mature smile.
"Maybe at first I just wanted company," he confessed. "But I think deep down... I knew you were about to fall. That you were at that point where men do enormously stupid things just because a girl didn't look at us the way we wanted. Where we turn disappointment into anger, sadness into ego, and end up breaking ourselves just to prove that it didn't hurt."
Boq lowered his gaze. It was as if Fiyero's words had opened something in him that had been locked away for days, weeks, maybe years.
"I've been there," Fiyero continued. "In that part of the story where you hurt just to feel stronger, where you ignore what you feel because you "shouldn't" feel it. Where you confuse pride with power. But that shit... it's useless. It doesn't save you. It just consumes you."
The silence between them grew thick, but not uncomfortable. It was the silence of authenticity, of something that is slowly digested.
"Maybe this is my good deed of the year," Fiyero added with a half smile. "To show you there's another side. A freer one. More... fun. Where you can laugh at yourself, at what was expected of you, and at what you don't need to be. Maybe you won't understand it today. But if you stay... maybe you'll start to see it."
Boq looked at him. And for the first time in a long time, he didn't feel ashamed of not knowing what to say. He just nodded slightly, silently.
And onstage, Sir Brrr finished a particularly stupid joke with a dramatic bow. The audience erupted in laughter, and among them, finally, Boq also let out a real laugh.
While laughter and applause erupted miles away, in that eccentric club hidden underground, another space remained utterly silent… so profound that even the sound of two ragged breaths seemed to echo against the dark walls.
Elphaba's playroom—often filled with commands, echoes of orders, the click of a riding crop, or the jingling of chains—was now still, motionless, as if even the objects knew something sacred was happening at that moment.
Elphaba lay with one arm outstretched on the floor, her long dark hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, her skin still marked by the intense emotions of the previous moment. Glinda was at his side, breathing deeply, her cheeks still flushed, somewhere between exhaustion and euphoria. For minutes they said nothing, just glanced at each other with that smile that comes when there's no need for words, when your skin is still burning but your soul feels... light.
Elphaba was the first to speak, her voice raspy but gentle, almost conspiratorial.
"Are you okay?"
Glinda took a second to answer. She blinked slowly, then gave a short, breathless laugh, as if the question seemed ridiculously unnecessary... and at the same time, the most perfect one she could have been asked.
"I'm..." She searched for the words as if they were hiding in her chest, trapped between her ribs. "I'm alive. I'm trembling. I'm... completely broken. And happy."
Elphaba turned her head toward her, smiling crookedly. The usual hardness on her face had dissolved, leaving in its place a vulnerable, sweet, curious expression.
"I didn't know if you could take it," she said, in that tone somewhere between defiant and mocking she used to hide her tenderness. "But you did. And better than I imagined."
“You surprised me the most,” Glinda replied, turning slightly to look at her more clearly. “I thought it would be like a character. That it would all be an act. But you were so… you.”
There was a pause. The words hung, heavy with meaning.
“Is that a good thing?” Elphaba asked, with a hint of uncertainty.
“It’s the best,” Glinda stated without hesitation. “I felt safe. Even when you disarmed me with every command… I felt safe. And free. Like I could finally stop pretending.”
Elphaba closed her eyes for a moment. Then she slowly turned her body, facing Glinda on her side, her leg brushing against hers.
“Do you know what this means to me?” she murmured. “I’ve always been in control because… it was the only way I felt I could exist. In my world, showing what I want was a risk. But with you… I feel seen. And not judged.”
“And me?” "Glinda said, moving a little closer, until their foreheads were almost touching. "Do you know how many times I've pretended to want what I didn't want, just to fit in? To avoid disappointing, to keep smiling? But with you… I don't have to pretend anything."
Her fingers gently intertwined with each other. The marks on her skin were evidence of the intensity she'd experienced, but now they were only a memory fading beneath the tenderness.
"I never thought I'd like this," Glinda confessed, almost in a whisper. "But with you… it wasn't just pleasure. It was surrender. It was trust. It was… love. Is that too soon to say it?"
Elphaba was silent. She looked into her eyes, and for a moment, she seemed to step back. But then she took a deep breath and allowed the truth to come out, unshielded.
"No, Glinda. It's not soon. Because I felt it too."
They kissed. Not with hunger, not with fire. With sweetness. With that kiss born of the relief of knowing each other was reciprocated. Of having crossed a threshold from which there was no return, nor did they want to.
Elphaba sighed as she closed her eyes, her forehead still resting against Glinda's.
"I suppose we should clean up," she murmured.
"Not yet," Glinda replied with a lazy smile. "I want to stay here, a little longer... in this bubble with you."
And so they did.
Because amidst the chaos that was their world—made of masks, expectations, and fears—they had finally found a place where neither of them had to defend themselves. Where they could breathe. Where they could be themselves.
The room had settled into a soft murmur of slow breaths and emotions still suspended in the air. Glinda, her body still marked by the traces of desire and surrender, sat up slowly, guided by a mixture of exhaustion and fullness that gave her soul a new weight—lighter, paradoxically.
Elphaba gestured toward the bathroom with a slight, almost lazy gesture, and Glinda smiled knowingly before standing. The provocative outfit she wore, soaked with sweat, hung on her skin like a defeated husk. Without drama, she let it fall to the floor, revealing her body without shame, without needing to hide. There was something deeply liberating about that, about being looked at without judgment.
She walked barefoot to the shower. Cautiously, she turned on the faucet, and soon, a curtain of warm water fell upon her like a ceremonial rain. She remained motionless for a moment, her arms hanging at her sides, her head bowed, her eyes closed. She didn't think, she didn't speak, she didn't remember. She only felt. The water sliding over her skin was like a fresh stream washing her insides as well.
It was then that she heard, barely a whisper amid the sound of the water, the soft click of the shower door opening. She turned her head slightly and saw her: Elphaba. Silent. Serene. Beautiful.
There were no words needed. They just looked at each other.
And in that look, there was more than desire: there was understanding. There was tenderness. There was recognition. They had both shown each other at their most vulnerable, and instead of being afraid or running away, they had stayed. Together. Elphaba approached unhurriedly, allowing the water to embrace her as well, and when they stood face to face, their hands sought each other with reverent delicacy. It was Glinda who leaned in first, but it was Elphaba who held the kiss as if she had all the time in the world to do it just right.
And that kiss… it wasn't like the previous ones.
It didn't have the fire of domination, nor the tension of play, nor the electric shock of the forbidden.
It was something else. Something deeper. A kiss that asked for nothing, but gave everything. It wasn't a physical surrender, but an emotional commitment. It was the recognition that, after everything they had experienced, everything they had shared, everything they had confessed… there was something real here. Something that no longer needed masks, roles, or stagecraft. Only presence.
The water enveloped them like a sacred veil, while the caresses no longer sought to provoke, but to console, affirm, and promise.
They stood like that, embracing under the artificial rain, as if they had met for the first time. And in a way, that's how it was.
Because to love, after stripping away everything, is also to start over.
Meanwhile, the scene in the club had reached an unexpected warmth, as if beneath the neon lights and exaggerated makeup, amidst sequins and cocktail smoke, something deeply human was slowly seeping out. Boq, visibly affected by the drinks—a mix of liquors with campy names like "The Pink Bubble" and "The Ruby Slipper"—was coughing nonstop, his eyes watering, his tongue burning, and his expression somewhere between astonished and defeated. Fiyero, for his part, couldn't contain his laughter, resting his forehead on the table while fraternally patting his companion's shoulder.
"What the hell do they put in this?" Boq managed to stammer, his voice cracking.
"Honestly, I'm not sure if it's alcohol or a spell in liquid form," Fiyero joked, swirling his glass theatrically.
It was at that moment that a feline shadow approached with a confident comedian's gait and a sly gaze. Sir Brrr, the shameless lion, with his perfectly groomed mane and burgundy suit with gold trim, stood beside them. His porkpie hat tilted slightly to one side, giving him the air of a cabaret performer with decades of experience and zero tolerance for other people's drama.
"Look what the current brought!" he exclaimed in his high-pitched, theatrical voice as he sat down without asking. "The wayward prince and his confused squire."
"Sir Brrr, always a pleasure," Fiyero said, shaking his hand enthusiastically. "Have you made anyone in the front row cry yet?"
"Only the ego of a banker who came with his mistress and not his wife," Brrr said, raising an eyebrow. "But what about you? This place isn't usually a destination for lost souls... and today I got two for the price of one."
Boq tried to reply, but coughed again. Brrr sarcastically offered him a scented napkin that he pulled from his pocket with the dramatic flair of a diva.
"You're here because love kicked you in the pants and you don't know whether to cry or set everything on fire, right, redhead in crisis?" "Brrr said, pointing at him with his ringed finger.
Boq just nodded weakly.
"And you," he added, turning to Fiyero with a more inquisitive look, "you're still wandering around with that pretty-boy smile but with your emotional compass completely broken. How many jobs did you quit this month?"
Fiyero threw up his hands, amused and resigned.
"Technically, only two. But one was an intern, so it doesn't count."
Brrr sighed theatrically and waved a napkin in the air as if he were in the middle of an opera.
"One poor boy with no heart, another with no brains, and me with no courage to apply anywhere other than a glitter-fest and rejects," he declared. "Quite a trio. They'd be perfect for a children's musical. Although, as supporting characters... filler."
Fiyero burst out laughing as he raised his glass.
"Let's drink to that!" “The support trio,” coming soon to some seedy theater.
The night continued amid laughter and drinks, with most of the clientele having left, leaving only the trio in the middle of the dive. Boq rubbed his face with both hands and mumbled something unintelligible before letting out a long, deep sigh. Fiyero, at his side, watched with a mixture of amusement and empathy, as Sir Brrr took a slow sip of his violet-colored cocktail with a ridiculously large umbrella stuck right in the middle.
“So… how’s the broken heart thing going?” Brrr asked in a deep voice, with that theatrically compassionate tone that only a true stage dragon could adopt without coming across as condescending.
Boq narrowed his eyes, slightly embarrassed.
“I don’t know if it was my heart… more my ego. I guess I hoped that if I did everything right, if I behaved… she’d notice. She saw me. But no.” "He gave a bitter chuckle. "Not a damn glance."
"That's what you get for thinking love is a points system," Brrr muttered with an arched eyebrow. "Like you're given a trophy for good behavior. Spoiler alert: it doesn't work that way, my sweet redhead."
Fiyero gave a soft laugh.
"Brrr was the first to teach me that, by the way. And he did it by yelling it at me during an improv performance in front of thirty strangers."
"And you deserved it," Brrr replied. "You were unbearably charming. One of those people who uses a smile to avoid all the awkwardness."
"I'm still charming. Only now I'm also tragic." Fiyero raised his glass in an aimless toast.
"Perfect, now you're a Tennessee Williams character," Brrr mocked. "Bravo."
There was a general laugh. The atmosphere was filled with dim smoke, purple lights, and soft electronic music in the background, but the table they were sitting at was a small bubble outside of time, where three people, each with their own inner shipwreck, shared something unusually rare: honesty.
Brrr rested his elbows on the table and looked at them with a seriousness that briefly cut through the festive tone.
"You know what the most fucked up thing is? Everyone thinks that being handsome, or rich, or funny, they've got their life sorted. But no one asks if they feel whole. If we can sleep with ourselves without anesthesia."
Boq looked at him with a mixture of surprise and recognition. Fiyero looked down at his glass.
"I don't know what the hell I want to do with my life," he admitted suddenly, breaking the silence as if plucking a thorn. "Everyone expects me to be something. A leader, an entrepreneur, a magazine charmer. But the truth is, the only thing that makes me feel alive... are places like this. And yet, I don't even know what that means."
"Welcome to the club of the functionally confused," Brrr declared, toasting with his glass. "And you, Boq... you need to stop seeking approval. You don't need someone to choose you to be worth something."
"And you?" Boq replied, somewhat intoxicated by the alcohol. "What is your greatest deficiency?"
Brrr smiled and leaned back theatrically.
"As I said before, it's 'courage,' my love. But the real one. Not the kind that makes you walk out onto the stage with feathers... but the kind you need to go home and not feel empty."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was necessary. Within it, something was formed that went beyond sympathy or alcohol-forced camaraderie: a sort of unspoken pact between three wounded souls who, for one night, didn't have to pretend.
And without knowing it, that night would be the beginning of a strange, absurd, and deeply meaningful friendship.
The rain fell very gently against the windows of Elphaba's penthouse, a constant, tranquil sound that accompanied the warmth inside, as if the city outside had no choice but to fall silent for a moment. In a corner of the room, a floor-standing lamp cast its warm light on Elphaba and Glinda, who sat on a large sofa, covered in bathrobes.
Elphaba, her hair still wet, dried it with a towel while enjoying a steaming cup of coffee. The room was quiet, interrupted only by the soft sound of cups being placed on the coffee table. Glinda, sitting next to her, watched her with a mischievous smile as she snuggled up to her side, seeking the warmth that enveloped her. Without a word, she slid onto the sofa and let her body fall towards Elphaba's, leaning against her chest, as if there was nothing in the world that could interrupt this small, perfect moment.
"This... this should be illegal, it feels so good, right?" Glinda murmured with a smile, sipping from her cup.
"The coffee or me?" Elphaba asked with a slight irony.
Glinda laughed softly, her laughter soft, like a sigh, as she settled into her seat. "Both, of course. Everything about you... and this moment. It's all an excess of good things. What we have here is... almost perfect." They both remained silent for a moment, enjoying the contact and the company, as if the city and its distant lights didn't exist at that very moment. Glinda took a long sip of her coffee, and Elphaba's voice broke the stillness.
"What?"
"If my mother knew what happened tonight... what's happening," Glinda chuckled, shaking her head, "she'd go completely crazy. God knows what she'd do. An intervention, a pilgrimage, or... an urgent call for an elite squad of psychologists to see what kind of trauma I've gotten into."
Elphaba let out a nasal laugh and raised an eyebrow theatrically.
"Wouldn't she approve?"
"God, no! Not even in her worst nightmares could she have imagined this. Not for a second would she accept it, I know it."
Elphaba is silent for a moment, her smile losing some of its strength, until she breaks the tension with a softer voice. "And me...? Would she accept me?"
Glinda remains silent. Not for lack of affection, but because she knows the answer, and it hurts.
"...No. She probably wouldn't."
Noticing the concern in her beloved's voice, Elphaba stroked her hair gently and with a sad smile proclaimed, "Calm down. I understand. Believe me... if my father found out about this, he would call an exorcist. And probably an expensive one."
They both burst into laughter. Glinda is the first to calm down, wiping away a tear of laughter.
"God... how did we end up like this?"
"Just like that? Half-naked, drinking coffee in bathrobes, talking about intolerant parents."
"Exactly like that," Glinda concluded with a smile.
The two remained silent for a few seconds. Elphaba picked up her cup and sipped calmly. Then, Glinda broke the silence with an inevitable question, laced with vulnerability. "Your family...? Would you still talk to them?"
Hearing the question, Elphaba shrugged somewhat negatively. "Not much. My mother died when I was very young. And my father... he always wanted me to be someone else. Anything, but not me."
"I'm sorry..."
"You don't have to. The good thing about not being accepted is that you stop looking for their approval. You start looking for... something else," Elphaba added with a mixture of melancholy and nostalgia.
"Like what?"
Elphaba looked Glinda straight in the eye. "Like someone who sees you... exactly the way you want to be seen."
"I can help you with that." Glinda didn't blink as she said it. She didn't lower her gaze. She said it like a vow.
Elphaba let out a small laugh, shaky and sincere.
"You know what you're getting into, don't you? I'm addicted to sarcasm, I have no patience for superficial people, and I probably have more books than human contacts in my life."
Glinda smiled mischievously.
"And do you know who you're getting into? I need constant attention, I tend to be dramatic even when it's not necessary, and I have a blacklist of all the places that don't offer good cappuccino."
They both burst into laughter, that strange mix of relief and joy. They hugged each other tighter. Elphaba rested her forehead against Glinda's, and for a moment they said nothing else. They were together. That was enough.
Then, Elphaba murmured the question that had been hovering between them for a while, like a cloud suspended between them.
"So what now?"
Glinda sat up slightly, placing a hand on Elphaba's knee. Her smile was clear, luminous, and her voice, soft as a promise.
"Now... I'm inviting you to breakfast. In bed. At eleven, because I'm not getting up any earlier. Then we watch a terrible movie. And..."
"And then?" Elphaba finished.
"And then... We see how we'll spend the rest of our lives together..."
"Sounds like a perfect plan to me," Elphaba said with a warm smile.
Glinda just snuggled even further into Elphaba's arms. "See? You're not the only one with good ideas."
The two of them laughed and enjoyed that moment of absolute perfection a little longer.
Gently stroking the back of Glinda's hand with her thumb, Elphaba let out a comment almost in passing, as if it were of no great importance.
—Oh, by the way... Morrible and the senator invited us to their Christmas party.
Glinda, who was already curled up on the couch again, froze. She blinked slowly... and then blinked again, but this time with eyes so wide they were like two fine china plates.
—The Christmas party? she asked, her voice going from surprise to amazement in a matter of seconds.
Elphaba took a sip of coffee, as if she didn't fully grasp the magnitude of what she had just said.
—Yes... the senator's. At his country house. They invited us... both of us. Together.
Glinda bolted upright, as if her name had just been mentioned at a press conference.
—Elphaba! Do you know what that means? That party is the most closed and elitist event of the year! Diplomats, businessmen, celebrities, patrons, ministers! And now... us!
"Well," Elphaba replied, shrugging with a shy smile. "Technically, we were invited separately, but..."
Glinda looked at her for a second, then pursed her lips in a charmingly ironic grimace.
"Do you want me to be your date for that event?"
Elphaba glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, holding her gaze with a mixture of impudence and tenderness.
"Yes. If you want."
Glinda didn't take half a second to answer.
"Of course I do. But first..." she turned to her with sparkling eyes and a smile that was clearly already planning ten things at once, "...we have a lot to do. Dresses, accessories, speech..."
Elphaba watched her during this mini-monologue, seeing how Glinda's mind was already racing, like a machine of haute couture and social strategy. Only then did she lean back in the chair, head back, and sigh in resignation.
"Gods... what have I just gotten myself into?"
Glinda, still smiling, leaned toward her and placed a fleeting kiss on her cheek.
"Something wonderful. Don't worry, I'll take care of it."
And Elphaba, though clearly a little intimidated, couldn't help but smile.
After all, if she was going to lose control... let her be held by Glinda's hand. And that... is a wish she would hold for the rest of her life.
Notes:
Curious about the chapter, at first I thought it would be two separate chapters, but I realized no one would want to read a chapter where Elphaba and Glinda didn't appear, so I combined them. I hope you enjoy it, and I'll let you know that I have several ideas about the trio of friends that formed in this chapter (I know, I bet you never expected that trio).
By the way, I really appreciate all the comments I've received on the previous chapters; seriously, they means everything. I look forward to hearing if you have more things to comment on; it always helps move the story forward.
Chapter Text
“Sometimes I wonder if all this was meant to be from the beginning… or if it was simply an accident of catastrophic proportions. The story you're about to witness—the chapter we're reaching—isn't just any moment. It's the watershed. The point of no return. The moment when everything that came before loses its weight, and what's coming next starts to hurt. So if you've come this far expecting a lighthearted tale, you'd better brace yourselves. Because we're nearing the end of the first act. And like any good modern tragedy… before the climax, you first have to meet the man who unleashes it all.
Some know him by his full name, that pompous and ridiculous set of letters that not even he pronounces with the same intonation twice in a row: Oscar Zoroaster Diggs. Others call him Senator, Leader, Savior. But for me, and for anyone who's been close to the true core of his power, there's only one nickname that truly warns you of what you're up against: "The Wizard."
And what makes a man worthy of that title? It's not magic, of course. It's not mystery or spectacle. It's the way he makes everyone else believe he has all the answers, even when he doesn't even know what the question is. And unfortunately… for too long, we all believed him.
Little is known about his origins, and that's no accident. Most of what is said about his childhood comes from his own mouth—and considering that he has made lying an art form, anyone should doubt its veracity. According to him, he was born in Omaha, Nebraska, into a family so poor that hunger was his only toy and cold his only brother. He claims his parents were invisible, not in the literal sense, of course, but in that kind of cruel anonymity that leaves few traces. Nothing worth remembering… let alone honoring.
He claims to have finished his elementary school at an unusually young age, although there is no record of that either. What does seem certain—because he has proven it time and time again—is that, since he was a child, his only real ability was speaking. Using words as weapons, as shields, as bandages, as hooks. He was the kind of kid who always convinced others to take the blame, to jump first, to stay quiet when they should have shouted. His voice was his ticket out, and also his preferred method for getting into trouble.
By the time he was twenty, he'd left home—if he'd ever had one—and was traveling the country like a street vendor with more cynicism than merchandise. He offered mirrors that reflected what you wanted to see, lotions that promised what no one needed, ideas wrapped in shiny paper with no content inside. And always, on the brink of disaster. His reputation was that of a charming charlatan: harmless until he wasn't.
And then… as sometimes happens with the worst of men, fate winked at him.
In one of those sales monologues as theatrical as they were fraudulent, he was heard by a member of a small independent political party, desperate for a voice that could shout louder than the inconvenient truths. The Wizard knew nothing about politics, and he didn't care. But they talked to him about cameras, money, and stages. And that was enough.
Soon, he became the spokesperson for that party. And in less than a year, he was defending everything: from regressive taxes to absurd projects that only benefited the same old people. But his big coup came in a small, forgotten town, where businessmen and unions were about to set the streets on fire. It was there that the Wizard spoke. He just spoke. For hours. And, somehow, he achieved the impossible: calming the masses. Not because he told the truth. But because he knew what lie each ear needed.
That day, he understood that he didn't want to be heard. He wanted to be believed.
It was the beginning of his meteoric rise. He quickly understood that in politics, ideology isn't what matters, but the moment. Values aren't what matters, but alliances are. What you defended with fire yesterday, you can destroy with the same passion today, as long as the price is right.
And just as his career was beginning to falter, she appeared.
Madame Morrible. A woman whose ambition rivaled his, but who had what he didn't: structure, elegance, resources. She didn't need a politician. She needed a face. And he didn't need a businesswoman, but a base. So they allied. A monster of words and an iron strategist. And together they destroyed everything in their path. They promised order where there was chaos. Justice where there was plunder. And no one looked behind the curtain.
That's how that smoke-peddler from shady fairs became the most influential Senator in the city. Loved by those who believe he fights for them. Feared by those who know he doesn't. Surrounded by flatterers, protected by the very system he claims to fight.
But now, I know the truth... And so does she...
Because behind that charming smile, those speeches about unity, those perfectly ironed suits, hides a mind sickened by power. And worst of all... he's found the perfect pieces to complete his game.
Two pieces….. Two girls….. Two futures in the palm of his hand.
And a story that's about to explode.”
CHAPTER 7: Well, Are You Coming? Part 1
Morning arrived dressed in white. From the window, half-covered by a threadbare gray curtain, when Elphaba opened her eyes, she saw how the city seemed to have been enveloped in a pure, icy breath. The asphalt, the rooftops, the bare trees, even the distant sounds of cars seemed muffled by the thick layer of snow that covered everything, as if the world had decided to remain silent for a few hours and let winter speak. For a moment—a brief, fleeting moment—the calm felt sacred.
Still lying between the wrinkled blankets, she felt the familiar roughness of the cold sheets brushing her skin. She brought a hand to her face, pushing back a strand of hair that had fallen in disarray over her forehead. Then, a barely perceptible smile, shy and unaccustomed to showing, appeared on her lips. It wasn't often that Elphaba woke up with a smile. But last night, that mixture of madness, tenderness, and shared vulnerability still throbbed inside her, like a melody that refuses to fade when it's over.
Yet when her hand felt the opposite side of the bed, the absence of warmth brought back her doubts. The empty space beside her, still slightly warm, told her it hadn't been that long since Glinda had gotten up. But for a second, that emptiness triggered an old alarm in her mind—the habit of always expecting the worst, of anticipating escape before it happens. Her gaze hardened only slightly before an unmistakable sound jolted her.
A high-pitched squeal, followed by a dry "Damn it!" and then a thunderous crash of metal against the floor.
Elphaba sat up, pursing her lips in a mixture of bewilderment and resignation, and put on her old flannel robe. She stepped cautiously out into the hallway, and when she peered into the small space that served as the kitchen, what she saw was a scene as absurd as it was heartwarming.
There was Glinda, twirling like an electric doll on power overload, her hair pulled back in a makeshift bun that threatened to fall apart at any moment, her face flushed from exertion and the smoke, and—Elphaba couldn't help but notice—dressed only in one of her shirts, three sizes too big for her figure, which barely covered her thighs.
"What are you doing?" Elphaba asked, her deep voice still laced with sleep, but with a hint of mockery hidden in her words.
Glinda turned abruptly, as if her name had sprung a trap, and her expression went from concentration to panic in a matter of seconds.
"You shouldn't be awake yet!" she complained, dropping the spatula on the counter and raising her hands as if to cover both the mess in the kitchen and her own frustration. "I wanted to surprise you! Breakfast in bed! You know... as thanks for... you know."
"For last night?" Elphaba asked, crossing her arms, though the smile escaped the corner of her lips before she could stop it.
Glinda looked at her, half embarrassed and half offended, then let out a dramatic snort.
"Yeah, right! But this is a mess. Your kitchen is... it's like it was designed by someone who doesn't believe in gastronomic pleasure. Where are your spices? Your sugar? Your utensils that don't look like medieval weapons?" Elphaba approached with deliberate slowness, enjoying every second of that enchanting chaos, and took the spatula with the same delicacy with which one takes a child's hand to teach them to write.
"You're in my house, my dear," she said, leaning toward the pan where what appeared to be an ambiguous mixture of eggs and something else was sizzling dangerously. "Here we cook with what we have. And what we have, generally, is improvisation."
Glinda crossed her arms, puffing out her cheeks like a child about to cry with rage, but said nothing. Elphaba simply laughed, a low, raspy laugh, and stood beside her, sweeping away some burnt remains with a practical gesture.
Minutes later, with the kitchen a relatively controlled battlefield and the smoke dissipating through the small open window, they both sat down at the narrow dining table. Two cups of coffee—one with honey, the other as black as Elphaba's soul, according to Glinda—accompanied the not entirely unsuccessful dishes. Elphaba cut a piece of toast with a focused expression, while Glinda watched her as if waiting for a court verdict.
"It's not so bad," Elphaba conceded as she took a bite.
"That's the closest thing to a compliment you've ever said about my cooking," Glinda said, raising her eyebrow.
"It's the closest thing to cooking you've ever offered me," Elphaba replied without looking up, but with a perfectly visible smile in her eyes.
They ate in silence for a few minutes, a comfortable silence, full of small gestures. Glinda stretched out her bare feet to brush Elphaba's under the table. Elphaba pretended not to notice, but she didn't move.
As the aroma of coffee drifted like a warm mist between them and the snow continued its silent descent beyond the window, Elphaba noticed Glinda's eyes twinkling with barely contained unease. It wasn't exactly nervousness—that emotion had fizzled out sometime last night—but rather a lively, almost childlike curiosity, the spark that transformed her into a relentless questioner when she sensed there was something new to discover.
Glinda toyed with the spoon in her cup, barely biting her lower lip, and Elphaba raised an eyebrow, knowing exactly what was coming. She couldn't help but let out a sigh, the kind of theatrical sigh one offers when one no longer has a defense, and she leaned her elbow on the table, her cheek resting on her hand.
"Go on, say it," she said in a tone that laced equal parts sarcasm and indulgence. "I can tell you're about to explode. Ask whatever you want, Glinda. I'm officially turning the inquisition over to you." Glinda opened her eyes with feigned innocence.
"Me? Curious? What a scandal."
"Uh-huh."
Glinda didn't wait any longer. Her cup trembled slightly as she set it down, and her entire body seemed to lean forward, as if she were afraid Elphaba might regret giving her permission.
"Since when have you had... all that?" she began, lowering her voice as she said "all that," though her blush betrayed her. "I mean your... parlor. The secret room with more leather than an autumn runway. Have you always been this... kinky?"
Elphaba let out a low laugh, one of those that came from her chest and wasn't filtered.
"'Kinky'? What a decadent word. I love it." She settled back in her chair, stretching her legs calmly, as if this conversation didn't intimidate her in the least. "Most of those things I've acquired over the past few years." Some in specialty shops, some at occult fairs, even a piece at an auction in an abandoned church. It's quite an art, you know? Like alchemy... but with chains.
"I don't believe you!" Glinda giggled in scandal. "Alchemy and chains? You're a poem of contradictions."
"And you expected less?" Elphaba retorted theatrically, raising an eyebrow with studied arrogance. "What did you think I did in my free time? Knit green scarves?"
"I don't know, but I definitely didn't expect ornate whips and a colt that looks like something out of a Gothic opera!" Glinda laughed, carrying a hand over her chest. "And that piece of furniture with secret compartments? You even had embroidered handcuffs! Who embroiders that?"
"A lovely lady from the Kansas suburbs. Very professional. She charges by the stitch."
They both laughed freely, and with each laugh, the atmosphere between them became more intimate, more confident. What could have been an awkward or uncomfortable conversation became, through some kind of alchemy, an honest exchange between two women who, beyond desire, were also beginning to explore trust.
Glinda bit her lip, clearly enjoying the questioning.
"Since when have you been interested in BDSM?"
Elphaba settled back in her chair, crossing her legs languidly, as if at an academic lecture.
"For years. At first, I was just curious. Then I discovered there's beauty in boundaries, in trust. It's a dance." Her voice lowered slightly, more thoughtful. "It's not just whips and handcuffs. It's power play, surrender, care. It's not always about domination. Sometimes it's just... liberating."
Instead of laughing, Glinda was silent for a moment. Then she smiled with an expression that mixed admiration and surprise.
"I've never heard anyone talk about it like that."
"Does it make you uncomfortable?"
"Me? Please," Glinda said, feigning indignation, though her cheeks colored slightly. "I just... didn't expect it from you. You're so... restrained." Well, at least in public.
"And you?" Elphaba asked after a while, taking a sip of her coffee. "Because you're not going to convince me that all this is news to you. You didn't exactly seem shocked yesterday. More like... enthusiastic."
Glinda tilted her head, as if carefully considering how much she wanted to reveal, but eventually let out a guilty smile.
"Well... maybe I've read a few things. And I may have bought a couple of accessories that are hidden in a secret compartment inside my closet... behind the ball gowns." She paused dramatically. "And I may have attended a couple of themed parties in college where, let's just say, clothing wasn't exactly mandatory."
Elphaba lowered her cup halfway to her mouth and looked at her with mock astonishment.
"Glinda Upland, royalty of pink and diamond crowns... at depraved parties."
"Shhh, don't say it like that," Glinda laughed, red as a cherry. They were elegant affairs! Nothing vulgar. There was champagne and everything!
"Sure," Elphaba agreed sarcastically. "Champagne and whips. Classic high society."
Between anecdotes of secret escapades, half-told adventures, and ironic confessions, the two of them became more and more at ease. They laughed as if the world were new, as if they had just discovered a language all their own. There was no judgment, no fear, just the honest feeling of sharing something secret and precious, a corner of themselves that rarely sees the light of day.
When breakfast was just a memory on the plates and the coffee had grown cold, Glinda rested her head on Elphaba's shoulder. Outside, the snow was still falling, but now it seemed to be part of the calm that had settled between them.
"I didn't think I'd ever be able to have a conversation like this with you," Glinda whispered, a smile barely audible in her voice.
"And what part surprises you the most?" That I talk? That I laugh? Or that you know what I have hidden behind an unlocked door?
Glinda closed her eyes, sighing softly.
"That I feel so safe doing it."
The two of them toasted each other with laughter that slowly faded, until calm caught them in a sweet, silent moment. They looked at each other, their cheeks still flushed, and for a second the world paused again, as if even the snow outside was holding its breath.
Until Glinda, with her best tone of false innocence and a look full of mischief, decided to break the moment.
"What if... you do your 'magic' right now?" she said, playing with the word magic as if it were made of candy. "No toys, no nothing. Just you, me, and... well, whatever's at hand."
Elphaba gave a dry laugh and shook her head with a gesture as maternal as it was sarcastic.
"Glinda, we just woke up. Literally." Wasn't last night enough? Do you want to die happy so early?
"I won't die until I see it, and know it, and remember it," she insisted, drawing out the words as if they were forbidden verses.
"I won't," Elphaba said firmly, though her lips couldn't hide the slight tremor of amusement. "Unless you make me angry. Then... perhaps."
Glinda put her hand to her chest, feigning outrage, and then, after a calculated pause, smiled with luminous malice.
“What if we talk about… the preparations for the senator’s big Christmas party?”
Elphaba paled. Literally.
“No.”
But Glinda had already begun, like a storm impossible to stop:
“What do you think? A fairy tale theme! With custom-made outfits! Magical decorations! I thought we could walk in dressed as angels,” Glinda said, completely ignoring the panic spreading across Elphaba’s face. “Although of course, you could be a dark fairy, with velvet wings and…”
“Glinda…” Elphaba murmured, her tone somewhere between warning and pleading. Leaning against the counter, her coffee already cold in her hands, she watched Glinda with that mixture of fascination and resignation that only she could inspire. “No, listen to me! This party is the political-social event of the year. You can't just show up with that 'I just got out of the lab and I don't have time for your trivialities' attitude. This is your chance to make an entrance! People will be talking about us for weeks if we do this right. Weeks!”
Elphaba placed her cup with a slight clink on the table, approached slowly, and crouched down next to her. “You know you're crossing a very dangerous line, don't you?” she whispered with an ominous smile.
Glinda, with the audacity of someone playing with fire and knowing exactly what flame she's trying to ignite, narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin in feigned innocence. “What if I do?”
“What if I want you to be quiet for five minutes?” Elphaba asked, raising an eyebrow.
“That would be an impossible challenge,” Glinda replied with theatrical petulance. “But not for lack of will… you'd just need to convince me.”
Silence.
A smile, slow and dark, crossed Elphaba's face. A barely perceptible change in her posture, in the way her eyes scanned Glinda's body, in how her voice lowered a half-tone as she said, "Oh, convince you? With nothing but what's on hand? Without my 'special toys'...?"
Glinda nodded provocatively, confident in her power. "That's what I said... Come on, show me your magic, witch."
And then Elphaba moved.
With surgical precision and a swiftness that Glinda, in her vanity, never anticipated, Elphaba reached for one of the long ribbons of decorative fabric hanging from a Christmas basket on the table. Before Glinda could finish laughing at her own joke, her wrists were firmly trapped behind the back of the chair.
"Hey!" she squealed between giggles. "That doesn't count as a neutral tool, that's decoration!"
"Decoration?" Elphaba leaned over her, so close that Glinda could smell the coffee on her breath. “This is art, my dear.”
“This is abuse of dominant, domestic power!” she cried, amused, as Elphaba took another ribbon and began to circle her waist, trapping her completely against the chair, as if she were a carefully wrapped present.
“Weren't you the one who wanted to be treated like a Christmas present?” Elphaba asked as she tied the knot with wicked slowness. “I'm fulfilling your fantasy.”
“That was a metaphor!”
“Too late.”
Within minutes, Glinda was completely immobilized, bound with a mix of ribbons, ribbons, and a makeshift rope fashioned from a kitchen towel. Her hair fell in golden waves, topsy-turvy from her movements, and her expression was that of a queen trapped in her own palace, irritated and delighted in equal measure.
“This is totally unnecessary,” Glinda protested weakly as her body was wrapped, crossed, and secured, as if it were the final project for an advanced course in art packing.
“I know,” Elphaba replied serenely as she adjusted one tie after another. “But remember, I have a reputation to uphold. I can't let some blonde with the delusions of a royal costume designer trample on me.”
“They're not delusions! They're visions of the future!” "Glinda rebutted, laughing, unable to move except to bat her eyelashes.
When Elphaba tightened the last knot with an elegant tug that made Glinda let out a small moan somewhere between indignation and pleasure, the witch took two steps back, looked at her critically, and clicked her tongue.
"Something's missing."
"What could be missing?" Glinda said, inflamed by the mixture of helplessness, playfulness, and tenderness.
Elphaba walked back to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and came back with a small red cherry between her fingers.
"This."
And without ceremony, she delicately placed it on Glinda's nose.
Glinda immediately opened her mouth, horrified and amused at the same time.
"No! Elphie! Wait! That might be too much... I have a picture and..."
"That's precisely why," Elphaba said, taking out her phone. This is for the horrible makeover you put me through at the office during the night shift. Consider this... restorative justice.
Click. The photo was taken in perfect natural lighting. Glinda, tied up with enviable aesthetic precision, her hair disheveled and her nose adorned with a cherry, while Elphaba shoveled a piece of toast into her mouth, which had just opened in protest.
"There you are. My personalized Christmas gift."
Glinda snorted loudly, but her eyes shone like two small moons, unable to hide the laughter that pooled like champagne bubbles in her chest.
"You're... evil," she said, with a mixture of fury and amusement.
"I know," Elphaba replied, sitting next to her, crossing her legs and taking a sip of her coffee. "That's why you love me."
And there, in that living room filled with the last golden rays of morning, amid laughter, knots, and cherries, another perfect chapter was sealed in a story that, against all odds, was turning out to be much sweeter and stranger than either of them could have imagined.
Meanwhile, in another part of the city, the world wasn't as warm and welcoming as it had been in that penthouse of laughter and cherries on the nose. The sun barely filtered through the leaden sky, reflecting off the snow like blades of ice. Inside a limousine parked near the shore, covered only by his wrinkled jacket, Boq woke with a start, gasping as if emerging from a blurry and disordered dream. His eyelids seemed to weigh tons, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as if it were made of paper, and his head throbbed with the intensity of a tribal drum. The red velvet of the seats enveloped him in a false sense of luxury, but his body—half sweaty, uncomfortable, and trembling—contradicted the image.
Blinking with difficulty, he noticed the vehicle door was ajar. The icy wind swooped in unasked, hitting his skin with gentle but steady bites. Clumsily, Boq leaned over the edge, shrinking from the white glare of the outside world. It took him a few seconds to understand what he was seeing: a seaside viewing platform, covered in snow, enclosed by a black iron railing that rose like a thin line between the city and the abyss of the ocean.
There, leaning insultingly casually against the railing, were Fiyero and Brrr. They were talking animatedly, sharing a cigarette and a few chuckles that drifted into the icy air. The scene looked like something out of an expensive perfume commercial: long coats billowing in the wind, smoke creating arabesques in the sky, the silent camaraderie of those who know each other too well to say it out loud.
Boq tried to listen, but the voices came in distorted, as if the cold would break them before they reached his ears. It was then that he noticed something curious. Brrr—ever the cynic, ever the provocateur—was handing a small card to Fiyero. Fiyero took it with a half smile, read it, laughed, and, without warning, planted a quick kiss on his lips. A fleeting gesture, unaffected, unashamed. Boq blinked hard, as if he had imagined the scene. But no, there they were, still smiling, still too close to be just colleagues or business partners.
Brrr said something else that Boq couldn't quite make out, then turned back toward the car. With the casual elegance of someone with nothing to hide, he picked up his jacket from the roof of the limo, shook it with a slap, and as he passed Boq, he rubbed his hand through his hair like he was a little boy who'd just won a participation medal. "You survived... miraculously," he murmured with a half-laugh, and then, without further ado, disappeared down the sidewalk.
Moments later, Fiyero slid into the vehicle, bringing with him a blast of cold air that smelled of cigars and the sea. He closed the door with a soft click and plopped down on the seat next to Boq, brushing the snow off his shoulders.
"Good morning, walking corpse," he said mockingly, glancing sideways at Boq's sorry state.
Boq grunted, huddling further into his jacket. "Where are we?" he asked hoarsely, not even daring to straighten up.
Fiyero turned on the car heater and leaned his head back.
"Facing the ocean, on the verge of an existential hangover and possibly close to vomiting. Last night was glorious chaos."
Boq groaned.
"How much did I drink?"
"Enough to sing "All to Well" on the roof of the limo and shout that you were king of the world. It was... memorable."
"Kill me," Boq said, dropping his head into his hands.
"I'd rather take you home. Is that okay?"
Boq nodded weakly. Fiyero gave him an almost brotherly smile, rolled down the window a little to let the steam escape, and the car drove smoothly through the snow-covered streets, leaving the sea, the cold, and the hangover behind…
The vehicle moved through the silent, snowy, and gray city, as if the world were holding its breath before plunging into the Christmas season. Inside, the atmosphere was warm, but not entirely comfortable. Boq noticed. Fiyero hadn't said a word for several minutes, his eyes fixed on a small card he held between his fingers. The gesture was almost tender, like that of someone contemplating something beyond the object itself. Boq, with the curiosity of someone who has learned not to hold back questions, raised an eyebrow and commented bluntly:
"What is that you're staring at so intently?"
The voice seemed to shake Fiyero out of his trance. He blinked, as if returning to reality, and lowered the card with a forced smile.
"Ah, this... is nothing." An invitation to a party Brrr is throwing,” he said, dismissively.
Boq tilted his head in interest.
“Wow, a party for the city’s most outcast comedian… sounds like fun.”
Fiyero laughed, with that mix of complicity and resignation.
“Yeah, it’s sure to be fun. If you want to go, go. I’d give you his address. But I can’t. Like every year… I have to attend the senator’s big party. Family obligation.”
Boq crossed his arms and sighed.
“I don’t understand why you’re going to that place if you clearly hate it there.”
Fiyero let out a long sigh, leaning his head against the frosted window.
“Because this…” he said with a vague gesture, taking in the night, the car, their conversation, “this is all right in the shadows, in the shadows. But in public… there’s an image I have to maintain. One that’s expected of me. And sometimes… I can’t afford to do what I really want.”
The confession hung in the air for a few seconds, thick as the steam from a forgotten tea. Boq watched him intently. There was no judgment in his gaze, only understanding. Or maybe something more. Finally, he spoke, with a calmness that remained direct:
"So... you like men?"
Fiyero laughed, but didn't stray from the topic. On the contrary, he seemed almost relieved to have it put into words.
"The truth... it's not that simple. Yes, I like men. But women too. The term is usually "bisexual," although in this society it seems that if you're attracted to both, you have to choose one. As if having options confuses everyone else. And you become a problem others want to solve... instead of someone they want to understand."
Boq nodded, lowering his gaze with a small, bitter smile.
"Sorry, bro... I know it's hard to pigeonhole you."
"Exactly," Fiyero said, raising his finger as if he'd hit the nail on the head. Well... for years, it seemed easier to play the game. Just pretend. Nobody asks questions if you give them the persona they want.
"And yet," Boq said lightly, "here you are, having this conversation with me. In secret."
They both laughed. The tension seemed to have dissolved, as if by talking about it, they had been relieved of a burden.
"And you?" Fiyero asked with genuine interest. "Plans for Christmas?"
Boq shrugged.
"Probably work. Or watching bad Christmas movies in my pajamas on the couch. I don't like coming home. I don't really get along with my parents..."
"I know how it is," Fiyero said quietly. "You get tired of pretending to make others feel comfortable."
For a few seconds, the car was silent, save for the faint purr of the engine. Fiyero looked at Brrr's card again. Then at Boq. He thought about it. He pondered something inside. Finally, he sighed and murmured almost to himself:
"Why not?"
And then, louder, with a crooked smile and his eyes shining with a spark of daring:
"Do you want to come with me to the senator's party?"
Boq looked at him, genuinely surprised.
"Really?"
"Yes," Fiyero stated firmly, as if the decision freed him a little from his own chains. "It would be more bearable if I went with someone I really wanted to be around."
Boq smiled. Maybe a little nervously. Maybe more.
"Then... I accept."
And as the car continued its journey through the sleepy streets, it was impossible not to notice that, for the first time in a long time, Fiyero was no longer looking out the window like someone escaping, but like someone finally ready to move forward.
Meanwhile, Elphaba had barely finished combing her hair when she heard the metallic sound of the wardrobe slamming open, as if someone had broken in with a warrant. She turned slowly from the sink, only to see Glinda in a frenzy, examining each hanging garment with a precise mix of horrified fascination and withering aesthetic judgment.
"What's this?" Glinda exclaimed, wrinkling her nose as if merely brushing against one of Elphaba's black jackets might give her some kind of visual plague. "You have... three versions of the same coat? Black, blacker, and existential death?"
"It's leather," Elphaba replied with dignity, crossing her arms as the robe slipped slightly off her shoulder. "One's for rain. The other for presentations. The third for when I want to intimidate idiots at the board meeting."
"My dear, everyone is intimidating! Even the coat rack is depressed." Glinda tossed the coat back with a theatrical flourish, letting it fall to the floor without the slightest remorse. Then she took down a gray shirt that looked like it had seen union wars and held it up with two fingers as if analyzing dangerous bacteria under a microscope. "This shirt says 'I quit living in 2011 and no one noticed.'"
"That's my report-writing shirt," Elphaba protested with a faint note of alarm. "It's comfortable."
"It's a betrayal of taste," Glinda declared, dropping it on top of the previous coat. "This isn't comfort; this is a declaration of defeat to the world. If we keep this up, I'll find a sweater knitted by the very spirit of depression."
Elphaba sighed, resigned, as she watched her wardrobe undergo summary judgment with no chance of defense. Glinda moved with the efficiency of a modern museum curator who had just discovered that the main exhibit was made of wet toilet paper.
"I could explain the system behind my clothes," Elphaba tried. "There's a functional logic. A balance between color neutrality and practicality..."
"No. No," Glinda interrupted with a raised palm. "If I want to save this"—she gestured broadly toward the stripped and tragic wardrobe—"I have to intervene. There's no other option. This situation can't continue like this."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow. Glinda turned to her, hands akimbo, the posture of someone who has decided that the fate of a nation depends on her next move.
"Do you have plans today?"
"It's Saturday," Elphaba replied cautiously. "I don't have to go to Shiz.Corp, so I'll probably take advantage of it to get some reports out in advance, review pending contracts, maybe read the regulatory committee's proposal..."
"No!" Glinda raised her voice with such emphasis that Elphaba flinched slightly. "Today isn't for reports, or contracts, or reading things with more than five legal words per paragraph. Today is..."—and she approached her with a dangerous smile, the kind that precedes cataclysms—"a girls' afternoon."
Elphaba looked at her as if she'd just suggested parachuting off the Senate Tower.
"Girls'... afternoon?"
"Exactly." Glinda twirled around, as if she were already modeling in front of an invisible mirror. "We're going to try on dresses, experiment with colors, textures, and completely redefine your style. Someone"—and she pointed proudly at herself with both hands—"needs to give you a makeover. And not just any makeover, my dear. A popular one."
"Are we going to do that... here?" Elphaba timidly gestured toward the apartment.
"Here?" Glinda repeated, scandalized. Please, what are we, two bored teenagers locked in a college dorm? We have an entire city. We have options, we have style, and most importantly"—she paused, lowered her voice, and winked—"we have an unlimited credit card... probably."
"That doesn't reassure me," Elphaba said quietly, her expression shifting from curiosity to existential terror. The idea of Glinda armed with her infallible style, a bottomless credit card, and a mission of aesthetic redemption was, frankly, more terrifying than the reports waiting on her desk.
Glinda was already heading toward the dressing room, humming what sounded like a melodic reinterpretation of some pop anthem with the word "popular" reiterated in various dramatic tones.
"Don't worry, honey," she announced cheerfully from the bathroom, already rummaging through Elphaba's cosmetics with visible disappointment. "It'll only take about eight hours... and maybe your soul." But when we're done, you're going to shine so brightly that Madame Morrible herself is going to need sunglasses!
Elphaba slowly sank down onto the chair by the vanity, staring at the mess that had once been her wardrobe, and murmured with resignation, "I wish I'd gone to work."
Outside: The snow fell in a serene dance over the city, covering the buildings and sidewalks with a white veil that crunched beneath Glinda's heels as she tugged, almost with childlike enthusiasm, on a resigned Elphaba's arm. The flakes melted into her platinum hair as if intentionally adorning her, while her pastel pink coat fluttered to the rhythm of her electric movements. Elphaba, on the other hand, trailed behind like a shadow dragged against her will, wrapped in her favorite black coat—the only one Glinda hadn't managed to tear from her body—now half-open from the weight of the multiple shopping bags hanging from her arms like chains of fashionista penance.
"Come on, come on, come on!" Glinda exclaimed, spinning in circles while pointing at shop windows as if each one were a must-see stop on a fashion treasure map. "Look at those heels! And that makeup display? Oh my God, look at that puppy dressed as a reindeer!"
"I'm sure that puppy has more dignity than I do right now," Elphaba murmured, wobbling as she tried not to slip on the ice. Her fingers were starting to go numb from the weight of the bags, and so was her patience.
They'd already visited three boutiques, a beauty salon that looked more like a glitter temple, and a jewelry store worth more than Elphaba would probably earn in a year. Now, sitting side by side in a private pedicure salon—comfortable white armchairs, soft jazz music, and two beauticians barely blinking at the contrasting sight of the gleaming blonde and the frowning brunette—Elphaba finally dared to break the day's spell with a question laced with sarcasm:
"Tell me the truth..." she said without looking at Glinda, a metal file running over her nails with dangerous precision. "Is this your way of getting even because I tied you up this morning?"
Glinda turned slowly, like a queen taking her time responding to an insolent subject. Her smile was everything Elphaba feared and more: sweet, charming... and with a malicious glint in her eyes.
"Perhaps," she replied, with a sweetness that melted like poisoned candy. "But if it were, don't you think it would be the loveliest revenge in the world?"
"That's the worst of all." "It is," Elphaba murmured, hiding a smile that was struggling to escape.
The hours passed in a spiral of shops, textures, colors, and recommendations expressed at comet speed. Glinda ran from window to window with the fervor of an orchestra conductor, orchestrating each garment, each pair of shoes, each accessory with a logic that escaped the earthly world. Elphaba, meanwhile, had accepted her role as a pack mule and walked like a defeated samurai, resigned but dignified. A few people looked at them on the street: the queen of the city and the dark witch behind her, carrying bags of Channel, Valentino, and some unpronounceable name with a French accent.
Just as Elphaba was beginning to seriously consider faking a faint or a sudden allergy to Swarovski crystals, Glinda disappeared around a corner with a stifled scream. Elphaba stopped in her tracks, sighed, and began counting to ten, vaguely hoping that when she finished, Glinda wouldn't be back with another set of sequined dresses. She didn't reach seven.
"Elphie!" Glinda shouted, running back, her hair flying and a real spark of excitement in her voice. "I found it! The perfect dress for you!"
"Perfect like the other eight 'perfect' ones?" Elphaba replied, not moving from the spot.
"No, no, no," Glinda insisted, barely panting from running. "This one is different. This one is... you, but also a little bit of us. Come. Just... come."
Without giving her a choice, he took her hand—the bags slid freely from Elphaba's arms—and dragged her to a boutique window decorated with fir branches, golden lights, and fake snow. And there, behind the glass, lit with a soft, elegant halo, was the dress.
It was black, of course, but not just any black. It had clean, structured, yet sensual lines. The neckline was suggestive, yet restrained. Just the right length to be powerful without losing its mystery. On the shoulders, subtle details in dark green that only appeared if the light hit them in a specific way. Like a secret, like a beautiful and dangerous shadow.
Elphaba stood still. For a second, Glinda said nothing; she simply watched her. Elphaba's face didn't move, but something in her eyes softened.
Elphaba couldn't resist Glinda's impetus, who—after seeing her hesitate for the fifth time—gently took her arm and led her into the boutique like a butterfly determined to push a firefly toward the light. The salespeople, dressed in golden hues and with perfectly calibrated smiles, greeted them with just the right mix of reverence and enthusiasm, as if they knew they were witnessing something important. Glinda whispered something in one of their ears, and she disappeared behind a velvet curtain as Elphaba was practically pushed toward the fitting room, the dress draped carefully over her arm.
Once inside the small cubicle with mirrors on all sides, Elphaba felt like she was in the middle of a glittering trap. The dress was beautiful, yes, but also intimidating. It had precise stitching and a structure that demanded presence, posture, elegance—things she had always feigned, but rarely felt as her own. Trying to squeeze into it was an epic battle involving an awkward dance between unruly zippers, linings that slid too fast, and the nagging thought that she was going to snap it in half at any moment.
"Are you alive in there?!" Glinda's voice came from the other side of the curtain, with that anxious, bossy tone she reserved only for truly important moments. "Come on, come out now! I want to see you. I know it looks perfect on you."
"This is ridiculous," Elphaba protested from within, adjusting her neckline for the third time. "I look ridiculous. I don't know what you're trying to do, Glinda, but I swear I'm not material for this."
"Of course you are!" Glinda crossed her arms on her other side, as if she could force her through the fabric. "Besides, remember what you said about courage and authentic expression? Or does that only apply when you're the one tying me to a chair?" Elphaba gave a dry laugh. Damn her, the little witch knew how to use her own weapons against her.
"Glinda..." she began, lowering her tone. "I appreciate you doing this, I really do. But... maybe this isn't for me."
Silence. For a moment, she thought Glinda had given up.
But then the voice returned. Firm. Warm.
"Get out. I'm not asking your permission."
Elphaba sighed, overcome by something that wasn't imposition, but tenderness disguised as an order. Clumsily, she pulled back the curtain and stepped outside.
The reaction was immediate.
Glinda's eyes widened as if she'd just seen a celestial apparition, and before she could control it, a moist glow flooded them. Her mouth parted, speechless. She stood there, motionless, as if standing before something sacred.
Elphaba, arms crossed over her abdomen in a futile attempt to cover herself, lowered her gaze. Shame crept up the back of her neck, flushing her green skin with an almost violet hue.
"What?" she whispered. "Are you going to laugh? Say I look like a gothic Christmas tree?"
But Glinda shook her head. Slowly. As if one misspoken word could break the spell.
"You are beautiful," she said, her voice a broken whisper. "As if this dress... has always been waiting for you. As if... you have been waiting for yourself."
Elphaba looked up. The way Glinda looked at her was new. There was no mockery, no expectation, no triumph. Only admiration. Love, even. The kind of love that comes from seeing someone shine in their truth, even if that truth takes time for its owner to accept it.
"Well..." Elphaba looked away, uncomfortable. "I'm still not convinced." Maybe if I cut the hem a little and change this here... is the neckline really necessary so low?
"No!" Glinda said, taking her hands and squeezing them. "Not a stitch. It's perfect. You're buying it."
"Shouldn't we at least look at the price?" Elphaba protested, still unsure.
"I won't take no for an answer!"
The discussion lasted exactly three minutes. Between aesthetic arguments, economic reasoning, and mild emotional threats, Elphaba gave in.
"Fine. I'll take it. But on one condition."
Glinda tilted her head, curious.
"What?"
"Now you let me buy you something." Elphaba narrowed her eyes. "Something of my choosing. Anything."
Glinda seemed to hesitate for a moment, her expression a cocktail of nervousness and excitement.
"Anything?"
"Anything."
"Even if it's not pink?"
"Especially if it's not pink."
They were both silent for a moment. Then, like two pieces of the same puzzle fitting smoothly together, they smiled in unison.
"Good! But first, a refreshing drink!" Glinda proclaimed enthusiastically.
Minutes later, a small café with frosted windows and the scent of Christmas spices became their refuge. Outside, the city was still dressed in white and gold, with lights coming on as the sun began its descent. Inside, the warmth was almost tangible: soft yellow lights, instrumental music in the background, and the subtle choreography of cups, spoons, and laughter creating a perfect bubble to close out the day.
Elphaba clumsily sank into the window seat, pushing with her elbow a bag that was threatening to topple over for the fourth time. The others were piled on the chair next to her, in an unstable tower that looked like an accidental art installation. Still wearing her coat, scarf tilted sideways, and the expression of someone who had survived a pitched battle, she looked up just as Glinda approached with a tray in her hands and her signature "wait till you try this" smile.
“Two hot chocolates with whipped cream, artisan marshmallows, candied orange zest, and a dash of cinnamon,” Glinda announced proudly, placing the cups in front of them as if she had just presented a masterpiece. “From my favorite coffee shop. The best in all of the city.”
Elphaba looked at her with mild suspicion, as if expecting something to explode in the thick liquid.
“What kind of witchcraft is this?”
“The best kind. Sugar.”
Glinda sat down gracefully, not even touching the coat on the back. As she arranged her napkin, Elphaba took a sip. Her eyes narrowed.
“It’s… ridiculously good.” She forced herself not to smile too wide. “Very hot. But good.”
Glinda leaned forward, her elbows on the table, excited.
“So you admit it? You survived our ‘girls’ afternoon.’”
“Barely.” Elphaba raised her eyebrows with a crooked smile. "But yes. I think I... even enjoyed it... For the first, it wasn't bad at all."
"Wait, wait, wait..." Glinda interrupted, frowning in a theatrical grimace of disbelief. "This was your first girls' night out? Ever?"
Elphaba shrugged and stirred her hot chocolate as if that would hide the confession.
"I never had many friends, Glinda. Let alone friends to... do this with." She chuckled. "And my father? He took me shopping, yes, but only for practical things. Uniforms. Winter shoes. Books. No hours of trying on dresses or searching for the perfect shade of lipstick to match my sarcasm."
Glinda's indignation was so immediate that she almost spilled her cup.
"That is outrageous! Heresy!" she exclaimed, rapping the table softly. Every little girl deserves to feel like a princess at least once! And you more than anyone!
"Well, technically I've felt more like an experimental Christmas tree..."
"Silence, no more sarcasm!" Glinda pointed as if she were preaching. "I haven't met your father yet, but I already have very strong opinions about him."
Elphaba let out a hearty laugh, the kind that made her a few years older.
"Please don't say that to his face. It's intimidating, even for me."
"Oh, I won't tell him!" Glinda said proudly. "I'll think it out loud, and he'll hear it with his soul."
They both laughed, and for a moment, the silence that followed was sweet, comfortable. The kind of silence that only exists between two people who have begun to crack open their walls.
Glinda played with the spoon in her cup.
"Can I ask you something?" Elphaba looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"That depends."
"About you. What you said before... about not having any friends... Did you ever have anyone who... you know, male or female..."
Elphaba understood without needing to finish the sentence. She looked down at the dissolved cream in her cup, as if the memory lay there.
"There was a bit of both..." They were all brief, confusing... I wasn't ready. And neither were they. It didn't end well." She bit her lip, thinking. "And you?"
Glinda took a little longer to answer. Her finger traced circles on the rim of the cup, and for a moment she seemed to be gathering words.
“I… I don’t know if I have an exact label. What I felt was always classified as… You know, ‘girl drama.’” She laughed humorlessly.
The silence after Glinda’s last confession stretched for a few more seconds. Not awkward, but dense. Words hung in the air, like flakes that hadn’t yet touched the ground. Elphaba looked down at her cup. The steam was no longer rising, and the cream had dissolved into a pale swirl.
“So…” she finally said, her voice low, barely audible over the murmur of the coffee, “do you consider yourself a lesbian?”
Glinda blinked. She shifted in her seat, visibly uncomfortable with the preciseness of the term.
“I don’t know. I guess… yes. But other times I’m not sure, not because I’m particularly attracted to men, it’s just… It’s like the labels are too small for me… or poorly sewn. Does that make sense?”
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Strangely, yes."
Glinda sighed, staring out the window, at the blurry reflection of them both.
"I've always had feelings for women. Ever since I was little. But I was taught it was something that happened, something to be outgrown. 'A phase.' 'Envy.' 'Curiosity.' Do you know how many times I heard that? So I forced myself to like men. I dated charming boys, with perfect smiles and zero emotional connection. Like kissing a magazine. There was always something missing. But when a girl took my hand, even accidentally… the world vibrated differently."
Elphaba nodded slowly, like someone listening to an echo of herself.
"Yes. I understand." Her voice held a gravity she didn't often use. "I was told I shouldn't feel anything. Not for men or women. That love was a distraction. A detour. Something that could be used against me. I grew up knowing that what I felt had to be hidden… or it would become my weakness."
"And now?"
"Now... I try not to hide it. Not completely, at least. I like people. I'm attracted to minds, looks, words before bodies. But also to bodies, sometimes. Some." She looked at her with a half smile. "Yours, for example, I find devilishly difficult to ignore."
Glinda smiled, blushing like a teenager, but her eyes shone with something deeper.
"So... pan? Bi?"
"Bi. I think. But not with just anyone." Elphaba looked at her carefully. "There's something about you... that disarms me. It bothers me. It fascinates me. It doesn't happen often. And it's not just attraction, Glinda. It's... curiosity. Admiration. It's wanting to hear you talk even when you're always talking."
Glinda let out a soft laugh, nervously touching her neck.
"Sometimes I hate myself for talking so much."
"I never said it bothered me. It just makes me hard to keep up with you." You're like…" Elphaba searched for words, "a pop song blasting while I'm trying to read in a library."
"And that's bad?"
"That's the best thing that's happened to me in a long time."
The blonde was silent, overwhelmed, processing. Then, as if she needed to say it out loud:
"I don't want to have to hide it anymore. From anyone. Not at the office. Not in life."
"And what is 'this,' exactly?" Elphaba asked, her voice deep, yet soft. Not out of defiance, but because she herself wasn't entirely clear on the answer.
Glinda looked away. She took a deep breath.
"I don't know yet. But I do know that when I'm with you… I feel like there's space. Space to be more. To understand myself. To invent myself, if necessary." Her eyes returned to Elphaba's. "And you?"
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She looked at the city through the glass, the lights reflected in the snow, the hurried footsteps of passersby.
"I feel like with you... I don't have to be strong all the time. That I can let my guard down. I don't have to explain myself. That, to me, is so much more than I thought I deserved."
Glinda took her hand across the table, with almost reverential care.
"Then let's not put labels on it yet. Let's let it be. Like hot chocolate. You don't have to understand it. Just feel it warm your chest."
Elphaba laced her fingers through hers, without looking around. In that moment, the outside world didn't matter. Not the office. Not their past stories. Just the two of them, together, holding something that was just beginning to take shape.
"Okay," Elphaba said finally. "No labels. Just... us."
"Us," Glinda repeated, smiling.
As soon as the foam settled at the bottom of their cups, Elphaba stood up abruptly, with the determination of someone who's made a big decision.
"Good," she declared, adjusting her coat. "My turn. I haven't even done my shopping for the day yet."
Glinda looked up with a soft smile, still soaked from the intimate moment they'd just shared. But that smile froze as soon as she noticed the mischievous glint in Elphaba's green eyes. That specific twinkle, that damned crooked smile.
"Your shopping...?"
"Oh yeah. I promised, didn't I? And I already have the perfect place in mind."
Glinda swallowed.
"You're not taking me to a bookstore, are you?"
"Oh no," Elphaba chuckled softly. "Although you'll learn a thing or two today, I assure you."
Before she could protest, Glinda was swept back into the snowy streets, the city like a merry-go-round that never stopped. But this time they didn't walk toward the glittering avenues and fashionable shop windows. They took a more discreet detour, a side street between private clubs and overly specific stores. Finally, they stopped in front of a window decorated with braided ropes, black leather, soft lights, and mannequins in less-than-innocent poses.
Glinda paled.
"No."
"Yes," Elphaba said, opening the door. "And you're more than welcome. Come on, Princess."
As soon as they crossed the threshold, Glinda felt her cheeks heat up. It was like entering a parallel universe: columns of whips organized by material, tables with handcuffs and shiny toys like metallic candy, mannequins in tight vinyl outfits. Everything was lit with an almost aesthetic softness. The store smelled of leather, vanilla, and... something else indefinable.
Elphaba walked with a disconcerting ease, like someone returning to her private club.
"Do you come here often?" Glinda asked, her voice tense.
"Frequently." Elphaba winked at her. "Surprised?"
"I'm... processing."
Elphaba picked up a small red leather flogger and deftly whistled it through the air. Glinda tensed as if expecting immediate punishment.
"Relax, Princess. No one's going to use you as a volunteer... yet."
Glinda's eyes widened.
"Yet?"
Elphaba laughed, amused, as she moved through the aisles, pointing out items with the enthusiasm of a child in a toy store.
"Look at this one. The design is ergonomic, ideal for longer bondage." And this one… this one's for gentler power plays, something more sensorial…" He showed her some black feathers, which he waved just in front of her, sending a visible shiver through Glinda. "And this? Perfect for initiations. Something delicate, but with character."
"Why are you so comfortable with this?"
"Because there are no masks here, Glinda. No expectations. Only desires, boundaries, agreements. Honesty. And I like that."
Glinda swallowed.
At that moment, a figure appeared at her side. A young woman with black cat ears, a sparkly necklace, flawless makeup, and a lace onesie that left little to the imagination.
"Do you girls need help?" the clerk asked with a bright smile, her feline eyes twinkling mischievously.
Glinda let out a small, high-pitched squeal and jumped to the side. The clerk watched her with a mixture of amusement and professional tenderness.
"Oh, you poor thing," Elphaba said, putting a hand on Glinda's back as if calming a frightened child. "It's her first time. Like buying your first bra. She doesn't know if she's a B cup... or someone's emotional slave."
"ELPHABA!" Glinda squealed, turning around in horror.
"Oh, come on," the other said, laughing, "we're among adults. She's... curious. And I want to get her something nice. Any suggestions for beginners with good taste and... open minds?"
The clerk nodded enthusiastically.
"I have just what you need."
As she led the way down the aisle, Glinda walked like a duck trapped in a hall of mirrors. She felt like everything was looking at her, that the objects were accomplices, that each item had a story screaming out loud. Still, she couldn't stop looking. There was something there... something that made her dizzy. A border she hadn't known she wanted to cross.
The clerk led her to a special section... the costume section.
After sifting through a row of outlandish costumes—from schoolgirls with serious doubts about the school uniform to vampires who defied all fabric logic—Elphaba stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes sparkled when she found the right one.
"This one!" she exclaimed with such genuine emotion that Glinda flinched.
Glinda looked at the ensemble and opened her mouth in a perfect blend of horror and temptation.
"No. Not in a million years. Absolutely not."
"Come on, Glinda," Elphaba pleaded with feigned sweetness. "It's elegant, it's classic... it has ruffles. You love ruffles!"
"It's a maid's uniform!" the blonde protested, grabbing it with two fingers as if it might bite her. "One of those fancy ones from a cheap Parisian hotel!"
"A lovely, provocative one, just like you," Elphaba replied with a dangerous smile.
Glinda sighed so hard her curls nearly flew up. But minutes later, she was inside the fitting room, trying to convince her reflection that she wasn't completely crazy.
"This is a trap," she murmured as she adjusted the small apron over her short skirt.
On the other side of the curtain, Elphaba sat on a padded stool, her legs crossed, drumming her fingers on her knee with a look of theatrical impatience.
"Are you okay in there, or did you get lost in the lace?"
"I refuse to come out," Glinda shouted from inside.
"I promise you, if you come out... you'll bear me your soul with that cap on."
Silence.
And then, with a dramatic sigh, Glinda drew the curtain.
Elphaba immediately straightened.
The sight was simply too much. Elphaba watched her, lips parted, her fascination undisguised. The black maid's dress hugged Glinda's body with sculptural precision, with a sweetheart neckline. The white lace accentuated the curve of her waist, and the small apron barely covered her intentions. The thigh-high stockings, held up by garters, and the cap delicately placed over her golden curls made her look like something out of a Victorian fantasy novel crossed with a banned French film.
"Mother of..." Elphaba whispered, slowly rising to her feet.
Glinda crossed her arms over her chest, red as a poppy petal, though it was clear that beneath her shyness, she loved what she saw in her friend's eyes.
"I hate you," she said weakly.
"That's a lie," Elphaba replied, moving closer. "You're enjoying every second of it."
Carefully, Elphaba lifted one of Glinda's hands and twirled it in the air, as if showing it off to the jury. Then she slowly circled her figure, hands behind her back and a mischievous smile.
"This is illegal in seven provinces," she murmured, her gaze scanning the lace stockings.
"Do you want to punish me with this on or what?" Glinda mocked, a little more confident.
Elphaba stopped right in front of her, just inches away.
"No." She looked her up and down. "I want you to clean the whole house in this. Every corner. On your knees, if you have to."
Glinda snorted haughty, though her smile betrayed her pride.
"Never. You won't make me do that, not even with magic."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow... and pulled something out of her pocket.
"Are you sure?"
Glinda froze.
"Is that... my cell phone?"
"Exactly."
"How do you have it?"
"Let's just say you left it on the table while you were paying for that ridiculously expensive lavender tea."
"Give it back!" Glinda shouted, stretching out her arms, but Elphaba had already stepped back, raising the device in the air.
—Hmm... let's see... the password is... 1234?
—No!
—PinkForever?
—No! —But Elphaba was already grinning from ear to ear.
—Sparkles? Ah, there it is!
The phone unlocked.
Glinda brought her hands up to her face, muttering unintelligibly.
—Now, —Elphaba said, in a sing-song voice—, I have access to your selfies, your chats, your "crying and eating ice cream" playlists, and your social media account. Imagine all the stuff I could post...
—That's emotional blackmail!
—That's dramatic justice.
Glinda lowered her hands slowly, her cheeks still red, but her eyes sparking with pure adrenaline. She crossed her arms again.
—Very well, Miss Upland, —Elphaba said, waving her phone like a scepter. —Here begins your training.
Glinda rolled her eyes.
"This is a legal farce."
"This is love... consensual humiliation."
Elphaba began to walk through the aisles of the store, letting the click of her boots echo like heartbeats. Glinda, blushing and corseted in her provocative maid outfit, followed with small steps, glancing sideways at any customer who might appear.
"What if someone sees me?"
"That's the idea, isn't it?" Elphaba replied without looking at her. "Learning to serve under pressure."
"You're a monster!"
"And you're adorable when you act indignant."
They stopped in front of a shelf full of colorful feather dusters and furry handcuffs. Elphaba picked up a pink feather duster and waved it in front of Glinda.
"Come on. Do your magic. Clean it all up."
Glinda froze.
"This is absurd!"
"It would be absurd if I posted this video of you singing "I'm a Barbie Girl" in the shower, wouldn't it?"
"DON'T YOU DARE!"
"Then... let's clean, mademoiselle."
And Glinda obeyed.
With a mixture of feigned rage, wounded dignity, and a very treacherous smile on her lips, she began dusting a bookshelf, while Elphaba followed, recording her every movement like a very satisfied film director.
"Perfect technique," she commented appraisingly. "Although you could bend down a little further... because of the dust, of course."
"Ugh!" Glinda snorted, but obeyed.
As she bent down, her skirt rose dangerously. She turned around immediately, red as a strawberry in July.
"You're enjoying this more than you should!"
"Aren't you?" Elphaba asked with a raised eyebrow.
Glinda looked at her for a second… and couldn't deny it. The scene became a small private theater. Glinda, somewhere between annoyed and intrigued, carried out each order with theatrical complaints:
—“Now go and shake those curtains.”
—“Bow as if you were my royal maid.”
—“Say, ‘I am here to please you, Mistress Elphaba,’ with an adorable smile.”
Glinda did it all. At first with rolling eyes and pursed lips, but as the minutes passed, there was something in her gaze—a spark, a suppressed laugh, a slight blush that was no longer from embarrassment, but from excitement.
Every time she finished a task, Elphaba watched her with that expression that was a mixture of mockery and ill-disguised affection.
“I have to admit,” Elphaba said as Glinda arranged some decorative boxes on a low shelf, “I didn't think you would be so… obedient.”
"I'm not. This is passive resistance. I'm infiltrating the enemy," Glinda replied, crouching down.
"Infiltrated with garters and a corset?"
"Shut up!"
And for the next half hour, the game continued as Glinda carried out each of the absurd instructions: she organized handcuffs by color, folded uniforms as if they were ball gowns, stroked (with a feather duster!) the ear of a mannequin wearing a harness, and, as a final flourish, had to serve Elphaba imaginary tea in a corner of the room where there was a replica of a Victorian parlor for photos.
Elphaba sat in an armchair decorated with black faux fur, crossed her legs, and pretended to read a magical erotic novel while Glinda poured with theatrical curtsies.
"Is that all right, ma'am?" she asked acidly.
"Wonderful, my dear. Just... smile more. Your followers deserve to see you happy."
"Not one more story or I'll bite you!"
Promise accepted.
The playful tension dissolved into soft laughter. They both knew they were acting, but they also knew—deep down—that it wasn't entirely a game. That there was truth in that surrender. In that freedom.
On their last trip through the store, Elphaba walked down the leather lingerie aisle with Glinda trailing behind her, her cell phone still held hostage. Every so often, she stopped and pointed something out.
"So what do you think of this, my sweet cleaning lady?" she asked, holding up a leather collar with a little bell.
"That you should be in prison," Glinda grumbled, but she couldn't hide her smile.
"Oh, are you going to arrest me with those handcuffs you just stared at for too long?"
"I didn't look at them that long!"
"Exactly three seconds," Elphaba retorted, holding up the cell phone as evidence. I can check the store's security cameras, you know?
"You're a demon!"
"A demon with your password, mon amour."
When they were finished, and Elphaba finally handed her back her cell phone, Glinda sighed in relief and sat down next to her, her cheeks flushed, her dress wrinkled, and her expression confused. As if she didn't know whether to thank her or hit her with the feather duster.
"You know what's the worst part?" she whispered.
"That you secretly loved it?"
Glinda fell silent. Then she looked down.
"The worst part is... it was one of the most fun afternoons I've ever had."
Elphaba smiled, but not mockingly this time. She looked at her with a warmth that almost dared to be tenderness.
"Then we're even."
For a few seconds, there were no words. Only the faint hum of the store, the neon lights reflecting in their eyes, and the light brush of their hands as they accidentally touched. Neither of them said the word "date." Neither of them said "I like you." But the air between them was as soft and thick as an unspoken kiss.
Finally, Glinda stood and sighed.
"Now, can I change, or are you planning on me strolling around town like this?"
"Hmm... that's a good idea. Your followers would love a casual afternoon look..."
"Elphaba!"
They both laughed. But as they left the store—one carrying a bag that said "VIP CUSTOMER" and the other with a flushed face and a new sparkle in her eyes—they knew, without saying it, that they had just crossed an invisible boundary.
"I don't know if this qualifies as a date, but... I'll also admit I've had worse," Glinda said in a whisper.
"Me neither," Elphaba replied, squeezing her arm a little tighter. But if I ever had one... it would be like this.
"Weird, intense, and with dangerous toys."
"And laughter. Lots of laughter."
They both walked in silence for a few more steps. Until Glinda, without looking at her, blurted out:
"Maybe I like witches more than princes and princesses."
"Maybe you always knew," Elphaba said, brushing her knuckles with his.
And then, without saying it out loud, they both knew: that ridiculous time in an absurd store, with strange costumes and digital blackmail... had been one of the best afternoons of their lives. Not because it had been perfect, but because they had been themselves.
They both continued walking amid laughter and cutting comments. Elphaba never missed an opportunity to remind Glinda how cute she looked in her costume, while Glinda, with a smile she couldn't stop, made promises of revenge she knew she could never avoid.
Suddenly, they passed a small bookstore, and Elphaba stopped dead in her tracks. “By the stars! That’s it! G.M.’s book on ethical philosophy! I’ve been looking everywhere for it!” Elphaba exclaimed, pointing at a book on display in the middle of the window, like a child browsing a toy store. “I… have to…”
“Come on… Go, I’ll wait here with all our self-gifts,” Glinda said with a knowing smile.
Elphaba turned around and smiled back. “I promise I’ll only be a second.” And the woman in green ran into the store, while Glinda waited outside. After a few minutes, the bags were beginning to weigh more in Glinda’s arms than the weight of her conscience.
As she waited in front of the bookstore, she swayed from foot to foot, glancing quickly at Elphaba's bag. The end of a black leather object peeked out from between the fabrics. Glinda looked away as if she'd just seen a poisonous snake. Or worse: a poisonous snake she liked.
Then, like a crash of thunder tinged with expensive perfume and forced laughter, she heard the voices she feared most at that moment.
"Glindaaa!" Pfannee shrieked, her false eyelashes fluttering like bat wings.
"Goodness, you're alive!" Shenshen added, slurring her words as if she were acting in a bad soap opera.
They both ran toward her with razor-sharp enthusiasm, their hugs as sincere as an Instagram giveaway. Glinda, trapped between bags and nerves, attempted an awkward smile.
"Girls! What... what a surprise!"
"What a miracle!" "We thought you were dead or... that you lost your phone!" Pfannee squealed as if she were talking about a Greek tragedy.
"Yeah," Shenshen added, sticking her neck out like an elegant chicken. "Forty-eight hours without stories or selfies or inspirational quotes about inner brilliance! It was worrying."
"I... I've been busy," Glinda replied nervously, glancing toward the store Elphaba had entered.
"And who are you with?" Shenshen asked, scanning the bags with a sharp gaze. "Don't tell me you went shopping alone. That's so sad!"
"Of course she didn't go alone," Pfannee said, getting dangerously close to the largest bag. "I saw something very interesting peeking out of there... What is that? A... pink feather duster?"
Glinda quickly turned the bag over to hide the contents, smiling casually.
"Decoration. For... for a party. Costume party. Very artistic. Totally ironic." Avant-garde.
"Hmm?" Shenshen muttered, savoring the sarcasm. Then they looked at each other and smiled with sharp teeth. "So why didn't you call us? Or bring anything up? Are you sick? Or... don't tell us the rumor is true that you're... with "her"?"
The tone in which they said "her" was enough to freeze her blood. Glinda felt her spine tense. She knew this moment would come.
"You mean Elphaba?" Glinda asked, hiding her tension.
"Oh, Glinda, I know it sounds ridiculous. We heard a silly rumor on the internet that you were seen together this morning at the fashion boutique... But we know it's impossible, because our Glinda would never get involved with that... antisocial creature.
"With that perpetual funeral dress," Pfannee added, laughing. "The one who sits alone in the back of the break room as if she were writing dark poetry." "The one who thinks she's superior because she reads books instead of wearing foundation and false eyelashes," Shenshen added, with sweet venom.
"The one who, according to you yourself, has 'zero social skills' and 'zero glamour.'"
"I never said that," Glinda muttered, annoyed.
"Didn't we? Well, we said it, then. And you didn't correct us," they said in unison, delighted with themselves.
Glinda took a deep breath. The words echoed in her head. The ridiculous feather duster, the red cafeteria, the warmth of Elphaba's laughter, the gesture of wiping off the cream from her lip. And then she spoke. Not as the old Glinda. But as someone new.
"You know what?" she said, her voice shaking not with fear, but with suppressed rage. "I'm done. Tired of pretending. Tired of smiling when they make cruel comments about everyone. Tired of staying quiet so I wouldn't be ridiculed too. And tired of being told who I can admire or love!"
Silence fell for a moment like a bomb in slow motion.
"Elphaba is braver, brighter, and more authentic than any of you. And if you can't stand that I respect her"—her voice lowered a little, more intimate—"...or that I care about her... then I don't know why we're still friends."
Pfannee and Shenshen were petrified, their makeup beginning to crack in disbelief. Then they started laughing again, louder this time.
"But look at her!" Pfannee croaked. "She's in love with the green witch!"
"She's probably already put a leash on her!" Shenshen added. "Oh, come on! I can almost see the whip in that bag!"
"Did she brainwash you with a magic spell or something?"
"I wouldn't need magic," a third voice chimed in, dry and perfectly audible.
The three turned.
Behind them, a book in one hand and one eyebrow arched with preternatural grace, stood Elphaba.
There was no anger on her face. Only something worse: dignity in its most lethal form. Her eyes rested briefly on Glinda—with a warm spark that only she could see—then returned to the other two.
"Are we done with the show?" "Elphaba asked calmly. "Because the lead character has better things to do than waste time with the chorus."
Pfannee and Shenshen didn't know what to say. No one had ever spoken to them like that. Least of all someone who would dare confront them with such little... effort.
Elphaba took one of the bags Glinda could barely hold, casually put an arm around her waist, and, before turning to leave, said, "And by the way... the next time you want to comment on me, do it straight out. Or better yet: don't. You're not as interesting as you think you are."
Elphaba had already turned around, ready to leave, when suddenly two hands closed on Glinda's arm.
Pfannee and Shenshen. Firm. Cold. Serious as never before.
"Don't take another step," Pfannee hissed, digging her perfectly manicured nails into Glinda's coat. "Listen to us carefully, because we won't repeat this."
"If you go with her," Shenshen continued, leaning in close enough to brush her face, "if you turn your back on us now... I swear we're going to destroy your social life."
"We're going to tell everyone what we saw in those bags," Pfannee spat. "What you do when no one's looking. What you secretly are."
"We're going to make sure you can't look anyone in the eye again without them laughing."
"You're going to grovel, Glinny. You're going to come begging for our forgiveness. And when you do..."
"You're going to be our servant."
The words fell like blades. Elphaba stopped at them. Her body tensed, but she didn't turn yet. She was just listening. Attentive. Ready to intervene.
Glinda stood still for a second. Just a second. The air seemed to have left the street. Her face became more serious than anyone—not even Elphaba—had ever seen.
And then, slowly, with her eyes wide open, she said,
"End up as your servant?"
Both vipers smirked.
"Exactly! It's about time you understood!" said Shenshen.
But Glinda didn't break. She straightened. She stepped forward, gracefully freeing herself from the hands that held her.
"Funny," she said quietly but firmly. "Because this afternoon I was playing servant. I was dressed in a ridiculous costume. And I obeyed someone's orders…"
The vipers' eyes glittered with excitement.
"We knew it!" croaked Pfannee. "We're going to tell everything!"
But Glinda raised a hand, and for the first time... she silenced them.
"Yes. But that person earned that right. Because she never asked me for anything I wasn't willing to give. Because I chose it. Because she made me laugh. Because she respected me more in one hour than you have in a lifetime."
Pfannee and Shenshen looked at her as if they didn't recognize her.
"You don't want to play. You want to break me."
Glinda took another step, chin high.
"And if I was ever your puppet... that ended today."
The vipers didn't react. Their world was falling apart. And Glinda smiled. Not a fake smile, the kind she used to practice in front of the mirror. A real one. Proud. Tired, but free.
"Now if you'll excuse me," she said, turning with total grace, "I have a date with someone who doesn't need to crush others to shine."
And she left. Elphaba was already waiting for her, one eyebrow raised.
"A servant, huh?"
Glinda winked at her as she took her arm.
"Just for today."
"Hmmm," Elphaba murmured, amused. "And tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow we can switch roles."
They both burst out laughing as they walked down the street, leaving the two petrified hags behind, swallowing the poison they themselves had spat out.
Elphaba and Glinda walked in silence for a few meters, the city at their backs, until they turned a corner and were hidden from the poisoned eyes of the world. It was a quiet street, with dim streetlights and snow piled up on the banks. A different energy permeated it. Cleaner. Lighter. More real.
Elphaba let out a small, nervous laugh, as if she still didn't quite believe what had happened.
"Hey..." she began, her gaze fixed on their steps, "what you did with Pfannee and Shenshen... no one had ever defended themselves like that..."
But she didn't finish the sentence when... Glinda threw herself at her.
It was like a ray of hot light in the cold of the night. A leap into the void. A "I don't want to think anymore." He wrapped his arms tightly around her neck and, without asking permission, kissed her with a passion he'd long suppressed. Elphaba barely had time to react before she kissed her back with the same intensity, holding her close as if afraid she'd dissolve into thin air.
The world shrank to that moment.
The snow. The steam of their breath. The faint crunch of their footsteps beneath their bodies as they moved as one.
A laugh escaped between kisses, adrenaline still coursing through her veins.
"Do you always kiss like this after dealing with social snakes?" Elphaba asked, barely panting.
"Only when I'm around a wicked witch," Glinda whispered, biting her lip.
A guy walking past them, wrapped in his coat, glared at them and muttered something out of place under his breath. He didn't even finish his sentence.
BOOM!
Elphaba nudged him, barely looking at him, and the idiot slipped awkwardly in the snow, falling backward with a muffled groan.
"Oops," she said calmly.
Glinda burst into a bright, genuine laugh that rose through the icy air like a bell.
"God, I've had enough of this city for today."
Elphaba looked at her with a crooked smile, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
"Do you want to go home?"
"To your home?"
"Uh-huh."
"I thought you'd never ask."
And with their hands still clasped and the warmth pulsing beneath their skin, they disappeared into the night. Each step took them away from the noise, the judgment, the social disguises... and closer, finally, to each other.
A short time later, the door to Elphaba's penthouse burst open, admitting a flurry of laughter, shopping bags, and clumsy footsteps.
"I can't take it anymore! My arms are going to fall off!" Glinda squealed, dropping the bags as if she were carrying sacks of cement.
"Really?" Elphaba mocked, closing the door with her foot. "Is this the first time you've carried your own things? Or are you just feigning weakness to get pity?"
"Rude!" Glinda retorted, throwing herself into the armchair like an exhausted diva. "I'm just saying I didn't come equipped to work as a maid today."
"Oh, your poor little noble hands!" Elphaba laughed, mimicking a dramatic tone. "They're probably suffering without one of your three butlers around."
They both burst out laughing. The atmosphere was light, carefree, as if the weight of the world had been lifted off the table. Glinda had taken off her coat and was beginning to inspect the packages when Elphaba's cell phone vibrated on the nightstand.
Still smiling, Elphaba took it without looking too closely.
"Hello?"
But as soon as she heard the voice on the other end of the line, the smile faded slightly.
"Miss Thropp. Is this a bad time?"
Madame Morrible's voice was unmistakable: sharp, polite to the point of sinister. A scalpel wrapped in velvet. Elphaba swallowed.
"Uh... no, not at all. Hello."
She turned to Glinda, who was still making a scene with the bags, and gestured that she was going out onto the balcony. She closed the glass door behind her.
Snow covered the railing of the wide balcony. Elphaba leaned her elbow and looked out over the city as Morrible's voice sounded, as steady as ever.
"I was calling to tell you about Senator Delance's Christmas party," Madame Morrible said, with that firm, even cadence that left no room for interruptions. We haven't received your confirmation yet, which… seemed unusual for you.
"Sorry," Elphaba murmured, trying to regain her professional bearing. "I was going to confirm it today. In fact, I'll be attending."
"Will you be going with someone?"
Elphaba hesitated for only a second, but her reflection in the glass returned her a determined look. Glinda on the other side was making faces in front of the mirror, playing with one of her new hats.
"Yes. I'll go with Glinda."
From the other side, the silence was sharp.
"Ah," Morrible finally answered. "It's true that Miss Upland was also invited… How interesting. I suppose you consider each other friends or at least colleagues now, am I correct?"
"You could say that," Elphaba said, keeping her voice neutral.
"Sure. It doesn't matter," Morrible replied, but she said it in a way that made it clear that it did matter, just not now. "What does matter is that the senator has asked to speak with you personally. He's interested, genuinely interested in your performance. After the report on the redesign of the agreement with his administration that you delivered, and which impressed him so much, I also told him about the green infrastructure project you spearheaded, the agreement with the energy laboratories, and he was very interested."
Elphaba clenched her jaw.
"With me?"
"It's not every day you find someone so... competent," Morrible continued. "Your efficiency, your vision, your way of... moving without making waves. You understand when to speak, when to remain silent, and above all... when to obey."
Elphaba tightened her grip on the cell phone.
"I didn't know the senator was so involved with so many initiatives within the company."
"He wasn't," Morrible said, a smile in her voice. "But he is now... thanks to you. And he will become even more so if you play your cards right." Elphaba looked down at the city lights, feeling the height bring back that familiar feeling of vertigo. One false step, and everything would change.
"And what exactly... does he expect of me?"
"The same as me," Morrible said. "That I understand my place. That I see opportunity when it's right in front of me. That I don't ruin it with emotions, with... personal causes. This is your ticket, Elphaba. Not to a project, but to the circuit. To the level where the decision-makers operate, not the implementers."
Elphaba said nothing.
"The senator is considering creating a team of advisors for a special committee to govern the new agreement we're about to present. And I've suggested your name. But only if you prove you can... play the game. This party isn't just a celebration. It's a test."
"A test?" Elphaba repeated, frowning.
"We're all being tested, Elphaba. But some of us have more to gain... or lose." You and I don't come from the same world as everyone else. And yet, here we are. And if you want to stay, you have to prove you're not a rebel.
Silence.
"Do you understand?"
Elphaba nodded, as if Morrible could see her.
"Yes. I understand."
"Good. I trust you, Elphaba. Don't make me look like an idiot... Because I promise you, this will benefit you as much as it does me..."
As Elphaba stood on the balcony, her figure silhouetted against the distant city lights, Glinda let out a sigh and sank down onto the sofa with exaggerated grace. At her feet were scattered designer bags, tissue papers, and small accessories that still sparkled in the shop's lights.
With a mischievous smile, she rummaged through the bags until she found one of the most elegant packages: a black satin box. She opened it slowly, and there was the dress.
The black dress. Simple. Timeless. Elegant. And perfect for her. Glinda smiled not at the garment, but at what it evoked. The image of Elphaba emerging from the fitting room, unaware that all eyes were on her. That her strangeness had become power. That her shadow had illuminated.
"You're going to kill me, darling..." she murmured tenderly to herself.
As she carefully folded the dress, her eyes strayed to a corner of the shelf where, curiously, a picture frame lay upside down. As if someone had wanted to forget, rather than decorate. Glinda frowned, approached, and delicately picked it up.
The image took her by surprise.
A little Elphaba, about seven years old. With her characteristic skin tone, messy hair, and a serious, almost restrained expression. Beside her, a younger girl in a wheelchair, with a slight smile that contrasted with the rigidity of their father, who stood behind them, arms crossed and an icy stare. No one in the photo was touching each other. No one smiled at each other.
Tenderness tightened her chest.
Glinda ran her fingers over the surface of the glass.
"You poor thing..." she whispered, as if she could speak to the child trapped in the image. So alone, even there…
And as if the universe were responding, the sound of the balcony door snapped her out of the moment. Glinda turned quickly, carefully placing the photo back in its place.
Elphaba walked in. She was still holding her cell phone, but she wasn't looking at it anymore. Her face was pale, as if something in that conversation had drained her of all her blood.
"Is everything okay?" Glinda asked softly as she walked toward her.
Elphaba looked up at her, and for a second she didn't seem to know where to begin.
"Yes… It was Morrible, to confirm that we would be attending the senator's party," she finally said bluntly. "But that's not the point."
Glinda stopped a step away from her.
"So what?"
"Morrible just told me that the senator wants to speak with me. Personally. About a position on his new advisory committee. A real… position."
Glinda blinked, surprised.
"That's… incredible, isn't it?" Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She walked to the center of the living room, as if she needed to move to process it.
"I think so, but... remember when we wrote that report? And everything that 'happened' afterward... we said if we could reach the senator and talk about everything we discovered... Maybe we could make a difference."
"And isn't this an opportunity for that?" Glinda asked, though she already knew the answer.
Elphaba turned to her, her eyes darker than usual.
"Yes... That's right, but I don't know if I'm ready... It's a big step to face the man at the top of the pyramid, and... I don't know if I'll make it."
The words hung in the air like soft blades.
Glinda approached slowly, until she was standing in front of her, holding her hand.
"I'll be there with you... We'll do this together."
Elphaba looked at her, and for a second she looked like she wanted to answer. But she didn't. She just smiled... and let the silence speak for her.
Glinda, still shivering from the sparkle in her eyes that Elphaba's words had left her, tried to shake things up with a big, almost theatrical smile.
"Well... if we're going to attend the business meeting of a lifetime... then we have to look like we're about to receive an Oscar. Or two. We need a beauty plan. We need real preparation!"
She was about to launch into a monologue about face masks and diamond scrubs when Elphaba raised her hand, firm as an order.
"No. Don't even think about it. You're not taking me to another one of your... 'favorite salons.'"
"But Elphie!" Glinda protested indignantly. "How do you expect us to face a Republican senator with that gray foundation you've been wearing since the turn of the millennium?"
"Glinda."
"Then what?! We need someone who knows. An expert! A professional!" A legend with paintbrushes!
Elphaba crossed her arms. She closed her eyes for a second… and as soon as the thought appeared in her mind, so did the sigh.
“I have someone.”
“Yes!?” Glinda asked excitedly. “Who?”
“…And I’m already regretting it.”
A short while later, in an apartment a few floors below… Elphaba knocked on the door in resignation, while Glinda rearranged her hair as if she were in front of a television camera.
Barely two seconds passed and the door burst open.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!” a high-pitched, almost operatic scream was heard from inside while Tibbett, dressed in a patterned silk robe, jumped around like a possessed peacock. “I can’t believe it! He brought her!! THE MYSTERY GIRL EXISTS!”
"Just look, the mystery girl exists," Crope added, leaning against the doorframe, glass in hand and sporting his signature expression of elegant sarcasm. "I thought she was an invention of our favorite antisocial witch. Like a unicorn. But with cleavage."
"Oh, Crope!" Tibbett squealed, still holding Glinda. "She's prettier than I imagined! And she smells expensive!"
"Glinda," Elphaba murmured, sucking in a breath. "This is the closest thing I have to friends here... This is my worst social decision. Tibbett and Crope."
"The lovely Tibbett and Crope, honey," Crope corrected as she was already being dragged inside as if she were part of a musical number.
"Now come in! Come in, both of you! OH MY GOD, YOU'RE TALLER THAN I IMAGINED!"
Before they can protest, they're both engulfed in a whirlwind of expensive perfume, scarves, cushions, and enthusiasm. They're swept into the apartment, decorated as if Liberace and Frida Kahlo had a joint creative breakdown.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, Tibbett and Crope seated them with a mixture of theatrical urgency and absolute euphoria. The sofa, wide and upholstered in fuchsia velvet with impossible-to-see-through cushions, seemed to swallow Elphaba whole, while Glinda had barely finished arranging her bag when she was completely assaulted by attention.
"Goddess!!!" Tibbett shouted, crouching dramatically in front of Glinda. "Are you real, or did you step straight out of an enchanted couture catalog?"
"And that hair? Is it natural, or are you performing hair witchcraft?" Crope added, already examining the blond tips with a clinical eye. "Because if it's witchcraft, my dear, show me the spell!"
"That jacket!" “Glinda, that’s Balmain, isn’t it?! I always knew Elphaba had good taste hidden beneath her cloak of darkness,” Tibbett shrieked.
It took Glinda a few seconds to realize what was happening. Her gaze darted from one to the other, mouth agape, as if she’d been dropped backstage at a fashion show in the midst of an apocalypse… and then something clicked. She smiled, straightened her back, and with a dangerous gleam in her eyes, she fell into her element.
“Well, I put this outfit together with the sophisticated yet approachable professional in mind,” she said, stroking her sleeve. “And yes, it is Balmain, but I tailored it myself. Notice the double stitching here? It’s because the original cut didn’t flatter my shoulder shape.”
“Goddess AND seamstress!” Crope exclaimed, putting a hand to his chest as if he’d just witnessed a miracle.
“Ow, I’m fainting!” "Tibbett added, dramatically collapsing onto a golden pouf.
From the end of the sofa, Elphaba watched them as if she were watching a five-act play without an intermission. The cup of tea Crope had placed in her hands was still steaming.
"Here, my dear. This is to calm your nerves... and perhaps to extinguish the spontaneous combustion that's about to occur on the other side," Crope said with a wicked smile.
Elphaba looked down at the cup, then at the whirlwind that was her girlfriend amidst the two most adorable lunatics in the building, and brought her hand to her face.
"Gods... what have I done?"
Meanwhile, Glinda giggled, surrounded by boa constrictors, cushions, and unlimited attention.
"So how did you meet? Was it love at first sight or mortal enemies who couldn't resist each other?" Tibbett asked, now holding a notebook as if taking notes for a soap opera.
"Do you have nicknames?" Royal, embarrassing, cheesy nicknames? Come on! Don't let us die of curiosity.
"Who cooks? Who cries in movies? Who gets angry over nothing and then soothes it with hot chocolate?"
Each question was like an arrow straight to Elphaba's heart, as she slowly slid deeper and deeper into the sofa, as if waiting for the softness to swallow her alive.
"We don't cook," she murmured, wishing she could become invisible.
"And who does the laundry?" Tibbett insisted, brimming with enthusiasm.
"Stop it!" Elphaba raised a hand, panting slightly. "This isn't a Couple of the Month interview."
Crope shrugged and patted her arm.
"Relax, Witchy. You know if we bother you, it's because we love you."
"Too much," Tibbett added, hugging Glinda as if they were lifelong friends. And now that we've met the saint who decided to stay with you... we're going to treat her like a queen.
"Oh, please don't encourage her," Elphaba sighed, but her smile betrayed her for a second.
"Well?" Crope asks, elegantly crossing his legs. "What's the disastrous image you're trying to hide behind this suspiciously sudden visit?"
"We're having a party," Elphaba says, resigned.
"Party?" Tibbett's eyes widen. "What kind of party?"
"With Senator Zoroaster," Glinda says, as if revealing the location of the Holy Grail.
The two men fall silent. Tibbett gasps. Crope drops his glass, which miraculously doesn't break.
"Zoroaster? The Zoroaster who has a bust of himself in the guest bathroom? I read about it in a political gossip magazine."
"The Zoroaster who calls pickles and cream cheese 'caviar'?"
Elphaba nods, resigned.
"That Zoroaster."
Crope jumps up.
"We're going to need false eyelashes, dramatics, and makeup that says 'smart, sophisticated, and can destroy you with a single glance'!"
"And most importantly!" Tibbett shouts. "Fingernails!" These hands must tell a story!
"A story of what?"
"Of political triumph and erotic scandal! Don't question my art, Elphaba!"
Meanwhile, Glinda, holding a cup of tea, was absolutely enchanted by everything.
"Elphie... if this is hell, never let me out of here!"
And with a resigned sigh and a smile that escaped her without permission, Elphaba sank into the armchair, surrounded by feathers, colors, and strident love.
"You're going to kill me," she murmured.
"But you'll die fabulous!" they both shouted in unison.
Laughter erupted as they were seated in the middle of the living room, surrounded by lights, mirrors, and a mountain of cosmetics that would make Sephora weep. Elphaba rolled her eyes but smiled, inevitably, at the madness of her two friends.
The next three days were a chaotic whirlwind for Elphaba… and an absolute delight for Glinda.
From dawn, Crope and Tibbett dragged them—literally—into a world of makeup, wardrobe, and makeovers, with a discipline bordering on the military and an enthusiasm that could light up the entire City. Each day began with coffee, croissants, and laughter… and ended with dark circles, blisters, and a seemingly endless shower of glitter.
While Glinda floated through hairstyle trials, eyeshadow palettes, and impossible heels like a star in her natural habitat, Elphaba… survived. Barely. Every step was a personal battle. She learned to walk gracefully in shoes that felt like torture devices, to modulate her voice without sounding like a constant threat, and to keep her back straight without looking like she was hiding a broom under her jacket.
But despite the setbacks, there was always laughter. And between test and test, glance and glance, Elphaba began to loosen up. Glinda not only guided her, but also tenderly encouraged her, celebrated her small victories, and kissed her neck when no one was looking, causing Elphaba to mutter insults… and smile.
During the mornings, they presented themselves as two focused executives, organizing papers in their shared office, with serious faces and professional gestures. But under the table, Glinda stroked her knee or passed her notes with hearts, while Elphaba barely concealed her smile with fake snorts of frustration.
Afternoons were spent rehearsing entrances, revising speeches, and perfecting their manners. Crope and Tibbett transformed their apartment into a kind of express academy of etiquette and glamour, where even the cat knew how to sit elegantly. If Elphaba stumbled over a seductive phrase, Tibbett would make her repeat it twenty times with a rose between her lips. If Glinda hesitated about the correct angle of a curtsy, Crope would correct her as if it were a queen's coronation ceremony.
And as the sun set, as a reward, the four of them would share dinner at Crope and Tibbett's house. Amid laughter, sparkling wine, and colorful dishes that sometimes made it hard to tell if they were edible or decorative, the camaraderie grew. One night, Glinda and Crope took over the karaoke bar, and amid neon lights and theatrical poses, they sang "Dancing Queen" at the top of their lungs. Tibbett and Elphaba clapped, half embarrassed and half fascinated, while recording every second for future blackmail. At night, back in their apartment, Elphaba and Glinda would lock themselves in the playroom, where amid whispers, caresses, and mischief, they allowed themselves to explore the unique intimacy they shared. There were no protocol, no elegant dresses, no worldly demands. There was just them. And their toys.
The days passed, intense, exhausting, and profoundly transformative. Each new challenge found them more in tune. Where one faltered, the other held. Where one hesitated, the other trusted. And at the end of the third day, as they tried on their outfits for the last time in front of the mirror, Elphaba not only looked different… she felt different.
Not because she had changed, but because for the first time, she felt she could be all versions of herself at once… and still be herself.
And Glinda, standing behind her, smoothing back a wayward strand of hair, knew it. And she loved her more than ever.
Finally, the big day had arrived.
Tibbett and Crope's apartment looked like it had been invaded by a Christmas decorations store that had exploded out of control. Lights twinkled in every corner, mistletoe branches were strategically hung, and even the cat was wearing a reindeer sweater. Everything seemed to scream "celebration!" yet a faint melancholy hung in the air.
Amidst this festive chaos, Glinda stood in front of the mirror, her dress fitted tightly, a look of brilliant concentration on her face. Crope knelt behind her, adding the final stitches to the hem with the precision of a surgeon and the theatricality of a consummate artist.
"Don't move or you'll ruin the tulle drape," he said dramatically, "and I'm not going to repeat this job a third time."
Glinda giggled.
“Yes, yes, Needle General. I was just wondering… What are you and Tibbett doing for Christmas?”
Crope didn’t respond immediately. She blew a strand of blonde hair away from Glinda’s shoulder and smoothed the fabric before shrugging.
“Hmm… we have some possible plans,” she said ambiguously. “Maybe dinner with friends, maybe staying in watching musicals and critiquing the New Year’s Eve specials. Nothing as glamorous as yours, of course.”
Glinda tilted her head with a smile, but her eyes held sincerity.
“Honestly… your plans sound way more fun than this party.”
Crope sat up with an indignant gasp, clutching a hand to her chest as if Glinda had just insulted Judy Garland.
“What do you mean, you don’t want to go?! You’re invited to the second biggest party of the year after the Met Gala! Everyone will be there!”
"Exactly," Glinda murmured, with a sad smile.
Silence fell for a second. Crope returned to his work, toning down the tone a bit. Glinda took the moment to ask, "And won't you be seeing your families this holiday season?"
Crope paused.
"No," he answered with simple honesty. "Since Tibbett and I have been together, we're not exactly welcome. Christmas with them is... complicated."
Glinda felt an unexpected knot in her stomach.
"Oh... sorry, I shouldn't have asked," she said softly.
But Crope smiled without rancor as he adjusted the dress.
"Don't worry, doll. Some families are chosen, you know."
Glinda lowered her gaze, processing that sentence.
"And yours?" he asked, almost in a whisper. Then he smiled sideways. "Although I've noticed you're... an 'Upland.'"
"What?... How..." Glinda tried not to look so surprised, but failed miserably.
"Please, darling... In this house, gossip magazines are consumed like candy, besides... That explains a lot. The birth, the last name, the press, the impeccable manners..."
Glinda didn't respond immediately. She looked at herself in the mirror, as if the reflected image might give her some answers. Finally, she said, "I haven't spoken to my parents in a week... They're probably at the senator's party."
"And you're going to look for them?"
"I don't know. I'm not sure I want to find them... or rather, I don't know what I'll do when that happens."
Crope looked at her from the reflection, more serious than usual. Then he walked over and gently placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Whatever you do, baby... do it like you. Not like them. And if anyone dares to say anything mean, just call us and I promise Tibbett and I will push them into the punch bowl."
Glinda laughed genuinely as she turned to hug him. The dress was slightly askew from the squeeze, but neither of them seemed to mind.
The conversation between Glinda and Crope continued unhurriedly, amid soft laughter, final adjustments to the dress, and the occasional distant sound of Tibbett fighting with the Christmas lights in the hallway. There was something warm about that calm before the chaos, like a sigh before leaping into the void.
At one point, Glinda lowered her gaze somewhat shyly and, almost as if she didn't want to break the harmony of the moment, asked in a low voice, "Do you know anything more about... Elphaba's past? Her family, I mean. She always changes the subject when I bring it up." Crope stopped adjusting the neckline of her dress and stood still for a second, surprised by the question. Then he sat on the arm of the chair, crossing his legs with a listless elegance.
"Look... not much more than you, to be honest. She doesn't talk about it much. But," he added with a crooked smile, "when she has a couple of drinks too many, she lets loose with some things."
Glinda looked up, curious. Crope continued:
"We know her old man was... a complete jerk. Controlling, cold, fanatical. She doesn't say it in those words, of course, but it shows. And her mother... well, she never mentions her. But there is someone. A younger sister. You can tell she still cares for her, even though they haven't seen each other in a long time."
Glinda felt a knot tighten in her chest.
"So... has she really been alone all this time?"
"Yes," Crope said, without softening the truth. "Completely. She grew up without support, without restraint, always on the defensive." But she never broke. That's what amazes me most about her. Sometimes I wonder how she managed to survive all of that and still be... herself. That impossible mix of sarcasm, tenderness, and rage.
Glinda felt a strange, stabbing hole in her heart. She'd never stopped to consider how much it could hurt to grow up without anyone, without unconditional love. And now, Elphaba was learning, belatedly and clumsily, what it was like to have company. To have... someone.
"But now she has you," Crope said, as if reading her mind. "And that... changes everything."
Glinda nodded silently, biting her lip.
"I... I don't know how to explain it," she murmured. "It's like... like a part of me has always been waiting to find her. And now that I have her, I never want to be without her again. The thought of losing her is unbearable."
Crope looked at her tenderly and took her hands.
"I never saw her like this, Glinda. Never." She smiles without realizing it. She looks for you with her eyes when you're not there. She talks more, gets angry less... well, a little less. She's alive. Finally. You make her feel alive.
Glinda felt her eyes water, but she smiled through her tears.
"Thank you for telling me..."
“But don’t tell her, I told you,” Crope quickly added, putting a finger to his lips. “She threatened to burn down my closet if I got ‘sentimental.’”
They both laughed, and in that laughter there was relief, connection, and complicity. From the back of the apartment, Tibbett shouted: “Why do these lights have twelve plugs and only one outlet?!”
Crope rolled his eyes in exaggerated excitement.
“And so begins the most magical night of the year…”
And an hour later… to the great anticipation of Tibbett and Crope, Glinda finally emerged from her room… looking absolutely stunning…
Her powder pink dress cascaded softly to her ankles, made of a lightweight silk that moved as if floating on air. The corset was delicately embroidered in gold thread that caught the light with every step, suggesting floral motifs without being overpowered. Her shoulders were barely covered by sheer gauze, giving the illusion of petals caressing her skin. Her hair was tied back in a low, romantic bun, decorated with tiny rhinestones as if she were carrying a piece of the starry sky. Her makeup was subtle but flawless: flushed cheeks, lips a natural pink, and a defined gaze with a touch of sparkle on her eyelids. As a finishing touch, she wore gold heels peeking out from under her skirt and pearl earrings.
Tibbett screamed with excitement as if she were watching a celebrity walk down the red carpet at Cannes.
"GODDESS! Literally a Disney princess come to life!"
Crope, barely breathing, was already taking photos from various angles while saying, "I can't stand you, Glinda. It's criminal to be this beautiful. CRIMINAL!"
Glinda laughed, delighted by the reaction and admiring her reflection.
"Oh, I can't believe it! I love it!" "You don't know how happy I am with what you did! This is a dream!" she said, spinning around, causing her skirt to swirl gently.
But then, another door opened behind her.
Tibbett and Crope stood completely silent, their mouths agape, frozen in time.
"What's wrong?" Glinda asked, confused for a second.
She turned around... and her heart nearly leaped out of her chest.
There was Elphaba.
She walked slowly into the room, a little unsure but determined, and the entire room seemed to stop. Her dress was the same one she had bought days before, but now with just the right amount of adjustments that elevated it to another level. The bodice was satin black, with a structured sweetheart neckline that hugged her figure effortlessly. From the waist fell a long, flowing skirt with subtle layers of black tulle and a barely perceptible emerald green gradient as she moved, as if a magical shadow followed her every step. The corset had dark lace details in a floral pattern that elegantly revealed a bit of skin, and a thin green velvet belt with an antique brooch gave her an air of understated sophistication.
Her hair was loose, slightly wavy, with a single jeweled green brooch over one ear. Crope's makeup defined her gaze with dark eyeliner and moss-green metallic shadow that made her eyes appear mesmerizing. Her deep burgundy lips contrasted with her skin, making her look like something out of a baroque painting.
Tibbett was literally close to tears.
"Why do I look like a mortal watching a Greek goddess descend from Olympus?" she said, clutching her chest.
Crope tried to take pictures but kept repeating, "An IMAX camera won't capture this... this is too much!"
Glinda, for her part, couldn't react. Her voice was gone. The air was gone. The entire world seemed to have vanished, except for Elphaba.
And Elphaba approached her, her steps soft, as if she were afraid of ruining something sacred.
"You look... beautiful," she said with a shy smile, almost a whisper.
Glinda could barely muster a smile. Her eyes were completely crystalline, shining as if they might burst out at any moment.
And although it was impossible for her to put into words what she felt... she couldn't remain silent.
"And you..." she said, her voice breaking. "You... you just redefined the word 'beauty.'"
Elphaba lowered her gaze, blushing, but Glinda took her hand.
"I've never seen anyone like you. Not just because of how you look. It's because of what you convey. Because of how you make the space shine. Because of who you are."
Elphaba swallowed, not knowing how to respond.
And that's when Tibbett let out a heartfelt sob, and Crope yelled, "OK! Stop! This isn't romantic anymore, this is emotionally devastating! You're destroying me, girls!"
They both laughed at last, holding hands.
Elphaba leaned in slightly.
"Are you ready for the big night?"
Glinda looked at her, still smiling with excitement.
"Only if you're by my side."
And together, amid applause and photographs of Tibbett and Crope, their expert stylists, the magical couple headed for the door, but before they left, Elphaba offered her hand to Glinda, who paused for a moment and with a smile said…
“Well, are you coming?”…
TO BE CONTINUED…
Notes:
Well, this is the first part of what I consider the end of the first season of this story, wait for the next part where things will get wild and I promise that our protagonists will have to, of course, defying gravity.
Chapter Text
“…In the end, it wasn't the party, the dress, or the power that changed everything. It was the moment I looked in the mirror and didn't know if what I saw was me... or a version I'd invented to survive.”
The screen glowed with a cold light in front of her, casting long shadows across the polished floor of the penthouse. Elphaba sat cross-legged on the dining room chair, barely dressed in an oversized black shirt unbuttoned halfway. The air was thick, permeated with the sweet scent of cheap whiskey and the stale smoke of unlit cigarettes, their charred bodies spilling from the ashtray like a defeated army. The city, bright and merciless, stretched out beyond the windows like an ocean of artificial stars. From up there, everything seemed distant, unreal, as if someone else's life were unfolding beneath that tide of lights.
The words she had written minutes ago lined up on the screen like an army of traitors. The reflection was honest, yes, but not true. There was a difference. There was something forced, a need to bring order to what remained chaos inside her. And so, with a mixture of impatience and embarrassment, she pressed the backspace key. Once, twice, three times. Then she held her finger steady until she saw the letters disappear as if they had never been there.
"Shit..." she muttered, running her hand through her tangled hair. She didn't know if what she felt was pain, guilt, or simply exhaustion.
She leaned her head back against the back of the leather chair, closing her eyes for a moment. How did one describe something that even oneself didn't fully understand? How did one write about a moment that still thumped so loudly in one's chest that one couldn't look at it without feeling it like a pang? Elphaba took a deep breath, swallowed, felt the burn of the whiskey in her throat.
She knew this moment would come.
She knew that, sooner or later, she would have to talk about that night.
With a resigned sigh, she leaned back toward the keyboard. She let her fingers find the rhythm, the ideas find their way without being pushed. And slowly, with long pauses, she wrote:
"I never thought it would be so hard for me to write about a party.
And yet, here I am, at three in the morning, with an empty stomach, a full head, and an ashtray that looks like the battlefield of a war I still don't know if I won or lost.
It wasn't just a party. It was a mirror. One where each guest reflected something of me that I had wanted to bury. My past. My fear. My masks. And she...
She was the only light in that room of shadows."
Elphaba stopped and brought the last cigarette to her lips, lighting it with Crope's silver lighter—one she had accidentally stolen weeks ago and now refused to return out of sheer stubbornness.
She looked out the window for a moment, the lights distorted by the smoke. He remembered Glinda's laugh, the specific sound she made when she tried to laugh quietly so as not to ruin her makeup. He remembered how she looked in that dress. He remembered what he felt when he saw her and understood—without words, without embellishment—that she was lost. That there was no way back.
She looked back at the screen and typed:
"I don't know if I'm writing this to understand it or to put it behind me. But if I don't write it down, if I don't tell it like it was, then everything else—the music, the laughter, the looks, the silences—is meaningless. And I need them to have meaning. I need to think they served a purpose.
So this is the truth, or at least the part I can tell without completely destroying myself: the night that changed everything didn't begin with an explosion, or a secret revealed, or a stolen kiss. It began with a doubt. The same doubt I have now. Am I ready for what's next? Were we ready?"
Elphaba gave a bitter laugh. She rested her cigar on the rim of her glass, dropped her head into her hands.
"What the hell am I doing?" she muttered.
She didn't expect an answer. No one was going to give her one.
Not that night.
But even though it was hard to admit, even though her soul screamed in self-defense, the truth was as clear as ice: what they experienced that night was more than a social event. It was a test. A declaration. A battlefield with champagne flutes and secrets kept too close to their hearts.
And what would come next… could not be written without first facing everything that night unleashed.
So Elphaba took a deep breath, wiped her tears before they fell, rested her fingers on the keys, and typed one last line before continuing:
"And so began the end of the beginning."
CHAPTER 8: Well, Are You Coming? Part 2
The snow fell with the delicacy of a sigh, like stardust descending in slow motion upon the city. Each flake settled uninvited on fur coats, perfect hairstyles, and designer suits, but no one seemed to notice. The air had that artificial scent of expensive perfumes, imported flowers, and ambition carefully wrapped for the occasion.
The building rose like a modern palace, crowned with golden garlands, twinkling lights, and a red carpet that shone damply under the snow, reflecting camera flashes and the murmur of the elite. Limousines pulled up one after another, letting out the great families, the old surnames, the new millionaires, the perfectly sculpted wives, the dangerously polite heirs. Everyone was laughing, greeting each other with cold hugs and touchless kisses, like actors repeating a well-worn script.
Inside, the columns were wrapped in crimson ribbons, the chandeliers shone like domesticated suns, and the music of an orchestra floated in the air with pretension and delicacy.
But outside, standing alone in front of the entrance, was Elphaba.
Her coat was barely open, revealing the black dress that clung to her body like a second skin. It sparkled with tiny reflections of light, as if some distant galaxy had exploded against her figure. Her makeup was minimal but flawless. Not a trace of vulnerability, except in her eyes. Because in her mind, there was no brightness or music. Only an insistent voice screaming at her to leave. That she didn't belong there. That this wasn't her war, her table, her night.
What if she walked in and everything fell apart? What if everyone looked at her with that mixture of fear and desire she knew so well? What if Glinda...?
A warm hand broke the whirlwind. Delicate, confident. Hers.
Glinda, in her powder-pink dress of crystals that glittered like spring frost. Her hair tied back gently, loose curls caressing her cheeks, her lips painted like a whisper. A bright, vibrant flower, blooming amid the frozen asphalt.
"Ready?" Glinda asked, with a smile that had no pretense. Only tenderness. Just them.
Elphaba looked at her for a second longer than necessary. Her expression softened just a bit, enough to reveal the gap between fear and determination.
"No," she replied. And then, with a subtle gesture, she laced her fingers through Glinda's. "But that never stopped me."
They both looked at each other. And it was as if the rest of the world, with its noise and tinsel, disappeared for an instant.
Then, with firm steps, they entered together under the hotel arches. The noise immediately enveloped them: the flashing lights, the murmurs, the familiar faces and the judging eyes. A wave of perfumes, lights, and rehearsed lines.
But they weren't alone. They were together.
And although the city's social hell opened up before them like a voracious theater... the night hadn't yet begun.
Elphaba and Glinda crossed the threshold hand in hand, and it was as if a gust of fresh air—authentic, vibrant, different—burst into a perfectly calibrated ecosystem of appearances.
The hall was an overflowing homage to excess and sophistication. The marble columns were wrapped in gold ribbons like giant candy, and hundreds of warm lights hung like artificial constellations from impossibly high ceilings. With every step, the wooden floor gleamed with the imprints of expensive shoes. Impeccable waiters wandered around with trays of sparkling wine, and from the raised platform at the back of the room, a string orchestra filled the air with a majestic—and somewhat forced—version of Christmas classics transformed into waltzes.
In one corner, a group of businessmen laughed with over-the-top laughter. Near the five-meter-high Christmas tree—decorated with emerald crystals and real champagne spheres—two television presenters posed for photos as if the event were just another runway show. Politicians, heirs, retired actresses, fashion moguls, and former nobles of washed blood exchanged greetings with the feigned elegance of a diplomatic chess game. The toasts were discreet, and the conversations swift. Everyone spoke, but no one said anything.
And while this universe of tinsel revolved, on the second floor, on a balcony decorated with wrought iron, Fiyero Tigelaar leaned an elbow on the railing and held a glass of whiskey with the same resignation with which one carries a glass at a bad wedding.
His midnight blue suit fit him perfectly, with a subtle shine that caught the light every time he moved, but that wasn't what attracted attention. It was the aura of distance that seemed to surround him, as if he were present by contract, but absent by choice. Downstairs, the music and the smiles continued like an alien spectacle. Elphaba and Glinda had just entered, and although Fiyero didn't know it yet, something in the room was about to change.
Beside him, his mother—a stately woman in a burgundy dress and jewels like medals—hadn't stopped talking for at least ten minutes.
"...and then I said to her, 'My dear, if the designer can't tell the difference between crimson and burgundy, he'd better be painting walls, not dresses.'" She laughed as if I'd just spoken the greatest truth of the evening, and her friend, a woman equally bejeweled but with an even more vacant expression, applauded the gossip enthusiastically.
At that moment, the woman looked at Fiyero and lit up like a Christmas tree on sale.
"But look at this young man!" Good heavens, he's getting more handsome every day! When are you going to tell us the news, Fiyero? An engagement? A scandal? A future princess, perhaps?
Fiyero smiled with anesthetized courtesy, just enough to appear polite without compromising his soul.
"Nothing worth sharing... for now," he said, and took a long sip that he hoped would make him invisible.
The questions continued like flies in summer: What were you doing abroad last time? Did you come back to stay? Who's the lucky one? Is your relationship with the Upland daughter still going strong?
With vague answers like "We'll see," "I doubt it," and "I don't care about titles," Fiyero managed to disarm interest like extinguishing a candle with two fingers.
When the conversation began to flag, his mother gave him a look as sharp as a broken glass.
"Is it too much to ask for some interest, Fiyero?" "—he murmured in a low but firm tone. "At least make an effort to pretend you're enjoying this evening."
Fiyero raised an eyebrow.
"Isn't pretending exactly this place's specialty?"
She looked at him with exasperation, bit back a retort, and said with resignation,
"I'll go find your father. He's probably already arguing with someone at the bar about monetary policy or conspiracies against the 'nobility.' Don't move."
And she walked away like a queen offended by her own court jester.
Fiyero let out a sigh and looked down at his glass. He was halfway through, which was a bad sign at that point in the evening.
Then an anxious voice emerged from the din:
"Oh my God, there you are! You promised if I came with you, you wouldn't leave me alone among this collection of talking statues!"
Boq, somewhat agitated and visibly uncomfortable with his surroundings, appeared in the crowd like a child lost in a mansion. His suit was clean but simple, with a bow tie that was barely adjusted and his shoes unpolished. He looked like a supporting character in an overly expensive play.
Fiyero smiled, for the first time sincerely.
"I couldn't miss the opportunity to see you faint among diamonds."
Boq frowned, crossing his arms.
"This is a nest of vipers, you know. I've been asked three times if I was part of the service. One woman tried to give me her coat!" "Well, at least he didn't try to give you his dog," Fiyero laughed, and with a nod, he indicated the bar. "Come on, let's get a drink before you start hyperventilating. I swear the mojitos here give you back your will to live... for ten minutes, at least."
Boq nodded as they disappeared into the crowd, one walking with the poise of someone who's seen it all, the other stumbling through evening gowns and other people's conversations.
Fiyero and Boq descended the grand white marble staircase like two pieces that didn't quite fit on the event's board. The former, elegant, confident, slightly hunched over with boredom. The latter, nervous, out of place, adjusting for the fourth time his bow tie, which was already hanging crooked.
"So what you have to do," Fiyero said with a smirk, stepping down a step, "is look her straight in the eye, smile with half a lip, and say something like, 'Did you know that 78% of people fall in love at parties where there's expensive wine?'"
Boq looked at him, horrified.
"Is that real?"
"No. But it sounds convincing, doesn't it?"
"Fiyero..."
"Boq, these people don't care if you're interesting, only if you seem important. Just... straighten your back and tell them you know someone at court."
"Who?"
"Me, obviously."
Boq snorted, just as they passed (without even realizing it) behind Elphaba and Glinda, who were weaving their way through the crowd like two planets in opposite orbits.
Elphaba walked tensely, her shoulders hunched, her gaze shooting invisible daggers at everything around her. Between the music, the lights, and the parade of fake smiles, the feeling of suffocation grew like ivy in her chest.
"This is hell with crystal glasses," she murmured.
Glinda, arm in arm, maintained the posture of a princess in her natural element. Her impeccable smile never wavered even when she spoke to Elphaba in a low voice.
"You can do this, just... breathe and remember why we came."
"To watch rich people strut like costumed turkeys?"
"No. So they can see that you can strut too, if you wanted to."
Trying to distract herself, Elphaba took a mini tart from a silver tray that floated past waiters. But Glinda, like a trained sentry, lightly tapped her hand.
"No! Not like that. You can't grab them yourself. You have to wait for them to be offered to you. It's all choreographed."
"What if I'm hungry?"
"Then you suffer in silence, like everyone else!"
Elphaba rolled her eyes and took a step toward a glass of golden bubbles, but Glinda intervened again, this time with a gentle nudge.
"Don't drink without knowing what it is! You could be toasting with Imperial Swan Bone Broth."
"So what if it's tasty?"
"It matters because everything here is drunk with a social sense! There are glasses you just hold, do you understand?" The situation repeated itself two more times: Elphaba trying to touch a centerpiece ornament, then trying to say something spontaneous to a guest who wasn't speaking to her... and in each case, Glinda intervened with a mini-etiquette class, muttering under her breath and smiling outwardly as if it were all part of a charming act.
Finally, Elphaba exploded in an indignant whisper.
"This is ridiculous! What's the point of all this? Pretending, dressing up like glittering statues and talking without saying anything?"
Glinda, as if waiting for just that moment, narrowed her eyes mischievously. She glanced sideways, then leaned toward her.
"The point...? Come. I'll show you the oldest and most sacred tradition of the elite: gossip."
Before Elphaba could object, Glinda took her arm and began gently twirling her, like a ballerina in a shop window.
"Do you see that lady in the lavender dress with that giant brooch?" —she whispered near her ear— They say she inherited it... from her third ex-husband! Who, by the way, is here... and also her fourth ex.
Elphaba frowned, confused.
—So?
—The brooch... it's the reason the new wife speaks to him with a French accent, even though she's from Texas!
Elphaba gave a dry, surprised laugh.
—Does that matter?
—Here it is everything. Look to your right, next to the giant tree: that man with the white beard... he was arrested for penguin trafficking.
—What?
—You can't keep them in gilded cages, Elphaba! It's illegal. And now she's smiling, because she's watching.
Glinda continued to spin her, as if they were dancers on a social carousel. Each spin was accompanied by a new absurd revelation:
—Do you see that one with the blue feathers? They say she forged her noble title.
—That young woman over there called off her engagement two days before… Because she discovered her fiancé was having an affair... with her father.
"And the... well, no one knows how he got an invitation. That makes him the most dangerous of all."
At first, Elphaba listened only out of obligation. But little by little, her expression softened. A light laugh burst from her like an unexpected spark. Then another. And by the time Glinda told her how a guest mistook an ambassador for a waiter and asked him to take out the trash, Elphaba was actually laughing, for the first time that evening.
"...And what did the ambassador do?"
She complimented her on her acumen for domestic diplomacy.
They both laughed, one more outrageously than the other, and for a second, the weight of the event eased off Elphaba. Between ridiculous secrets and shared whispers, the party stopped being a crystal monster... and became a comical stage.
The two of them continued to circle among the crowd like two satellites with their own systems, oblivious to the rest of the social universe that continued to spin with feigned elegance. But they weren't pretending. At least not anymore. Even Glinda encouraged Elphaba to make up her own gossip.
"And that gentleman with the golden cane?" Elphaba whispered with a raised eyebrow.
Glinda slowly turned her head.
"Lord Burtleby? What about him?"
Elphaba smiled with gentle malice.
"I heard he doesn't actually need the cane... but he uses it because he keeps his emergency snacks in it. Chocolate almonds."
Glinda burst into a high-pitched laugh, her hand going to her mouth.
"What?! That's ridiculous!"
"And isn't that everything here?"
Glinda leaned a little further into her arm, amused.
"You're getting very good at this." You should join the Northern Wives' Disinformation Club.
"Does that exist?"
"What do you think?"
They both laughed again. The barrier that usually surrounded Elphaba had cracked, and Glinda, against all odds, had slipped through a crack. The mocking glances became conspiratorial. The words lowered their volume, as if spoken only to them. The noise from the hall continued, but in their bubble, only whispers and soft laughter remained.
Suddenly, Elphaba noticed how close they were. Face to face. Barely half a step separated them. Glinda's eyes were full of light, and something about her smile seemed to invite her to stay a second longer.
Elphaba swallowed and, with a slightly awkward smile, broke the spell.
"Do you want a drink?"
"Sure," Glinda answered without thinking, smiling as if she'd just been invited to the best plan in the world. "Surprise me." Elphaba nodded nervously, immediately turning around and walking with a firm stride... even though her cheeks were starting to heat up.
Elphaba arrived at the bar as if she'd just run an emotional marathon. She leaned back slightly, taking a breath. The bartender, a tall, calm man in a black shirt with a professional look, approached her.
"What can I get you?"
Elphaba, still breathing a little rapidly, ran a hand down her neck and answered with brutal honesty:
"Anything to lower my body temperature. Something... that won't make me melt on my feet, basically."
The bartender gave a short laugh, his composure intact.
"I have just what you need."
Elphaba waited while the bartender finished the two drinks for her and Glinda. Her breathing had calmed, and her gaze wandered around the room... until the voices next to her began to rise.
Two older men, dressed in expensive suits and even more expensive watches, were talking to each other. Well, one was talking. The other was nodding as if he hadn't been hearing exactly the same thing at every event like this for decades.
"The problem," said the more talkative one, holding a glass of whiskey and sounding pompous, "is that nowadays anyone feels entitled to an opinion. To protest. To demand things. To demand! As if they'd done anything for this country."
The other murmured a slight "uh-huh."
"And it's all because of these modern politicians who no longer have a backbone. There's no firm hand. They let the masses get the better of them. And of course, quotas have to be met, right? Diversity here, inclusion there... And merit? And experience? Nowadays, anyone walks into a room with important decisions and everyone applauds because there's a woman in it, or a... you know, one of those."
Elphaba exhaled a short, dry laugh through her nose, without realizing it.
"Funny... I always thought democracy was precisely so "anyone" could influence important decisions."
The man turned slowly toward her, his brow furrowed in a grimace of mild annoyance, as if he'd just discovered an unexpected insect in his wine glass.
"Excuse me? Were you saying something?"
Elphaba turned to him, leaning an elbow on the bar. Her expression was calm, though her eyes burned like embers.
“I was just commenting out loud how curious it is to be nostalgic for times when decisions were made in rooms full of mirrors and men applauding each other.”
The man gave a dry, humorless laugh.
“Wow. A young woman with strong opinions. And what do you know about politics, my dear? What did you read, a Twitter thread? A podcast with background music and made-up data?” he asked with a fake smile. “Do you have any experience in public administration or politics to be able to offer such a free opinion?”
Elphaba didn’t flinch. She turned slightly toward him, her expression serene but direct.
“You don’t have to have been a surgeon to realize someone is bleeding. Nor do you need a degree to know when a system is rotting from the inside.”
The man gave a short, dry laugh, shaking his head.
“Sure, sure. Same old speech. ‘The system is broken.’” Easy enough to say when you've never had to stand on one.
"And what pedestal do you stand on? The one from whom privilege automatically makes you a moral authority?"
The man shrugged, still smiling awkwardly.
"It's not my fault I was born where I was. But at least I don't go around belittling it for sport."
"And you think questioning is the same as belittling?" Elphaba asked, barely raising an eyebrow. "How fragile your world must be if you can't tolerate a single contradiction without taking offense."
The man narrowed his eyes.
"And you? A young woman with such drive... what makes you think your opinion carries the same weight as someone who's lived longer, who's worked, who's..."
"Who has contributed to keeping things the way they are?" Elphaba interrupted, this time without softening her tone. "Well, that's exactly why. Because I have to live in this world that others built without question, but that affects us all the same." For a second, he stared at her silently, surprised by the fluidity of her thought, perhaps not expecting someone so young to stand up to him like that.
"And what's your name, if I may ask?"
"Elphaba Thropp," she replied, without lowering her gaze an inch.
The man's eyebrow arched with sudden interest.
"Thropp? Minister Thropp's? Gillikin's?"
A lump formed in Elphaba's throat for a moment... but she knew she couldn't give in, not now.
"My father. Although if you're going to use that as an argument to invalidate what I'm saying, you're going to have to try a little harder."
The man gave a short laugh, thick with condescension.
"Interesting. A Thropp talking about inclusion and waving the flag of the masses. How ironic. I thought your family had better instincts than joining populist causes." Elphaba leaned straighter on the bar, smiling slightly.
"Maybe that's why I get disinvited to so many family dinners. Let's just say I don't play by the book."
The man tilted his head, trying to gauge her, as if unsure whether she was being naive or defiant.
"Then prepare to be disappointed many times over. The world doesn't adapt out of politeness. And those who don't understand how it works are left behind."
Elphaba held his gaze, unblinking.
"And those who refuse to let the world change are left alone. Sometimes at the top, yes, but alone just the same."
The man raised his voice again, his tone now more laced with contempt:
"And therein lies the problem, Miss Thropp. They think that by speaking nicely they can disguise their ignorance. And if you—"
"Father!"
The word rang like a bell. Firm. Irrevocable. Elphaba and the man turned as one. There stood Fiyero, frowning, his face filled with a mixture of embarrassment, exhaustion, and anger. His perfect suit contrasted with the emotional rawness of his gaze.
"That's enough," he said, not raising his voice, but with an authority he hadn't used all night.
Elphaba looked at him in surprise. The man—her father—did too. For a second, he seemed offended... but soon he noticed their expressions. His gaze flicked from Elphaba to Fiyero. And he understood.
"Do you know each other?" he asked sarcastically. A crooked smile formed on his face, thick with cynicism. "Of course you do."
He turned to Fiyero with renewed asperity.
"Now I understand why you've been so confused lately. Ideas are sticking. It's not your fault, I guess. You were always weaker than you looked." Fiyero clenched his jaw, but didn't respond to the provocation. Instead, he looked at his father with controlled calm.
"I suggest you leave, Father."
"And if I don't want to?"
"Then you'll have to accept that tonight you're not speaking like a Tigelaar... or like anyone who deserves respect."
A thick silence fell over the room. The man looked at him for a long time, gauging his wounded ego. Finally, he nodded slightly, with a curt gesture.
"I'll do as I please... as always. But this conversation isn't over."
"I wish it was," Fiyero replied, without moving.
The old man gave him one last look, with a hint of haughty disappointment... and left. Elphaba followed him with her eyes until he disappeared into the audience.
When she looked back at Fiyero, she was still somewhat bewildered. He came closer, a little uncomfortable.
"I'm so sorry about all that. Honestly."
"Thank you," she replied sincerely, taking a drink. "Though, to be fair, I was handling it pretty well."
"I know," Fiyero said, smiling. "Believe me, I wasn't rescuing you... more like I think I was rescuing him... No one had ever cornered him this much."
They both laughed, finally relaxing. Elphaba let her guard down a bit, smiling with her eyes.
"Is he always like this?"
"Only when he breathes," Fiyero joked, and she laughed again.
They took a moment of silence together, comfortable now amid the background noise and the murmur of the party.
"I guess I'd forgotten we had more in common than I thought," Elphaba said gently.
"Yes," Fiyero nodded, looking at her tenderly. "And that... doesn't bother me at all."
The two continued chatting amicably by the bar, catching up, as they hadn't had a chance to talk since they'd reunited. Elphaba, more relaxed now, took a sip of the cocktail the bartender had served her and then turned to Fiyero, smiling sideways.
"I came with Glinda, by the way," she commented matter-of-factly.
Fiyero gave a short, almost nostalgic laugh.
"Yeah... I'm not surprised."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, and his expression changed. Something about the way he said it put her on alert.
"Why aren't you surprised?"
Fiyero tensed a little. He hesitated. But Elphaba's expression glared at him with anticipation.
"You already know?"
"...Well... tensely, yes..." Fiyero tried to maintain a neutral expression, but failed miserably.
Elphaba understood everything immediately.
"She told you!" she exclaimed, more amused than annoyed.
Fiyero threw up his hands, defensive.
"It wasn't how you think it was!" It was a casual conversation… I was worried. Seeking advice, I don't know. Besides,” she said with a smile, “it's not like it was a particularly well-kept secret. Did you see the way they looked at each other?”
Elphaba let out an incredulous laugh, lowering her gaze, as if trying to hide the blush that had inevitably betrayed her.
“It's ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head, but with a smile. “This is so ridiculous…”
“Ridiculously cute, maybe?”
Elphaba gave him a gentle push in the arm, and they both laughed like two old accomplices reunited. Finally, they could talk calmly, without guarding or pretense. Fiyero looked at her with genuine warmth.
“And how are things going with her?”
Elphaba was silent for a moment, letting her guard down a bit. Her expression softened.
“They're going well. Really well.” Glinda… she's brilliant, generous, and has a unique way of making everything around her make sense, even when it doesn't. She's… chaotic, but I've never felt so at peace.
Fiyero smiled, with a tenderness that needed no words. But just as the moment seemed to settle into something more intimate, Elphaba added, almost without thinking,
"Actually, she's coming with me to speak with the senator later."
Fiyero blinked. His expression changed instantly, surprised.
"The senator?"
"Yes?" Elphaba frowned, noticing the change. "What's wrong?"
Fiyero leaned a little closer, lowering his voice.
"Is it you?"
"Me what?"
"The 'new investment,'" he said, sarcastically mimicking the tone of those who used that term as if it were property. "There's been a rumor going around for a while now that the senator is considering promoting a new figure… young, promising, you know." But no one knew who he was. Now I understand.
Elphaba looked at him, half confused and half incredulous.
"But why this rumor? Since when?"
"Since before we arrived. People talk," Fiyero replied, taking a sip of his drink. "And if there's one thing we have in abundance here, more than fake smiles, it's envy. So be careful, okay?"
Elphaba looked thoughtful. She still wasn't sure what all this meant, but he nodded slowly. Fiyero looked at her with a mixture of pride and concern.
"You're stronger than they think. But that doesn't mean they won't try to bring you down anyway."
She looked into his eyes. There was something sincere in those words that resonated deeply with her. For the first time in a long time, she felt someone saw her clearly... and without fear.
"Thank you, Fiyero."
"Always," he replied with a faint smile.
They stood like that for a second longer, in that fleeting bubble within the chaos of the party, before the music changed and the general murmur dragged them back to the present.
Glinda wove her way through the crowd like an Olympic swimmer dodging inflatable floats. Every two steps, a fake smile caught her arm.
"Glinda! I loved your dress; it's like Chanel and a unicorn had a baby."
"Glinda, have you said hello to the ambassador from who knows where? He's asking for the blonde with the golden aura. I assume that's you."
"Glinda, my dear!" Did you lose weight? Because if not, I know a specialist doctor who could help you.
She was smiling. She was always smiling. But inside, she was starting to calculate how many more smiles she could sustain before she became a walking chaos of heels and glitter.
Finally, her eyes found a small table with trays. Sandwiches. Heavenly, beautiful, delicious sandwiches.
"Finally..." she murmured to herself, and launched herself decisively.
But just as her fingers closed on the target (a luscious goat cheese and flower petal tartlet), another hand claimed it at the same time.
Glinda almost hissed.
"Don't even think about it..." she said, turning sharply... and froze.
In front of her, with the expression of someone who has just stepped into a minefield without shoes, stood Boq.
The two stared at each other for an eternal second.
Glinda was frozen in disdain; Boq, in pure panic.
“G-Glin… Glinda, what a coincidence,” he said with a smile that trembled like jelly.
“Boq,” she replied, dry as a desert, with the same warmth as a tax report.
Boq, like a soaked puppy trying to look dignified, tried to keep up with the conversation:
“You look… very you. In a good way. I mean, you always look… you. Yourself. How are you?”
“I don’t need a refresher on your visual identity, thank you,” Glinda replied, with a raised eyebrow.
The tension was as thick as molasses. Boq swallowed, then lowered his gaze. The attempt at cordiality vanished.
“Look… it’s not worth pretending we’re okay. We’re not. And we probably never will be. But I… wanted to say something I should have said a long time ago.”
Glinda crossed her arms. She wasn’t going to help him.
Boq sighed.
“I’m sorry. For everything.” For confessing at the worst possible moment, as if your emotions didn't matter. For putting you in such an... unfair position. And for how I reacted when you didn't feel the same. I acted like a wounded idiot. And that's no excuse. I'm just... sorry.
Silence. Boq spoke sincerely, yes... but also awkwardly, with that desperate vulnerability that sometimes made him seem even smaller than he was.
Glinda looked at him for a few more seconds. His expression was impenetrable.
Finally, he sighed.
"Okay... thanks for saying it," he said, without embellishment. "Look... I don't know if what you felt was real, or just a fantasy. But I was honest. And I'm glad you're finally being honest, too."
Boq nodded, defeated but grateful. As if he'd finally let go of a weight he'd carried for years.
"Uneasy peace?" he offered, slightly extending his hand.
Glinda thought for a second... and then, with a quick gesture, took the tart from his hand, brought it to her mouth, and murmured,
"Only if this counts as a tribute."
Boq smiled.
"Fair trade."
Boq, still teetering between politeness and social terror, tried to loosen the thick ice of the conversation with a nervous smile.
"Perhaps... a drink? To... soften this moment and, well, regain human warmth."
Glinda gave a polite little laugh and shook her head.
"Thanks, Boq, but I think I'd need something stronger than a drink for that. Like a portal to another dimension, for example."
Boq nodded, defeated but grateful that at least they hadn't turned him into a frog.
But before he could continue with another clumsy attempt at cordiality...
"Glinda, there you are!"
Glinda turned around, panic in her eyes. No... not them.
And yes: it was them.
Highmuster Upland, her father, burst onto the scene like an explosion of joy in a bottle of expensive cologne. His smile was bigger than his tuxedo, and his arms were already opening as if to wrap Glinda in a human scarf.
"My girl! You're radiant, as always! Did you see I brought your favorite color? Light caramel smoke pink! I remembered!"
"Popsicle... yes... I see it. I didn't have to..."
But there was no escape: she was already trapped in a cologne-scented embrace with paternal enthusiasm.
Beside her, the elegant, icy figure of Larena Upland scanned the surroundings with the precision of a hawk examining weak prey. With her perfectly pressed dress, pursed lips, and a slightly arched eyebrow, she directed her gaze at Boq.
"And this gentleman?" she asked, her tone so neutral it hurt.
Glinda opened her mouth. Closed her mouth. Blinked. Short circuited socially.
Boq, equally tense, reacted first.
"Boq. Mr. Boq, ma'am. I am... a friend. Ancient. Not ancient in age, of course, though..." He swallowed. "Pleased to meet you." He extended his hand.
Larena looked at her as if she'd just handed him a used handkerchief. Finally, she accepted the squeeze, her fingers like lobster claws.
"A friend? How... curious. You hadn't mentioned any recent "friends," Glinda.
Glinda, feeling the pressure of maternal judgment piercing her back, blurted out quickly, "It's not what you think, Mother. He's not my mate, and he never will be, is he, Boq?"
"No!" he jumped, alarmed. "No, no, no. Nothing like that. We just... happened to be around lunch." Literally. We physically collided over food. That was it.
Larena narrowed her eyes. Her smile was so thin it looked like a typo.
"Hmm. I understand."
And, as always, she switched fronts with the precision of a dancer with a whip.
"By the way, I haven't heard from you in a week. Were you going to let us know you were coming, or were you just planning to make a dramatic entrance, as usual?"
"It's just... I didn't know you were coming until recently," Glinda countered, twitching. "I wasn't sure."
"You're never sure. Always so spontaneous, so artistic. You don't know the chaos that creates for a family's organization. I didn't even know if we should reserve the table with your name on it."
"What does a table matter? I was busy with real things! Not everything revolves around your banquets and themed decorations, Mother!"
"Oh, right. Real things." Like going away without answering your messages and showing up arm in arm with some random young man...
"I'm not with him!" Glinda shouted, exasperated, pointing at Boq, who nearly dropped a tart in her nerves.
"So who did you come with, Glinda?! Don't tell me you came alone! That would be embarrassing..." Larena said, her voice sharp as broken porcelain.
And that was when Glinda, in the throes of internal combustion, blurted out the secret.
"I came with someone!" she snapped.
Silence. A silence that stretched like bubblegum.
Highmuster blinked, Boq stared at her, wide-eyed, and Larena leaned forward slightly.
Glinda swallowed.
The air became as thick as melted taffy.
"With whom?" Larena repeated, sharpening each syllable like etiquette blades.
"With whom, my love?" "Highmuster said excitedly. "Someone special? Do we know them?"
"With whom..." Boq murmured, more out of reflex than interest. Then he regretted opening his mouth.
Glinda froze, trapped like a mouse in a maze with no way out. She looked at each of them. Three pairs of eyes. Three different intentions. Three pressures from different angles.
"An acquaintance from university?" Highmuster ventured, in his always friendly, almost hopeful tone. "A classmate? A bohemian artist? I always knew you liked creative people!"
"A young politician with ambition?" Larena added, glass in hand and a venomous smile. "Or someone more 'earthly'? A businessman with a respectable surname? One of those spoiled brats who appear in the social sections?"
"Is it someone I know?" Boq said with a grimace of discomfort.
Glinda took a half step back. "An athlete?" Larena continued, with machine-gun rhythm. "A journalist? An heir? An elderly professor? A model? A musician?"
"Someone you met at a charity event?" her father ventured. "I'd love to meet him! He's sure to have a good heart."
"A foreign nobleman with a mysterious past?" Boq added, in a clumsy attempt at humor.
"A rich kid with a borrowed car?" Larena shot back sharply. "Because you're not supposed to tell me you came with a vulgar, fashionable companion."
Glinda tried to speak. She raised her hand. She tried to gather her thoughts. But it was like trying to row in a swamp. Heat crept up her neck, the air seemed increasingly dense, and her thoughts clashed.
And then came the final sentence, that question-assumption that broke the dam:
"Or is he one of those boys who make you feel 'free,' Glinda?" Larena said, in a falsely conspiratorial tone, but with a sharp smile. "Because we all have a phase, but you're old enough to grow out of it, my dear."
BOOM.
Glinda's heart stopped beating for a second. Her face lost all expression.
Silence.
Slowly, she turned to face her mother, with a smile as taut as a violin string.
"Of course, Mother. Because it all revolves around what's acceptable to you. How lucky I am that my phases don't last. But since you're so interested..." She inhaled deeply, her eyes flashing with fury and irony. "I have good news for you... Well, I recently discovered that one of my apparent "teenage phases" turned out to be a permanent part of my life. Happy?"
And without waiting for an answer, she spun around on her heels.
Highmuster froze with a pastry halfway to his mouth. Boq seemed to have stopped breathing. Larena blinked once, very slowly, as if someone had just thrown paint on her in the middle of a gala.
In the crowd, Glinda spotted Elphaba, looking around alertly, holding two glasses. As soon as she saw her, Elphaba sat up, ready to intervene.
"There you are, I was looking for you..." Elphaba tried to say, but before she could even finish, Glinda was already taking the glasses from her hands, pushing them onto a nearby floating tray.
"What happened...?" Elphaba began.
"Afterward," Glinda whispered, grabbing her wrist and pulling her decisively.
And so, without looking back, she dragged Elphaba onto the dance floor. Without saying a word, without asking permission. As if the entire room, the entire evening, and her entire life could be reorganized in that moment with a single act of will.
And when they reached the center of the floor, Glinda stopped, took her by both hands, smiled at her as if nothing had happened… and began to dance.
With a determination born of fury, pride, and something deeper, Glinda took Elphaba by the waist and guided her without explanation, with the precision of someone who has trained every step since childhood. At first, Elphaba resisted, clumsy and out of step, her body rigid as if she were on a stage without wanting to be.
But Glinda wouldn't budge.
"Trust me," she whispered in her ear, still smiling. "Just… follow it."
Elphaba took a deep breath and did it… And something changed.
Glinda turned her around with impeccable grace, pulled her back to her, and, as if something invisible synchronized between them, the movements began to flow. From awkwardness, harmony was born. From bewilderment, a shared energy. And from the touch of their hands, a connection so intense it could be felt in the air.
The music changed.
The lights gently descended, bathing the two in a soft, golden glow. The other guests, the conversations, the murmurs—everything faded away as if the universe understood that nothing else mattered.
What had once been merely an attempt to escape became an intimate and sensual waltz.
The turns were precise. The approaches, intense. The pauses between steps, charged with a delicious tension that needed no words. Elphaba, her breathing ragged, was no longer the reluctant witch who had been swept away. She was a ball queen, with Glinda as her partner, her guide, and her equal.
The glances they shared burned.
Glinda's heart pounded, not because of the eyes of others, but because of Elphaba's eyes. Because of how she looked at her. Because of how she felt her.
And Elphaba… Elphaba smiled. Small at first. Then it grew wider and wider. More sincere. As if, for the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to feel happy without fear.
Their faces touched. Their cheeks. Sometimes, their lips were dangerously close. But there was no rush. Time didn't exist for them.
Only the moment.
One more turn. A fall backward, with blind confidence. A subtle rise. A step forward… Their gazes kept meeting, and their lips drew together like magnets when…
The music changed once more.
The lights suddenly came on… and the world returned.
The dance floor was filled with curious eyes. Surprised murmurs. People caught in the spectacle they had inadvertently put on. But they didn't care. Not one bit.
Elphaba took a breath. Glinda smiled at her.
They were both sweating, their hair slightly out of place, their breathing shallow. But they were shining. As if they had danced not only with their bodies, but with everything they were.
The waltz had transformed into a game of laughter, knowing glances, and sweet whispers. Glinda, her cheek barely touching Elphaba's, was truly laughing. She was laughing like she hadn't in a long time. Her voice was soft, almost a sigh full of affection:
"You have no idea how good you make me... feel."
Elphaba didn't respond with words. She just smiled and rested her forehead against Glinda's for a moment, her eyes closed. “Glinda, I…
—No, wait… Honestly, ever since I met you, I feel like I've been sleepwalking my whole life… And you woke me up, I… I don't know what will happen to me… In “our” future, but I want…
But the magic was suddenly broken. Glinda opened her eyes… and saw them.
Her parents. Highmuster, waving his hand above their heads as if hailing a taxi on a busy avenue, and Larena, standing like a statue in marble, her eyes scanning the crowd with surgical precision.
Glinda froze.
—Oh no no no no no…
Elphaba looked at her, confused.
—What's wrong?
—I don't… I think… We're not at the meeting-the-parents stage yet, Glinda said desperately in a low voice.
Before Elphaba could respond, Glinda abruptly spun her around in a mock dance move, using a nearby couple as a human shield.
And then, Elphaba saw him too.
At the other end, surrounded by three old men in political robes and stale expressions, stood Fiyero's father. His expression was that of a general at war: withering stare, jaw set, eyes scanning the crowd like a hawk.
He, too, was searching for something... or someone.
"Damn!" Elphaba hissed.
"What?"
"I think I did a pretty good job blending in with these people... And I've already made enemies..."
The two stared at each other, pale. For a moment, they forgot the room, the music, and their feelings. Only the consequences remained.
With a deft, almost choreographic movement, Elphaba turned Glinda to change direction. The two began to "dance," but no longer for pleasure, but as if they were dodging emotional snipers. The rhythm was erratic. Every step was cover.
Left. Turn. Back. She laughs like nothing's happening. She turns again.
"To the right! Behind the fountain!" Elphaba hissed, pointing to a dark corner behind the dessert table.
"No! There's my aunt!" Glinda replied, pale.
"Why's your aunt here?"
"I don't know! She hates parties! But she loves a fuss!"
And just when the chaos seemed to get worse, they collided head-on with a poor servant who seemed to be looking for them.
"Oh, sorry, sorry!" they both exclaimed in unison, trying to help him up.
The man, unperturbed, stood up, shook his apron with dignity, and in a monotone voice that was too loud for the moment, announced:
"All right... Miss Thropp, Miss Upland... The senator will see you now."
The two paled and slowly shifted their gazes to each other.
Within seconds, the two were led away from the guests and into a different room.
The waiting room was, in many ways, more intimidating than the ballroom itself. A vast, quiet space, its architecture so precise and grandiose that it seemed designed more to make the visitor feel tiny than to welcome them. The walls were decorated with carefully framed portraits and commemoratives, all related to the name that dominated the room like an invisible but inescapable presence: Oscar Zoroaster Diggs, the senator. His face appeared on plaques, photos, certificates of honor, military medals, and political decorations; his signature, printed and calligraphed, was framed like a piece of art. Every object was a reminder of his power, his omnipresence, his control.
Glinda stood erect, her gaze fixed on a particularly large portrait of the senator shaking the hand of a foreign president. She feigned serenity, but her fingers tightened around the fan she carried, as if she could use it as a shield in case something went wrong. Beside her, Elphaba paced, her footsteps echoing on the polished marble like anxious drums. With each passing second, her breathing grew shallower, her eyes filled with shadows of doubt, and her mind began racing through all the possible scenarios that could unfold once they stepped through that door.
"This was a mistake," she murmured suddenly, stopping in her tracks. "We shouldn't have come. Not like this. Not this way. I have no physical evidence, and that man can crush me with a word if he wants—"
"Elphaba," Glinda interrupted firmly, turning to her with a stern, almost harsh expression. "You're forgetting why we're here."
Elphaba blinked, surprised by the tone.
"We didn't come to ask the senator's permission." "You didn't come to beg him to listen to you," Glinda continued, her voice low but forceful, her eyes boring into her companion's. "You came to confront him. Because you know what's happening. Because you're the only one brave enough to say it out loud. Because you saw it. Because you lived it. And because no one else would."
Elphaba looked at her silently. The tension in her jaw began to soften, her breathing to stabilize, and her gaze, little by little, regained that greenish fire that characterized her so much. Glinda had spoken with a mixture of conviction and affection that penetrated to the bone. There was no time for doubt. Not anymore.
"You're right," Elphaba agreed, her voice slightly trembling. "This time... they won't silence me."
Just then, the large double doors leading to the inner office opened with a heavy, solemn sound, as if the hinges themselves knew what they meant. A figure appeared in the doorway, upright, majestic, imposing. It wasn't the senator.
It was Madame Morrible.
They recognized her immediately, though the impact was no less impressive. As at the company, her mere presence was enough to silence the staff. Morrible was tall, wearing a dark velvet dress whose lines skillfully blended understated elegance with an aura of calculated intimidation. The high collar of the dress had a structure that almost bordered on the architectural, and on her chest a brooch discreetly glittered with the company symbol: an O intertwined with a Z, like a silent mark of loyalty to the power.
Her face lit up when she saw Elphaba, though her smile was nothing more than a polished mask.
"My dear, you've finally arrived!" she exclaimed, her deep, perfectly modulated voice gliding through the air like hot oil. "After so many days of waiting, your big moment has finally arrived."
Elphaba swallowed, but didn't lower her gaze.
"Good evening, Madame."
Morrible advanced with a slow, deliberate gait. Her heels barely made a sound, yet each step seemed to weigh a ton. She arrived in front of Elphaba and took her hands as if they were old friends reuniting after a long and arduous journey.
"Your initiative, your energy, your... how shall I say it... rebellion? Always so refreshing in such a conservative environment. I'm so glad you decided to... 'participate.'"
But when her eyes shifted to Glinda, her expression changed. The smile remained on her lips, yes, but the warmth evaporated from her eyes. Her tone lowered a notch.
"Glinda. Delighted to see you, though I must confess... I doubted you would waste your valuable time on such a formal matter."
Glinda, ever the diplomat, bowed her head slightly.
"An evening full of surprises, Madame Morrible."
"Absolutely," Morrible replied, her eyes narrowing for a brief moment, as if making invisible calculations. "The senator will see you shortly. He is very interested in hearing what you have to say. Although, between us," she lowered her voice, as if sharing a confidence, "I sincerely hope you have weighed your words carefully. Not everything said in this city can be... undone so easily."
And with that last sentence, she turned, leaving behind her a scent of rare spices and unspoken warnings. She walked toward the main office without waiting for a reply, knowing the effect had been achieved.
Elphaba stared at the floor for a few seconds, until Glinda, wordlessly, took her hand firmly.
"Breathe. Remember what you know. And don't give him an inch."
Elphaba nodded.
And then, like two soldiers at the edge of the battlefield, they advanced to the front.
Elphaba was the first to cross the imposing carved wooden door that led to the senator's office. Her figure, tall, firm, yet still wrapped in palpable tension, disappeared from the threshold like a determined shadow. Glinda was just behind her, about to follow her, when she felt a hand grasp her arm.
It was a firm pressure, seemingly polite, but with the precise force of someone unused to being told no. She turned and found Madame Morrible's face mere inches from hers. She was smiling. But it was the kind of smile that burned, that burrowed beneath the skin, that didn't need to raise her voice to chill the soul.
"How lovely it is to see you cling to this moment," the woman whispered, with that sweetness that knew so well how to disguise venom. "You know, Glinda... the only reason you're here, the only reason, is because Elphaba insisted that credit for that report was shared. She said they were a team. A true team. How noble, isn't it?”
The tone was almost maternal, and yet each word was as sharp as a dissecting knife.
"Of course, I have my doubts," she continued, lowering her voice even further, until her words became a breath of icy wind beside Glinda's ear. "I always have. I've watched you, my dear. You smile, you wave, you shine... but you rarely build anything that wasn't started by the hands of others. Perhaps this is just your way of surviving, of staying close to those with true talent. Like Elphaba."
Glinda swallowed. She said nothing. Morrible leaned a little closer, like a nighttime confidant, like a nightmare disguised as an advisor.
"And yet, here you are. On the threshold of power. On an opportunity that thousands yearn for their entire lives. And all because someone else believed in you."
He straightened slowly, letting go of her arm with a gesture that was almost courteous, almost condescending. The smile was still there, but her eyes weren't laughing.
"My personal opinion, my dear, is that you don't have what it takes."
Her voice was sepulchral.
"I sincerely hope you'll prove me wrong."
A pause. A heavy silence.
"I doubt you will."
For an instant, Glinda's whole world seemed to reel. It was as if the entire room receded, as if all the echoes of doubt she'd suppressed for years were given voice and cheered Morrible's confirmation. The pressure in her chest was real. Her breath shortened. Not because she entirely believed those words... but because a part of her, the most hidden, the most insecure, did.
She straightened. She didn't look at Morrible. She didn't give him the pleasure of answering, not even with a word.
She simply moved forward. With a firm step, she crossed the threshold, ignoring the weight of the gaze burning on the back of her neck. And there, in the center of the office, was Elphaba, standing, waiting for her.
Glinda stood beside her without saying anything. And when Elphaba turned her head toward her, Glinda gave her a small smile. A real smile. Not the kind she usually gave at cocktail parties, or the ones that graced the front pages. It was a small, tired, honest smile.
Finally, after all the emotional weight and accumulated tension, Elphaba and Glinda crossed the threshold of the final door. What awaited them on the other side was not chaos or judgment, but a dense, elegant, calculated silence. A large, high-ceilinged office greeted them like the beating heart of an old castle. Shadows dominated every corner, and the only source of light came from a lit fireplace, its flame crackling with an almost ritualistic choreography, casting dancing shadows on the dark oak walls.
The air smelled of aged leather, fine tobacco, and the pages of old books. Every detail was placed with intention: oil portraits of generations of previous senators—all men, all imposing—a display case of diplomatic awards, an antique desk covered with fountain pens, stamps, and papers arranged with astonishing meticulousness. Everything in that room spoke not only of power, but of a history carefully curated to be remembered. Elphaba felt the place itself was designed to intimidate those who stepped foot inside for the first time.
They both stood still for a few seconds, silently scanning every corner. It was then that a warm, modulated voice broke the stillness, caressing the atmosphere like a host who needed no introduction.
"Ah... there you are. My guests of honor."
They both looked up. At the top of a spiral staircase, as if straight out of a novel blending nobility, politics, and theatricality, Senator Oscar Zoroaster Diggs slowly descended.
He wore an emerald green, three-piece suit, impeccably cut, with antique yet elegant touches, as if deliberately playing on the nostalgia of a time when authority was dressed in gold buttons and custom-made dignity. His snow-white hair was perfectly combed back, and his thin, symmetrical mustache seemed outlined with a compass. He held a hardcover book in one hand—undoubtedly more a symbolic gesture than an actual reading—and on his face, round glasses gave him that intellectual air that so comforts those who want to believe that power is in good hands.
He calmly placed his book and glasses on a low table by the fireplace and descended the last few steps with the bearing of a king in his living room. Upon reaching her, he extended his arms with a broad, seductive, charismatic smile, the kind of smile you can't tell if it's born of sincerity or pure political training.
"Welcome. How lovely to have you here, truly," he said, approaching Glinda first, who responded with a perfectly calibrated social smile. "Was the party to your liking? I admit I'm not a big fan of these... frivolous celebrations, but people love them, and I've been told there's no better way to spend Christmas than surrounded by people you care about."
The phrase, which might have sounded banal in other people's mouths, carried a strange weight in his, as if he meant much more than he was saying.
"And you? Did you dance? Did you toast? Did you have at least a little fun?" Glinda, with the mastery of someone who has done this all her life, nodded graciously, offering a charming comment about the spiced punch and the live music.
"...And thank you for your invitation, Mr. Zoroaster, it's a..."
"Zoroaster? Only my mother called me that when I broke things as a child," the senator laughed. "Oz is fine, it sounds more like a wizard and less like a politician, don't you think?"
The senator laughed, as if they were sharing an intimate secret. Then he turned his attention to Elphaba.
And then, for a second, the air seemed to tense.
Elphaba tried to respond, but found herself swallowing words before she could say them. She had rehearsed this moment in her head a thousand times, but none of those versions included the senator behaving with such disarming warmth, with jokes, with flattery... with humanity. She didn't know how to position herself, or how to fit in.
And Oz noticed. Of course he noticed. But instead of pressing, he smiled even wider, with a surprising complicity.
"You know, I'll tell you the truth," he said as he took a glass from the sideboard and offered them another. "I invited you here tonight for two reasons. First, because my entire administration is talking about the report you both produced. A brilliant, intelligent, disturbing piece of work. A piece that, if mishandled, would have caused a storm that not even I could have contained. But it wasn't like that."
He paused, savoring the anticipation like someone savoring a rare wine.
"And second... because I wanted to thank you. Personally."
Elphaba and Glinda looked at him in surprise, almost confused.
"Yes, yes," Oz continued lightly, raising an eyebrow. "To thank you for averting a catastrophe. One of those decisions that, over time, one ends up deeply regretting." You, with your discoveries and your discretion, prevented something that could have marked a point of no return. So thank you... for saving me from myself.
It was a masterstroke.
In an instant, he had disarmed them both. He turned them not into accusers, not into whistleblowers, but into allies who had, with nobility and talent, prevented him from making an irreparable mistake. Elphaba, who had arrived with fire in her blood, found herself paralyzed. And Glinda, who knew how to read the room, understood that the senator was rewriting history in real time, ascribing them a more comfortable... more convenient narrative.
But also, with surgical skill, he acknowledged them. He gave them a place, a position. He granted them something that in other contexts had been denied them: importance.
With a kindness so studied it bordered on the theatrical, Oz offered them both a drink, and Glinda and Elphaba accepted almost reflexively, as if their hands moved before their thoughts could object. The glasses gleamed with a perfectly poured amber liquid, and as the senator gently guided them to the seats in front of his large, dark-wood desk, everything about the scene seemed designed to seduce the senses and disarm defenses.
Oz sat in his imposing chair, the back carved with arcane symbols of politics and power. He rested his elbows on the polished surface, placed his fingertips together in front of his face, and began to speak in a tone that blended the familiarity of an old friend with the firmness of a patriarch.
"The agreement with Shiz.Corp…" he began, his words trailing slightly, as if delighting in the simple act of saying them, "is, in many ways, the culmination of a vision I've had for years. A city that functions not by tradition, but by intention. Where progress is not subject to ideological whims or the inertia of past generations."
As he spoke, his fingers tapped softly on the desk surface. His tone wasn't that of a man explaining, but of one revealing. As if he were sharing a half-secret with two confidants.
"I know the word 'corporation' often provokes raised eyebrows and whispers in certain circles," he said with a wink at Glinda, who smiled with the learned elegance of someone who knows how to nod without committing herself. "But I'm not afraid of organized structures. Structures work. And Shiz.Corp, for all its flaws and quirks, has proven capable of what no public institution can do alone: move quickly. Adapt. Innovate."
Elphaba didn't respond, but her brow furrowed slightly. Oz noticed it.
"Yes, yes, I know, Elphaba," he said with a familiarity that made her tense slightly. "There are those who would prefer a thousand committees and a thousand debates before reaching a single decision. But while they argue, the city falls apart." Inequalities deepen. Opportunities slip away.
She paused, as if to allow time for that image to sink in.
"This agreement... is a promise of efficiency. Of order. The report you put together"—she gave a small bow—"although I know it was difficult, helped fine-tune the final details. The observations, the data, even the concerns... were taken into account. Honestly. Thanks to you, the project can get off to a good start."
"And what exactly is that project?" Elphaba dared to ask, her voice calm but direct.
Oz looked at her as if she'd just asked him a question he'd been waiting years to hear.
"Transportation. Infrastructure. Security. Education... Everything, Elphaba. Everything. It's a comprehensive restructuring of the city model. Shiz.Corp becomes our executive arm. They execute, we supervise. No bureaucracy to tie them down. No unions to slow them down. Do you see how revolutionary it is?" Glinda smiled and nodded graciously, trained to look delighted even as her stomach twisted, while Elphaba kept her face serene, almost expressionless, though inside, the buzzing alertness in her mind intensified with every word. They both knew that the report Oz was praising was nothing more than a puzzle assembled from useless data and empty generalities, a bureaucratic play with the sole purpose of attracting their attention, of securing this meeting.
And yet, Oz seemed delighted. Or pretended to be.
Suddenly, he stopped. He leaned forward slightly, as if finally letting the curtain fall, and regarded them both with a smile that was half indulgence, half warning.
"Now... don't misunderstand me," he said, raising a hand as if conceding an uncomfortable truth. "I know perfectly well that you're smart. Very smart." His eyes subtly bored into Elphaba's for more than a second. "And I know you've both read that agreement... forwards, backwards, and probably diagonally as well. So it would be naive of me not to assume you have... some questions. Doubts."
He let the sentence hang, then added with measured warmth,
"And if you are to be part of my team—because that, of course, is what I want—I do not wish you to be left with any shadow of uncertainty. Not between us."
Elphaba gripped her glass a little more tightly than necessary; Glinda swallowed gently, and for a moment the office was filled with a thick, elegant, and charged silence, like the pause between two acts in a tragedy.
Elphaba and Glinda looked at each other briefly, as if in that instant they could communicate without words. Elphaba took a slow, slow breath, feeling the oxygen burning in her lungs. She gently lowered her glass to the table and sat up slightly. Her voice emerged with a measured calm, honed with the same precision with which she had reworked that report over and over again for nights on end.
"Senator..." she began, the word carrying a courteous but firm edge, "we reviewed every document. Not just the official agreement, but the internal memos, the last-minute changes, the footnotes. There are certain clauses that don't appear in the public version of the agreement, and others that... well, contradict each other or simply don't make sense within a standard regulatory framework."
Oz smiled with that charmingly superior expression of his, casually crossing one leg.
"Contradictory clauses? Oh, my dear, that's politics." It's all in how you interpret it..." She laughed lightly, as if they were discussing the weather. Then she took a sip of her drink and added with a wink. "Sometimes we write in invisible ink... you know, to keep the mystery alive."
Elphaba kept her gaze steady, unblinking.
"Clause 7.4 on digital surveillance grants Shiz.Corp access to state servers, without judicial oversight. Is that also a mystery, Senator?" she asked, with a kindness so precise it was chilling.
Oz placed his glass on the table with a light "tack."
"Well, of course there must be some... leeway. Today's threats can't be fought with yesterday's tools."
"And the exceptions to planning permits, the tax exemptions of up to 30 years, the granting of citizen data without prior consent..." Elphaba continued, each word firmer than the last. "Are those also modern tools, or simply privileges for your allies?"
Her tone was dry, impeccable. For the first time, Oz seemed uncomfortable, though he concealed it with a theatrical sigh and a gesture of his hand.
"Look, young lady," he began, but Glinda, who until now had remained diplomatic, quickly intervened with a radiant smile.
"With all due respect, Oz," she said, softening each syllable with almost choreographed grace, "if a mind like Elphaba's is troubled, I would be more than happy to listen. After all, wasn't it you yourself who said that transparency was the foundation of progress?"
There was a dead silence. Oz narrowed his eyes, weighing the moment. The play of masks was held together by only threads.
Finally, the senator leaned back in his chair and regarded them silently, first Glinda with faint recognition, then Elphaba with an intensity that seemed to weigh on her. Then he smiled. Not that charismatic host smile, but a smaller, more dangerous one, that of a wolf who has just recognized that the flock is no longer as docile as he thought.
"I underestimated you," he finally admitted, his voice deeper, more honest. "Both of you. And that, ladies, doesn't happen to me very often."
He stood slowly, walked to the fireplace, and stared into the fire as if he could see the entire city there, surrendered at his feet.
"The true purpose of the covenant is not growth or progress. It's order. It's control. In an age where threats change face every day, there is only one way to guarantee peace: by controlling every variable. More cameras. More files. More predictive surveillance. More data. No citizen will be an enigma. No movement will be invisible. No foreigner or opposition to our way of life will come to take our land because we will know every inch of it."
He turned to them.
"Don't you see? It's the future. And I'll be the one to bring it."
Elphaba listened to him without moving, each word falling like lead on her conscience. She had suspected it, of course. She had read between the lines. But hearing it said like that, with such clarity, such conviction... it was like standing in the antechamber of a new regime. A regime wrapped in green velvet, adorned with seductive speeches and elegant cocktails, but rotten to the core.
She sat up straight, her shadow falling across the desk.
"Then it's not a covenant," she said, with a firmness that echoed even in the silence. "It's a strategy to replace freedom with obedience. To dress authoritarianism in tinsel and call it progress."
Oz watched her silently for a moment, those sharp eyes that seemed never to blink. Then, slowly, his smile curved with a different nuance. It wasn't arrogance. It was... discovery.
"Miss "Thropp," she said, each syllable carefully pronounced, as if tasting an expensive wine. "How fascinating. I didn't know today I would meet the rival I've perhaps been waiting for all my life."
Elphaba kept her gaze steady, but inside something stirred. That comment, spoken with a mixture of flattery and warning, disconcerted her for barely half a second. Only half.
"Would you like to talk privately?" Oz added, barely turning his head toward Glinda, with that same serpentine smile.
Glinda pursed her lips, her shoulders tensing instantly.
"No," Elphaba said quickly and clearly, without even looking at her friend. "Glinda is staying."
Oz didn't argue. On the contrary, he nodded as if he'd expected it. He walked slowly back to his desk, opened a small drawer, and took out a newspaper clipping, yellowed around the edges.
"Have it your way." "Actually, this is better with witnesses," she said as she delicately placed the paper in front of Elphaba. "You see, when Morrible told me about you, I began to investigate. Not out of distrust," she added theatrically, "out of... curiosity. And I found something very interesting about your family."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Your father, Minister Frexspar Thropp of Gillikin. Highly respected in certain circles. Famous for his... shall we say, traditional ideas."
Glinda lowered her gaze uncomfortably. Elphaba gritted her teeth but didn't respond.
"I know you don't share his ideas," Oz continued, raising his hands as if in a gesture of peace, "that's obvious. But I'm very interested in your opinion on his latest incident."
"What incident?" Elphaba asked, now with a real crack in her voice.
Oz slid the clipping toward her. In it, a modest headline, lost in a corner of the page, read: "Minister rejects immigrant and denounces moral corruption of youth." Below it, a blurry photo. The image of her father, angry, pointed out by witnesses of an altercation at his establishment.
"A few weeks ago," Oz explained as she read, paralyzed. "He confronted a foreign citizen, of another religion. He accused him of corrupting the city's values, denied him entry, and gave a short speech about the decadence of the younger generations. Some cheered him. Others not so much, especially when the altercation was on the verge of becoming a hate crime, according to some."
Elphaba froze, her eyes fixed on the printed words, her hands trembling slightly as she read. Glinda watched her with a mixture of pain and bewilderment; Elphaba's embarrassment was palpable.
Oz sat back, his usual relaxed air, as if they were discussing some social triviality.
"As you can imagine, this... could escalate. The press is already circulating. Some groups want answers. Others are calling for sanctions. It's a small incident. For now."
Then Oz leaned forward, interlacing his fingers.
"Or... it might not escalate. It might be forgotten. Buried. And who knows, perhaps even reinforce your image of independence, of distance from your family. It all depends, of course... on our mutual collaboration."
The room became quieter than ever. Not from a lack of noise, but from the heavy weight of the implications.
Despite all the attention in the room focused on Elphaba and the imminent response expected of her, none came. Her gaze remained fixed on the newspaper clipping, but her mind was in turmoil: anger, shame, confusion, helplessness. Each one fighting to be the first to emerge.
Oz, who at first seemed delighted by the silent drama, began to lose patience.
"Come on, Miss Thropp," he said with a smile that no longer bothered to hide the pressure behind it. "It's not such a difficult decision, is it?"
It was Glinda who answered.
"You have the right to process it!" she interrupted firmly, lifting her chin. "Clearly this took her by surprise. At least give her space to think."
Elphaba blinked as if she had just returned to the present. Then she stood up with unbridled energy.
"Space?" Oz repeated, still with that satisfied expression. "Of course. Take a few minutes. But not too many, okay? Opportunities have an expiration date, too." With a swift movement, Elphaba slammed open one of the side doors of the office and entered what looked like another private room, smaller and windowless. It was an elegant and strange room: amidst leather display cases, harnesses, whips, and ornate saddles. A tribute to horsemanship… and domination.
Glinda followed her without hesitation, closing the door behind her. Elphaba paced in circles. She held her head as if trying to contain an internal explosion.
"This is crazy, Glinda!" she gasped. "This is too much! What am I supposed to do? What is expected of me? My father! This… this is what Nessarose tried to warn me about weeks ago, and I… I just wouldn't listen!"
Glinda stared at her, unsure whether to move closer or let her explode. But when Elphaba stopped abruptly, her eyes reddening, Glinda dared to take a step.
"What your father said was horrible... but it's not your fault, Elphaba."
"What if it is?" Elphaba blurted, her voice thick with venom. "What if it always was, and I just chose to turn a blind eye?"
"Elphaba, please!" she cried, her voice cracking. "You have to calm down. We can't let that... man break us like this."
Elphaba whipped around, her eyes brimming with fury, fear, betrayal.
"Calm down? Is that what you do when someone threatens to destroy what little dignity you have left? When they place the sins of your blood in your hands as if they were your own crimes? I can't do this, Glinda!"
Glinda stared at her in anguish, her hands balling into fists at her chest.
"You could have told me about your father. You could trust me, Elphie. I'm not just... your pretty shield for finery." I've always been here, even if you won't let me in.
Elphaba gave a bitter laugh.
"And what were you going to do, Glinda? Hold a press conference? Do my hair for the occasion?" She sighed, hurt by her own words. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to look at me with pity too... or with disgust. I didn't want you to remind me of who I am."
Glinda took a step toward her, her face also beginning to tinge with frustration.
"It's always like that with you! You always run away before anyone can help you! Not everyone wants to hurt you, Elphaba!"
"No? And Oz? And Morrible? And you, haven't you benefited from following his rules, from dancing to his music?"
Glinda trembled with rage. The wound was raw.
"I've given everything for you! I risked my place, my name, my safety! But you... you always have to fly alone, don't you? Always shouting that you won't let anyone impose limits on you, that anyone will "pull you down"... as if being with you was like crawling in the mud. Then do it! Fly away, Elphie, defy gravity, escape like you always do, but don't use me as an excuse to stay alone!"
The comparison hit like a blow. Elphaba paled, her lips trembled. For a moment she seemed to shrink, but her anger sustained her.
"Do you think so? That I like being alone? Do you think I chose this? I'm left with no choice!" She slammed her open palm against a nearby chair. "You have it all, Glinda. Beauty, charm, automatic forgiveness. I have... what I have. And yet, you know what? I do fight for what I believe in. Even if I'm wrong."
"And I don't?" Glinda said, her voice breaking again. "Do you know how many times I wanted to give up? How many times I wanted to run with you and leave it all behind? But I stayed. I stayed because I believed that together we could change something, even if it was just a small thing."
Elphaba looked down. Tears burned the edges of her eyes.
"I believed too. Until now."
A heavy silence fell between them. Their ragged breaths filled the room like a storm that has yet to end. Then Glinda took a step forward. Her voice sounded strangely firm. "If that's what you think... punish me. Come on, Elphaba. You're the one who always judges. Punish the wicked, do what you always do."
"Don't say that..." Elphaba whispered, backing away.
"Do it!" Glinda insisted, her fury tinged with pain. "Isn't that what you've always wanted? To be in control, to be right, to be the one who won't be corrupted. Prove it!"
There was total silence. Elphaba froze... then she raised an eyebrow. Her face hardened... and changed. Something in her clicks. She turns, slowly, like a queen who decides she's been too lenient for too long. "Okay... you want me to take control... you asked for it yourself..."
Glinda silently swallows... but doesn't move.
Elphaba walks slowly toward a display case
and takes out an elegant ornamental riding crop and looks at it, as if it were a work of art.
Elphaba takes a step, then another. Glinda steps back, but doesn't escape. They stand facing each other, as if everything they can't say with words now comes out in the form of an absurd, liberating physical tension.
Elphaba holds the crop firmly and rests it subtly on Glinda's shoulder, as she kneels.
Glinda closes her eyes... and smiles. Elphaba does too. Glinda breathes heavily, but doesn't move. Her anger transforms into silent surrender, a mixture of fear and fascination.
"Go ahead, Thropp. Do what you came to do."
Elphaba walks slowly toward her, her shadow covering Glinda like an eclipse.
Glinda closes her eyes. There are no words. No resistance.
Elphaba whispers in her ear, "Kiss me goodbye... I'm defying gravity."
Glinda dropped to all fours, her rear end raised, and Elphaba, her lips trembling and her gaze as steady as an iceberg, lashed her with the crop. One blow, two blows… three blows.
Glinda showed no sign of pain, no reaction at all… a part of her enjoyed them somehow. And so did Elphaba… But deep down, each blow hurt her more than it hurt Glinda…
One blow… Two blows… three blows… Faster and faster, the intensity between them grew, until…
The crop fell from Elphaba's fingers as if it weighed on her soul. It hit the floor with a soft crack, bounced once, and then rolled silently to a stop at her feet. It was the only sound amid a thick, damp stillness that hung in the air like a thunderstorm without lightning. Glinda, still in a surrender position, remained motionless, expectant, her heart racing. But the blow didn't come. There was no other haughty gesture, no firm voice, no defiant gaze. Only the silent sound of shaky breathing.
She turned slowly, the blush still hot on her face, but what she saw tore the breath from her chest. Elphaba was on her knees, not in a gesture of power or ceremony, but broken. Her hands hung limp at her sides, her head bowed, and tears, so often held back, ran down her cheeks with cruel sincerity. She breathed as if every breath hurt. The aura that always surrounded her, that indomitable fire that everyone feared or admired, had vanished, replaced by a devastating silence.
Glinda crawled toward her, like a disoriented child in the midst of a nightmare, not knowing what to do, how to touch her, how not to break her more than she already was. She knelt beside her, mere inches away, and in that moment she felt the distance between them was vaster than the entire world.
"Elphaba...?" she whispered her name, as if saying it aloud might cause her to melt away completely.
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. Her lips trembled. Her face was that of someone who had held the world on her shoulders, until the weight became unbearable. Finally, she spoke, her voice hoarse, broken, more honest than any Glinda had ever heard from her.
"I... I can't take it anymore. I can't pretend anymore. I can't be everything you expect me to be. I've always tried to stand my ground, to hold my head up, to be the one who fights, the one who defies... but I can't anymore." Her gaze finally lifted, and in it Glinda found neither rage nor wounded pride. She found fear. A doubt so deep it threatened to swallow her whole.
"What if they're right, Glinda?" she asked, almost in a whisper. "What if that's what I am? A monster. Someone who enjoys this control, this power… because I don't have it in real life. What if that's my only way of existing?"
Glinda felt a lump rise from her stomach to her throat. She wanted to say no, that wasn't the case, but Elphaba continued, as if she needed to empty herself completely.
"I'm always 'the other.' The one who inconveniences, the one who challenges, the one who doesn't fit in. Ever since I was a child. My father never looked at me as a daughter, only as a mistake that learned to speak. Nessarose, my sister, tried to warn me about all this, but it was too late… And Morrible, the senator, all of them… always looking at me as if they knew who I was better than I knew myself." As if the world had already decided what place I deserve to occupy. Maybe there is no place. Maybe… I don't exist in its world.
She shrank in on herself, defeated, a shattered creature in a room filled with objects that promised dominion and structure, but now seemed only useless monuments to an illusion.
"I wanted to truly love," she continued. "I wanted a world where trust meant something. But everywhere I've set foot, I've been… too much. Too strong, too strange, too dominant. And also, at times, too vulnerable."
Glinda couldn't hold back her own tears any longer. She leaned toward her and put her arms around her, pressing her forehead against Elphaba's, as if by doing so she could share the pain, dissolve it, tenderly cleanse it.
"You are not too much, Elphaba," she said between sobs. "This world… this world is too small for you. It doesn't deserve you." You've spent your entire life trying to fit into a mold that wasn't made for you, when in reality, you were made to fly.
Elphaba looked at her, her eyes shining with water and gratitude. Glinda smiled, still through her tears, and whispered:
"You're someone who is born to blaze... if they think you don't belong... well, that's too bad."
Elphaba closed her eyes, as if those words were balm, as if for the first time it didn't hurt to breathe. A strange, painful, but necessary peace settled between them. It was the silence of a decision made.
"I'm leaving, Glinda," she said firmly, caressing her cheek. "I can't stay in a place where I have to apologize for who I am. Not anymore."
Glinda nodded, tears streaming down her face. She understood. She understood everything. But that didn't make it any less unbearable.
Elphaba took her face in both hands, and in a gesture that contained all their shared history, all the love, fury, complicity, loss, and passion of two impossible souls, she kissed her. It wasn't a fleeting kiss. It was a farewell, a manifesto, a pact without promises.
When they separated, Elphaba stood up. There was no fire in her gaze, no pride. Only determination. Glinda remained on the floor, trembling, empty… and full at the same time.
Elphaba reached out to Glinda. It was a simple gesture, but it held the weight of everything they had experienced. It wasn't an order, it wasn't a playful invitation. It was a bridge. A way out. A choice. Her gaze, firm but clouded by tears that struggled to keep from falling, told her: Come with me. Let's get through all this. The world doesn't have to be like this, not for us.
Glinda stared at her, her soul trembling. For a second—less than a blink, less than a sigh—her body wavered. It wasn't fear. Not quite. It was the sudden, brutal awareness of the abyss Elphaba was asking her to leap over. Her job, her carefully constructed career, the family that molded her with expectations—all of it flickered in her mind like a series of fragile mirages. In her heart, she already knew that none of it made sense without Elphaba. But the uncertainty—that cruel old companion—took hold of her like an invisible claw.
And Elphaba noticed it. Of course she noticed it. She felt it like an icy blast in the center of her chest. That imperceptible second, that delay in movement, was enough to understand everything. There was no anger in her gaze, no disappointment. Only a painful acceptance.
"You're not ready," she whispered, more to herself than to Glinda.
Glinda opened her lips, perhaps to stop her, perhaps to explain, perhaps to lie to herself one last time. But there were no words. Only tears in her blue eyes, shining like the sky just before a storm. This is where the line between play and reality is drawn; Elphaba couldn't drag Glinda against her will to her side... She was no longer her dom, not in this life.
Elphaba took a step back, withdrawing her hand, even though the gesture tore a piece of her soul.
"You don't need me," she said with tremulous sweetness. "But I need to go. If I stay, I lose myself. And if I take you, I drag you against your will. I don't want that. Not with you."
Both of them were crying now. Not hysterically, but with a silent, elegant sadness, the kind that makes no fuss but tears at the core. Elphaba leaned in slightly, as if kissing her with her gaze, and with one last broken smile, she turned away. The room seemed to stand still. As if time itself knew that something irreparable had just happened. All the artifice around her—the furniture, the toys, the mirrors, the symbols of shared power—became inert, irrelevant.
Elphaba left without looking back.
The hallway that connected to the main hall seemed longer than ever, as if it measured kilometers. Her footsteps echoed firmly, but each one hurt. In the distance, the music of the party still vibrated in the air. Laughter, drinks, superficiality... everything that had imprisoned her for too long.
And then Morrible appeared, like a grotesque shadow in the middle of the doorway, smiling hypocritically, disguised as concern.
"Is your little act over? You can't go out like that, we still have—"
"This is my resignation," Elphaba interrupted, her voice shaking the walls. "And tell the senator... he'll hear from me again."
Morrible opened her mouth, but said nothing. There was something in Elphaba's gaze, in her posture, in the fierce clarity of her decision, that made even she take a step back.
Elphaba pushed open the double doors to the parlor. And when they opened, it was as if the whole world was waiting for her.
The lights, the dresses, the suits, the raised glasses, the empty conversations... everything seemed to go in slow motion. Every step she took separated her from everything she had been. She didn't need to scream. She didn't need to explain. She just walked. And everyone saw her. Not as a spectacle, but as a force.
And yet, no one stopped her.
Gazes riveted on her. Some with awe, others with fear, others—a few—with admiration. But Elphaba wasn't looking for approval. She wasn't looking for redemption. She was just looking to escape.
She reached the door.
She placed her hand on the handle, took a deep breath, like someone crossing an invisible threshold. And then, only then, a tear fell silently down her cheek. Not out of weakness, but out of love. For everything she was leaving behind.
The hall doors closed with a bang behind her, as if the world had decided to put an end to her. Elphaba didn't notice. The night air greeted her with an icy slap, tearing away the remaining traces of warmth in her body. The snow crunched beneath her heels, and the wind, furious and free, ruffled her hair as if trying to tear away every trace of what she had been.
She didn't know where she was going. She walked by instinct, like a wounded creature who only understood that she must move away from the place of pain. Left behind were the golden lights, the fake laughter, the empty promises. With each step, her legs seemed to weigh more, as if the ground itself were trying to hold on to her so she wouldn't leave. But it was too late. There was no turning back.
Finally, her steps led her to a corner of the garden outside, where an old fountain lay dormant under a thin layer of ice. A stone railing surrounded the space, cold and damp to the touch. Elphaba sank down onto it, exhausted, defeated. The tears she could no longer contain. Tears blurred her vision and streamed shamelessly down her face. She no longer cared who saw her. There was no one left. There was nothing left.
The air was filled with the sound of her labored breathing, between the crunch of the snow and the whistling of the wind. For a moment, all was loneliness. Pain. And also a hint of bitter release.
Meanwhile, inside the hall, far from the party, Morrible was in the throes of hysteria, her falsely serene porcelain face now distorted by fury. She paced in circles, her heels clicking against the marble like gunshots.
And then, Glinda burst in.
She ran in, still breathless, her heart pounding in her chest like a war drum. Her eyes searched for her. Her soul screamed for her. But Elphaba was gone. Only Morrible remained, waiting for her like a spider in the center of its web.
"Where is she?" Glinda asked, though she already knew the answer.
Morrible said nothing. Not at first. She merely raised her hand and, with a sharp, cruel motion, slapped her. A blow so accurate that the echo of its sound silenced the music. Glinda stumbled backward, more from surprise than strength.
"Useless!" Morrible spat venomously. "You were no good even for that. It was your only job. You were supposed to control her. And you let her run away like a spoiled child. What on earth are you good for?"
But when Morrible raised her hand again, to repeat the gesture, Glinda stopped her.
She held her wrist firmly. There was no violence, only determination. An unknown authority, buried for years, erupted like a silent flame in her eyes. And for the first time, someone stopped Morrible.
"You won't do it again," Glinda said, her voice low, clear, unwavering. "You won't touch me again. Not ever."
Morrible froze. Something had changed. The young woman who used to obey, smile, please... was gone. What remained was a woman standing amid the wreckage of her broken heart, but steadier than ever.
"You're right," Glinda continued. "Elphaba left. She left because she had to. Because this world never deserved her. But you and the senator still have something..."
She took a step closer. No one dared to breathe.
"Me."
Morrible frowned, confused.
"I wrote that ridiculous report you loved so much," Glinda said, without looking away. "I was the one who convinced her to come. I was the one who built the facade that sold you so well. You wanted a useful puppet? Well, here you have one. I'll play your game. I'll be your face." I'll stay... but she'll be safe. And if they dare go after her, if they try to touch her even with a shadow, then they'll lose me too. And this operation of theirs will collapse under the weight of their own arrogance.
Morrible looked at her silently.
For the first time—perhaps in his entire life—he saw her. Not as a doll. Not as a figurine. He saw her for what she was: dangerous, intelligent, alert. Not as Elphaba, not as a force of thunder. But as an even more dangerous promise: that of someone willing to sell their soul... for love.
And Morrible, wordlessly, lowered his hand.
It wasn't a surrender. But an acknowledgment.
While Elphaba's tears fell into the frozen fountain with a muffled sound, almost imperceptible, yet, to her, it was deafening. Every drop that touched the ice seemed to bring back a bitter echo of what she had lost, of what she had let go. Her body trembled, not only from the cold, but from the raw vulnerability she'd tried to bury for years. She was no longer the defiant woman who had stood up to everyone in that room. Now she was just a broken figure, a panting shadow, hunched over.
It was then that she felt something warm on her shoulders. A thick, carefully draped suit jacket. She looked up, clumsily wiping tears from her reddened eyes. In front of her, Fiyero. Standing silently, with an expression that combined sadness, tenderness, and something else… a wordless understanding. He didn't ask anything. He didn't pressure her. He only offered his presence. And that, in that instant, was the most humane thing anyone could do.
"You don't have to stay here," he said, his voice low. "Come. There's a place where you can breathe."
Elphaba didn't respond. She just looked at him, and that look was enough. He held out his hand; she hesitated… but this time, she accepted. She sat up slowly, and he held her waist, as if afraid the wind would knock her down again. Together they walked through the snow, away from the glow of the building.
A black limousine was waiting for them at the garden entrance. Fiyero gently opened the door for her. Elphaba stepped in without looking back.
Inside the hall, the air was thick with a different kind of tension: political, artificial, wrapped in silk and hammered with champagne flutes. As soon as the doors opened and the senator stepped onto the improvised platform, every camera spun toward him. Flashes exploded like lightning bolts of approval.
"Friends, allies, citizens," he began, with that smile that never reached his eyes. "Today we mark a new beginning. Thanks to our collaboration with Shiz.Corp, we will begin the most ambitious renovation our city has ever seen. A project of unity, of progress... of change."
A brief pause. A well-rehearsed wink.
"And I am honored to introduce you to the soul behind this vision. The woman who made this possible. The new face of this historic initiative: Glinda Upland."
The roar was immediate.
Applause. Cheers. Cameramen running to capture the moment. The press whispered headlines. Some were already writing the narrative that would be published in the morning.
And amidst that sea of noise, Glinda took the stage.
She wore her biggest smile, the brightest she'd ever shown... and also the emptiest. It was perfect. And completely fake. Her dress gleamed, her hair was impeccable, her gestures were those of a queen crowned by the people. But inside, Glinda could only hear a deafening silence.
In the crowd, she saw her parents.
Her father was applauding with genuine enthusiasm, his cheeks flushed with pride. Her mother, on the other hand, maintained a different expression. She was applauding, yes... but with a disturbing seriousness, as if something in the air didn't quite fit. As if she could see, through the tinsel and lights, that her daughter was no longer quite there.
Glinda held her smile.
Because she had to.
Because she had already chosen.
Because if at least Elphaba was safe... then this hell was worth it.
The audience continued to applaud. The cameras kept clicking. And yet, for Glinda, the crowd slowly blurred. Faces became blurs. The noise became a distant hum.
Surrounded by hundreds of people... Glinda had never felt so alone.
Fiyero's limousine slowly wound through the city streets, gliding between the Christmas lights that flickered like artificial stars amid the concrete. Elphaba kept her forehead almost pressed against the glass, her gaze lost in the blurred silhouettes of the buildings, in the colorful reflections that crossed her face without leaving a mark. The world out there celebrated itself, wrapped in songs, decorations, and promises of fleeting peace. But inside her, there was nothing but a long, black, endless night. Every lit corner was a wound, every hanging ornament a reminder of what she no longer had. Fiyero, sitting beside her, said nothing. He understood that there were times when silence was the highest form of companionship. He only glanced at her from time to time, making sure she was still breathing, that she wasn't completely dissolving into silent sighs.
The vehicle finally stopped in front of a modest, no-frills building, no artificial lights, and no doormen dressed in evening gowns. Elphaba frowned slightly.
"Where are we?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper, broken from restraint.
Fiyero responded with a smile that seemed laced with a silent promise.
"Come on. They won't hurt you, I swear."
She hesitated for a second, but when he offered his hand, she took it. Not out of necessity, but because for the first time in a long time... she didn't feel completely alone.
They climbed several flights of stairs, dimly lit. Elphaba listened, as if through a haze, to the echoes of voices, laughter, shrill music, and some clutter coming from somewhere above. When they reached the fourth floor, Fiyero stopped in front of a door decorated with a patchwork Christmas wreath, flickering lights, and small toys taped together. He knocked twice and waited. From the other side came a crash, a laugh, a knock... and finally, the door swung wide open.
And there he was... Sir. Birrr.
The man with the scruffy beard, shoulder-length hair that looked like it had been styled by a fan, and an abominable Christmas sweater, full of misshapen reindeer and lights that flickered aimlessly. The sweater, of course, was at least two sizes too small, revealing part of his rounded abdomen, which was poking out as if trying to escape from all the Christmas fabric.
"Fiyero, damn it! I thought you'd regretted hanging around with us mortals!" he exclaimed, arms wide open, and immediately hugged him as if they hadn't seen each other in centuries.
Then he noticed Elphaba. He looked her up and down, her face serious, her posture tense, her eyes still red from fresh tears.
"And you're...?"
Fiyero placed a hand on Elphaba's back, almost protective, almost presenting her to the world as if she were a masterpiece.
"She's Elphaba. She's... a friend."
Sir. Birrr looked at her for a few more seconds, as if he could see beyond the rigid facade, the emotional armor.
"Well, if you're Fiyero's friend, then you're family. Come in, come in! There's punch, there's karaoke, and a lesbian aunt dressed as an elf who reads tarot cards... come on, what more could you ask for?"
Elphaba entered, her steps hesitant, like someone walking in unknown territory, as if every kind gesture were a trap.
The apartment was small, but it was full of life. Poorly hung garlands, lights flickering in opposite directions, a table full of homemade food, half-empty bottles, hand-decorated plastic cups, and people... lots of people. People of all colors, genders, shapes, and laughter. A couple of kids dancing to a Christmas carol turned into cumbia, a trans woman gossiping to two older men giggling like children, a group of young people sharing an improvised choreography of “All I Want for Christmas is You” without shame or embarrassment.
Elphaba absorbed it all with her eyes wide open. There were no ball gowns, no photographers, no empty speeches, no false promises. Just human warmth, sincere chaos, and a tenderness that manifested in the most ridiculous details.
“Do you want something to drink?” Fiyero asked, trying to make her feel a little less out of place.
"I don't know," she replied, still scanning her surroundings. "I don't know what I'm doing here."
Fiyero leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice just for her.
"You're breathing. For now, that's enough."
Sir. Birrr reappeared like a chaotic comet, carrying two glasses of punch.
"Try this, mighty green. It's my secret recipe. I say secret because no one wants to know, but it'll still warm your insides." He winked and handed her the glass.
Elphaba accepted it with a half smile, her first in hours.
"Thanks... I think."
They sat in a corner by the Christmas tree decorated with old ornaments, action figures, a decapitated Barbie, and a star made from plastic spoons. Someone started singing a bolero with a German accent. A drag queen climbed onto the table to perform a stand-up routine. A woman offered Elphaba a reindeer-shaped empanada.
For the first time all night, Elphaba didn't feel like she had to fight the world in order to exist. No one expected anything of her. No one looked at her as a threat or a tool. She was just another person, holding a glass of hot punch, sitting among strangers who knew perfectly well what it was like to live outside of other people's expectations.
For the first time in hours, she allowed herself a light laugh, even making a shy joke that drew a louder one from Sir. Birrr. The punch was beginning to tinge her cheeks with a faint blush, and her body, accustomed to the state of alert, was slowly letting go, as if floating on a tide of genuine affection.
But even amid the human warmth, there was a chill that wouldn't subside. A corner in her chest where winter was permanent.
There were only minutes left until midnight. Someone was already organizing the countdown, paper hats were circulating around the room, and the music was getting louder. Sir. Birrr stood on a chair to make a toast that promised to be more ridiculous than moving. And while everyone looked inside, Elphaba, with a smooth, almost invisible movement, rose from the sofa.
No one stopped her. No one noticed.
She crossed the living room, slipped down the short hallway, and opened the door to the small balcony. The cold air greeted her like a gentle slap, one that didn't hurt, but that woke her up. She rested her elbows on the railing, feeling the icy metal against her skin. The city stretched out before her like a living painting: snow-covered rooftops, lanterns glowing with orange lights, and a distant silence that hung over everything, as if the world held its breath for an instant.
And yet, she saw none of it.
In her mind, there was only one figure... Glinda.
She didn't think her name, she didn't whisper it, but she felt it with every heartbeat. Like a musical note suspended in the air, like an open wound that didn't bleed but never healed. She thought of his hands, his voice, the last moment their eyes met... and all that remained unspoken. Of what he had taken from her. What he had left behind.
Tears pounded against the door, wanting to escape, clawing hard. But Elphaba wouldn't let them. She squeezed her eyes shut, bit her lip, and took a deep breath as if her entire dignity depended on that breath.
"Do you smoke?" a low voice asked at her side.
She opened her eyes. Fiyero was there, his hair ruffled by the wind, his shoulders covered with an old coat that still smelled of wood and spices, and two cigarettes in his hand.
"Sometimes," she replied, accepting one.
Fiyero lit his first, then hers. And for a few seconds, the only sound was the soft crackle of burning tobacco. The white puffs were lost in the snow that was falling lazily over the city.
"You know," he said finally. "You're here... but you're not here."
Elphaba blew out the smoke slowly.
"I'm in too many places at once. And nowhere."
Fiyero nodded, leaning next to her on the railing, not touching her, not pressing her.
"Do you want to talk?"
She hesitated. Then, without looking at him, she murmured,
"I don't know where to begin."
"It starts with the pain. It's always there, pushing to get out."
Elphaba swallowed. The cigar trembled slightly in her fingers. Finally, as if a dam had broken, she began to speak.
"I can't stop thinking about her. Glinda." She said the name as if it were a sacred echo, a word that still burned her tongue. "I just made choices that took her away from me. I betrayed her. Or so she thinks." And... how do you explain to someone that you betrayed them on purpose, but out of love? How do you make them understand that you preferred to be the villain than to see them destroyed by the world around us?
Fiyero didn't answer. He just listened.
"I left her there alone, surrounded by lies, by lights, by power. And I... I left. And now I'm hiding... And I hate myself for it. I thought if I disappeared, if I gave her her perfect world, she'd be okay. But now I can't help but wonder if... I did the right thing. Or if I was a coward."
Elphaba turned her face, meeting Fiyero's eyes, bright in the dim city light.
"You know the worst part?" he continued, his voice cracking. "I know perfectly well that she'll pull through, stronger and brighter than ever... And part of me will hate her for going on without me. And at the same time, part of me will love her for achieving it."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was the kind of silence that only exists between those who have been broken in similar ways.
Fiyero took one last drag and stubbed out his cigarette in the small ashtray on the balcony.
"You know... she may have power, fame, beauty, but you," he said, gently pointing at Elphaba's chest. "You have something very few have: the truth of what you felt. No one can take that away from you."
Elphaba lowered her gaze.
"And what good is a truth if it can't be shared?"
"It helps you not lose yourself completely," he replied. "And to remind you that, in this world of masks, someone once loved without pretense."
And from the apartment's small balcony, Elphaba and Fiyero leaned against the rusty railing, their cigarettes already burned out, but the smoke still hanging in the air as if it refused to completely disappear. They didn't speak. They didn't need to. The intimacy born of shared pain, that sad complicity that demands no explanation, had enveloped them in a silence stronger than any words.
Elphaba looked up at the sky, searching among the stars for a sign, a consolation, a way to hold on to something other than guilt or memory. The clock inside ticked relentlessly toward midnight, while laughter and singing grew louder, as if everyone were celebrating, except her.
Miles away, in a bright hall filled with artificial lights, orchestrated music, and applause that sounded hollow like broken glasses, Glinda smiled. She smiled with tense lips, her head slightly tilted, her dress gleaming, as if she were a golden queen at her coronation. Around her, crowded figures draped in expensive gowns and perfumes that masked the decay of their intentions. "Congratulations," they told her. "You deserved it," they repeated with cardboard smiles. And she... smiled too. Because she had learned to do it. To smile like someone breathing underwater: knowing that if they forget for a second, they drown. But inside... inside, she was so alone.
“There are feelings that can't be expressed at the time. They are buried tightly, like someone covering up an unclean wound, thinking it will heal. We tell ourselves we keep quiet out of love, to protect the other. But the truth—the painful truth—is that we protect ourselves. Because truly loving... loving with all our soul, with all our vulnerability, with all that we are... is frightening. And we'd rather lose it all than show ourselves naked.”
In the hall, Glinda continued moving among the hollow figures. She greeted, received hugs, accepted congratulations with a mechanical gesture. Until, near one of the doors, she stopped. Boq, shy, with his usual honest and awkward smile, approached her.
“Congratulations, Glinda. I knew you would make it,” he said, with genuine tenderness in his voice.
She looked at him. And for a second, that look—that look alone—said more than a thousand words. There was a sadness in her eyes so deep it seemed to come from another life. A silent pain, the kind that can't be explained because it has no name. Boq looked down, not knowing how to respond. And Glinda, without saying a word, turned and left the room.
The door closed behind her with a final whisper, like the closing of a chapter that will have no continuation.
“I’ve learned that no matter how high you fly, how much power you gain, how many titles you’re given… None of it fills the void left by what’s unsaid, what’s undone. That void that’s left when we let someone go out of fear. When we choose to be strong instead of honest. When we say goodbye, but wanted to shout ‘stay.’”
Outside, far from everyone, Glinda had fallen to her knees on the cold marble of an empty terrace. Snow covered her shoulders like a mourning blanket, her tears falling silent and hot, creating small craters in the ice. She looked up at the sky and for a moment, just a brief second, wished it could see her. That it was up there, free, flying among the stars.
“I hope you’re flying free… my love.”
The shout inside the apartment echoed loudly:
“It’s twelve o’clock!” Merry Christmas!
And in an instant, the room was filled with hugs, raised glasses, and the charming chaos of those who believe, for a moment, that the new year can heal all wounds.
Fiyero looked at Elphaba. Her eyes had the warmth of someone who has known sadness, yet chooses to stay.
"Merry Christmas, Elphaba," he said gently, as if each word were a blanket.
She looked up at him. She smiled faintly. A broken smile, yes, but a sincere one.
"Merry Christmas, Fiyero."
And then, after a pause, she looked back up at the sky, covered in clouds that barely allowed a few twinkling stars to be seen. Her lips parted again, this time in a whisper so low the wind could barely carry it:
"Merry Christmas, Glinda..."
"Perhaps I'll never find the right words. Perhaps I'll never know if I did the right thing. But what I do know... is that some absences become part of you. And if loving in silence was the price... then I hope she knows... that I loved her beyond my own freedom."
Elphaba typed the last words with heavy fingers and a tired look. The glow of the screen was the only light on in her luxurious but silent penthouse. Outside, the city slept under the veil of night, indifferent to the confessions that had just been recorded.
"That's enough for today," she murmured.
She stretched with an audible crack in her back, shaking her tired face with both hands. She took the half-filled glass of whiskey... littered with extinguished cigarette butts, like a small graveyard of already written thoughts. She walked barefoot to the kitchen and threw everything into the trash without looking back.
During those brief seconds of absence, a light figure crossed the room.
A certain blonde, dressed in a pink satin nightgown, slipped silently behind the sofa. Her curious eyes sparkled when she saw the screen still on, with the document open. She glanced quickly toward the hallway… nothing… and then again at the screen.
"Hmm… you've been so melodramatic lately, my favorite green witch…" she whispered with a sly smile.
She read quickly, her eyebrows arching in excitement, before suppressing a knowing giggle. Her fingers flew across the keyboard with that mischievous flair of hers. She typed something. Something "creative." Something sure to cause a perfectly delicious scandal.
And as soon as she heard the sound of footsteps returning, she fled like a whisper, suppressing her laughter, disappearing down the hallway.
Elphaba returned with a distracted air. She slumped back in the chair, dragging it a little toward the computer, ready to close everything for the night. But then she saw it.
Something didn't add up... She hadn't written that.
"And then I went back to the party and told her she had the hottest ass..." "What the...?" she read the added words aloud, her eyes widening.
Her normally green cheeks turned a bright crimson. A gasp escaped her throat, a mixture of indignation, surprise, and nervous laughter.
"GLINDAAAAAA!"
From somewhere in the penthouse, a muffled laugh was heard between the sheets and pillows.
Elphaba, still blushing, shook her head, unable to contain the smile that tugged at the corner of her lips.
She returned to the computer, deleted the unnecessary items, and before closing the file... typed one last line. A simple warning. A whisper to the reader.
“But if there was still any doubt about what the future held for us, I assure you that we would soon discover that despite everything, together we were limitless… Because this story is just beginning.”
Notes:
Well... And with that, we conclude the end of what I consider the first season of this story. As I said before, I'm extremely grateful to everyone who has followed and commented on this story so far. The next parts will take a while to publish, as I'll be taking some time, but I can tell you that you'll find some particular crossovers in what's to come. And if you have any opinions or comments on what the story has been like so far, I'd love to read them.
Chapter 9: SEASON 2: WE COULDN'T BE HAPPIER
Chapter Text
The cracked sound of an old record player filters through the darkness like an echo from the past. The needle scrapes the vinyl with a dirty texture, as if dragging emotional dust. “You don’t own me…” whispers the distant voice of Lesley Gore, floating in the stale air, thick with humidity, sweat, and something else indefinable. An elegant lament. A warning.
“Where was I?..... Oh right, I remembered now….. just when I hit rock bottom…”
A pair of intense green eyes slowly open, dulled by the shadow of insomnia. Elphaba Thropp blinks a few times, sitting on the toilet in a cheap motel bathroom, her knees drawn up and a cigarette trembling between her fingers. Her cheekbones are marked by smudged eyeliner, her eyelashes still bear traces of last night’s glossy mascara, and her jawline trembles slightly when she inhales deeply. A drop of sweat runs down her neck, stops at her collarbone. Then it disappears as if the room itself had absorbed it.
“Many believe that when you hit rock bottom, there’s a great drama, a scene… something worthy of a movie. But sometimes hitting rock bottom is like this. An ordinary morning. A bathroom that smells of bleach and disappointment. An old song that reminds you that you were free… for five damn minutes.”
Lazily, Elphaba shakes her head, as if to clear the sweat sticking to her hair. The cigarette, now short, burns between her fingers. She smokes it quickly. Hard. Filling her lungs with poison and resignation. Then she drops it between her legs, straight into the murky toilet water. Fsssh. It sounds like a small execution.
She stands reluctantly, her high heels barely clicking on the sticky tiles. In front of the dirty mirror, she studies herself. She fixes her hair a little, reapplies a furious red lipstick, and pushes her breasts up with a tight corset that reveals more than it hides. Elphaba stares into her eyes for a second.
"I learned that weakness is best hidden behind a leather boot, a firm voice, and a look that says 'dare.' Because if you're not going to be happy... at least let them fear you."
She turns the bathroom handle. The door opens with a poorly lubricated squeak, and a purple light invades her like a theatrical specter, bathing her figure. She's dressed head to toe in black leather. Long gloves, a whip coiled at her hips, and knee-high boots. A nightmare dominatrix. Or a fantasy one. Depending on who's looking.
She walks with a confident, almost feline gait through the narrow motel room, where the wallpaper is peeling like old skin. In the center, a man is handcuffed to a chair, a leather mask covering his eyes. His body is naked, marked by fresh red lines recounting the previous game. Elphaba approaches him, takes his chin between her fingers with surgical precision, and whispers:
“Look at you… tied up like a good boy. Did you think I was going to be merciful this time?”
She passes the whip over the man’s shoulder, as if it were a caress. Then she rests it on his neck, encircling him with a gesture of absolute control.
“Tell me, how many times are you going to come here begging me for punishment before you admit that you like feeling small?”
The man murmurs something inaudible. She laughs softly, as if she already knows the answer.
“Shhh… don’t interrupt. I haven’t given you permission to speak yet.”
She walks around him, the whip sliding down his back like a tongue of fire. Then she whispers in his ear, barely licking the edge of his mask:
“Today you’re going to say ‘please.’ Not for the pleasure… but because you’re going to learn what it feels like to want something you can’t have.”
She lightly taps him on the leg with the whip, just enough to draw a moan from him. Then she crouches in front of him, watching him with that gaze that could tear your skin or your soul, depending on her mood.
"You know what turns me on the most?" she whispers. "Watching that whole ego crumble. How the alpha male turns into a twitching puppy."
The man murmurs something, a faint sound. Barely a whimper. Elphaba raises an eyebrow, amused. She twists her whip in her hand, grazes his thigh. And with a smooth motion, she lifts her foot, placing the slender heel of her boot against her prisoner's chest. Then Elphaba kicks the chair hard, and the man's body falls onto the bed. There's a dull thud, a groan... and then silence. Elphaba strides forward, ready for the inevitable.
But what she finds stops her in her tracks.
The man, exhausted, has fallen asleep. The slightly askew mask reveals his closed eyelids, his mouth half-open. He's snoring softly.
"What the...?" Elphaba bends down in annoyance, checking him out. "No way..."
The guy's snoring.
Asleep. Completely exhausted.
Elphaba stares at him with a mixture of disbelief, annoyance, and a twinge of disappointment she can't hide. With a gentle gesture, she arranges a pillow under his head. She quickly removes one of his handcuffs and carefully picks up his staff. She looks at him one last time, this time with a slightly compassionate, or perhaps just resigned, look.
"Sweet dreams, General. You owe me a decent humiliation."
She puts on her leather jacket, changes her boots, grabs her bag, puts away the handcuffs, a couple of flasks, and finally her cigarettes. She looks at the man one last time—now lost in the world of dreams—and says, almost in a low voice, as she turns off the record player with a tap:
—You don’t own me... not even for one night, okay?
She steps outside just as the sky begins to lighten. The dark blue of dawn dissolves into shades of orange, pink, and purple. An almost obscene postcard of natural beauty set against the harshness of the motel. Her black motorcycle awaits her like a roaring, metallic wolf. She approaches, puts on her helmet.
But just before she puts it on… she stops. Elphaba looks at the horizon.
The sun barely rises over the city rooftops, and something—a pang, an image, a shadow in her memory—sneaks into her chest. A distant laugh. A head of blond hair. A smile too sweet to be honest.
She doesn't say his name. She doesn't need to. The silence that follows is enough.
She closes her eyes for a second, as if she could erase the memory with willpower. Then she puts on her helmet, steels her face, and starts the motorcycle with a roar of the engine that breaks the stillness of dawn.
And without looking back, he accelerates…
“People say the past can't be changed. That destiny is a straight line. That there are things that just ‘had to happen’… But you know what I learned?
Destiny isn't a line… it's a circle. A rusty carousel. And sooner or later, everything comes around again. The promises. The lies. The fucking porcelain smiles.
And this time… I wasn't going to get off the carousel until I burned it all down.”
CHAPTER 9: We couldn't be happier
The car's engine roared like a tame beast, swift and elegant, cutting through the city's arteries with a confidence only afforded by someone who knew they'd never be stopped. The vehicle—a shiny black German coupe with tan leather interiors and chrome accents—cut through the warm morning breeze as sunlight bounced off its tinted windows. Inside, the atmosphere was different. Despite the luxury, the perfection of the interior design, the sound system that played modern jazz with almost surgical clarity… the air was charged. Tense. Ironic. Frustrated.
“Mom, please,” Fiyero said, gripping the steering wheel with one hand while holding his cell phone to his ear with the other, his sunglasses barely concealing the annoyance furrowing his brows. “I’m not going to feign enthusiasm for a project that doesn’t interest me. Reforming the city, yes, sounds great. But having Shiz.Corp lead it and the Senate fund it… that’s no longer reform. It’s a facelift.”
His mother’s voice, elegant but firm, came through the speaker clearly. She didn’t shout—she never did—but every word was laced with judgment, protocol, and ancestral expectations. A form of hereditary violence disguised as concern.
“Your father is furious,” she snapped, her voice icy and velvety. Not just because of your absence from the last few sessions, but because of your attitude. Your family name has been tied to the progress of the City for generations. You can't just disappear.
Fiyero snorted, letting his head fall slightly back, as if the conversation was sapping him not only of patience, but of years of life.
"And since when do I care if Dad's furious? Come on, Mother, be honest! He's been furious since I was thirteen. Since I said I didn't want to study law, since I traded boarding school for street art, since I dated someone he didn't like. Is this new? No. This is vintage."
The silence on the other end of the phone was more deafening than any insult. In her own way, his mother also had an art: the art of silent contempt, of strategic silences, those that felt like sentences disguised as disappointment.
As she spoke, Fiyero sat up in his seat, placed his cell phone on the hands-free system, and stared straight ahead. A series of giant billboards accompanied him as he descended the main avenue leading to the coast. Bright, immaculately designed ads, one after another, all with the same message: "The New City. Shiz.Corp: Building the Future." In some, the senator smiled at the camera with the solemnity of someone who believes he's been elected for something more than money. But in others, even more striking, the central figure was a young blonde woman with a radiant smile, dressed in pastel shades, waving from a fake urban garden. The image of her as a public mascot of power, a symbol of manufactured well-being, made Fiyero let out a dry, sardonic, mirthless laugh.
"Oh, right. Perfect," he murmured more to himself than to his mother. "The porcelain doll they sell as hope. They couldn't have chosen better."
"What did you say?" his mother asked from the phone.
"Nothing, Mom," she replied flatly. "Nothing that can be fixed. I'm here. We'll talk later."
And without waiting for a goodbye, she hung up.
The car pulled up in front of a private entrance, where a white wall decorated with vines and expensive flowers concealed a contemporary architectural property that unfolded over several levels, like a ship stranded on the hillside overlooking the sea. Everything was perfect: the floor-to-ceiling windows reflecting the ocean, the infinity pool, the underground garage, the imported stone driveway. Everything... except the black motorcycle parked right in front of the entrance.
Fiyero pursed his lips. He only needed a glance to know who it belonged to. The helmet hung from the handlebar like an informal threat. He sighed deeply, as if the energy was leaving his body through that tired exhalation, and opened the car door.
The interior of the house was cool, scented with wood and citrus. Everything was perfectly decorated, the work of a designer who charged more than it was worth for the uncomfortable but sophisticated furniture. On the living room table, between art magazines and marble coasters, a folder of documents waited for him with inert patience. Fiyero approached, flipped through the pages distractedly, but his jaw tightened as he read the headings. “Transfer of Ownership – Club Ozdust,” “Structural Renovation: Night Use and Pending Licenses.” They were all pieces in an economic game that was slipping through his fingers. Miscalculated investments. Unstable alliances. The entertainment world was dirtier than it seemed… and less free than he wished.
He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated, his gaze fixed on a number that condemned him to search for solutions that didn't yet exist. It was then that a faint, almost imperceptible sound distracted him.
A deep breath. A sigh. A murmur in his sleep.
Fiyero slowly turned his head.
There, on the white sofa he hated so much for its rigidity, was a figure lying. Legs dangling over the edge, a wrinkled jacket over his chest, stained boots on the Persian rug. He slept as if the world didn't matter. As if the previous night had been long, dangerous, and necessary.
Elphaba.
Her hair was disheveled, her face still covered in makeup from the night before, a dark shadow under her eyes, and her lips were painted a red that no longer intimidated, but seemed to beg for help. Her arm dangled over the side of the sofa, as if at any moment it might fall to the floor and disappear. Fiyero watched her for a long moment, motionless, with a mixture of emotions he dared not name. Part of him wanted to wake her up, yell at her, ask what she was doing there, why she was coming back just when he was about to rebuild himself, to forget her. But another part… another part didn't want to interrupt that moment. That strange silence. That peace so alien to her.
Walking silently around the sofa, Fiyero noticed the phone lying among the cushions, its screen on and an alarm set to go off in ten minutes. He held it in his hand for a few seconds, playfully turned it with his fingers, as if pondering a joke, and with a slight slide of his thumb, reset the alarm to go off immediately. The room was still dim, the murmur of the city barely filtering through the windows, and suddenly the blare of the alarm broke the silence like thunder without a storm.
Elphaba woke with a start, her body tensing like a string stretched to its limit. Breathing raggedly, her hair falling wildly across her face, she blinked in confusion.
"What time is it? Shit! Did I fall asleep?" she muttered, panic clouding her voice as she fumbled through her belongings.
"Easy, sleep well," Fiyero's voice sounded from the kitchen, melodic and with that mocking lilt he wore like a second skin. He held a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. "You still have time to become human... or something."
He approached her and offered her the cup with a barely contained smile, a malicious glint in his eyes.
"How was your night?" he asked with feigned interest, as if the conversation were merely an act in a play he was directing.
Elphaba grunted, took the cup in both hands, and drank without immediately responding, letting the caffeine begin to wake her up.
"I don't remember..... That must have been epic," she rasped, still shaking off the lethargy of sleep. Then she let out a groan and stretched like a battered cat. "My back is killing me."
Fiyero leaned against the doorframe, still with that imperturbable air of someone always playing at home.
"If you slept in a real bed, like any functioning person, maybe you could move like a human being in the mornings. I understand guest rooms are useful for that. You know, that old-fashioned idea of hospitality."
"The guest room is upstairs," she replied without looking at him, splashing some water on her face with her free hand. "And at that time of night, I refuse to exercise."
"I didn't mean my guest room," Fiyero clarified with a raised eyebrow, approaching with that tone that sounded more like an accusation than a suggestion. "I meant the penthouse. You know, that revolutionary nest of yours overlooking the urban chaos. Do you still have it, or have you already been evicted amidst your anti-establishment speeches?" Elphaba turned sharply, her eyes wide, visibly offended.
"I still have it!" she protested, though her voice trembled a little toward the end. "Or so I think..."
As Elphaba stood, still somewhat wobbly, she began her morning routine with automatic movements: she searched for her purse, tied her hair as best she could, and muttered curses while trying not to forget anything important. The coffee took effect slowly, but the irritation at having woken up like this continued to vibrate in her.
Fiyero watched her from the counter, leaning against it with a practiced nonchalance. He couldn't help it: seeing her overwhelmed, in her own chaos, was a small spectacle for him. But also, deep down, a familiar scene. All too familiar.
"So what's your class today? A class on the philosophy of failure or the ethics of resignation?" he asked with a crooked smile. Elphaba snorted, not deigning to look at him.
"For God's sake, Fiyero, it's seven in the morning. I don't have the energy for your nonsense."
"But you have the energy to teach a bunch of idiots that the world is on fire, and that we have to keep playing the lyre like Nero, right?"
"You're right," she replied with a sour gesture as she searched for her keys. "But I'd rather talk to them than listen to you pretending to care about what happens outside this house."
Sarcasm was a common currency between them, but beneath those words, as always, lurked something else. An unresolved tension. A resentment disguised as humor.
Fiyero let out a dry laugh and crossed his arms.
"You could do something. You know what's going on out there. You have ideas, you have anger. But you'd rather hide in a dusty chair and pretend it's not your problem."
"Because it's not my problem," she retorted harshly, turning to him. "Because everyone wants it to be. And because I'm tired of carrying a world that doesn't even want to be carried. Is that clear?"
A thick silence hung between them. Outside, the distant roar of traffic seemed to impatiently mark the passage of time.
Finally, Elphaba sighed, picked up her coat, and headed for the door.
"Are you going to sleep here again tonight?" Fiyero asked, still, his voice a little softer.
She paused barely, without turning around.
"I never know at this time of the morning."
And with that, he left. She closed the door behind her, leaving an emptiness that wasn't new, but always weighed more heavily when he was alone again.
Fiyero stared at the steaming coffee in the cup she'd left half-finished, the echo of her words still swirling in the air. For a moment, it seemed as though he was about to say something. But he didn't.
He simply let out a long sigh. Then he looked back out the window at the glittering posters that adorned the city, like ghosts of a promise that would never be fulfilled.
Meanwhile… at the top of the city, another story—different but mirrored—was taking shape. Where the distance from the ground was not only physical, but also moral.
At the top of the imposing Shiz.Corp skyscraper, a tower of glass and ambition that rose like a monolith of power from the concrete and smoke, stood Boq. Standing alone on the edge of an immense glass window, he silently contemplated the sprawling metropolis like a living, insatiable organism. At that height, the city seemed distant, almost unreal. A tapestry of lights, movement, and broken promises.
Boq wore a perfectly tailored black suit, as if dictated by the unwritten code of those who sought to be in control. The faint morning glow reflected off his carefully combed red hair and the crystal of his watch, which he glanced at before sighing. Not from tiredness. Not from sadness. But from calculation. As if every breath must be timed.
Without a word, he turned and walked toward an imposing double door of polished steel. He opened it.
The boardroom was another world: white, bright, impersonal. The air was permeated with expensive perfume, freshly ground coffee, and the false euphoria of rising numbers. A very long table—so long it seemed unnecessary—dominated the space, surrounded by executives dressed like mannequins of a silent, smiling elite. Against one wall, a woman and a man in gray suits enthusiastically explained a series of graphs projected on a screen. The bars rose. The red areas turned green. Everything indicated progress. Improvement. Evolution.
But only for some.
Keywords fluttered like flies disguised as butterflies: gentrification, modernization, optimized zones, urban reconfiguration. Sanitized language for surgical decisions that removed entire neighborhoods like troublesome tumors.
At no point were the words “displaced” or “evicted” mentioned. They weren't necessary. They were implicit data. Calculated silences. Invisible victims in a power equation.
And at the far end of the table... there she was.
Glinda Upland, the face of the future.
She wore a perfectly cut suit in a fuchsia impossible to ignore, vibrant like a silent alert. A pale pink shirt peeked delicately out from under the jacket, in perfect harmony with her long, polished nails, which tapped the table in precise, steady time, as if conducting an invisible symphony. Her wavy, strategically styled blond hair fell over her shoulders like a waterfall of authority. She didn't look at the presenters. Or not constantly. Her eyes, sharp as scalpels, jumped from the graphs to the papers before her, crossing out, annotating, anticipating.
Boq paused in the doorway. Her presence was sensed before it was noticed. Glinda barely raised her gaze and, recognizing him, smiled like someone who had anticipated a chess move three turns in advance. "I think that's enough for today," she announced, without raising her voice, but causing everyone to immediately fall silent.
She closed her folder, with a single gesture signaling the end of the meeting. She stood gracefully and thanked everyone with a sweetness so perfectly calibrated that it hurt more than a direct order.
"Thank you all for coming. The work has been... inspiring. Keep it up. Making the future bright." Her words were coated in velvet, but her eyes said something else: don't disappoint.
A brief, calculated, and shallow applause filled the room before everyone began to rise like well-oiled cogs. No one allowed themselves to be the last to leave.
But before the two statesmen left, Glinda spoke without even looking directly at them, as if issuing an order into thin air:
"Oh, and I'd like you to run another demographic study. A more detailed one," she said, flipping through another page without looking up. Especially about how many people would be affected by the latest sector reform. You know... to have it "documented."
Her tone was so casual it almost seemed like a favor, but everyone knew it was a directive. The two assistants stopped in their tracks, nodded hurriedly, and quietly left the room.
Finally, as the door closed and silence settled once again at the apex of power, Glinda looked up at Boq, who hadn't yet said a word.
"You're just in time," she said, smiling slightly. "You missed the good news. Apparently, we're 'making the world better.'"
The irony was almost imperceptible. But it was there. Like a shadow at the foot of the throne.
Boq replied without hesitation, with the same sarcastic edge Glinda had thrown seconds before:
"Perfect. So here are some more ways to 'make the world better.'" She approached and handed him a folder with the tact of someone handing over a loaded gun. "Here's the rest of your day, as you requested." Meetings, signings, speeches… mandatory smiles included.
Glinda took the folder without looking at Boq, skimming through it with a raised eyebrow. Her eyes scanned the text with the speed of someone who has already memorized it but still needs to see the printed words to convince herself. When she reached the third activity, she let out a slight sigh. Not from exhaustion, but from boredom tinged with resignation.
"Are there really people who need me to be there for all this?" she muttered in an almost theatrical tone, as she handed the folder back and stood gracefully.
She walked toward the door, her gait firm, her heels clicking with the certainty of someone who never doubts that it will open before her.
"And aren't you going to prepare for any of them?" Boq asked, without raising her voice, but loud enough so that the sentence reached her just before she crossed the threshold.
Glinda paused for a second, turning her face slightly, just enough so that her profile was clearly outlined against the light in the room.
"Prepare?" She snorted, amused, as if I'd suggested she needed an umbrella for a storm she'd planned. "It doesn't matter how I act, Boq. In the end, they all end the same. As they should."
With a bearing worthy of a general marching into battle, Glinda left the room.
The click of her heels echoed with a hypnotic cadence in the marble hallway, punctuated only by the distant echo of the air traffic whizzing past the windows. The sky was covered in a metallic veil, as if the entire city had been encapsulated in a glass dome. Glinda strode forward, her back straight, her jaw relaxed, every movement designed to project impenetrable calm.
Boq walked a half-step behind, her folder open, reading in a clear but not robotic tone, like someone who knows every word will be scrutinized.
"11:15: lunch with the representatives of the clean energy committee, although it's not mandatory to stay the full hour. I recommend twenty minutes, enough for a photo and to remind them who signed their budget."
"Have the main course removed before it arrives. I don't want to be repeating the fish all afternoon," Glinda interrupted matter-of-factly, without even turning around.
"Done. 12:30: Emerald Women cover interview. They want an informal tour of the Shiz.Corp offices. They want to show you 'as an approachable leader.'"
"Tell them to ask whatever they want... but not about my personal life. Not a single mention of it, not even by implication. And if they ask, the interview is over. Use that phrase verbatim."
Boq nodded as he took notes. He continued reading:
"1:30: Video call with the East Coast board of investors. 2:45: Attendance at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new financial corridor. Drones are ready to capture the first brick."
"That brick should be half-laid by the time I arrive. I don't want to pose as a field worker... No one will believe that. And make sure the camera captures the ring of the company properly. Make sure it looks brand new. Make it look expensive." Her pink nails flashed like razors as she raised a hand, absentmindedly combing through her hair as she walked.
"4:00: Meeting with the image department. They're worried about the reaction to the new commercial. They think it might be perceived as 'too elitist.”
"Is it?"
"Yes."
"Perfect. Let it be. People want to admire something they can't have."
Boq didn't comment. He just crossed out a line on the folder and continued. Glinda turned down another corridor, approaching the private elevator on the 47th floor. Her gait hadn't lost any elegance, but something had changed in the rigidity of her shoulders.
"Ah," Boq said, his tone now lower, more careful. "I almost forgot... She's here."
The air seemed to thicken. Glinda didn't turn around. She didn't need to. She knew exactly who he meant.
For a second, her pace slowed, as if she were trying to avoid the inevitable. Then, without turning around, she answered in a dry, controlled voice.
"When?"
"Twenty minutes ago. On the 47th floor. She's waiting for you to see her. She says it's... 'urgent.'" Boq lowered his gaze slightly, knowing what those words meant.
Glinda paused in front of the elevator door. She said nothing. She just let out a slow sigh, knowing exactly who it was... "Morrible." For a second, her reflection in the chrome doors seemed paler than usual.
"Shall I leave it open for the rest of the morning in case it extends?"
"Leave it open for the rest of the week," Glinda finally replied, with a hint of bitterness that she tried to mask with a smile.
The elevator opened with a soft sound. Before entering, she turned for the first time to Boq.
"Cancel lunch. If I get out of this alive, I'll need champagne and silence."
"And if not?"
"Then you'll be the one who'll have to explain why my office was empty."
Boq forced a tight smile, but she was already inside. The doors closed, and the elevator began its descent to the forty-seventh floor. Silent. Impeccable.
Like a sentence.
Madame Morrible's office was a capsule suspended in time. The walls were paneled with dark wood and antique paintings that seemed to observe, to judge. The light coming through the panoramic window was dim, as if she knew better than to be too invasive.
Glinda entered with the same impeccable smile she used to cut ribbons, hold trophies, or close multi-million dollar deals. A smile that could hide tiredness, annoyance… and now, resignation. She walked elegantly, her soft but expensive perfume filling the space before her words could.
Facing the window, with her hands clasped behind her back and the posture of a retired emperor, Morrible observed the city as if it belonged to her. Hearing the footsteps, she turned slowly, and with a smile so plastic it seemed to melt onto her face, she said:
"Glinda, my dear… as always, so punctual. And so… pink."
"Madame," Glinda responded with equal sweetness. You look absolutely unshakeable, as always.
The two of them leaned closer and kissed each other on each cheek. A touch as superficial as their flattery. They sat opposite each other in armchairs upholstered in green velvet, as if in an aristocratic duel without visible weapons.
"I've been following the urban redevelopments with interest," Morrible said, crossing a leg with calculated elegance. "Very bold. Very... modern. They remind me of a certain impetuous young woman who used to interrupt my meetings with awkward questions."
"Times change, Madame," Glinda replied with a closed-lipped smile. "And some awkward questions become necessary policies."
"And how do you feel about leading all this? Isn't it too... a weight on those delicate shoulders?"
Glinda tilted her head charmingly.
"I feel I'm handling it quite competently. In fact, the efficiency metrics have improved since I took office." The implementation of the trade corridor, the modernization of public systems, and not to mention the new housing complex… everything is on track, on schedule and on budget. Even the most acerbic critics have had to swallow a few words.
Morrible nodded slowly, letting the silence stretch just a second longer than was socially acceptable.
"Yes… that's what the senator told me on our last call," she commented, with the tone of someone dropping a pin in a closed room. "Although he also expressed some concern… about your approach. He says everything seems to be working, sure… but there's something about your attitude that seems more… showmanship than public service."
Glinda kept her smile, but there was a slight hardening in her eyes.
"The senator has always had a talent for perceptions, but not always for results. I focus on the latter. Fortunately, the numbers are on my side… and so are the voters."
Morrible let out a soft, almost maternal laugh. One that made Glinda feel sick inside.
“Oh, dear… I just want to remind you of something. Here at Shiz.Corp, we all have a place. Some lead. Others represent. And others… obey, even if they don’t realize they’re doing so. Being brilliant doesn’t mean being untouchable.”
“And smiling doesn’t mean being docile, Madame,” Glinda replied, keeping her gaze steady. “If you’re worried about my performance, I can request a review before the board. Although I imagine she prefers to keep things under wraps… as always.
There was a charged pause. The smiles were still on their faces, but the game was no longer friendly. It was chess with knives hidden under the table.
Morrible rose gracefully. She walked slowly to the desk and picked up a folder stamped red with Strategic Affairs. She placed it on the table in front of Glinda.
"I just want to make sure our goals are... aligned. Review this. Some adjustments you might want to make to your schedule. Recommendations. Suggestions."
Glinda took the folder without looking at it. She held it like a sleeping snake.
"Thank you. Always so generous with your... wisdom."
“Oh, my dear, it’s not wisdom. It’s experience. And if you’re lucky… someday you will have it too.”
Glinda stood up. She tucked the folder under her arm and walked calmly to the door, not looking back. Just before leaving, she turned her face slightly and said, “By the way… tell the senator he can speak to me directly next time. I assure you, my office is much less intimidating than his.”
And with that, she left. She closed the door softly. But inside her, pressure swirled. She knew what this visit meant: Morrible was still watching, measuring, assessing. And he didn’t stop until something—or someone—fell.
Glinda walked firmly down the hallway, the echo of her heels setting a steady, almost defiant rhythm. Each step seemed to reassert her control, her composure… until she stopped.
In the distance, half hidden behind the frosted glass, was her old office. The one he had shared with her.
Glinda's heart skipped a beat, small but powerful, like a stone falling into a pond. For a second, the air seemed to thicken. Her pulse quickened, and a tangle of memories tangled in her mind like vines growing without permission: voices, laughter, arguments, glances. Contradictions that had never been fully resolved.
She hadn't seen that door again in a long time... and yet there it was. Motionless. Unbroken. As if waiting.
The inner chaos threatened to crack her impeccable facade when suddenly, a voice brought her back.
"Glinda?" Boq said, his tone gentle but alert. "Is everything all right? I can reschedule the next activity if you'd like... or cancel the rest of the morning. No one will notice."
Glinda turned her face slightly, blinked once, and the emotional turmoil dissipated like smoke behind her eyes. She took a deep breath. Her expression once again became firm, elegant, almost indifferent. The professional smile reappeared, like a well-trained soldier.
"No, Boq. Don't cancel anything," she said, more firmly than she expected. "Give me the next appointment."
"Are you sure?"
"More than ever," she affirmed, as she resumed her pace with the determination of someone who couldn't—or wouldn't—stop and look back. "We have work to do."
And without another glance at the door, she continued walking...
Meanwhile, elsewhere...
The doorbell echoed deeply through the dark stone corridors, passing tall stained-glass windows that tinged the morning light with shades of blue and purple. The gargoyles carved on the cornices seemed to silently watch the parade of students, wearing blue and striped uniforms and sleepy expressions, filling the narrow, gloomy halls of that ancient academy at the top of the hill. A place that, despite its prestige, always retained an aura of mystery… as if the walls held secrets they preferred to keep to themselves.
Among the crowd of students, the firm, hurried footsteps of a pair of black heels stood out clearly, echoing authoritatively on the marble.
Elphaba walked forward with restrained elegance, her lips pressed into a determined line, a bundle of books under her arm, and an impeccably tailored black suit that made her look as intimidating as it was fascinating. Her square glasses reflected the dim light from the hallway, partially obscuring a gaze that refused to impose itself.
Several heads turned to look at her. Some with admiration. Others with simple curiosity. But all with a hint of suspicion.
Another teacher, of a similar age but with a more anxious air, approached briskly, matching her pace.
"Where were you?" she asked softly, clearly trying to sound casual, though the accusatory tone slipped through the cracks. I don't know what to say to the principals anymore every time you don't show up.
"And haven't you considered telling them the truth?" Elphaba replied without looking at her, barely turning her face slightly with a sarcastic half-smile. "That I always arrive... just in time."
"It's not funny, El. You know I'm covering for you because I care about you, but this is getting..."
"It's all under control," Elphaba interrupted with a certainty that brooked no reply. "Really."
The teacher wanted to say something else. It was clear she wanted to dig deeper. Maybe to help. Maybe out of simple curiosity. But Elphaba stopped in front of a solid wooden door, carved with ancient, time-worn symbols.
"Thank you for your concern," she said, this time with a polite smile, but as sharp as a razor wrapped in velvet. "I'll see you in the staff room."
And without waiting for a reply, she opened the door and entered, closing it with a firm click.
The classroom was still empty. Rows of dark wooden desks waited silently. Elphaba sighed, took off her glasses for a moment, and closed her eyes. This was the only pause she would have all day.
She walked to the desk at the front of the room, arranged her books with meticulous precision, and raised her gaze to the large Gothic window. Beyond, the gray sky seemed to portend a storm.
And that, oddly enough, gave her a certain peace.
Without wasting a second, Elphaba took a piece of chalk from the desk as if it were a wand of power and, with a fluid movement, began to write on the blackboard. Her handwriting was precise, firm, elegant. Each word seemed to carry the weight of a sentence. She wasn't just a teacher teaching. It was a sharp mind leaving its mark.
And then, as if an invisible alarm had been triggered, the door abruptly opened.
A wave of students slipped into the classroom. Some were chatting, others yawning, some simply walking with the kind of attitude that only a teenager can muster, certain that the world revolves around them. Elphaba watched them with a contained smile, not with tenderness, but with that kind of silent amusement one feels when watching puppies snap at each other, unaware that the real predator is already in the room.
"Good morning, everyone," she said in a clear, elegant, and firm voice. "I'm glad to see that, once again, the world hasn't collapsed overnight... although I don't know whether to thank you or blame you for that."
Several giggles escaped, some genuine, others forced. A couple of students rolled their eyes, with that typical arrogance inherited, not from experience, but from the family name.
Elphaba knew her students well. Each one had a surname that opened doors, closed mouths, and filled newspaper columns. Ancient lineages, absurd fortunes, dangerous connections. At that academy, everyone was a promise of the future… although they were still far from deserving of it.
And he knew: what they all lacked was a reality check.
He finished writing a Latin phrase on the blackboard, turned around with the chalk still between his fingers, and faced the group with the same composure with which a general would inspect his troops before battle.
"All right, creatures of privilege… let's start with something simple today. Use what's left of your functional neurons before you get affected by the organic breakfast served to you by the kitchen of this prison overlooking the forest."
A couple of laughs, a murmur here and there, and then... the voice of one of those typical idiots:
"Does that mean there's no exam today either?"
"Depends," Elphaba replied, turning slowly toward him, one eyebrow arched like a sword. "Does that mean you're not going to try to think today either?"
A collective "oooh" rose like a wave. The boy sank into his seat.
Elphaba smiled mercilessly and picked up the attendance list.
"Let's get to it," she murmured, running her fingers over the names. "Abernathy, present. Blackthorn, present. Crestvale... yes, yes, the eternal yawn. Grimshaw, present..."
Her voice slowed. Her finger stopped on a name. There was no need to read it. She knew it. The emptiness in the classroom had already announced it.
She sighed. Not with annoyance, but with resignation. The kind of resignation that only someone very intelligent and tired can express elegantly.
"Would anyone enlighten me and tell me why she's late again?"
But before anyone could open their mouths... The door creaked.
And there she was. Standing in the doorway. Perfectly aligned black uniform. Flawless braids. Expressionless face and a gaze that seemed to pierce reality itself.
“Wednesday Addams.”
Elphaba said nothing. She just watched her in silence for a second that felt like a duel. Then, with a half-smile, she simply said,
“How lovely to have you grace us with your presence, Miss Addams. We thought you’d been recruited by some midnight cult… again.”
With her trademark mortuary charm, Wednesday Addams paused just before sitting down. She looked at Elphaba, her head tilted slightly, her expression like that of someone considering whether to answer back or invoke an ancient curse.
“I haven’t joined any cult,” she replied, as dry as a moonless night. “Cults usually have rules. I don’t function well with rules.”
Elphaba raised an eyebrow in amusement. Then she smiled, like someone who recognizes a worthy opponent on the chessboard.
“Too bad,” she replied with that charming edge that only true manipulators manage to hide behind a smile. I think you would have made a great cult leader. Dark, charismatic, and with the added bonus of having zero empathy.
A few nervous giggles escaped among the students. But no one was really laughing at Wednesday. It was more of an automatic reflex, like laughing at a funeral because you don't know what else to do.
Wednesday sat calmly, like a queen on her throne. And with that simple gesture, it was clear: Elphaba and she weren't just playing in a different league... they were playing a different sport.
And then, class began.
Elphaba turned to the board and pointed to the phrase written in white chalk:
"Civilization is defined not by its laws, but by what it is willing to ignore."
"Social studies," she announced, "that wonderful discipline that attempts to explain why humanity keeps tripping over the same stone... and then builds a statue of it."
Her voice was firm, lilting, far too interesting for such an early hour. But the enemy was formidable: teenage sleepiness. And worse still... cell phones.
She moved around the room like a strategist at war, firing off questions at point-blank range:
"What factors led to the collapse of the Confederation of Nations? What role does historical revisionism play in modern civil wars? Why do empires think they can last forever?"
The answers rained down slowly, limply, constructed with hesitation and snippets of things read in some summary or memorized before breakfast.
"Because... people got tired," ventured a boy from the second row, without much conviction.
"Fascinating," Elphaba replied. "And as deep as a rain puddle in summer."
Another student raised her hand and said something about "social media and alienation," clearly read in some popular essay.
"Thanks for the TikTok quote," Elphaba said tersely. "Very educational."
The atmosphere thickened. Elphaba knew she was reaching her limit. I could handle ignorance, but not indifference. There was something almost offensive about the way those brilliant teenagers refused to think.
And just as I was about to unleash a poisonous phrase that would undoubtedly go down in history...
Wednesday Addams spoke.
She didn't raise her hand. She didn't change her expression. She just let her voice fall like a knife in a surgical suite.
"Empires don't fall because of logistical errors, or even because of revolutions. They fall because of arrogance. Because they believe history is on their side, when in reality, history doesn't take sides... it only takes note."
The classroom fell silent. Some students blinked, surprised that someone had said something so powerful without using emojis or meme references.
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She looked at her, studying her. Not as teacher to student, but as player to player.
Finally, she smiled.
"Interesting perspective, Miss Addams. Though a bit grim even by my standards. Any particular empire you have in mind... or are we speaking personally?"
Wednesday held her gaze. A hint of a smile appeared, barely perceptible.
"Both, Professor. Always both."
A murmur crossed the room. And for a moment, all eyes left their screens. The intellectual duel had begun... and no one wanted to miss it.
Knowing that Wednesday was the closest she'd ever come to a student truly interested in the subject—and, even rarer, capable of holding a thought of his own—Elphaba jumped at the chance.
She leaned on the desk and, her gaze fixed on Wednesday, launched a subtle counteroffensive:
"And if history only takes notes... what do you think its final note on us will be?"
Wednesday didn't even blink.
"Probably: 'They noticed the fire... but decided to dance around it.'"
Some students laughed. Others pretended to understand. But Elphaba smiled, an almost knowing glint in her eyes.
"And you? What do you do? Do you dance or write?"
"I design the fire," Wednesday replied, crossing her arms.
Silence. An answer that would have seemed ridiculous in another person's mouth... but not in hers.
Elphaba straightened, now with a challenging gleam in her eyes.
"So, designer of chaos, tell me: what is the role of the individual in a rotten society?"
"It depends," Wednesday replied without pause. "Does the individual want to change it... or watch it rot from within?"
"And you?"
"I make preserves."
The nervous laughter returned, but now there was something else: an energy, an intellectual tension that rarely inhabited a classroom. Elphaba felt it, recognized it... and relished it. The battle was on.
What had begun as a rhetorical question morphed into a sharp exchange of opinions: about power, marginalization, imposed norms, the role of rejection in the construction of identity.
When Elphaba questioned Wednesday's cynicism, she responded with an icy sentence:
"It's not cynicism if society is already rotting. It's just a diagnosis."
And when Wednesday insinuated that academics, like Elphaba, only watched from glass towers, she responded in a firm voice:
"Better a tower than a tomb decorated with sarcasm."
The responses flew like daggers wrapped in silk. Every sentence was sharp, and every silence carried dynamite.
The entire class, for the first time, was rapt. Not because they understood every concept, but because they were witnessing something impossible to ignore: two forces meeting, testing each other, studying each other.
And suddenly… without warning… everything became personal.
Elphaba asked a question, intentionally ambiguous:
"Do you believe that constant contempt for the system is courage… or simply a reflection of not finding a place in it?"
Wednesday tilted her head slightly. Her answer came as a venomous whisper:
"And you believe that fighting for acceptance in a world that hates you… is heroism? Or academic masochism?"
There was a pause. Elphaba felt the room tighten around her. Wednesday's words weren't just a provocation. They were a direct incision. She knew where to cut.
The tension was almost visible, hanging in the air like a string stretched to its limit.
And then… Elphaba cut the thread.
She straightened, picked up her book with a curt gesture, and turned to the blackboard.
"Very well," she said in a cold, measured voice. "Everyone open chapter fourteen. Silent reading. Ten pages. I don't want to hear a word."
Some students protested with disappointed murmurs. Others breathed a sigh of relief. But no one dared to speak seriously.
Elphaba walked to her seat, sat down with forced elegance… and crossed one leg over the other. Her gaze wandered to a point in the classroom, but her mind remained trapped in that duel, still feeling the last edge of Wednesday's comment.
The game was tied... but a rematch was inevitable.
While the students pretended to read the chapter she had assigned them in the hope—vain, she knew—of salvaging some order in this intellectual battlefield, Elphaba retreated behind her desk like a queen in momentary retreat. The dark wood, the disordered books, the barely perceptible dust on the desk lamp: her small fortress amid the adolescent chaos.
She pulled out a stack of assessment papers, all labeled with illustrious surnames and names crafted more to resonate on magazine covers than in academic articles. She began correcting. First neatly. Then, with resignation.
The first essay was merely a jumble of words that sounded grand without meaning anything at all. She crossed it out mercilessly. The second contained a quote taken out of context and misattributed to Nietzsche, as if that would suffice to create a profound impression. She marked the errors in red ink and left a sarcastic note in the margin. The third… was surprisingly lucid. Brief, but sharp. Almost hopeful.
But that respite was quickly extinguished: the next five projects pushed her back into general disinterest, mediocrity disguised as rebellion, creativity diluted in commonplaces. Where had the provocative minds gone? Where were the young people hungry for truth, and not just validation?
She was about to start the next one when her phone vibrated. She glanced at it indifferently, expecting to see some useless notification, but when she saw the name on the screen, her expression changed, slightly, with a mixture of surprise and that mild annoyance that accompanies those we know too well.
Fiyero.
“Are you still in one piece, or has the new generation finally managed to finish you off?”
Elphaba gave a dry, half-smile, devoid of real humor. She typed her reply with the speed of someone who shoots more than writes:
“So far, the most dangerous thing has been an argument with a little sociopath. She wears braids, dresses like the 21st century has never arrived, and has the ability to dissect anyone with a single sentence. A delight.”
Fiyero's reply came back in seconds, as if he'd been waiting for exactly that.
“Sounds terrifyingly familiar. Reminds me of a certain uneducated teacher I used to know…”
Elphaba frowned and rolled her eyes, not because the comparison bothered her… but because it did. She typed furiously, her fingers pounding the screen with an energy that belied her outward composure.
“Please! That girl is young, vain, and thinks she knows the world just because she's read a few books and looks down on others. I, at least, had to survive it before I despised it.”
A couple of seconds later, another message:
“Uh-huh. Right. Totally different. Except she's younger, faster… and seems to know how to win arguments without breaking a sweat.”
Elphaba felt the blow without wanting to admit it. She blinked once. Then again. The classroom remained silent, save for the occasional page turning or a chair shifting. No one noticed her bewilderment. No one noticed her discomfort.
Except for her.
She looked back at her phone, her fingers hovering over the screen as a thought struck her with unexpected force. Was that really what had bothered her so much? Not that Wednesday was unbearable. Not that he had that sharp tongue and such perfectly chiseled contempt. Not that he'd captured the class's attention with just two sentences.
No. What had bothered her—hurt her, even—was that, for the first time in a long time, someone was playing her game better than she was.
Elphaba, the woman who had forged herself in a world that rejected her for her skin, her voice, her ideas, had always been on the offensive. Always one step ahead. A sharp mind, a hardened heart, an unbreakable will. She had learned to dominate her surroundings, to gain respect even among those who feared her. And yet… there was that girl, that younger, wilder, more refined version of herself, stealing control of the classroom from her with a single sentence, leaving her without a response for three eternal seconds. And the worst part wasn't losing… but feeling admiration. Envy, even.
Maybe I'm falling behind, she thought. And the thought was like a dagger.
Her phone vibrated again. Another message from Fiyero:
Don't take it so hard. Just because someone else knows how to play… doesn't mean you're out of the game. It's just that, finally, you have competition. Isn't that what you always said motivated you?
Elphaba put the phone aside, without answering.
She stared at it for a moment longer, as if Fiyero's words were still floating on the surface of the screen. Then she went back to an assignment, but this time with less enthusiasm. Her eyes scanned the sentences without fully reading them, her mind still in that unfinished battle with Wednesday Addams.
She sighed. Maybe the problem wasn't her. Or the class. Or even Wednesday.
Maybe the problem wasn't that, for the first time in a long time, Elphaba felt overwhelmed…
And that, more than bothering her, worried her.
The bell rang with a dry, metallic screech, breaking the tension in the classroom like a knife ripping through wet paper. The students, with the speed of freed prisoners, began gathering their things without even looking at their teacher. Backpacks were zipped shut, chairs pushed with feet, carefree murmurs. In less than a minute, the room was almost empty.
Almost.
Elphaba didn't immediately look up, but her voice rose firmly from her desk:
"Addams. Stay a moment, please."
Wednesday, already half a step from the door, stopped as if she had anticipated the request. She turned on her heel without a word, walked back into the classroom, and plopped down in a chair in the front row, directly across from Elphaba's desk. She sat with her arms crossed, her face neutral but her eyes sparkling, ready to bite if the opportunity arose.
"I haven't planned any punishment," Elphaba said with a smile that tried to be diplomatic. Although I admit it would be tempting.
Wednesday tilted her head slightly.
"I'm disappointed. At this point in the meeting, I was expecting at least a torture rack or an acid bath."
Elphaba gave a short, nasal laugh.
"I'll keep that in mind for next class."
There was a silence, the kind of awkward silence that only forms between two people who respect each other enough to attack each other without reason, but don't yet trust each other enough to speak frankly.
The professor stood up from her desk, crossed her arms, and leaned one hip against the table. She let her guard down just enough to avoid seeming authoritarian, but not so much as to appear weak.
"I just wanted to say…" she began, measuring each word as if speaking before a judge, "that I understand your perspective. That cynicism you use as a shield. The cold stare, the criticism of the system, the disdain for general stupidity… believe me, I get it. I wasn't born with green skin only in the literal sense." Wednesday raised an eyebrow, but didn't interrupt.
"I, too, learned early on that the world isn't made for those who are different," Elphaba continued. "I also grew up seeing hypocrisy around every corner, rewarded mediocrity, and most importantly: that talent, intelligence, and truth… are frightening. And sometimes, even to yourself."
Young Addams didn't smile, but her silence was a kind of permission. As if, for now, Elphaba could continue.
"I suppose I wanted to tell you that I'm not your enemy. It may not seem like it, but I want to help you. What you see now with iron eyes may one day weigh on you. The isolation, the distance, the need to always be right… it eventually wears down even the strongest. Believe me, I know."
For the first time, Wednesday spoke, not aggressively, but with a dry, perfectly modulated voice:
"And you think that scares me?" That one day, many years from now, I'll discover that being above everyone else makes me feel lonely?
She raised her gaze calmly. "It sounds like someone else's problem, not mine."
Elphaba took a deep breath. "I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying it's exhausting to live as if everyone were an insect and you were the entomologist. Perhaps you could allow yourself—"
"A moment of humanity?" Wednesday interrupted sarcastically. "A hot coffee, an honest conversation, an occasional hug? I'm sorry, Professor, but I don't play at redemption. That's a comedy I leave for those still waiting for applause."
Elphaba sat up uncomfortably.
"I was just trying to say... I've had problems too. Family problems, even. Not all of us have the luxury of an understanding environment."
That was a mistake. One Wednesday didn't let go.
"Troublesome family members?" Wednesday repeated, with theatrical interest. "A demanding father?" An absent mother? Invisible siblings?
She sighed dramatically. “My family, on the other hand, is a glorious mess. A father who writes poetry about murder, a mother who grows poisonous plants with more love than any florist, an uncle who sleeps on a guillotine, and a grandmother who was probably a professional arsonist. And you know what? They love me. Every single one of them. Fiercely. In their own strange way. They’ve never asked me to change. Just to be more… me.”
Wednesday paused for a moment; you could almost swear something resembling a smile spread across her face.
“Maybe that’s why I’m not interested in your sympathy. I don’t need saving. Let alone… guidance.”
The words fell like knives, one after another, and Elphaba felt her pulse quicken. Not from rage. From recognition. Wednesday wasn't attacking her. Not really. He was exposing her.
"You project," the girl added, slowly rising. "You look in me at what once was. What can no longer be. Or worse, what never was."
Elphaba didn't respond. She couldn't. Not yet.
Wednesday approached the desk, her steps light but firm, and in a low voice, almost a confidential whisper, said,
"You think you still rule this world, Professor. But what really bothers you… is knowing you're no longer the only witch in the room. And probably no longer the best."
And with that, without waiting for a reply, she turned, picked up her backpack, and left the classroom, leaving behind the faint smell of ink, mystery, and disdain.
Elphaba stood motionless. Not from defeat. But by the recognition of the truth that had just been served to her with black velvet gloves and a spectral smile.
Wednesday Addams hadn't won an argument.
She had proclaimed a new reign.
And Elphaba, for the first time, felt the chill of having been bested.
Minutes later, a locker slammed open, echoing in the deserted hallway like a gunshot. Elphaba nearly threw her books inside with deliberate violence, muttering under her breath as she reorganized her folders with the stiffness of someone who'd rather be squeezing throats. Her frown seemed carved in stone, and her eyes flashed with barely controlled fury.
"Oh, Professor, I don't play at redemption…" she mimed in a ridiculously dramatic, drawling tone. "Of course not, Wednesday, because you don't play at anything. You live in a goddamn Gothic play written by Edgar Allan Poe with attention deficit disorder."
She snorted, rolling her eyes. “A sixteen-year-old girl with a Greek goddess complex. And why? Because she once read Nietzsche while slitting the throat of a crow?”
Elphaba took out a pen, inadvertently broke it, and stared at the torn plastic in her hand.
“How can someone so small have the ego of a greater demon?”
And amid the anger, the heat rising up her neck, something seeped through the cracks: a name. A memory. The only other person who had ever made her feel this way. A shadow of the past returning not with nostalgia, but with remorse. A wound that hadn’t healed properly. For a second, Elphaba’s shoulders slumped, and her expression changed. Not completely. Just enough to reveal a crack beneath the hardness.
“You look… radiant. As always when someone manages to beat you at your own game.”
The voice brought her abruptly back to reality. Mocking. Ironic. Masculine.
She turned sharply, without needing to verify identity. I already knew that tone: Isaac Norman, literature teacher, eternal saboteur of his composure. Tall, with carefully careless, disheveled hair, intense eyes, and the smile of someone born knowing he could ruin your day... or make it better, as he chose.
"Norman," she said sharply, not bothering to hide her annoyance. "How opportune. I was just longing for a conversation with someone who quotes Bukowski to impress female students."
Isaac laughed softly and leaned against the adjacent locker, arms crossed, expression amused.
"Wednesday?" he asked, though he didn't need confirmation. "He has a gift. There's something admirable about the way he manages to irritate so much with so few words. He reminds me of you, on your good days."
"Don't flatter me," Elphaba retorted, slamming her locker shut with more force than necessary. "You're too happy with yourself, and that bothers me."
"And you're too upset with yourself, and that bothers me. But only a little." "Enough to keep talking," she said casually, as if throwing a stone into the water to see how deep the lake was.
"You know perfectly well that she doesn't bother me. She bothers me..." She stopped, biting the inside of her cheek. "She bothers me how easily she puts me on the defensive. As if she had a map of all my cracks."
Isaac leaned slightly toward her, his smile crooked.
"Maybe because you, too, make a great effort to show them every time you walk into a classroom. All that pent-up anger... so attractive. Like a storm waiting to break."
"Don't psychoanalyze me," Elphaba growled, giving him a light shove on the shoulder. He laughed, still holding his composure. She added, "And don't smile like that. I'm not in the mood for your games today."
"Perfect. Because I am... Besides, you know I love it when you pretend you can't stand me."
"I'm not pretending."
"And yet you're smiling."
Elphaba pressed her lips together... but she didn't deny it.
The next thing happened too fast for words... But from one moment to the next, the door to the janitor's closet slammed open, and they both entered... One on top of the other.
At first, it was a rough kiss, filled with pent-up tension, unresolved frustrations, and sarcasm that now dissolved between teeth and lips. She responded with the same fury she'd hurled at the locker, with the same disdain she used to defend herself from the world. They shoved each other into the closet amid stifled laughter and impatient hands, and the door slammed shut behind them.
The interior was cramped, dark, and smelled of cleaning products and damp wood, but neither seemed to notice. They kissed like two starving teenagers, as if in that closet they were allowed to be only bodies, not respectable figures or exhausted teachers. Only impulse. Only desire.
Somewhere between her unbuttoned shirt and a stifled sigh, Elphaba let out a stifled laugh.
"This is ridiculous," she gasped, her forehead resting against Isaac's shoulder.
"Terribly ridiculous," he agreed, his voice hoarse. "That's why I love it."
When everything calmed, when the storm subsided, they lay on the linoleum floor, their backs against the wall, disheveled and content, like two fugitives after the perfect robbery. Isaac took a cigarette from his wrinkled jacket, lit it, and offered one to Elphaba. She accepted it without looking at him, with the dignity of someone who has already sinned and isn't about to pretend otherwise.
"You know," he said between puffs, "You should thank the Addams girl. If it weren't for her, I'd never see you so honest."
Elphaba laughed, exhaling the smoke through her nose.
"And you should thank me." If it weren't for my emotional problems, you'd never have spontaneous sex between broomsticks.
They looked at each other. A shared smile. Not one of love, nor of true complicity. But one of understanding. Two broken beings who, for a few minutes, had found refuge in each other.
Suddenly, the bell rang, its high-pitched shriek echoing through the halls like a direct insult, and Elphaba collapsed to her knees with a long, weary sigh. One hand to her forehead, her eyes closed, her entire body seemed to protest the routine of high school as if the bell itself were a tangible manifestation of the absurdity of her life there.
"I swear that damn bell is specifically designed to torture me," she muttered with a hint of drama.
"You didn't know that?" Isaac replied, still lying on the floor, exhaling smoke from his cigar with a sarcastic smile. "It's calibrated to your brain waves." Every time you relax even a little, ding! Back to hell.
Elphaba gave him a look somewhere between amused and murderous as she sat down, still disheveled, clumsily gathering her wrinkled blouse.
"You're so funny," she said dryly. "You should be doing comedy instead of teaching Byron to a bunch of teenagers who think Poe is a brand of perfume."
"And deprive me of the pleasure of your interrupted outbursts of rage? No way," he joked, stubbing out his cigar with the sole of his shoe before standing up with a graceful toss of his jacket.
"Ugh, I have to teach," he grumbled, resignedly checking his watch. "Victorian literature. Nothing says 'Monday' like repressed women and men writing about them from their gothic mansion."
Elphaba, still sitting on the floor, pursed her lips like a spoiled brat and crossed her arms.
"I don't want to go to my class," she murmured in a childish voice, staring up at the ceiling as if searching for an escape route among the fluorescent lights.
Isaac leaned over, offering his hand with an indulgent half-smile.
"Come on, drama queen, before some janitor decides to clean out this closet and we're discovered looking like two teenagers in the throes of hormonal change."
She took his hand with a huff and stood up, brushing the dust off her skirt. As she adjusted her blouse, buttoning it slowly, he watched her with that mixture of humor and tenderness that was becoming a habit between them. But then, as she smoothed her hair in the closet's rusty mirror, his voice became lower, more inquisitive.
"I texted you last night..." he said, as if tossing it out into the air without much pretense. "I asked if you wanted to see us, but you didn't reply."
Elphaba froze for a second. A barely perceptible blink betrayed her surprise. The air seemed to thicken in the narrow space.
"Oh... yes," she said, not looking at him, pretending to be very busy adjusting her neckline. "I was... busy. Last-minute stuff."
Isaac said nothing, but his silence was heavier than any retort. When she finally turned to him, she found him with his lips pursed and his eyes half-closed. A silent disappointment he wasn't even trying to hide.
"Look, it's not that I didn't want to," she said quickly, but the sentence hung in the air, unfinished.
"It's all right, Elphaba," he replied, in that soft voice he used when he decided to swallow his pride. "It just made me wonder what stage of... this we're at." Or if we're even at some stage.
She lowered her gaze, her brow furrowed not from anger this time, but from that uncomfortable pang of guilt she'd been trying to suppress for weeks. With a long, resigned sigh, she leaned back against the wall and replied softly,
"I don't know if I'm ready for more than this... for now."
She said it without much conviction. As if she wasn't sure if she said it out of fear or necessity. Isaac noticed, of course he did. He knew her well enough to distinguish when she was lying... and when she was lying more to herself than to him.
"Okay," she said finally, though her expression said otherwise. "But you know there's a part of you you don't let me see. A part you keep locked away, as if opening it would make everything fall apart. And that, Elphaba, will remain a barrier as long as you don't want to let me in."
Elphaba stared at him, her jaw tense, as if she wanted to defend herself. But she didn't. Instead, something vulnerable flickered in her green eyes, a tiny crack in her usual shell of sarcasm.
"I'm not easy, Isaac," she whispered. "I never was. And there are things that... even I don't fully understand."
"You don't have to be easy," he retorted, taking a step toward her and placing a hand on her cheek. "You just have to stop running away from yourself."
The words hit her like a slap and a caress at the same time. But before she could answer, a second ring shook them both. Elphaba groaned, closing her eyes in almost comical exasperation.
"That damn bell again!"
Isaac smiled, placing a soft kiss on her forehead.
"Remember who you are, Elphaba. If anyone can send that bell to hell... it's you."
She smiled, but it was a different smile. Not mocking, not haughty. It was a fiery smile. One of those that precedes a storm. And in that moment, as she opened the closet door to return to that absurd world of hallways, classrooms, and drama-filled teenagers, she silently told herself: No know-it-all brat is going to dispute what's mine.
Meanwhile, in another corner of the city—equally dark, though hidden behind warm lights, gleaming glasses, and fake smiles—a different kind of dispute was brewing. No less childish, no less fraught with tension. At the top of one of the most luxurious skyscrapers, a cutting-edge designer restaurant rose, all glass and polished steel, floating like a golden bubble over the city. From there, the buildings looked like models, the avenues like illuminated threads, and the urban bustle barely a distant murmur. But inside, between velvet curtains and live jazz music, the air was thick, saturated with expensive perfume and empty words.
Major investors, real estate moguls, political advisors, casual celebrities, and high-society figures moved about like goldfish in a glittering bowl. They drank, laughed, and talked with artificial enthusiasm about structural reforms, tax breaks, and the new opportunities of the urban renewal project—without having the slightest idea of the true scope or the human implications involved. For them, everything was numbers, columns, potential profits. They didn't see beyond the cocktails and the promises of profit.
Glinda, dressed in a fitted and elegant pink suit, both professional and aesthetically pleasing, moved among the audience with the grace she had learned over years of training. Her smile was perfect, measured, and studied; her eyes sparkled with restrained kindness. She allowed herself to be photographed alongside influential figures, laughed out of turn at comments she barely heard, and answered questions as stupid as they were predictable with a patience that wore her down with every second.
"Glinda, what designer is your dress by?"
"Is it true that the renovation plan will include a new collection of sculptures for the park?"
"How many times a day do you use rejuvenating masks?"
She answered with soft phrases, like petals that said nothing but seemed to bloom in the air. And whenever she could, she reached for another glass of champagne and sipped it with a graceful movement that hid the urgency in her pulse. The fizz in her throat was the only momentary relief. She was fed up. Tired of the incessant music, the hollow laughter, the cold touch of hands offered to her without a soul. Tired of holding that role as if it were an integral part of her skin. In truth, every word she spoke felt like a betrayal of herself.
Finally, when she could bear it no longer, she slipped through the crowd and approached Boq, who stood at a distance with his typical expression of false serenity. He held a glass of white wine, observing the scene as if it were a theater performance he'd been forced to attend.
"Boq," Glinda whispered, a plea disguised as exasperation. "Please tell me we can go now."
He didn't even turn his head completely. He merely moved his eyes toward her, as if even that were a needless effort.
"I regret to tell you, Your Highness, that there are still at least forty-five minutes of purgatory left."
Glinda rolled her eyes with a sigh so deep she seemed to collapse in on herself for a moment.
"So why the hell do I have you as my principal secretary? Aren't you supposed to be getting me out of these circles of hell disguised as gala dinners?"
Boq smirked, amused by her dramatics.
"I thought you hired me just because you'd gotten used to yelling at me without me taking offense."
Glinda laughed, more out of reflex than genuine amusement, and gave him a gentle push in the arm.
"Don't make me remember that."
She remained silent for a moment, staring up at the ceiling, as if praying for some divine force to collapse the building just so she'd have an excuse to flee. But then, a familiar—all-too-familiar—voice cut through the air like a pin in a balloon.
"Glinda, my dear."
It felt like an ice cube ran down her spine. The expression on her face hardened before she could control it. She turned slowly, and there they were: the Tigelaars. Marillot Tigelaar
the patriarch, stiff and haughty like a marble statue, impeccably dressed in a dark suit that seemed tailor-made with threads of severity. And Baxiana Tigelaar the matriarch, wrapped in a faux fur coat but with the demeanor of a dethroned queen, smiling with the passive-aggressive warmth of someone who is always judging even when she says nothing.
"Lord, Lady Tigelaar," Glinda said, bowing her head too briefly to be reverent, but too long to be impolite.
"We didn't expect to see you here," Baxiana said, letting her words hang with a hint of acidity. "Although, on reflection, it's obvious. Where there are cameras, there is Glinda."
Glinda's smile remained intact, but her cheeks tightened just a little.
"And where there's institutionalized hypocrisy, there's you," she thought. But she didn't say it.
"It's always a pleasure to meet you," she murmured instead, feigning interest as her hand gripped the stem of her glass as if it depended on keeping the contents from splashing in someone's face.
"So how's everything going with... your position?" Marillot asked, with a perfectly calculated pause, as if Glinda's position were a private joke between them.
"Oh, well…." she replied, not bothering to embellish it further.
Soon, as always, the conversation ceased to be trivial. The questions about her work, her political agenda, her views on reform (to which Baxiana paid no attention at all) gave way to more personal, more pointed ones.
"So tell me... have you been thinking about anyone lately?" she asked, sipping her glass innocently. "You don't see many solid couples in these circles... though you and Fiyero made such a charming pair..."
Glinda's heart leaped, but her face remained impassive, as she had learned to be over all these years of social diplomacy.
"Fiyero is very busy with his own responsibilities, if I'm not mistaken," she replied with a polite smile, trying to divert the conversation.
But Baxiana wouldn't let go.
"Yes, of course, but... a woman of your grace and reputation... I can't help but wonder if there's still some hope there. You never know when a tie from the past might... be tied again."
"Hope?" Glinda thought with an inward grimace. Hope for what? For a marriage of appearances, approved by this decadent aristocracy? For a life of silence with a man who never truly chose me?" But instead of exploding, which would be unthinkable, Glinda simply smiled and said,
"Hope is a double-edged sword. Sometimes it's better to leave certain doors closed."
Baxiana gave a forced laugh, clearly irritated at not having extracted more information.
A few feet away, Marillot was speaking to a small group of investors, spouting empty pronouncements as if they were dogmas.
"The city's real problem is excessive freedom. People need direction, order. Chaos comes when those who don't understand the structure are allowed to have opinions."
Glinda listened without intervening, gritting her teeth. She knew more about this reform than anyone in that room. She knew its details, its dangers, its destructive potential if implemented without nuance. But there she was, caught in a "wife talk" that felt more like an emotional ambush.
Something in her snapped.
She took a step forward, leaving Baxiana and her bubble of floral perfume behind. She approached the circle of men like someone invading forbidden territory.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," she said firmly, smiling with venomous sweetness. "I overheard your conversation and couldn't help but wonder: on what data are you basing your claims?"
The group fell silent for a moment, surprised by her intrusion. Marillot looked at her with disdain, like someone contemplating a child interrupting adults.
"Glinda, my dear... these discussions can be a bit... dry for you. You don't want to ruin your evening with figures."
Glinda met his gaze, and her smile became as sharp as cut glass.
"Oh, don't worry, Mr. Tigelaar. I'm sure you don't want to ruin your evening by making a fool of yourself if someone asks you to back up your theories with anything more than your intuition," she said, lowering her voice just enough so that the murmurs multiplied around her like a spark in gasoline.
The men looked at each other uncomfortably. Marillot opened her mouth to retort, but Glinda had already turned away, her dress billowing behind her like a flag of rebellion. She didn't go back to Baxiana. She didn't go back to Boq. She took another glass of champagne and headed alone to one of the bay windows, where the night air, at last, didn't taste of hypocrisy.
And though the city glittered beneath her, Glinda felt only the bitter taste of being trapped in a golden tower... and alone.
At the same time, in an equally wild place, known as the Nevermore Academy playground, another equally perverse conspiracy was forming. The playground unfolded like a perfect microcosm of adolescent chaos. The sun beat down listlessly on the artificial turf, while the students clustered into small, clearly demarcated tribes: the athletes strutting near the gymnasium, the artists hiding their hunger for attention in the shade of the trees, the nerds huddled around screens, and the loudest, meanest, and most perfectly coiffed group: the popular ones. A trio of girls—all studied curves, canned laughter, and sharp gazes—sat on the central bench, as if it were a makeshift throne. They swiped their fingers on their phones with the precision of surgeons, making venomous comments about a classmate's latest story or the "cheap" shoes someone had dared to wear. Their giggles sounded like the shrieks of a sharp swarm. They were unaware that, a few feet away, death itself was stalking them. Wednesday Addams, crouching behind a strategic stack of decorative pots, observed the scene with the meticulous intensity of a mad scientist. In front of her, a metal box the size of a book and with strangely articulated antennae emitted small buzzing sounds. It was her latest invention, still nameless, but with a clear mission: to test her theory of targeted humiliation as a catalyst for forced introspection.
Her finger was about to press the detonator when a voice made her frown even deeper.
"Playing God again, Addams?" Elphaba asked, standing with her arms crossed and a serpentine smile plastered on her lips.
Wednesday turned slowly, as if gauging the minimum amount of effort required to look down on someone without flinching. The green witch was looking down on her, elegant, with the poise of someone who knew exactly her worth, and always had a hidden agenda.
"If you're going to rat me out, I recommend at least doing it with a modicum of ingenuity," Wednesday replied, not bothering to hide the device.
"Snitch on you? Please," Elphaba said, waving a hand as if swatting away a fly. "I was just wondering if this was your new way of channeling your social frustration. What is it this time? A shrink ray? A self-esteem reversal field?" “A social experiment,” Wednesday replied in a flat voice. “A device that amplifies the passive-aggressive interactions of particularly obnoxious individuals until they collapse into each other like imploding moral stars.”
Elphaba gave a soft, humorless laugh.
“I’ll admit it’s a creative form of sabotage. But you’re wasting your talents on idiots,” she said, leaning a little closer and lowering her voice. “Although… perhaps we could harness your energy for something more productive.”
Wednesday raised an eyebrow, not showing any real curiosity, but not ignoring the implication either.
“I’m not interested in forming alliances,” she said simply.
“It’s not an alliance,” Elphaba replied, smiling like a sphinx. “It’s a gift.”
Despite Wednesday’s obvious resistance to any gesture of cordiality, Elphaba remained steadfast in her “friend” role. Her smile was as fake as it was calculated, and her friendly tone was tinged with a theatricality that was almost offensive. It was obvious she was maliciously imitating a certain pink-clad blonde she'd known quite well some time ago, only with a darker, more dangerous elegance.
"I think I've found the perfect activity for you," Elphaba said, her voice dripping with sugar-coated venom.
Minutes later, Wednesday was convinced she'd been dragged straight into a personalized version of hell. She found herself standing in the middle of the school theater stage, surrounded by pastel decorations, paper garlands, and teacups that looked like they'd been stolen from a Victorian doll's nightmare. Above the head table, a banner in gold lettering read: "Afternoon Tea and Smiles."
Wednesday didn't respond. She didn't need to. Her dead stare and stiff posture spoke for her. Still, Elphaba casually placed a pink lace apron over her, gently arranging it with a triumphant smile.
"Come on, Wednesday, think how much this environment could benefit your creativity. I'm sure you can bring your own... disturbing style." You'll give it that special touch.
Her tone, perfectly condescending, hid a much more direct intention: to stake out her territory. This wasn't an invitation. It was a declaration of superiority. A reminder that, at least for now, Elphaba had the advantage.
Wednesday remained stoic, resisting the visceral urge to set fire to the floral tablecloth in front of her. Internally, she was already drawing a mental map of the place... just in case the opportunity for controlled destruction arose.
"Just try it," Elphaba added before leaving, her words as soft as they were sharp. "Maybe you'll even manage to... make friends."
Wednesday didn't even look at her. Instead, she slowly removed her apron and held it between her fingers as if it were a toxic specimen.
"Make friends..." she whispered disdainfully, eyeing the decorations. "They'd have to outlive me first."
"That's the attitude!" —And with a smile worthy of a queen who had just conquered the last corner of her kingdom, Elphaba walked away from the stage, leaving behind the sweet scent of humiliation wrapped in courtesy.
While a similar thought of self-preservation echoed in Glinda's head, she continued to stare blankly out the restaurant window. When an unexpected figure appeared at her side…
Marillot Tigelaar approached with a smile that, though polished, didn't entirely hide its true nature: a mixture of superiority and disdain, as if inviting a woman to drink were still a gesture of masculine nobility.
"A drink, Miss Glinda?" he said, accentuating the "miss" like someone clapping with a white glove.
She turned slowly, her face still in control, and nodded with a politeness that concealed a small dose of venom.
"Of course, Marillot. It's always stimulating to talk to someone who says everything they think... even if they don't always mean what they say."
He laughed. He was the kind of man who believed that feminine irony was part of the social game, not a real challenge. They walked together to the bar, where a hurried waiter served them two glasses of the most expensive liquor of the night. "I must admit," he said, raising his glass, "you seem to be the only one in this room who really knows what the hell is going on with all these reforms. The senator has been uncontactable since this started, Mrs. Morrible is a riddle with a hairstyle, and you..." he gestured with his glass, as if it could encapsulate her presence, "are at every event, every announcement, every photograph. Always with that radiant smile. As if nothing touches you."
Glinda took a sip, feeling the alcohol caress her tongue with empty promises.
"And does that bother you?" she asked without looking at him, letting the ice in her voice dissolve in the liquor.
"It worries me," he said, lowering his tone slightly, as if sharing a confidence between equals. "My family has funded every serious administration in this state for four generations. And don't get me wrong, I'm not an enemy of change. But this... this feels more like an ideological purge than reform." And the senator, instead of leading, seems to have evaporated.
Glinda looked at him sideways, weighing each word before speaking. She knew the truth. She knew that the senator had not only not “evaporated,” but was orchestrating a much darker game, disguising his authoritarian reform with a veneer of social progress to confuse everyone. And she also knew that Marillot wasn't naive: he had simply lost control of the board.
"Sometimes," Glinda said, her voice honeyed, "progress doesn't look the way you expect. And those who used to define the rules of the game... must learn to be players, not referees."
"Don't tell me you think these reforms are truly progressive, Glinda. Come on, you're smarter than that," he replied, laughing in that condescending tone that made Glinda's pulse tremble.
She placed her glass on the bar with a calmness that bordered on the theatrical.
"What I believe," she said, leaning slightly toward him, her voice low but firm, "is that the language of progress has been hijacked by those who understand that it's easier to control a population with slogans than with laws. And that while you argue about whether the left has gained too much ground, you don't notice that the right is selling you the disguise of revolution. Because in the end, everyone's freedom can be taken away from them equally, no matter whose hand they signed the contract with."
Marillot was silent for a moment, his face hard, his jaw clenched. He didn't know if she was being insulted or warned. And that, coming from a woman like Glinda, made him deeply uncomfortable.
"Be careful what you say," he finally whispered, as if still hoping to recover some of the old order. "The words of a woman in your position can become weapons, or chains."
Glinda smiled, that smile he'd mentioned before, radiant, impregnable.
"I know. And I haven't decided yet which I prefer."
Marillot probably tried to glare at her, but she continued, though her tone had changed. More dense. More private.
"You know, I've always made sure my children are well-placed," she began, like someone boasting without inviting judgment. "Three of the four already have respectable positions. In law, finance, politics. Serious circles. Places where they can do something useful... and keep the family name where it belongs."
Glinda tensed. She knew where this was heading. She'd known it from the moment Baxiana, minutes before, had turned the conversation toward personal memories and sentimental indiscretions. She swallowed a bitter sip of champagne, wishing glass were something heavier that she couldn't break with a squeeze of her fingers.
"And the fourth son," Marillot continued, grimacing. "Well... let's just say Fiyero still hasn't found his way."
Glinda smiled, her expression so measured that not even a sculptor could have rendered it more precise.
"Funny," she said with false lightness. "This is the second member of your honorable family to touch on that subject tonight. Is this some kind of family crusade? To redeem the lost child?"
He didn't quite grasp the sarcasm, or if he did, he chose to ignore it.
"You and he were... close. Don't give me that look, everyone knew. And frankly, when he brought you home that time, I confess I thought you were just another decorative blonde. Just another phase. Fiyero was always a foolish romantic."
Glinda didn't flinch, but the crack was there, behind her pupils. She remembered it. Every gesture. Every nervous laugh in that mansion that smelled of closed books and stifling expectations. And how Marillot looked at her then, as if he already knew how long her presence would last: long enough for dinner and gossip. No more.
"Ah, I remember that well," she said with venomous sweetness. "You had that charming manner, as if you smelled something rotten every time you spoke. You made me feel so welcome. I almost stayed."
Marillot let out a hollow laugh. Her eyes sparkled, more with ambition than humor.
"Now I know I was wrong about you. You're shrewd. You understand the game better than most. That's why I'm talking to you. Fiyero... needs direction. And this renovation"—she lowered her voice, as if offering contraband—"could be her chance. To integrate. To participate. Surround herself with people who make decisions. She can't keep playing at being an artist in a city that has no time for the arts."
Glinda looked at him, barely blinking. The air seemed to have grown heavier between them.
"I'm not his mother. Not his guardian. Not his moral compass. What Fiyero decides to do with his life is not for me to judge. Not for you."
"Don't be naive!" Marillot snorted, losing some of that aristocratic composure. "Fiyero doesn't know what he wants. He's never known. He's an idiot, and if we don't give him something now, he'll end up drowning in his own fantasies of freedom. I'm sick of funding his ridiculous projects, his empty clubs, his investments in jazz bars that no one frequents... And now, after the renovation, it's all just smoke. He's almost bankrupt. Did you know that?"
Glinda's heart leaped a beat she couldn't hide. Her face remained serene, but inside, the floor was crumbling beneath her feet.
"What?" she whispered.
Marillot nodded, delighted to have information that hurt.
"Oh yes. He's lost almost everything." He resisted selling the spaces before redistricting. "I don't want to contribute to the destruction of the city's soul," he said. "Can you believe it?" He snorted contemptuously. "The soul. How adorable. And now all he's left is pride... and that doesn't pay the bills."
Glinda looked away. Her nails dug into her glass, as if she could suck the truth out of her mouth and make it disappear. She hadn't spoken to him in months. Not since they both pretended theirs had been just a beautiful chapter and not an unfinished story. She had thought of him, yes, but the way one thinks of someone for whom one no longer feels responsible. And yet... the image of Fiyero, broken, alone, in a city that no longer belonged to him, weighed on her chest like an old melody played in a minor key.
"You didn't know..." Marillot said, savoring the blow. "Oh. Maybe they weren't so close after all."
Glinda swallowed, lowering her gaze for a moment. But when he raised his face, there was more than pain in his eyes. They had fire.
"You don't know him," she murmured. "You've had him around all your life, and you don't know him. Fiyero may have made mistakes, yes. But at least he tried to be honest. That's more than I can say for most in this room."
"Freedom doesn't pay taxes, Glinda."
"No. But slavery disguised as stability... costs the soul. And you can't get that back, either."
She put her glass back on the bar, this time decisively. She didn't wait for an answer. She knew he was coming, and she didn't care.
In a corner of the room, amidst dim lights and fake laughter, Boq was trying to show off. He leaned over the bar, smiling an awkwardly seductive smile at a waitress who seemed more interested in her tray than in him. He flaunted his position, his proximity to powerful figures, and spoke with the tone of someone who thinks he's taller than he is. But his moment was abruptly cut short.
Glinda appeared at his side like an icy gust. She yanked his lapel sharply, nearly causing him to spill his drink, and forced him to turn around.
"Why didn't you tell me anything?!" she whispered with suppressed fury, dragging him to a more discreet corner.
Boq, confused, tried to compose himself.
"What? What are you talking about?"
"About Fiyero!" she spat. "How could you not tell me about his financial problems?"
He blinked.
"And why would I?" What do I know about him?
"Oh, please," Glinda said with a grimace. "Weren't they 'super bros' since last Christmas? Didn't you give me an endless lecture about 'emotional brotherhood' and how important it was to support each other in modern times?"
Boq shrugged with a mixture of embarrassment and resignation.
"Well... yes. We were. For a while. But we haven't spoken in a while. Things cooled off... Partly because I was too busy doing your bidding," he said, with a hint of reproach he couldn't contain.
She took a half step back, hurt but still focused.
"So you didn't know anything?"
Boq hesitated. Then he lowered his gaze.
"Not exactly. Not at that moment."
Glinda glared at him, and Boq sighed. He knew she wouldn't leave without an explanation.
“A month ago, you asked me to review the redistribution maps for the north,” he began. “You remember, right? You wanted to expedite decisions on public infrastructure and leisure areas… Well, in one of the lots… some buildings were in Tigelaar’s name. It caught my attention. Not because of the names themselves, but because they didn’t seem… strategic.”
“What do you mean?”
“That they didn’t seem important. They were clubs. Small ones. Some were almost empty. And yet, they were being absorbed into the renovation with disproportionate severity. At first, I thought it was a mistake. But then I recognized one of them.”
“Which one?”
Boq swallowed.
“The Ozdust.”
Glinda frowned.
“The old ballroom? Does that still exist?”
Boq nodded ruefully.
“Yes… but it’s not just a ballroom anymore. It’s become something more. It has… a reputation.”
“What reputation?”
Boq hesitated.
“Let's just say it's not exactly a place of high culture. It's a nightclub... alternative. With shows, open atmospheres, stage freedom. Parties for all types, colors... and preferences.”
Glinda paled.
“Do you mean...?”
“Yes,” he interrupted gently. “That kind of fame. And Fiyero... he's been running it for months. It's his star investment.”
The silence between them thickened. Glinda felt the noise in the room fade. She heard only her own breathing, the echo of the words, and the tremor of her conscience.
For months, she had promoted the reform decrees. She had defended them in meetings, interviews, debates. She had memorized the maps, the arguments, the figures. But she never thought that something as seemingly superficial as a club... that club... had a familiar face behind it. One who cared.
“They wanted to destroy it,” she murmured, more to herself than to Boq. “They wanted it off the map.”
“Of course.” Those kinds of places don't fit with the new vision. They're a problem for the district's image.
She took a step back. Her fingers were shaking. All the control she'd had that night—every calculated word, every smile—was slipping away. She thought of Marillot. Of his contemptuous words. Of the way he spoke of Fiyero, as if he were a stain. A shameful mistake to be washed away.
"What am I doing?" she whispered.
Boq didn't respond. There was no way.
Glinda put a hand to her mouth, as if she could catch the guilt before it swallowed her whole.
"I'm crushing him... without even knowing it."
The room continued to spin around her, indifferent to her catharsis. Boq just watched her. For the first time in a long time, she didn't see the public figure, not the imposing woman. Only the wounded friend. The one who had unwittingly built a trap for someone who still lived inside her heart.
Glinda felt the burning in her eyes, but she refused to let the tears fall. Not there. Not in front of Boq. Not with the music playing in the background, the hollow laughter, the world of masks slipping around as if nothing were wrong.
She had played her part. She had followed every step of the script dictated by the senator and Morrible. Perfect smiles. Measured words. Firm but diplomatic opinions. Always gleaming, always ready, always... convenient. But now... now she knew too much. And worse: now she felt too much.
"This is it... I can't do this anymore..." I'm going to end this charade now…
Glinda was about to finally snap, after months of fuming, when…
"I don't think that's an option now," Boq exclaimed with some embarrassment. "It just arrived," he said, reading a message from his cell phone with discomfort. "From the senator's office. They want to relocate you. They say they're delighted with your performance... and they want you to work more closely with him. Direct link between the government and the company."
The sentence cut like a knife. They were trapping her. Sealing her fate. Applauding her as they chained her with velvet gloves. It was a promotion, a decoration... or a cage.
Glinda froze. She was barely breathing.
She looked at Boq with a mixture of rage and pain. A look so sharp that Boq instinctively stepped back.
"I'm leaving," he declared, his voice icy but trembling.
—But… there are still ten minutes left until the event…
Glinda took a step toward him, erect as a hurricane about to explode. She said nothing. She didn't have to.
Boq raised his hands, nervous.
—Okay. Fine. I'll take care of it. I'll apologize to the other guests.
She nodded briefly and spun on her heels. Each step out of the restaurant felt like tearing off a part of her disguise. Outside, the air hit her face like a slap. It wasn't the cold that hurt, it was the newfound freedom, which tasted bitter because of everything she'd let go.
She got into her car, started the engine with trembling hands, and drove.
She didn't know where. Or for how long.
The city lights passed like distorted shooting stars. Her reflection in the rearview mirror was unrecognizable. She was no longer the perfect spokesperson. No longer the shining pawn.
It was just Glinda. And for the first time in a long time, that scared her.
Finally, she stopped the car on a deserted street. Silence seeped through the windows. The engine died. Her chest rose and fell as if she'd been running for miles. Her hand reached for her phone. She hesitated.
But then she typed. "I need to see you."
She hit send. She stared at the screen. Waiting. Trembling…
But while somewhere in the city, Glinda felt the weight of the world crush her shoulders with the cruel gentleness of a poisoned embrace, at Nevermore Academy, a certain teacher in green, for the first time in a long, long time, walked with unusual lightness, almost dancing, through the halls lined with Gothic columns and arched windows that filtered the last light of the afternoon. The echo of his footsteps resonated with confidence, and while his gait remained firm and direct, there was a different spark in his eyes, a glow born not of cynicism or suppressed rage, but of a subtle, almost blatant satisfaction.
World Literature class was coming to an end. In the main lecture hall, Professor Isaac Norman held an old, bound copy of Don Juan in both hands, and with his deep, melodic voice, he recited Byron's final verses as if whispering a secret into the ear of each person present. Several students—more than usual—stood attentive, absorbed not only by the prose of a dead poet, but by the professor's magnetic aura. The female students, especially, seemed spellbound. One of them, a blonde senior with a whispery voice and a gaze filled with intent, remained in her place when the bell rang.
"Professor Norman..." she began, slowly rising. Do you have a moment?
Isaac, with his typical courteous smile, nodded, carefully closing the book.
"I always have a moment for a well-formulated literary question," he replied, though his tone didn't hide his recognition of the trick.
The young woman approached with her textbook against her chest, about to begin a conversation that would have nothing to do with Lord Byron… when the door burst open.
The sound was sharp, definitive.
And there was Elphaba.
Dressed in black as always, her hair half-done, a mischievous glint in her eye, and a posture that exuded purpose. She took a couple of steps forward without breaking eye contact with Isaac, completely ignoring the student. Then, without a hint of shame or courtesy, she spoke.
"You may go now, 'muse.' The professor has more important matters to attend to."
The young student, confused at first, giggled nervously. Isaac, for his part, narrowed his eyes with an expression that oscillated between surprise and amusement.
"Pardon?" the blonde murmured.
"Is it true that modern music causes deafness?" Elphaba insisted, still smiling. Then, he lowered his voice as if giving a lesson in logic. "Besides... I think it's past your bedtime."
The girl, visibly offended, turned and left with hurried, poorly concealed steps, closing the door behind her with a creak.
Isaac raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms.
"Was that absolutely necessary?"
"Yes," Elphaba said, dropping her bag on one of the chairs and striding toward the desk with the air of someone entering her own territory. "Literature demands certain sacrifices. Besides, I was looking at you like you were a Keats poem."
Isaac burst out laughing.
"And you're looking at me like what? A Sophocles tragedy?"
"Today, more like a special episode," she said, and without further ado, she walked over and leaned across the desk, standing just inches from his face.
There was a second of charged tension. Not hostility, but that ancient, malicious electricity that had existed between them since they met. Isaac regarded her with a mixture of admiration and caution, like looking into a fire you know you shouldn't approach... and yet he reached out.
"You're in a good mood," he commented with a crooked smile.
"That doesn't happen every day. Enjoy it while it lasts," she murmured, almost purring, playing with one of his coat lapels.
"Personal victory?"
"More like poetic justice. I beat someone. Someone who'd been overshadowing me for weeks," she said, and although her voice remained light, her eyes betrayed a gleam of genuine pride. "It wasn't anything definitive, but it was enough to remind me that I still have an edge."
"And that makes you come here to celebrate with me?"
Elphaba glanced at him, tilting her head.
"Let's just say... yes." I want to share it with someone who won't treat me like a freak or a walking danger.
"And that's who I am? Your safe space?"
"No. You're a dangerous man, Isaac. But I like that you don't hide behind your smiles."
Isaac laughed, though there was a hint of seriousness in his eyes.
"You've called me many things, but never a safe space. I guess I'm making progress."
Elphaba sat down on the desk without asking permission, with the insolent elegance of someone who doesn't believe in limits or hierarchies when it comes to her desires.
“I didn’t come here today to discuss political philosophy or academic ethics, Norman. I came here because I feel as if the world, for a moment, is aligned in my favor. And that… excites me.”
Isaac leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. He looked at her carefully, as if trying to read between the lines, to unravel what was an act and what was a confession.
“And what do you want to do with this rare moment of glory?”
Elphaba leaned toward him, so close their breaths met.
“Maybe I just want someone to celebrate with me… properly.”
Holding him firmly by the tie, Elphaba pulled him toward her with a precise mix of dominance and desire. Her deep green eyes burned with an intensity that was difficult to sustain. She placed a knee firmly against Isaac’s chest, pushing him back in his chair as she looked down at him with a crooked, dark smile.
“Do you think you’re very charming, Norman?” "—she murmured softly, brushing his ear like a whispered threat. "Flirting with students like it's part of the curriculum... How unprofessional. How... provocative."
Isaac laughed. At first.
"Is this a reprimand or an indecent proposal?"
"A warning," she said, sliding a finger down his neck to his jaw. "Tonight I planned to show you what happens when a teacher breaks the rules with the wrong students."
Isaac was still smiling, but not with the same confidence. There was a new tinge to his eyes, a silent alertness. The pressure of Elphaba's knee against his torso wasn't symbolic: she held him pinned, with no immediate escape. The intensity of her gaze enveloped him, and for the first time in a long time, Isaac Norman—the charming, always composed Professor Norman—felt... exposed. Not exactly scared, but surprised, and not in the exciting way he had perhaps anticipated when he saw Elphaba walk through the door minutes ago.
“You’re very lively today, Elphaba,” he tried to say lightly, searching for his usual tone, but his voice sounded less firm.
“Not lively. Fed up. And eager to have some fun in my own way.” His smile widened. “Maybe with handcuffs. Maybe with gags. Something educational, you know… to balance that moral scale you like to mention.”
Isaac swallowed. Just at that moment, as if the universe had felt the urgent need to throw him a lifeline, his phone vibrated insistently in his jacket pocket. With a quick movement—faster than Elphaba would have allowed if she hadn’t been enjoying her power over him so much—he pulled it out and looked at it with mock surprise.
“Oh… oh, damn. I completely forgot. I have a meeting with the academic committee this afternoon. Review papers. Evaluations.” Formalities, you know…
He stood up awkwardly, removing his tie from Elphaba's grasp with a conciliatory smile, and with the same charming air he used to calm students anxious for a better grade, he added,
"We can come back to this another day, okay? I promise. Another, more… peaceful night."
"Relax?" Elphaba repeated, her jaw clenched. "Are you running away, Isaac?"
"I'm… fulfilling my duties. I'm a teacher, remember?" He shrugged, already walking toward the door, adjusting his tie and gathering his things.
"You better not be planning on correcting that little blonde brat's paper tonight, or I swear I'll turn her soul into a literary essay," Elphaba shouted as he crossed the threshold of the classroom, visibly relieved to be out.
The door closed with a soft click. Elphaba stood by the desk, her mouth ajar, her fists clenched, and her eyes wide. Had she just been rejected? Her? After all that preparation, after offering him total control of a memorable evening… and he'd just slunk away?
"Damn coward with the air of a second-rate poet!" she spat into the air.
Silence returned to the room. Until, inevitably, her phone vibrated as well. She blinked a couple of times. She looked at the screen. She frowned.
Elphaba answered the phone with the same anger with which she was still gritting her teeth. Her finger had trembled with frustration as she swiped to accept the call, her brow furrowed, her voice sharp, ready to vent her anger on whoever dared to bother her at that moment.
"What the hell do you want?" "Hello to you too, Elphie," Fiyero's voice responded, with his usual sarcastic tone, although this time laced with a dull undertone, a drawl that didn't go unnoticed by her.
It was as if each word slipped from his lips, heavy and somewhat clumsy. Elphaba didn't need more to know he'd been drinking. She knew him well enough to distinguish between his natural cynicism and his drunken cynicism, the kind that came when reality became too... real.
"Are you drunk?" he snapped, now annoyed. "Were you drinking early with your 'partners' again? I can't believe you're calling me now”
"You answered," he retorted, not without reason. "Always so charming. How lucky are those who share your classroom."
Elphaba rubbed a hand over her forehead, frustrated, but didn't hang up. There was something in his voice… something that kept her in line. Still, she couldn't resist the temptation to hurl her venom at him.
"Am I not attractive anymore? Or is it that men now breathe the stench of failure and are too cowardly to face it? Or am I simply a failure even when I win? Because yes, I had a 'win,' if you can call it that, but guess what? I feel worse than before. Does that make sense?"
"Depends," he said with a heavy sigh, as if the conversation weighed on him more than he'd admit. "Who did you win against?"
"A child. A conceited brat. A prodigy. A sixteen-year-old brat who thinks she's Sartre with bows!"
"So..." he said, his voice dropping even further, heavy with half-hearted irony, "maybe beating a sixteen-year-old girl isn't the great feat of intellectual superiority you imagined. Just a thought."
The sentence trailed off into the silence that followed. Elphaba stood completely still, as if the words had been shot straight to the stomach. She knew it was true. And that's why it hurt so much.
She tried to speak, to defend herself, to say something... anything, but the words simply wouldn't come. The rage, the euphoria, the repressed humiliation... everything seemed to have evaporated with that single comment. And before she could even articulate a retort, Fiyero spoke again, now in a more somber, sincere tone, as if removing a heavy mask:
“I didn't call you to argue. Just… if you want, you can stay at my house tonight. Again. The key is where it always is. But I'm not coming back, Elphie. Not today.”
“Where are you?”
“At the club. For a while now. And it's not a party, believe me.”
“What's going on?” she asked, suddenly more restrained, even worried.
“I don't know. Everything's going to hell for me. Every conversation feels like a game I've already lost. Morrible, the senator, the investors… my parents, the fucking net is closing in and I'm trapped in the center, and I don't even know who's really hunting me. I'm… I'm cornered, Elphie.”
His voice cracked slightly at the end. Not in tears, but in resignation. And then, as if the hardest part had already been said, he finished with a murmur:
“I'll try to find a way out. But for now… I just needed you to know.”
And he hung up.
Elphaba stood in the middle of the empty school classroom, her phone still in her hand, as if the weight of the device had suddenly increased. The echo of Fiyero's words reverberated in her head, displacing all the superficial anger she had felt before. His theatrics with Isaac, his "triumph" over the young Addams, his plans for domination and control... it all seemed ridiculous now. Childish. Selfish.
She, who so prided herself on seeing beyond the game of appearances, had fallen into the same cycle of vanity and insecurities she despised so much. And now Fiyero was in danger. Really.
She sighed, her shoulders slumping. And once again, as had been the case in recent months, she felt small. And alone.
The sky above the city was a dark sea studded with fake stars, distant lights that barely managed to penetrate the urban glow. Glinda's car gently stopped in front of the illuminated portico of a luxury hotel, one of those places where silence is decorated with velvet and the walls hide secrets behind expensive paintings. She didn't get out right away. She sat for a few seconds, breathing deeply, her gaze lost in the revolving glass door, where shadows, appearances, and the occasional half-fulfilled promise were reflected. She picked up her phone. A single message was enough to make the lump in her throat tighten a little more: "I'm in the room. Don't be long." No signature. It wasn't necessary.
Glinda got out of the car, her pink suit still immaculate, but no longer with the brilliance of the day's beginning. She walked through the lobby like a ghost who still retained the bearing of a queen. Each step echoed on the marble. No one stopped her. No one looked at her strangely. It was evident that she was already part of the landscape of that place, like the faint scent of fresh flowers or the instrumental music that floated unobtrusively in the air.
She got into the elevator. The floor number shone with a cruel calm. When the door opened, her heels clicked on the thick hallway carpet. She walked to her assigned room, a discreet but firm door. She knocked. Once, twice. And then it opened.
"I thought you were going to stay downstairs pretending to have dignity," the woman on the other side said, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.
Her name was Milla.
Red hair, tied casually but with purpose. A pair of glasses gave her an air of mock-intelligence. Her clothes were casual, comfortable, but chosen with a subtle, relaxed, and confident aesthetic. And while it was a far cry from Glinda's perfect makeup, it had a charm as authentic as it was disarming.
Glinda didn't even respond. She just let out a sigh—half surrender, half relief—and entered. She crossed the room with slow steps, as if her entire body had aged in the last three hours, and sank down onto the bed with a long, deep sigh. She lay face up, her blond hair scattered like a blooming flower on the white sheets.
Milla closed the door and watched her with a half-smile. She walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, crossing her legs, and gently began to remove Glinda's heels, as if that too were part of a long-repeated ritual.
"Well? Was it another day of hypocritical smiles, white lies, and swallowing poison with champagne?" Milla asked in a sweet, yet mocking, voice.
Glinda didn't answer right away. She just raised one arm above her head and let it fall dramatically over her face.
“Today I found out that the only thing awaiting me for being good... is a more expensive cage.” She paused. “I’m being rewarded for being such a perfect puppet that it doesn’t even squeak when it moves.”
Milla leaned over to the small bar by the window and pulled out a bottle of dark liquor. She poured carefully into two thick glass tumblers, the ice cubes clinking softly.
“I warned you months ago,” she said, extending one of the glasses to Glinda. “That you couldn’t play the golden piece on the board without ending up part of the scenery.”
Glinda accepted the glass with a wan smile.
“I’ve been drinking like a fish all afternoon. I’m probably two drops away from falling over drunk.”
“Better. Drunk Glinda is usually more fun. Less Barbie-like and more honest.” She winked at her.
They both drank in silence. The drink went down like liquid fire. Glinda felt the heat dissipate the last remnants of her control. Then she exhaled heavily and turned to Milla with a mixture of despair and affection.
"They used me, Milla. They're using me... and I've allowed it. Every smile, every speech, every time I stood up for something I didn't even fully understand. And now I understand: I am the product. Not the face. The product. Salable. Interchangeable. Replaceable."
Milla didn't respond immediately. She just looked at her. With that nonjudgmental, all-seeing way of hers.
"So what are you going to do?"
"I don't know," Glinda murmured. "Everything's so tangled up... Fiyero's lost. Boq's in it up to his neck. Morrible's got his mark on me. The senator..." She stopped, swallowing. "He's leading me straight to the slaughterhouse with flowers along the way."
Milla moved a little closer. She took the empty glass from her hands and placed it on the nightstand.
"Well... at least you know you're fed up." That's more than you could say a month ago.
Glinda grimaced, a mixture of laughter and sadness.
"Don't look at me like that," she said, brushing Milla's arm. "I don't want your sarcastic comfort. I want... just..." She closed her eyes for a moment. "I just wanted to see you."
"And here I am."
Milla gently stroked her cheek. There were no promises. There never were. But there was understanding.
They both smiled. That smile that comes from exhaustion and from knowing there's someone with whom you can collapse without being judged.
And then, as they had done so many times before, as if the whole world had disappeared outside that room, they kissed. Slowly. Without grand gestures. Just two mouths recognizing each other in the midst of the shipwreck.
The world seemed to have slowed down. Under the soft light of the bedside lamp, between disheveled sheets, warm skin, and words that flowed like sweet wine, Glinda and Milla shared a moment of apparent peace. They kissed with the ease of those who know each other too well and smiled at each other like someone taking a break from the brink. The alcohol tickled her blood, and intimacy enveloped the room like a warm blanket.
And yet, in the midst of that perfect moment, something Glinda hadn't anticipated happened. Milla looked at her with that expression somewhere between mockery and affection, her hair falling in messy waves over her shoulders, her smile tilted as if she were about to crack a joke. Glinda, a low laugh still on her lips, looked at her… and for a second, barely a flicker, she wished it were someone else.
And that thought pierced her like a silent knife, cold and sure. Guilt fell on her chest like a stone. She barely moved away, her heart racing not from desire, but from a dull fear. That tiny betrayal, that involuntary longing, was more terrifying than all the political masks she'd been forced to wear during the day. More terrifying than the speeches. More terrifying than the betrayals.
As if the universe wanted to punish her or save her, the ringing of her phone interrupted the moment. A dry buzz on the table. Glinda sat up slowly, her heart still pounding, and picked up her phone. She looked at it and felt her soul slide down her spine to her feet.
A text. From her mother.
"Perfect," she murmured, turning off the screen with a quick tap, as if that would make the problem go away.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her parents. Maybe it was at an awkward dinner where everyone pretended to be fine. Or maybe it was just a video call frozen in time. The only thing that was clear was that she no longer had the strength to face them. Not that night. Not with everything else shaky.
She was thinking about how to ignore the text with some elegant excuse when she felt movement beside her. Milla, quick as a cruel game, took the phone from her hands with a gentle but decisive gesture.
"Milla!" "Glinda exclaimed, instantly standing up, her body tense, her voice thick with panic. "Give it back. I'm not in the mood for games."
"Oh, please," Milla replied with a smile brimming with sarcasm as she experimentally unlocked the device. "You already have enough distractions tonight. I want you to myself, at least for a while."
Glinda tried to reach her, but Milla stepped aside, laughing softly as she began typing a reply in the chat, pretending to imitate Glinda's careful style.
"Dear Mother: I can't see you because I'm too busy saving the world in pastel dresses and a smile that reeks of despair." Something like that?
"Milla, stop it! I'm not joking," Glinda interrupted, her face flushed with anger and humiliation. She took a step closer, her body rigid, her voice breaking a little. "I'm telling you to give it back to me. Now!"
Milla stopped. She placed her phone on the dresser. The smile was still on her face, but it was different now. Sharper. Almost mocking. Her gaze laced with an irony Glinda knew well.
"Are you going to order me around, Glinda?" she asked in a low voice, honeyed like poison in a crystal glass. "You don't order me around. You can't. You never could."
Glinda wanted to respond. Something dignified. Something hurtful. But she said nothing. Because they both knew it was true.
Milla stood up, closer. She caressed her chin with a finger, unhurriedly, and looked at her with eyes that knew too much.
"If you want me to stop... say it the way you like to say it. With that sweet voice, as if you don't know you're begging me."
Glinda pressed her lips together. She tried to hold her gaze, but her eyes trembled. Milla didn't need to raise her voice. She didn't need to push her. Just being there was enough. With that way of looking at her. "If you're going to stand here like an angry statue," Milla said, taking a small step back and sitting in the chair opposite her, "at least sit properly. Come on. Sit."
And Glinda sat.
She did it without thinking. Or maybe she thought too much. The movement was automatic, docile. As if a part of her was so used to giving in that she couldn't remember how to resist.
Milla watched the gesture with satisfaction. She tilted her head, crossed her legs.
"Back straight," she said in an almost didactic tone. "Not like a punished child. Come on, straight."
Glinda obeyed.
"Now, hands on your knees. Still. Don't play with the hem of your skirt. You don't need to look nervous."
Glinda obeyed again. Each command was an invisible string tightening. And yet, no part of Glinda seemed capable of breaking them. Milla didn't mock cruelly... but with control. And Glinda, caught between love, dependence, and shame, could only obey.
The silence between them thickened.
Finally, Milla broke the stillness:
"See? So much better this way. When you stop pretending you can control everything, you even breathe easier."
Glinda didn't respond. Rage, fear, sadness—everything churned in her chest. But at the same time... deep down, a part of her felt, in that strange submission, dangerously safe.
Milla didn't move hastily. She slid, almost gracefully, from the chair to the edge of the bed, right next to Glinda. The closeness was intimate, dangerous. The soft fabric of Glinda's pink gown brushed against the bare skin of Milla's arm, and yet what hurt wasn't the physical contact, but that poisonous gaze, that smile that hid more than it said. Milla tilted her head slightly, looking at Glinda as if she were a piece she hadn't yet decided how to break.
"Oh, Glinda," she whispered with a sweetness that cut like a razor. "So serious, so frustrated, so tragically beautiful when you wallow in your own drama."
Glinda didn't respond. She maintained the position Milla had instructed, her back straight, her hands on her knees, but her eyes were full of suppressed fire. A useless fire. Because they both knew her resistance was as real as a wall of paper.
"What are we going to do with you, my dear fantasy heroine?" Milla continued, playing with a lock of Glinda's hair, tangling it around her fingers like marionette strings. You've had a horrible day, haven't you? Speeches, masks, screaming inside... and now, you come here to me, seeking refuge, and you can't even be honest about that.
Glinda swallowed. Her jaw was barely trembling. Milla noticed, of course. She noticed everything.
"So," she continued, straightening like someone preparing to make an important announcement, "I thought maybe... you need a little penance. A way to cleanse all that poison inside you. Because even if you don't say it, you're rotten with guilt. With desire. With rage."
The smile that spread across her lips wasn't cruel. It was worse. It was enthusiastic.
"Hmm... I think I know what to do with you tonight."
Glinda blinked, her eyebrows raised in surprise, and her eyes widened as if she'd just heard thunder inside a church.
"What?" "No, no, Milla..." she said in a hurried murmur, as if she'd already anticipated the order without having heard it. "You're not going to..."
"Oh, yes, I am," Milla interrupted, with genuine enthusiasm, like someone about to open her favorite present. "We're going to do something special. Something to remind you of where you are, and who you are... when you're not pretending to be the perfect woman from unicorn country."
He leaned toward her, dangerously close. He brushed a strand of hair away from her face with a slow, almost tender gesture. Glinda's gaze trembled. Everything inside her screamed to stop her. And yet, her body... obeyed.
"I want you to stand up," Milla ordered, lowering her voice to a sharp whisper.
Glinda did so. Her legs felt like paper.
"Now..." she continued, taking her time, relishing the suspense. "You're going to give me a catwalk. That's right." As if you were presenting your fall-winter collection, but... just for me. Slowly. Exaggerated. I want to see Glinda the Great strut like she owned the world.
"I'm not going to do that..." Glinda murmured, almost desperately, almost pleading.
Milla looked at her, her eyes narrowing. Her smile grew thinner, more dangerous.
"Glinda..." she said, with the sweetness of a threat. "What did we say about not following orders?"
And that was the end of the resistance.
Glinda swallowed her pride like a bitter pill, turned on her heels with excruciating slowness, and began walking across the bedroom carpet as if she were at damn Fashion Week. Hips swaying, striding, chin high... and her soul in tatters.
Milla watched her with barely contained sadistic satisfaction, sipping from her glass as if attending a private opera. As Glinda made her final turn and turned back toward her, Milla clapped with a dazzling smile.
"Bravo," she said. "A real star. Too bad no one else gets to see you like this. No one who knows how good obedience looks on you."
Glinda stopped. She closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. She knew she should get angry, scream, leave. But all she felt was a lump in her throat, large, harsh... and ancient.
Because, deep down, what hurt her most wasn't that Milla had that power over her.
What hurt her most... was how much she felt she needed it.
Back at Nevermore Academy, another equally humiliating and hellish punishment was taking place, while colorful chaos reigned on the school theater stage. Students ran around hanging garlands, adjusting artificial flowers, and admiring their own creations as if they were decorating for a royal wedding and not some pathetic "student afternoon tea." Hollow laughter and superficial flattery floated in the air, mingling with the artificial scent of cheap rose perfume that someone had oversprayed.
To one side of the stage, out of the way like an ink blot on a pastel canvas, was Wednesday Addams. Crouching, with a gaze as sharp as the small razor she deftly wielded, she discreetly transformed a set of golden spoons into small ornamental traps disguised as vintage decorations. Surrounding her were black flowers woven with burnt ribbon, and a central figure was nothing more than a broken doll wrapped in lace. Her version of Victorian tea... post-mortem.
"What are you supposed to be doing?" a student asked, wrinkling his nose at the sinister installation. "That doesn't fit the decor at all. You'll ruin the whole theme."
Wednesday slowly looked up, like a crow interrupting its meal, to stare at the intruder.
"I'm following instructions," he replied, his tone icy like marble. "I'm making art. If you don't understand, you can ask yourself what kind of hollow soul you need to be to be offended by this."
The boy was about to retort, but a voice—as bright as a spotlight on his face—intervened before the tension could escalate.
"Oh, come on! Leave Wednesday alone," a young woman standing behind crooned. She had white hair tipped with pink, a blue uniform with colorful pins, and a huge smile on her pale face. Everyone on stage knew her name. “Enid Sinclair,” who approached, skipping lightly, as if each step were part of a joyful choreography. “I’m sure your… play has a profound meaning. Or at least… deadly.”
The boy looked at her, not knowing whether to laugh or run away, and after a few seconds of awkward indecision, chose to leave. Enid waved him goodbye with a huge smile, then turned to Wednesday, tilting her head.
“Are you going to make the entire set look like a crime scene from a Victorian novel, or just half of it?”
Wednesday narrowed her eyes.
“Why are you here?”
“Because your homicidal energy is an irresistible magnet,” Enid replied brazenly. “And because when you go into aggressively antisocial mode, you look especially adorable.”
Wednesday sighed, cutting a thread with such precision it could have been surgical.
“I’m busy.”
“Yeah? Doing what? The gothic version of Wonderland?” "I'm following Elphaba's orders. Making friends."
"Friends?" Enid raised an eyebrow with feigned innocence. "Hmm, does that include me?"
Wednesday closed the knife. Without warning, he grabbed her uniform at the neck and with a swift movement dragged her behind the stage set, where a pair of cardboard columns concealed a small corner covered in curtains and boxes.
"Oh, no," Enid giggled. "What will you do to me, oh creature of the night?"
"Silence," Wednesday whispered, and without further ado, he kissed her.
The world went still in that hidden corner. The murmurs, the decorations, the laughter of the students—everything vanished for an instant. Only the two of them remained, hidden behind the scenes, in that parallel universe where opposites not only attracted: they burned.
When they broke apart, Enid was still smiling, though her breath was a little ragged.
"You can't drag me into a dark corner every time someone irritates you... Well, actually, you can."
Wednesday raised an eyebrow.
"Wasn't this part of the activity? Making social connections."
"Doesn't count if they're your partner," Enid replied, still smiling.
"Secret partner?" Wednesday corrected neatly. "Technically, we're still under the radar. And you seem to enjoy it."
Enid rolled her eyes, though she couldn't hide her blush.
"I love drama, you know that. Although I'd rather not die if anyone ever found out."
There was a brief silence where the two shared a knowing look. Teenagers at last, locked in a game between impulse and risk, between hidden affection and private fire.
"By the way..." Wednesday said, toying with the knife. "I'm not finished with Elphaba yet."
Enid brightened.
"Do you have a plan?"
Wednesday looked at her with that intensity of hers that bordered on the psychotic and the brilliant at the same time.
"I have revenge. All I need is a chance... and perhaps a very colorful ally who can infiltrate her world of fake smiles."
Enid smiled even wider, if that were possible.
"You say that as if I don't love causing trouble for love."
"As far as I know," Wednesday added as she briefly took Enid's hand, "reminding you that we won't admit it publicly is also part of the deal."
"I know," Enid said with a wink. "But you can keep kissing me like that while we deny it."
And with that, they both emerged from their hiding place, one with a light, sparkling step, the other like an elegant shadow already plotting her enemy's downfall... with the help of her brilliant, cheerful accomplice.
Finally, like a thick, damp sheet, the veil of night fell over the entire city. Distant lights flickered through the urban fog like tired fireflies, and the wind carried remnants of conversations and unfulfilled promises through the empty streets.
Elphaba pushed open the door of Fiyero's house with her shoulder, lacking the energy to even announce herself. She knew he wasn't there, for he had more important things to do than her. Elphaba didn't blame him. She didn't even feel hurt. Just tired. A tiredness that seeped into her bones like old dampness.
She carelessly dropped her things on the dining room table: her class papers, her bag, a folder of tests she didn't plan to grade that night. She crossed the shadowed living room, ignoring the lamp in the corner, and sank down onto the sofa with a sigh that wasn't just physical, but existential. Her body hunched, her eyes heavy, her soul empty.
She rummaged through her jacket until she found her cigarette box. Empty.
"Sure," she muttered with resignation, tossing it to the floor.
The silence was thick, almost noisy. She stood there for a moment, her head lolling back, staring at the ceiling as if she could find an answer, a distraction, an excuse there. She felt a desperate need to break something, or someone. But she didn't have the strength for that either.
She took out her cell phone and began scrolling through her contacts. A gallery of faceless faces: names from fleeting encounters, sessions of skin and control, of knots and safe words that were never safe: Dominatrix_Dagger, SilkBoy_23, Crimson_Rope. She wasn't in the mood for any of that. Not tonight. Not when the shadow of personal failure sat with her on the couch, crossing her legs like an old acquaintance.
And then, among the contacts, her finger stopped. "Glinda." Just her first name. No last name, no emojis, no adjectives. Glinda.
The screen didn't move for an eternal instant. Elphaba didn't know if she was about to call her... or delete her forever.
Several miles away, in a hotel room that smelled of mingled perfumes and dubious decisions, Glinda was awake. She'd been awake for over an hour. Lying on the unmade bed, her body barely covered by the sheet and a white robe hanging off one shoulder, she stared at the ceiling with an almost mystical intensity. Beside her, Milla snored shamelessly, her body stretched out as if the entire world belonged to her even while she slept.
Glinda couldn't sleep. She couldn't even close her eyes without an invisible discomfort tightening her chest. The night had been long, filled with emotions, games, that cruel and addictive dynamic with which Milla dragged her into an abyss from which she always emerged worse than she had entered.
She got out of bed quietly, gliding across the room like a trained ghost. She walked to the window, wrapped herself in her bathrobe as if it could protect her from something, and leaned her forehead against the cold glass. The city lights shone listlessly below.
She took her cell phone from the nightstand. She hesitated. She didn't know if it was instinct or necessity, but of all the numbers she had—important names, contacts from the world of fashion, entertainment, and the media—only one repeated in her head like an annoying song, impossible to forget.
Elphaba.
The screen flashed with the name. Elphaba Thropp. No nickname, no heart. Just that. Dry, honest, like everything Elphaba was. Glinda hadn't seen her in weeks. Maybe longer. She'd lied to herself, telling herself she didn't need her anymore, that Milla was enough, that the wounds had healed. But here she was. Trembling at the name like a teenager afraid to press a key.
She sighed, bit her lip. She looked back, where Milla tossed and turned in her sleep. Part of her felt a fleeting guilt, and another part hoped Milla would never wake up.
“Loving someone while thinking you’ll never see them again… It’s like throwing your soul into the void with your eyes closed, never expecting anyone to catch it.”
Both Elphaba and Glinda sighed in sync, as if the same invisible weight was pressing down on their chests from different sides of the city. Each held her phone with the same mix of hope and defeat, as if that simple device could offer them a redemption they knew—deep down—they didn’t deserve… or had already let slip.
A single button. A word. A gesture.
But neither did.
Because they had made choices. Because at some point, they believed closing those doors was the right thing to do. The brave thing to do. The inevitable thing to do.
“That's how I would remember it later. Much later. When the years had smoothed away the edges of pride, and only the purest fragments of memory remained.
That night—that night—was one of many where our lives brushed against each other without touching. Where our shadows danced in separate rooms, believing they could move forward without looking back.”
They both slowly lowered their phones, as if surrendering to a battle they didn't even know they were fighting. Their gazes, dull and damp, were lost in the window, gazing out at the vast night as if waiting for answers written in the stars.
And it was there—in that deafening silence, in that all-too-familiar darkness—where they felt more alone than ever. As if they were trapped in an endless tunnel, where each step brought them nowhere, only to the most exhausted version of themselves. A place with no way out. Meaningless.
And yet, in the midst of that impenetrable blackness… they both wished with all their beings they had made a different decision.
“But I knew it. Even then. That that kind of loneliness… can't be survived without consequences.
And Glinda… knew it too. Only, like me, she didn't find the courage to admit it.
Not yet.”
In the present, Elphaba finished typing the words into her computer and paused for a second before continuing, because, although she didn't quite know why the wedding ring on her index finger began to feel tighter than usual… Maybe because she knew as well as she did what would come next in the story.
Notes:
And we're back!!!! I promised it wouldn't be too long of a wait, and now I hope you enjoy this first part because I'm very excited to share with you the ideas I have for this second season and as you've seen, there are some special guests that are going to give a lot of juice to the plot.
Although I warn you now that if the first season was a kind of modern fairy tale, this will be a more psychological thriller.
As I said last time, I greatly appreciate every comment and opinion you leave, they are undoubtedly the greatest impetus to work on these stories, so wait for the next part soon, because as Elphaba said, this story is just beginning.
Chapter 10: I SIMPLY HAVE TO TAKE OVER
Chapter Text
“Being trapped… is something many fear… and some others yearn for.”
The sea crashed relentlessly against the rocky base of a towering cliff, as if wishing to devour it with its pent-up fury. The waves, wild and white with foam, climbed the stone walls again and again, always losing… but returning. The sky, ablaze with shades of orange and crimson, seemed to burn above the horizon.
“…But the trap doesn't always have bars. Sometimes, it's an idea. An image. A caress.”
High above, defying the violence of the ocean, an ancient castle rose like a relic of another time. From its balconies hung curtains that fluttered in the salty wind, and from the highest of them, a figure gazed out at the world as if waiting for a sign.
Her. A vision wrapped in pink tulle, in flowing silk and ruffles that looked like an open flower. Her dress moved as if breathing, as if it had a life of its own. Her golden hair fell in perfect curls over her shoulders, illuminated by the setting sun as if a fire inhabited it. Her eyes, however, stared into space. With her hands in front of her, she clasped her wrists, gently… with memory.
“There are prisons built with rules. With labels. With ‘you shoulds’ and ‘you can’ts’. Sometimes they don’t have doors, because they don’t need them. We live inside them, without even noticing.”
A hooded figure emerged from the threshold of a doorway open to the shadows. It walked with the precision of an inevitable presence, wrapped in black, silent as the approaching night. No footsteps could be heard. Only the swaying of the sea and the pounding of the heart.
The woman didn't turn. She didn't have to. She knew it in her back, in the skin that shivered in the breeze. The gloved hands slid over her wrists with measured precision, and she shivered. Her breathing became thick, contained, as if the air had suddenly become thick, charged with electricity.
"But there are also those who seek to be trapped. Not out of weakness. Not out of fear. But out of desire. For there is a kind of confinement... that doesn't hurt. One that burns. That reveals."
The figure held her hands. Firm. Determined. A metallic click broke the murmur of the wind. The cuffs clicked shut naturally, as if they had always been meant to be there. The woman didn't resist. Not a word. Just a deep exhalation, like a weight giving way.
He spun her around. She fell to her knees, the dress opening like a swirl around her. She raised her face and looked at him—or tried to look behind the hood—with her lips parted, her eyes dilated, her skin prickling with something she couldn't explain. The figure crouched down to her level, bringing his lips to hers, so close that their shared breath enveloped them like an invisible vapor.
"The desire to surrender is not a surrender. It's an act of faith. Truly. Because only in that moment, when we drop our masks... when we let them take us... do we find each other."
The tension was unbearable. Time seemed frozen between the millimeters that separated their mouths. The imminent touch charged with power, with surrender, with everything that was about to be revealed. But it didn't come.
The floor gave way.
An invisible crack became a brutal fracture. The balcony broke under the weight of the moment, and the woman fell. Her body was lost in the air, swallowed by the roar of the sea. Her dress floated like a pink cloud dissolving among the waves. There were no screams. Only the silence of the abyss.
“And sometimes… just when we're about to touch that which we long for, the world opens beneath our feet. It throws us into the void. And awakens what is asleep.”
And then, with a loud gasp, Glinda woke.
She was lying in her bed, covered in white silk and soft sheets, her golden curls soaked with sweat plastered to her forehead. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, searching for oxygen as if she had been about to drown. She looked at her wrists… and stroked them, as if she could still feel the cold of the metal.
“Because there are chains that are sought. And others… that we don't yet know we desire.”
She lay still for a few seconds, while the memory of the dream faded into scattered images: the sea, the handcuffs, the hidden face, the kiss that was not. And a desire that burned, although she didn't know why. Although she didn't want to admit it.
“But once the door is opened… there is no turning back.”
CHAPTER 10: I simply have to take over
The sound of an invisible clock marked the final notes of a dream unraveling like wet lace. Glinda woke with a start, her eyes wide open, a knot still throbbing in the center of her chest. For a moment, she didn't know where she was, until she recognized the silhouette of the hotel chandelier, the sweet, penetrating perfume floating in the air, the untidy warmth of the satin sheets, and, beyond, Milla's naked body lying on her side, snoring with her mouth half open, as if the world were nothing more than a minor stage for her rest.
Glinda sat for a moment, contemplating the golden line that dawn was beginning to draw on the carpet. Her breathing was steady, but inside, she felt a swarm that couldn't find an escape. She stood up with gentle movements, avoiding the creaking of the bed, and walked to the window, adjusting her bathrobe around her body as if trying to support herself. There she stood, her hands resting on the window frame, staring without looking. Outside, the sky was just beginning to turn a leaden blue, and the city was waking up with its usual roar of engines and confused birds. In the distance, a skeletal, metallic structure was beginning to rise, upright and defiant. A new building, a new promise, a new hope.
But Glinda knew. There, where that monster of glass and steel now stood, there used to be a barbershop. An old neighborhood barbershop, with red curtains and a leather chair that creaked every time someone sat down. The owner, a man who told the best anecdotes and knew everyone. All that was gone now. She herself had signed the permits for the district's renovation. "Revitalization," they called it in the campaigns. "Displacement," those who had had to leave muttered it.
She felt a dull stab of guilt stab right where there had once been pride. And that guilt was just the first thread of the ball. And then she remembered him…
Marillot. The name hit her mind like a nasty cough. Fiyero's father. That judgmental look, that smile wrapped in power and contempt. She remembered his words at the last gala: “You're at every event, every announcement, every photograph. Always with that radiant smile. As if nothing touched you.” It wasn't just a disguised compliment, it was a warning. And she had smiled. She had nodded. Because there was no other way. Or so she told herself.
Fiyero. Thinking of her father meant inevitably thinking of him. His hardened face, his voice muffled by disappointment. The damage he had suffered. Because of the system. Because of her, perhaps. The man who had once been the closest thing she had to an honest friend was now just a thick mist of what hadn't been.
And then… she came. Her name was a storm that couldn't be spoken aloud. Not because she couldn't, but because if she did, something inside Glinda would crumble. Her. The green shadow in her heart. The untouched, sharp, boiling memory of what she loved and betrayed. Thinking of her was thinking of everything she couldn't hold on to. Of what she let fall out of fear, out of duty, out of a cage made of gold and mirrors.
And in the end, that thought reduced her to just that. A worthless thing. A worthless thing with charisma, power, and tailored suits. But a worthless thing nonetheless.
She felt slender arms wrap around her waist from behind, and she knew Milla had woken up. Her voice, drawling and mischievous, drifted into her ear like cloying perfume:
"Hmm... again, watching the world fall apart without you, Princess?" Milla said, her tone meant to be playful, but hinting at a twinge of impatience. Her hands began to stroke Glinda's belly familiarly. "Come to bed. The final reckoning hasn't even begun yet."
Glinda let herself be hugged for a moment. Deep down, she appreciated the gesture. The human touch. But she couldn't stay. She didn't want to stay.
"Thank you..." she murmured, not moving. "But I have to go. There are meetings. And a press conference, I think."
Milla clicked her tongue lazily and tightened her grip, like a playful snake.
"Don't make me ask..." she whispered in a drawl, though her tone was firmer this time. "You know I like it when you obey..."
Glinda's body tensed. It was a minimal reflex, but a clear one. And for the first time in weeks, she didn't want to oblige. She didn't want to play the game. She turned her face slightly toward the glass and, with a smile as polite as it was cutting, diverted the conversation:
"Could you pass me my shoes? They're near the minibar."
Milla was silent for a second. Then she pouted slightly, pulling away with exaggerated dramatics. She rolled over onto the bed and flopped down like a wounded diva.
"Ugh... no one appreciates the art of seduction before nine," she protested, wrapping herself back in the sheet.
Glinda picked up her bag, slipped into her coat with measured movements, and took her phone off its charger. She didn't look back.
As she stepped out the door, the sun was already fully entering the room, as if it wanted to disinfect everything inside.
And for a moment, between the murmur of the waking city and the echo of her thoughts, Glinda wished with all her might... that she had never left that bed. Not that one. The other one. The one where she had once woken up next to someone who didn't need to order her to stay.
The sun was already rising mercilessly over the city when Glinda slumped into the car seat, slamming the door shut. She was wearing her inseparable sunglasses, not for style—at least not that day—but because the light hurt, burned her eyes, throbbed at her temples like a reminder of how little sleep she'd had. The pale pink suit she was wearing—one of her favorites, with clean cuts and discreet gold details—had creases in the sleeves, an inevitable reminder of having thrown it over a chair the night before without thinking, without caring. She reluctantly fastened her seatbelt, started the engine, and took to the street with automatic precision, with no clear destination. She just wanted to move, to get away, to get lost.
She drove aimlessly, with only the vague idea that movement was better than stagnation. That moving might keep her thoughts at bay. But no. The city—that city she herself helped shape, beautify, transform—seemed intent on staring back at her today. Or worse, mocking her.
It was at a stoplight, as the sun hit the metallic paint on the hood, that she saw her for the first time.
A bench, on any corner. And above it, a billboard with her face.
Her face.
Radiant. Smiling. Perfectly coiffed and made up. White teeth gleaming like freshly washed pearls. A smile that could sell hope to an entire city… or cover up an urban genocide. Below, a text in cursive: “Glinda bets on renewal! A brighter, cleaner, more yours city.”
She felt a grimace of disgust form involuntarily. She gritted her teeth and looked away, speeding up with the change in light, as if by leaving the bench behind, she could also leave behind that version of herself she didn't recognize.
But two blocks later, another banner. An even larger one, now in the window of a closed store, showing Glinda raising a glass of champagne alongside a group of smiling businesspeople. “Investment. Progress. Pride.”
And then another, and another, and another. Pasted on poles, on bus shelters, on electronic screens, at bus stops. Her face multiplied, repeated ad nauseam, turned into a corporate icon. The public Glinda. The immaculate figure, always positive, always spotless. The queen of headlines, of inaugurations, of easy applause.
But not her. Not the woman who could barely look in the mirror that morning without feeling her reflection laughing at her.
She gripped the steering wheel with both hands, her knuckles white, her jaw tense. She pressed the accelerator. The city was hers, yes. But now it seemed to be held hostage by her own image. An army of smiling Glindas, plastering every corner, saying things she wasn't sure she had approved of, or even believed.
Finally, as if her heart had stopped for a moment under the weight of that brutal irony, she slammed on the brakes. The screech of tires on the asphalt faded into the murmur of traffic, but she heard nothing. The world shrank to a dull buzzing in her ears, and a raging need to escape herself.
"Enough..." she murmured, her voice cracking, still inside the car, panting as if she'd run for miles. She leaned forward, resting her forehead against the steering wheel. She closed her eyes. Enough, enough, enough.
Then, without a second thought, she picked up the phone. She dialed with trembling fingers. It rang twice before Boq answered, still drowsy, his voice laced with surprise and alarm:
"Glinda? Is everything all right? Do you know what time it is..."
"Boq, listen to me," she interrupted, her voice brooking no reply, a sharp edge behind every syllable. "I need an address. Now. Something... something I need to do. I don't care how. Find her."
"But what address? What exactly are you looking for?"
"The address of..." Glinda hesitated for a second, as if saying it out loud would give him a part of herself, and then she finished answering...
The streets became narrower, noisier, more real as Glinda's car moved forward, leaving behind the wide, neat boulevards of the upper city. The perfect cleanliness of the luxury storefronts had been replaced by mismatched shops, closed bars with artistic graffiti, and a collection of old buildings that refused to fall despite the push for "renovation." Still, there was something alive about that place, something that seemed to flicker in the walls, in the colors, in the remnants of the night that still hung in the air like cheap perfume.
Glinda slammed on the brakes in front of one building in particular. It was a dark-fronted establishment, covered by an iron fence and with a partially illuminated sign, as if the previous night hadn't yet ended: Ozdust. The "Z" flashed at irregular intervals, like a nervous tic. The place seemed asleep, exhausted, like an actor who had given his last performance and was now resting, not caring who saw him in his bathrobe.
Glinda got out of the car with controlled movements. She adjusted her sunglasses on her face with a quick, elegant gesture, as if she could use them as a shield. She looked around. No one was following her. No one seemed to recognize her. And for the first time in a long time, that made her uncomfortable.
This wasn't her territory.
The sidewalk was somewhat dirty, and the neighborhood storefronts displayed things Glinda would never have stopped to look at in any other context: hair salons open until the early hours, karaoke bars, used-clothing stores. Everything seemed to have a second life, everything except her.
In front of Ozdust's door, she searched for the doorbell between the black bars. She pressed it decisively, although the trembling in her left hand betrayed her nerves. She waited. Nothing.
She was about to try again when the heavy door creaked with a deep sound, like the yawn of an ancient beast. Behind it appeared a figure... glorious even in its morning look.
A tall, curvaceous silhouette, wrapped in a red satin robe that barely hung over one shoulder. She wore pink feather slippers, a badly sequined shower cap, and the traces of what had once been spectacular makeup, now reduced to glitter smudges, smudged eyeliner, and faded lips that still retained their arrogance.
"What is this? Cake delivery?" The Wiz said with an arched eyebrow, looking Glinda up and down without bothering to hide his skepticism. "Or have you come to fine us for excessive glamour?"
Glinda blinked behind her sunglasses. She hadn't expected this energy so early. Let alone this lack of reverence. She swallowed, maintaining her composure.
"I'm looking for someone," she said in a neutral tone, trying to sound determined but not sounding... needy. "I heard he might be here. His name is Fiyero."
The drag queen narrowed her eyes for a second. Her expression didn't change, but there was a faint flicker in her eyes, a recognition that didn't reach her lips. She leaned against the doorframe, revealing a tattoo on her left thigh and a broken fingernail.
"Oh, right... the exiled prince, the boy with the sad eyes," she replied, brushing an imaginary piece of lint off her robe. "He is. He's sleeping... or pretending to be. He does it to avoid talking to me. I don't blame him. I'd avoid me too if I could."
Glinda tried not to smile, though a small, involuntary curve appeared on her lips.
"May I..."
"Come in?" The Wiz interrupted, opening the door a little wider and making a dramatic gesture with his hand. "Welcome to Ozdust, my dear. The club where drama sleeps until noon, but truth never closes."
Glinda stepped forward, a little hesitantly, but with her head held high. The interior of the establishment was almost unrecognizable without the neon lights, the music, the roar of the crowds. There were messy tables, fallen pens, glasses with traces of glitter, wigs resting on plaster busts, like soldiers without their armor. A kind of ruined beauty hung in the air. And yet Glinda found it strangely comforting.
Wiz closed the door with a sharp bang behind her, as if sealing a pact.
"You're very punctual, did you know that? It's barely eight o'clock. Some of our guests still haven't vomited up their dinner."
"It's important," she replied, finally taking off her glasses and revealing her exhausted but steady gaze. "I need to talk to him."
Wiz nodded slowly, like someone seeing something behind a mask that no one else has noticed.
"Of course I will, Pink Princess. Come. But I'm warning you something..." He turned to her as he led her down a hallway lit by dimmed dressing room lights. He's not the same since everything... got complicated.
Glinda stopped walking for a moment. The weight of that word—or its absence—paralyzed her.
"I know," she said softly.
And she kept walking.
The main hall of Ozdust looked like the ghost of a party that never ended. The ceiling lights hung low and dim, still covered in glitter as if weeping glitter. The tables were scattered like debris after a hurricane, with empty glasses, torn-out pens, and crumpled napkins forming a landscape of emotional hangover.
Guided by The Wiz's listless heels, Glinda moved forward, with the measured gait of someone walking among ruins. Words weren't needed to describe what she saw in the center of the hall.
Fiyero.
Sprawled across a table as if the piece of furniture was the only thing keeping it from completely collapsing. He wore a wrinkled jacket, a shirt unbuttoned to his chest, and his unruly hair was now just a styleless mess. In his right hand, still clutched awkwardly, dangled an empty bottle that seemed to have more dignity than he did at that moment.
But what caught Glinda's attention most wasn't his appearance, but what lay between his crushed face and the table: official papers. Overdue rent notices, eviction notices, letters from the city council, all wrinkled, stained, and marked with the infamous red stamp: Demolition Scheduled.
The sight was as striking as it was silent. The Fiyero she knew—arrogant, charming, always with a ready smile and a joke at the ready—wasn't there. This was someone else. An echo. A decomposed shadow.
The Wiz, unfazed, circled the table like someone visiting an everyday crime scene. In his left hand, he carried a chrome trash can adorned with stickers of pop icons. Without a word, he snatched the empty bottle from Fiyero's hand, who clung to it as if it were his anchor to the world. With an almost ceremonial gesture, he tossed it into the trash can.
CLANG.
The metallic sound echoed in the empty space like a gunshot. Fiyero immediately jumped, raising his head with a hoarse groan, somewhere between confused and grumpy. His eyes, red-rimmed and dull, blinked a few times before trying to focus on what was in front of him.
"Good morning, Your Highness!" The Wiz said with that elegant cynicism he mastered to perfection. "And brighten up that face, Ken, Barbie came to visit you."
Fiyero frowned, as if the words were piercing a thick fog. It took him several seconds to comprehend. He clumsily craned his neck and saw her.
Glinda.
She was standing, perfectly out of place, her face slightly tilted, her expression unsure whether to be sympathetic or embarrassed.
"Hi, Fiyero," she said with a shy smile, as if he weren't covered in disaster notifications and a week's worth of dark circles under his eyes.
Fiyero didn't smile back. He just gave a sort of nod that seemed to say more "how ironic" than "how nice."
"You came..." he murmured, barely audible, in a raspy voice. Then he looked at her wearily, bluntly. "What are you doing here?"
Glinda swallowed. She'd rehearsed a speech while driving, a mix of excuses, formalities, and even a little joke to break the ice. All that vanished when she saw his state. Now she was improvising, and badly.
"I... I just wanted to check on you. I heard..."
"You heard what?" he interrupted, not quite lifting his head. "That I'm not the guy who made the princesses laugh anymore? That I now live in a ruin with a neon ceiling and the smell of expired perfume?"
The Wiz raised an eyebrow in the background, like someone watching a drama they've seen a thousand times but still find entertaining.
"It's not that," Glinda tried, taking a step closer. "I just thought... well, that you might need..."
"What? Marketing advice? A makeover? A selfie with me and a donation box?"
That blow did hurt.
Glinda clenched her jaw. Sarcasm was her language, sure. But not like this. Not when it came from someone broken.
"I didn't come to save you, Fiyero," she said, softening her voice. "I just came to talk. Because this..." She looked around. This doesn't define you.
Fiyero stared at her for a moment, as if unsure whether to laugh or scream. Then he shifted his gaze to the crumpled papers.
"No. But it seems to bury me."
Silence fell again, thick.
Then, The Wiz, bored with the tension, shook the trash can like a bell.
"Are you going to continue this soap opera about a poor princess and a bankrupt prince, or do you want coffee?"
No one answered. Because deep down, they both knew the worst of the conversation had yet to begin.
Glinda sat opposite him, back straight and legs crossed, as if still in a formal meeting, though her face no longer tried to hide her discomfort. The Wiz returned with two cups of steaming coffee and placed them in front of them without ceremony. Steam rose timidly between them, as if he too was hesitating whether to stay or run away.
Fiyero watched her for a few seconds before speaking.
"So?" "What are you doing here, Glinda? Did you get lost on the way to the stylist?" he repeated, in that tone that mixed cynicism with judgment, as if she were the intruder in a ruin that was exclusively hers.
Without looking up, The Wiz slapped her on the back of the head, sharp and precise. And he walked away, cup in hand, like someone pausing an awkward episode.
Fiyero, like a scolded child, pursed his lips and reluctantly took his cup. He drank silently, without looking at her.
Glinda sighed and, after a brief pause, got straight to the point.
"I didn't know... I didn't know about this," she said, lowering her voice a little, genuinely. "We haven't spoken in months. Since... Christmas, I think."
Fiyero snorted softly, without even looking at her.
"Of course. You were busy being the shining face of wizarding reform. Very busy."
Glinda swallowed. Yes, it was true. But that didn't make it any less unfair.
"I know that's no excuse," she said, leaving the cup untouched. "But I swear I didn't know all these places... this neighborhood... belonged to you. Much less that they were going to be in the direct line of disaster."
Fiyero looked up, his eyes narrowed.
"Did you really not know, Glinda? Or was it just not convenient for you to look this way while you signed the new regulations and smiled for the camera?"
That sentence pierced something inside her. A thick silence fell between them.
Glinda took a deep breath, containing the anger that was beginning to stir inside.
"I'm trying to help you, Fiyero!" she blurted out, louder than she intended.
Fiyero chuckled, humorless, shaking his head as if she didn't understand.
"Help me? Now?"
Glinda leaned forward, dropping the formalities.
“Last night… your parents came to see me,” he confessed, somewhat bitterly. “In the middle of a gala dinner. They cornered me with passive-aggressive threats and hysterical pleas for me to ‘take care of you.’”
Fiyero tensed, his expression hard as stone.
“So what? You came to adopt me? To put me in rehab for failed nobles?”
“No!” he responded immediately. “That’s precisely why I’m here. Because I didn’t want to listen to them. Because I knew that would be the worst thing for you.”
He was silent for a second, controlling his tone.
“I didn’t come to rescue you. I came to understand why you’re letting yourself fall like this… and if there’s still anything that can be done to save this.”
Fiyero looked at her, suspicious, his jaw tight. His fingers turned the cup in his hands, not drinking.
“Save what, Glinda? This empty club? A condemned neighborhood?” Me?
"Uh," she said, looking around, then back at him. "I don't know why you bought this place. I don't know why you decided to stay. But seeing how you're doing... I don't think it's because of nostalgia."
Fiyero swallowed. He lowered his gaze, but said nothing. The silence returned, heavy with unspoken things.
"If you're going to give up, tell me now," Glinda added firmly, without sugarcoating. "But if there's a part of you that still thinks this is worth it, then tell me what you need. Because, like it or not, you matter to me. And I'm not looking away again."
The cup in his hands trembled slightly.
Fiyero looked at her, finally. Really looked at her.
And behind all the sarcasm and irony, something in his eyes seemed to beg her not to leave him alone in this.
Fiyero didn't look at her. He stared into the distance from her cup as if searching for something in the coffee that was no longer there.
"This place..." he began, his voice lower, almost a whisper. "This place saved me, Glinda."
She looked at him, surprised by his tone, without interrupting.
"You know what it's like to live in a world of fake smiles. Of suffocating... expectations. Of smiling even when inside you want to scream." Her hand trembled a little. "I was exactly that. A shell. A son of... a perfect family, a papier-mâché prince, with my future predetermined until the day I die."
He ran a hand over his face, as if trying to erase the past with his fingers.
"And I probably would have continued like this... if it weren't for this place. For them. For The Wiz. For all the people who passed by here, who looked at me without titles, without last names. Here... I could have been someone I liked being."
The Wiz, from the back, solemnly dropped an empty glass on the bar.
Fiyero swallowed.
"When your big magical renovation started, the owners of the land wanted to sell. 'It's a good time to leave,' they said." He laughed bitterly. "But I knew what that meant. It was a death sentence for Ozdust. So I bought it. Not just this... other bars, clubs, community centers, too."
Glinda looked at him, not knowing what to say.
"All with something in common," he continued. "They all had a bull's-eye for the renovation. The government doesn't want these places. They're not interested in their existence." So every week there's a new obstacle, a new inspection, a new ridiculous tax.
She looked up for the first time, her eyes reddened by exhaustion and something deeper.
"It wasn't that customers dropped, or that the neighborhood got worse. They're strangling us. They're making us disappear little by little."
Glinda opened her mouth, wanting to think of something, some solution, some plan, but Fiyero got there first.
"And no, it's not about money," he said sharply. "I don't need a loan, a donation, or your charitable foundation with a golden name."
She straightened, hurt.
"I didn't come to give you alms! I came to help you."
"To help me?" he repeated, raising his voice. "How? With a smile at a press conference? With an empty speech about 'magical integration' while they destroy the only spaces where that integration actually happens?"
"I'm doing what I can from the inside!"
"And what about you from the inside?! What did you do for us?!" Fiyero shouted, standing now, his voice echoing through the empty room. "I'm losing everything, Glinda! And you're just finding out because my parents complained about their son wearing a bathrobe drinking coffee with a drag queen!"
Glinda also stood up, her voice trembling with anger.
"And what do you want me to do, Fiyero?! Give up everything to come save your bar?!"
"I want you to stop pretending you didn't know! That you had no idea they were destroying people like us!"
"I didn't know!" she screamed, sincere, hurt. "And not because I didn't care, but because I trusted the damn system I swore I would change!"
They both fell silent. Breathing heavily. Looking at each other, finally, without their masks.
The Wiz, from the bar, raised his empty glass and said softly,
"And that, children, is how love ends and revolution begins. Go on."
But neither of them responded.
Fiyero looked down, his face hard.
"I don't want your pity, Glinda. Or your promises."
She looked at him sadly.
"I didn't come to give you promises. I came because you matter to me. Because this... you... I still care about you."
He didn't respond.
And for the first time since she'd walked into the club, Glinda felt she didn't know how to continue. And for a moment... Glinda seemed to break.
She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She just lowered her gaze, and it was as if something inside her silently collapsed. Her perfect posture slumped, her shoulders slumped, and the cup she was holding trembled slightly in her hands.
"I..." she began, but the words caught in her throat. "I don't know who I am anymore, Fiyero. I try to be someone out there, the public woman, the professional, the one who speaks with a firm voice in meetings. Then I have to be someone else with my bosses, with that bunch of hypocrites I detest as much as you do… And someone else with the people who work with me, with my advisors, my assistants… with the journalists." She swallowed hard. "And now I can't even be myself with my friends."
Fiyero looked at her. Quiet. But without mockery this time.
"I'm fed up." Glinda's voice was barely a thread. "I know this is all wrong, that it's getting out of hand. I believed… I truly believed I could change things from within, that I could reform the system, heal it. But for every step I take, I'm pushed back fifty steps."
Her eyes filled with tears she didn't ask anyone's permission to shed.
"I can't even look in the mirror anymore without feeling like I'm looking at a banner of falsehood. I don't know what to do. I have no idea how to deal with all this shit…"
There was a long silence.
Fiyero looked away, uncomfortable. As if seeing her like this forced him to remember something he'd rather avoid.
But then, in a firm voice, almost as if the sentence had been prepared all along, she said,
"Someone would know how to fight with this."
Glinda froze. She felt the impact more than if someone had punched her in the chest.
She didn't need to ask who he was talking about. She knew. And it hurt more than anything else that morning. Because she knew it was true.
And because remembering her... made everything hurt twice as much.
Her voice breaking, unable to hide the mixture of guilt and sadness, she murmured,
"Do you know how she is?"
Fiyero leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, as if the words weighed as much as the truth.
"Just like you. Just like me..." Trapped in her own self-pity. Trying to find a way out of the hole she dug herself into.
Glinda nodded, unsure how to feel. She didn't know whether to grieve for her, for herself, or for all three of them. She didn't know whether to get angry or cry.
"Do you know where she is?" she finally asked, barely audibly.
Fiyero smiled ironically, the kind he used when he didn't want to admit something was bothering him.
"Maybe... sleeping on my couch."
"Really?"
"Half the weeks, yes." He looked down. "But still... I hardly see her."
She'll never admit it, but..." he paused, as if hesitant to say it, "she's as lost as you."
Glinda pressed her lips together, holding back another tear.
"So we're all the same."
"No," Fiyero corrected her with a bitter grimace. "You have an office and a position that weighs tons. I have a club on the brink. And she... has ghosts."
Silence fell again over the table, heavier than before.
The Wiz, from the bar, shook a sugar jar with nothing in it, as if the sound could fill the void left by the words.
And for the first time in a long time, Glinda felt small. Not out of weakness. But simply from accepting that there were things not even her magic could fix.
The silence settled between them like an uneasy presence, too heavy to ignore. For a moment, neither of them dared to break it, as if saying anything more might make everything that was already wrong worse. Fiyero looked down, dragging a hand along the edge of the table, and then stood with almost painful slowness, as if every muscle reminded him that he was already tired of more things than he cared to admit.
"I'm going to the bathroom... and take a shower," he said without looking at Glinda, in the low voice of someone who needs to leave before falling apart. "I have an engagement later."
She nodded briefly, too emotionally exhausted to respond with anything more articulate.
"If you want, you can stay," he added, his back now turned. "The Wiz makes pancakes that, honestly... are the best thing this place has left."
A faint smile spread across both of their lips. It wasn't bright, but at least it was something. Something human.
Fiyero paused in the hallway, as if debating whether to say what he was about to say. Finally, he turned, placing a hand on the doorframe, looking at her with a mixture of honesty and resignation.
"I know you want to help me. I know you too well not to see that." His gaze softened. "But right now... I don't need goodwill, I need a miracle. And I'm tired, Glinda. Tired of everything being reduced to paperwork and procedures that no one wants to work."
She wanted to say something, but held back. Maybe because she knew there was no right answer.
"And one more thing," he added, lowering his voice even further. "I don't know exactly what happened between you and... her. Not the whole story, at least. But I know that whatever it was, it's not resolved. And you two should talk.......It's clearly that there are things that still need to be said."
And without further ado, he disappeared down the hall.
Glinda sat there, alone in that wooden corner, with warm lights and the smell of burnt coffee. For a moment, she thought about leaving. About running away. But her body didn't respond. Instead, she stood, swaying slightly, and headed to the bar as if she were walking through invisible rubble. And just when it seemed her legs wouldn't hold her any longer, a firm hand caught her arm.
"Whoa, princess," The Wiz said from across the bar, raising an eyebrow with his signature crooked half-smile. "If you're going to faint, do it away from my liquor cabinet. Insurance doesn't cover glittery political drama."
Glinda snorted, exhausted, but grateful for the familiarity.
"Why does everything have to be so complicated?" she complained, sinking her forehead into the bar with a sigh.
Wiz wiped a glass with a rag that clearly wasn't clean. Neither the glass nor the rag.
"Because it would be so boring if it were easy. And what would you do then with all that diplomacy on your plate, huh?"
Glinda snorted.
"Why can't he just let me help him?"
"Because his stupid male pride doesn't allow it," Wiz replied without thinking, as he poured her a coffee he knew Glinda wasn't going to take. "It's the kind of idiocy that comes naturally, like the obsession with not asking for directions or believing you can fix a revolution with a broken guitar."
Glinda let out a small, brief but necessary laugh. For a moment, it was as if all the previous anguish slipped away just enough to allow a breath of air.
"And you? Are you part of that club too?"
"Me? I was like him." She shrugged. "Then I broke my nose three times, my heart four times, and I learned that there's no revolution if you don't let someone heal your wounds. And besides..." She leaned in, as if about to reveal a secret, "I have a suspicion he listened to you more than he wants to admit."
They sat in silence for a moment. Not an uncomfortable one like before, but one that allowed breathing, that healed a little, even if only on the outside.
And then, with the most casual of intonations, as if unsure of the full weight of his words, The Wiz asked,
"And her?"
It took Glinda a second to react. She knew exactly who he meant, but her body froze just the same. She looked down, played with the hem of her sleeve, and finally murmured,
"I don't know."
The answer was simple, but no less devastating.
"Look, I don't believe you one bit," Wiz said, smiling faintly. "But it's okay. You don't have to tell me."
Glinda nodded, not looking at anyone. It was as if all her masks had fallen away at once, and she didn't know which one to put on to walk again.
"I think I'll go now," she murmured, struggling to her feet.
But before he could take a step, Wiz touched his arm again, this time with a different expression. It wasn't mockery or irony that crossed his face anymore, but something more... sincere. Something he rarely showed.
"Before you go," she said, lowering his voice, "use the back door. There's someone out there... someone who might be able to help you with this whole mess."
Glinda looked at her in confusion.
"Who?"
"One of those rare people who still believe there's something to be saved." She smiled. "A very rare breed."
Glinda said nothing. She just walked toward the back door. Each step resonated like an unanswered question. And when she placed her hand on the rusty handle, something in her chest told her that on the other side awaited not only a solution, but also a mirror of everything she hadn't wanted to face until now.
She sighed deeply… and opened it.
Glinda crossed the door with a shaky sigh, like someone waiting for a revelation, a mysterious figure waiting for her in the shadows, a key, a clue, salvation. But all she found was a dirty back alley next to the building, where the walls were covered with clumsily drawn graffiti. Some were failed philosophical pronouncements, others recycled insults, and a few seemed like attempts at urban poetry… if rhyming "love" with "radiator" could even be considered such.
The alley smelled of stale fried food, old dampness, and a sticky sadness, as if the city's broken dreams were secretly hiding there to smoke. Glinda frowned, took a few steps between suspicious puddles and empty cans, until she stopped beside the enormous trash can awkwardly placed next to the door she'd come out of.
"Really, Wiz?" she muttered under her breath, turning away in annoyance. "Is this some kind of joke? A poetic joke about emotional garbage?"
And it was then, just as her arm accidentally brushed against a dented old can teetering dangerously on the edge of the container, that reality responded with an unexpected slap of comedy. The can fell with a dry metallic sound… followed by a sudden and comical cry of pain:
"Oooooow! What kind of industrial alarm clock is this, for grandma's sake?!"
Glinda flinched as if a spell had been cast on her. She took a step back, bringing both hands to her mouth, shocked and, to her surprise, also embarrassed.
"Oh, no! Sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone was in there! Are you okay? Hello? Are you... alive?"
A sound of clumsy movements, huffing and puffing, and the creaking of rusty springs preceded the appearance of a figure slowly emerging from the container, like a Jack-in-the-Box from an urban nightmare. The man was rubbing his head with an expression somewhere between sleepy and dramatically wounded, his long, untidy hair falling over his eyes and a wrinkled, shabby suit that looked like something out of a 1930s cabaret. His trousers struggled to contain his prominent belly, his tie hung loosely as if it had survived a war, and his jacket bore traces of confetti and, perhaps, breakfast.
"Alive? Technically. Okay?" "That's already asking a lot before noon," he grunted, brushing a banana peel off his shoulder. "Although I must admit, this is the first tin can head massage I've had this week. I like your style."
Glinda looked at him, still not understanding how much of this was real and how much was an elaborate hoax. "Good heavens, are you sure you're okay? How... Why were you in a dumpster?"
"Oh, that's a big question, young lady, one that... I don't think I have the answer to." Brrr replied, pausing in thought as if her brain was trying to recalibrate the answer. “It could have been anything, really: I had too many drinks, I offended the wrong guy with my jokes, it happens more often than you think, or maybe I just didn’t feel like walking home last night… to be honest, this is more like my mattress and…”
But before she could continue gathering her thoughts, he studied her closely, his eyes narrowed, as if trying to focus on a familiar figure in a half-forgotten dream.
“Wait a minute…” he murmured. “It can’t be… Are you Glinda?”
She blinked, surprised.
“Do you… know me?”
“Know you? Honey, if I had a coin for every time Fiyero got drunk and talked about you, I could buy a new life for every drunk in this alley.” He smiled with that kind of cheeky charm that only bankrupt comedians know how to keep alive. Of course, in its poetic, tragic and deeply exaggerated version.
Glinda didn't know whether to feel flattered, confused, or simply even more exhausted. She opened her mouth to say something, but the man stepped forward, dropping an exaggerated bow that nearly knocked her off balance.
"Sir. Brrr, whatever you need. Comedian in his twilight years, philosopher in his late hours, and occasional dumpster resident. Pleased to meet you, very pleased."
"Sir... what?"
"Brrr. Yes, with a triple R. Like the chill that runs down your spine when you know you've done something wrong... but you don't know what."
She looked at him with a mixture of astonishment and bewilderment.
"Wiz sent me here to... talk to you?"
"Why not?" Brrr replied with a sly smile, leaning casually against the dumpster, as if it were a throne. "Sometimes the best information comes from the most unexpected place." And no one expects someone useful to come out of the trash, do they?
Glinda sighed, crossing her arms.
"I'm trying to help Fiyero. He's... messed up. Blocked. Closed off. He doesn't trust anyone. And Wiz said maybe here... he'd find something. Anything."
Brrr listened attentively, without mocking. Beneath the humor, there was a keen intelligence, a sensitivity that slipped between her jokes like velvet-wrapped blades.
"And I want to help him, too," she said with more seriousness than Glinda expected. "He's one of the few who made me laugh when I had nothing. One of those guys who hides his heart so well that you end up forgetting he still has it."
She stretched, letting out a theatrical groan, and walked toward her with an unsteady but determined gait.
"I have an idea. One of those that probably won't work... or maybe it will. But for that, I need to know something."
"What?"
Brrr stopped in front of her, looked her in the eye, and with a crooked smile, asked, "How far are you willing to go to help him up?"
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was necessary. Because behind all the comedy, the sarcasm, and the ridiculous outfits, Brrr had said something real. And Glinda, for the first time in a long time, felt like she was starting to look where she'd never dared to look.
"All the way down," she finally replied.
"Perfect," Brrr said, slapping her chest. "Because that's where I come from."
Then Brrr leaned over the edge of the dumpster as if she were about to share a secret:
"Few people know it, but this building... this club"—she jerked her thumb back—"is a historic site. Decades ago, it was one of the first bars to accept Black customers. Other minorities came later. It was a rarity for its time. This whole neighborhood was." If the true historical and social importance of this area could be proven, it would be untouchable.
Glinda frowned.
"And why hasn't anyone said anything? Does Fiyero know?"
Brrr smiled, a smile that was both tired and ironic.
"Of course he knows. But he hasn't wanted to use that card. Because if he does... he's going straight against the government. Against Shiz.Corp. And he doesn't think he has the odds against him."
Glinda nodded silently. It was hard to admit, but it was true. No matter how much evidence they had in their favor, the Senator and Morrible's counterattack would be brutal.
"But you..." Brrr continued, pointing at her, "you do have a chance. You have connections, you know the system, and"—she made a dramatic gesture with her hand—"you're a public figure."
Glinda raised an eyebrow, skeptical.
"How do you know that?"
In response, Brrr pointed toward the street. Glinda turned her head and saw it: a huge billboard on the building across the street, with her grinning image promoting "City Renewal." The sign was covered in mocking graffiti: drawn horns, a pig's nose, and an unkind word in red letters.
"Nice," Glinda said, grimacing.
She looked back at Brrr.
"Okay. This... is a good opportunity. But it won't be easy."
Just then, her phone vibrated. It was a message from Boq: "Urgent. Office. Now."
Glinda sighed.
"Problems?" Brrr asked, tilting his head.
"The usual."
"Then take this," he said, pulling out a business card with a flourish, as if it were a magic trick. The card had his name, a ridiculous phrase ("Comedian, philosopher, and occasional filing cabinet"), and a number written in black ink.
"Filing cabinet?"
"Whatever it takes," he said with a bow. "Call me when you're ready to shake this system."
Glinda took the card with a vague smile, and they said goodbye. As she walked away, she looked back. Brrr was already climbing back onto the container as if it were her throne. She still didn't fully understand why she was there... but for the first time, something was starting to make sense.
Glinda's world lost all meaning the precise moment she walked through the revolving doors of Shiz.Corp's main offices, as if reality itself dissolved into a spiral of flying papers, ringing phones, muffled shouts of technical jargon, and hallways filled with overwhelmed office workers scurrying like mice trapped in an air-conditioned maze. Corporate chaos reigned with absolute authority, and Glinda, accustomed to the delirium of that corporate ecosystem, strode forward with a firm stride, heels clicking like metronomes on a floor that seemed to vibrate with the building's collective anxiety. She didn't stop, she didn't blink. This chaos wasn't new, but there was something different about the air, something that tightened the seams of her jacket for no apparent reason.
As if summoned by her presence, Boq appeared running between the cubicles with a bundle of papers in his arms and the expression of someone who hasn't slept in three days, even though it's only Tuesday morning. He approached agitatedly, stumbling slightly on the office carpet as he spoke rapidly in his usual nasal and rushed tone.
"Glinda, good morning. I hope you had a good breakfast because you're going to need it," he began, handing her folder after folder like umbrellas in a firestorm. "We have a critical situation in the North Zone: canceled schedules, redirection of resources, protests at the evaluation board, the architectural evaluation committee is furious, and to top it all off, Morrible..."
"What's up with Morrible?" Glinda interrupted tersely, flipping through the documents without actually reading them as they crossed the hallway toward her office.
"Direct order from you," Boq said without pausing. "Change of plans. Demolition and renovation of the North District is being brought forward. It all starts this week."
Glinda stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes wide open and her lips curled in disbelief.
"That's not possible." That order hasn't even been approved! There are still at least four months of evaluation, permits, environmental studies, logistics, meetings with neighborhood associations, everything!
"It was the senator," Boq said, lowering his voice as if saying the name of a ghost who could hear them from any floor of the building. "They want to accelerate the project. Something about 'showing results before the fourth quarter.'"
Glinda didn't respond. She walked to her office as if floating, her expression hardened by a fury she couldn't allow herself to show. She slumped into her chair as if she suddenly weighed ten kilos more, and for a long moment, she simply stared into space. The papers on her desk were a mountain that promised to crumble with the slightest hint of sanity. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if she could expel from her body the feeling of being in a rigged game she didn't even know she was a part of.
That was when everything made sense. The promotion, the interviews, Morrible's rehearsed praise, the meetings with fake smiles, the applause for her appointment as liaison between the government and business. It was a brilliant move. Reduce the links in the decision-making chain, eliminate obstacles, eliminate intermediaries, concentrate power in a single figure... and that figure would be her. Because they could control her. Or at least they thought they could. She was media-savvy, elegant, the friendly face of silent corruption masquerading as progress. The perfect tool. A shop-window doll who signed gray-stained decisions in gold ink.
Glinda rested her elbows on the table, folded her hands in front of her face, and closed her eyes for a moment. She felt the electric hum of the building in her bones. She didn't know if it was guilt or anger, but something inside her was awakening. Something that wouldn't be silenced by applause, awards, or networking breakfasts. "Boq," he said then, without looking at him, his voice firm but lower in tone. "Before you go... I need a favor."
Boq stopped dead in his tracks, almost out the door, and turned quickly, ready as always to serve.
"Anything."
"I want you to get me all the information you can about the Ozdust Club building. But not just the structural report or the ownership papers... I want history. Age. What it was like before. Who was there. If it has any heritage protection. Everything you have or can find, without exception."
Boq blinked, confused.
"The Ozdust Club? 'That' Ozdust?"
"That very one. And if you find photographs, files, news, even better. I want it today."
Boq nodded, already mentally preparing to delve into dusty archives and municipal databases.
"May I ask what for?"
Glinda looked at him then. She wasn't smiling. She wasn't joking. But she didn't look defeated either. There was something new in her eyes, something that neither makeup nor fatigue could disguise: will.
"Because if they want to use me as an excuse to destroy everything, at least they'll have to fight over every brick."
Boq smiled, slightly surprised.
"Understood. I'll get on it right away."
And without further ado, he disappeared into the halls like a diligent shadow. Glinda was left alone, staring at the poster taped to the opposite wall, a smiling image of her on the cover of a corporate magazine with the headline: "The Face of Change." For the first time, she felt like tearing it out.
She kicked off her heels, rested her feet on the edge of the desk, and began reading the papers.
If they wanted war, they were going to have it. But not with a doll. With a woman who was no longer afraid to get her hands dirty.
Glinda had been there… how long now? Hours? Days? An eternity? Time at Shiz.Corp was measured in coffees consumed and documents signed, not human hours. And she was on her third coffee—bitter, lukewarm, devoid of dignity, and barely useful as anesthetic—while a mountain of folders devoured her desk, her will, and any trace of patience. The papers mingled in her eyes as if the letters were rebelling against the syntax. The paragraphs merged into a single gray wasteland. The white light of the monitor throbbed on her forehead like an unresolved guilt.
The Ozdust report lay half-open. She'd barely skimmed the first few pages: property history, zoning permits, an old picture of the building's front with its glorious, broken neon sign. Even that hadn't quite piqued her curiosity. She was too exhausted, too tense. Too… alone.
And then, her cell phone rang.
She didn't even look at it. She reached out as if answering a distant bell, pressed the button, and held the device to her ear with a reluctance bordering on resignation.
"Yes?" she replied, her voice dry, low, soulless.
What came from the other end wasn't an answer. It was a sneak attack, an enveloping whisper, sugary, familiar, and dangerously effective:
"Oh, Princess, you sound exhausted... Am I interrupting something important, or are you just letting capitalism devour you?"
Milla.
He recognized her immediately. Not by her name—which didn't need to be spoken—but by that tone. That voice of hers that seemed to glide through the receiver like velvet soaked in poison. Flirty. Mocking. Acidic as a wine glass forgotten on the windowsill. And yes… sensual. Too sensual for a context-free call in the middle of the afternoon.
Glinda sat up without thinking, her back suddenly straight as if someone had shouted "Attention!" in a war room. She blinked, reacting more by reflex than by decision.
"Milla…" she murmured, as if saying her name would have the same effect as uttering a minor curse. "What… what are you doing calling?"
"Oh, don't be so formal," Milla sighed, her voice languid, as if she were speaking from a red velvet couch, nursing a glass of something unnecessarily expensive. "I was bored. And then I thought of you. And you know what that means…"
Glinda swallowed. I didn't know if it was out of discomfort or something more dangerous. Under different circumstances—with a clear head, fewer problems piling up, with Boq no longer chasing her through the halls like an apocalyptic messenger—I would have known how to avoid the game. I would have responded with measured irony, with distance. But now I was exhausted. Vulnerable. And Milla knew it. Of course she knew it.
"Milla, I don't have time for your games. I'm... really busy. I'm in a mess with Zona Norte. Morrible brought forward the demolition without anyone—"
"You know," she interrupted, ignoring him. "Sometimes I like to imagine you like this. Tired. Bored. Locked in a cold office, with that perfect hairstyle and tightly pressed lips, trying to look like an icy executive while everything falls apart around you..."
Glinda fell silent. Milla spoke as if reciting a perverse poem just for her. And she wouldn't stop.
"And then," she continued, "I imagine you taking off your shoes, putting your feet up on the desk, loosening that tight collar… and letting someone pull you out of that world of numbers and smoke."
"Milla!" Glinda exclaimed, too quickly, too loudly, too late. She heard herself and wanted to bang her forehead against the keyboard.
Milla laughed. A low, sibylline laugh, laced with mockery.
"Oh, Glinda… are you going to hang up on me?"
"No. I just… I just can't right now. This isn't the time."
"And when is the time, darling? When you have free time? When Morrible gives you permission? When the senator signs your recess?" Her tone became a little slower, more direct. "It seems to me you've been running away from me since you ran away this morning."
"I didn't run away," Glinda murmured, and hated herself a little for sounding so weak.
"Of course you did," Milla replied, almost in a whisper that shook her more than it should have. "And I loved it. It makes you more fun."
A silence settled between them. Dense. Loaded. Glinda looked at the Ozdust folder with its official seal and institutional weight, as if waiting for it to offer her a way out.
But there was no way out.
Because in that instant, she knew.
Oh no... She wanted to play now too.
Her head was telling her to hang up. That there was no room for this. That she couldn't afford to divert her attention for even a second.
But her body... her body was telling her otherwise. And Milla's voice was an invitation wrapped in velvet. As if each word wove an invisible fabric that trapped her without resistance.
With a soft sigh, Glinda sank back into her chair. Her coffee was already cold. But something in her, for the first time all day, was burning.
"And what are you supposed to want, Milla?" she finally asked, her tone somewhere between surrender and defiance.
The answer came as a smiling whisper:
"For you to stop reading those useless papers... and think of me."
Glinda didn't answer. She couldn't. She didn't want to let that question sink in. Because she knew what would come next. What always came next. Milla's tone changed, subtly, just a note lower, a hidden intention.
"Stand up."
"What?" Glinda repeated, feeling something invisible tighten around her.
"I said stand up, Glinda. Come on."
And as always... she did. Her body rose before her pride could protest. She was tired, yes, but above all, she was weak. Not physically, but emotionally, mentally... vulnerable in that way only Milla knew how to tap into.
"Now," the voice on the phone continued, with barely contained pleasure, "walk toward the door." Yes, like that. With your tail swaying like you were on a catwalk. As if everyone in the office was watching you and you knew you had them wrapped around your arm.
"This is absurd," she tried to protest, but her hand was already turning the doorknob. She locked it. The click of the lock echoed dully in her stomach.
"Very well. Are you alone now, my little queen?"
"What do you want from me?" she asked, almost in a whisper.
"I want you to go to the mirror. Look at yourself. And act like the princess everyone thinks you are."
"Milla..."
"Don't pretend, Glinda. I want to see you. Or better say, I want to hear you. You. The Glinda of the chambers, of the speeches, of the expensive events where each step of yours is worth more than an ordinary life. That Glinda.”
And, as if hypnotized, Glinda did. She stood in front of the mirror, her reflection reflecting back the image of a perfect woman. But empty. So perfect it hurt.
She took a deep breath, trembled slightly… and began.
“Oh, please don’t bother. I’ll take care of everything. I always do. After all, being perfect isn’t so difficult when you just… are.”
Milla’s laughter burst out like a sweet laugh, the kind that humiliates without words. She was having fun. Like a child with her favorite doll.
“That’s it! That’s what everyone sees! It’s horrible and delicious at the same time. Tell me more!”
“I don’t think…”
“You don’t think? How strange. I thought thinking was your specialty, little princess. Come on, give me something else.”
And Glinda did. Over and over again. She imitated, exaggerated, embodied that mask she knew so well and loved so little. Milla laughed on the other end, pleased, cruel, as if watching her bare her soul was the best show of the year.
But then, the final order came.
"Now act like the wicked witch of the office."
Silence.
Glinda didn't respond. She didn't move. She didn't even breathe.
The words hung in the air like a curse spoken in a lover's voice. A phrase that pierced beyond the skin, beyond the ego. Because upon hearing "wicked witch," Glinda didn't think of herself. She thought of her.
Elphaba.
And suddenly the game stopped being a game.
Elphaba, with her gaze of ice and fire. With that laugh she saved for when she saw her fail. With those words she had once, in another time, in another place, said to her:
"You can pretend you're not like me, Glinda. But in the end... you do the same thing. Only you do it with expensive perfume."
The phone was still on. Milla's voice sounded more impatient now.
"Glinda? What's wrong? Have I offended you already? I thought we'd crossed that line a while ago…"
But Glinda wasn't listening anymore.
She was frozen in front of the mirror, staring at the woman she didn't want to be. The one everyone had made her out to be. The one Elphaba feared she would become.
And the one Milla, cruelly, enjoyed exposing.
Then there was a knock on the door.
"I have to hang up," Glinda said, a broken whisper.
"Who is it? One of your subjects? Your despotic masters? Or… you're not deceiving me, are you?" Milla whispered mockingly, as if she could still pull the string a little tighter.
But Glinda didn't answer.
She just pressed the red button and ran to the door as if fleeing from something much deeper than a knock. As if by opening it, she could finally escape the reflex she'd just discovered.
Her heart still pounding in her chest from the knock, she automatically smoothed her hair, straightened the collar of her blouse, and straightened her shoulders. A queen couldn't open the door while trembling. She couldn't show any cracks, not now.
A couple of seconds later, she turned the handle.
On the other side, a man almost two meters tall, burly, dressed in an immaculate black uniform that highlighted every muscle in his arms as if it had been custom-made for intimidation. His dark eyes, hidden beneath a slightly tilted visor, bore into Glinda's with a coldness that forced her to swallow any words before she could utter them. His jaw was clenched, his arms crossed behind his back, and his posture was straight, military, impenetrable.
"Miss Glinda?" he said in a deep voice, as if each word carried the weight of a sentence. I'm Agent Chistery. Sent by the Senator's office.
Before he could even react, a much more familiar head peeked out from behind the man: Boq. Nervous, his face scrunched, his hands moving like windmill blades.
"Glinda! I tried to stop him! I told him you were busy, that you were working, that he couldn't just barge in, but…!"
Glinda raised a firm hand.
"Okay, Boq. Thank you." She took a deep breath, summoning her composure where she no longer had any. "Come in, Agent."
Chistery entered without another word, as if he already knew the way. His mere presence filled the office with an invisible tension. His black boots thumped on the floor with a menacing cadence. He stopped in the center of the room and spun around as if assessing every corner. Then he spoke, without preamble.
"From this moment on, given your imminent rise in matters related to the senator, you will be assigned increased personal security. Internal and external protection. This includes in-person and remote surveillance, escorting while traveling, as well as continuous monitoring to prevent attacks, both direct and indirect."
Glinda blinked. She was listening to him, but it was as if his words were floating in a distant bubble. Personal security? Remote surveillance? Continuous monitoring? Since when had her life become a war game?
Boq gave a dry, incredulous laugh.
"Is this a joke? It's Glinda! She's not the president of the resistance or the heir to the throne! This is ridiculous…"
Chistery didn't even deign to look at him. He carried on as if the little assistant's opinion didn't exist.
"These are direct orders. Final orders. You will be notified immediately of modifications to the building's access system, changes to the visitor protocol, and new secure routes for your daily commute. It is recommended that any unauthorized outside contact be immediately reported to the assigned security detail. Order is priority. Your safety is priority."
It was like listening to a robot. Precise. Lethal. Soulless.
Glinda nodded slowly, her mind working at furious speed behind the mask of serenity she had learned to wear as armor.
"Thank you, Agent Chistery," she said with a charming smile that was anything but sincere. "I appreciate your concern." I'm sure all this will be... very useful.
Chistery looked at her for a second longer. There was no smile. No bow. Just a brief nod, and then she was gone, leaving behind a trail of tension that not even Glinda's perfume could disguise.
The sound of the door closing echoed like a gunshot.
For a few seconds, Boq and Glinda were silent. He crossed his arms, pacing, muttering words he couldn't quite get out. She remained motionless, staring at the door as if, if she concentrated hard enough, she could stop what was coming.
"Are you going to do something?" Boq finally asked, his brow furrowed, as if he still believed she could solve anything with a smile, a rehearsed line, a flawless speech.
But Glinda didn't answer right away.
Because she already knew.
That wasn't protection.
It was surveillance.
It wasn't an offer.
It was a warning.
It wasn't a safety net.
It was a velvet cage.
The company. The government. The media. Milla. All moving around her like well-trained hunting dogs. And now the senator too. As if every step she took was already predicted, watched, manipulated.
There weren't many exits left. She didn't have many options left.
But… there was still one person.
Someone who could do something.
Glinda didn't need to say it out loud. It was as if an electric shock had run through her. Suddenly, the passivity was broken. Her body moved with the precision of an irrevocable decision.
She took all the documents related to Ozdust, organized them with the precision of a mind that no longer trembled. She opened drawers, put away folders, and closed envelopes with firm hands. Her heels pounded on the floor like war drums. Boq looked at her, not daring to interrupt.
"Cancel all my appointments," Glinda ordered, without even turning to look at him.
"Glinda…?"
"Everything, Boq. Today I exist for no one. Only for one person."
And before he could ask who she meant, she was crossing the office like a torpedo of light and suppressed fury, her perfect figure wrapped in a cloak of elegant urgency. The door closed behind her with the force of a declaration.
Boq stood alone, mouth agape, not fully understanding what had just happened. But Glinda did.
He knew exactly where he was going.
And who he needed to see.
Because if anyone could move outside the rules, unearth truths, and drop bombs without asking permission… it was her.
Glinda drove as if traffic laws were a forgotten myth. The red lights were decorative blurs, and the horns were distant echoes. Her hands, gripping the wheel, trembled. The world around her was a blur, because her mind was fixed on a single point.
Not on the city. Not on the papers she clutched to her chest as if they were her last defense. But on her.
And then, she braked.
The screech of the wheels broke the rhythm of her breathing, and for a few seconds… there was only silence. Glinda looked through the windshield, and there it was. The building. Tall, modern, with that glass facade that reflected the sky as if it were too perfect for human things. The place where “she” lived. Where she still lived. Where it all began and where, in a way, everything had also collapsed.
Glinda didn't get out right away. She stayed inside the car, breathing as if each inhalation carried a thorn. Because the last time she walked through those doors… it was Christmas. The snow still hung in the air, and her hand was clasped around another, thinner, colder, more alive than any hand she'd ever known.
And she'd sworn never to let go… But she did.
Only a few hours later. And she hadn't seen it again since.
She took a deep breath. She clutched the papers to her chest. She got out of the car.
Every step toward the building felt heavy, as if the floor sank with each heel. She crossed the lobby wrapped in a strange mix of determination, fear, and a sadness she didn't even know was still there. The doorman looked up from his desk when he saw her approaching.
Glinda opened her mouth. She tried to speak. But… nothing.
Her lips moved, but the words wouldn't come out. It was as if her brain was screaming in a thousand languages at once, unable to choose which one. How did you say this? How did you ask for forgiveness when what you broke wasn't just a relationship, but a promise made with your eyes closed and your soul open? Did she have to apologize? Simply say hello? Say she needed her help? That she missed her? That she hated her for not coming for her? That she loved her for never doing so?
"Miss...?" the doorman said, a little uncomfortably, his finger already on the safety button.
Glinda was about to explode. She could feel it. The words, the emotions, the weight of the world, all compressed in her chest like a balloon about to burst.
And then a leaf fell.
Like a sign. A small betrayal of the perfect order she had tried to sustain.
Glinda ducked quickly, but in her haste, she bumped into someone passing by, and as if fate were mocking her, all the leaves escaped her embrace. They floated. They fell. They rolled across the marble floor like autumn leaves.
"No, no, no, no…!" she exclaimed, immediately bending down to pick them up, his hands trembling, almost desperate.
"Let me help you," said a close, warm voice.
Another hand joined hers. But it stopped mid-stride.
Glinda looked up… and froze.
It was Crope.
A few eternal seconds passed between them.
And then, as if someone had turned on a light after hours in the dark, his face lit up with an expression Glinda hadn't seen all day: genuine joy.
"Glinda!" he exclaimed, with a mixture of surprise and overwhelming affection. "My God… it's you."
She looked at him as if she couldn't believe he was really there. Crope, the ever-enthusiastic, the ever-loyal, the ever-excessive. Somehow, at that very moment, he was the closest thing to a miracle the universe could offer her.
"Crope..." she whispered, unable to suppress a stifled laugh, a mixture of relief, excitement, and almost tears.
And without a second thought, she threw herself into his arms.
It was impossible to tell for sure which of them was more excited to see the other. They hugged as if time had not passed, as if the wounds of the past could be healed with simple human contact. But as soon as the embrace dissolved and Crope could see her clearly, he quickly unleashed his signature torrent of energy: wide gestures, bright eyes, words tumbling out in the speed of his enthusiasm.
"Look at you! Look at you, Glinda! You look like you've stepped off a magazine cover... although of course, you probably are, because, hello, you're literally a walking cover these days. What are you doing here, huh? A nostalgic visit? A dramatic return with background music? Where's the camera crew? Tell me this is part of a miniseries!"
Glinda smiled faintly, a weak but sincere gesture, her eyes still moist from the emotional surge of the reunion.
"Crope..." she said barely, as if her voice had to cross a minefield of emotions to get out.
But he didn't stop. He seemed delighted to see her, although beneath all his usual display, there was a slight vibration of restraint, as if he knew there was more to it. As if he sensed what was coming next.
"The last time I saw you was the night before Christmas," he continued, as if it were impossible to stop the monologue. "You two went to the ball together, both so dramatic, so beautiful, so... you. And then... nothing. You disappeared. Phew. As if the earth had swallowed you up. And when Elphaba returned...
There she stopped. Her voice lowered, as if the weight of the sentence was dragging her to the ground.
"...she didn't want to talk about it. she never wanted to. And you weren't there either."
Glinda felt something break inside her. It wasn't a sound, it was a sensation: the collapse of an emotional edifice that already had cracks too deep. The ground seemed to crumble beneath her feet. The image of Elphaba, alone, withdrawing into herself... everything she had tried to bury returned with unexpected force.
"Crope, I..." she began, her voice trembling. She wanted to explain, but the words escaped like water through her fingers. "It wasn't that I didn't want to talk to you. God, no. I just... I couldn't. Not after what happened. I tried." I swear I tried. And Tibbett... I miss him too. Both of you. More than I'll admit, more than I tell myself. But...
She swallowed, and her eyes watered dangerously.
"...a part of me couldn't come back. Not after what happened with Elphaba. I don't know how to do it without feeling like... like I'm tearing myself apart inside."
The tears didn't fall, but they hung like crystals on the edge of the abyss. Crope, who had listened to her in unusually solemn silence, approached without saying anything. He took her arm gently and with a delicate gesture led her to one of the armchairs in the lobby, a space decorated with the kind of impersonal luxury found in places where rich people pretend to have human emotions.
They sat down.
Glinda sank down, as if finally giving herself permission to rest her soul for a moment. Crope regarded her with a tenderness that contrasted with his usual eccentricity. It showed in her eyes, in the way she held his gaze and shoulder.
"You don't have to explain yourself to me," he said in a low, intimate voice. "Or to Tibbett. There's no hard feelings, Glinda. Honestly. You were... you are... our friend. And you always will be, even if the world falls apart."
She gave a small laugh that was more of a disguised sigh.
"Thank you... really. Thank you for not hating me."
"Don't be silly," Crope replied with a wistful half-smile. "Sometimes I think if we stopped loving you, we'd both collapse inside. Tibbett keeps asking if you're okay, always talking about you. And I... well, I missed you more times than I'm willing to admit."
Glinda looked away, visibly moved. She found it hard to face generosity when she felt she didn't deserve it.
And then Crope looked at her intently.
"And do you know how she is?" The question fell like a bombshell. Silent, but devastating.
Glinda turned her head slowly toward him, and for the first time in the entire encounter, she gasped. Not because she hadn't expected it... but because she didn't want to face it.
The idea of Elphaba. Not as a figure, not as a memory, not as a shadow.
But the question didn't just strike Glinda because she didn't have an answer, but because Crope didn't have one either.
A thick silence fell between the two, and it was Glinda who broke it, her voice choked with disbelief and despair:
"You don't know how she is? Don't you either?"
Crope gently shook his head.
"We hardly ever see her. She hasn't lived in the penthouse for months, although..." He paused, lowering his gaze, as if still expecting her to walk through the door at any moment. "...half of her things are still there. Tibbett comes by to water her plants. But she... almost never comes. And when she does, she comes in like a ghost." She doesn't stay. She doesn't answer messages. She doesn't return calls. She's been... elusive. Effusive. Disconnected.
Glinda's chest tightened. She gasped for air. The entire journey here, all the courage she'd mustered, all the buried hope she'd dared to resurrect, now trembled inside her like a candle about to go out.
What if she was avoiding her?
What if she'd disappeared just so she wouldn't find her?
"No..." she said, almost in a desperate whisper. "It can't be. She can't disappear like that. Not now! Crope... I need her. I need to talk to her. She's the only one who can understand this! She's the only one I want to see in this damned world."
Her words were a torrent, and her voice cracked like crystals falling one after another.
Crope looked at her sympathetically and raised a hand, trying to calm her.
"Hey... not all is lost. We have a lead."
Glinda stopped dead in her tracks. Her breath caught in her throat.
"What?"
"After he left, his mail started piling up like a mountain. So... well, I took care of it. I didn't want some nosy snooper to see it. There was a lot of unimportant stuff, but some checks also started arriving. All the same. For several weeks."
"Checks? For what?"
"Payments for master's hours. At first, I didn't know what it was about. I thought it was a mistake. But one day, Elphaba showed up looking for them. It was one of the last times we saw her. I didn't question her too much, because you know how she is… but just by looking at the envelopes, I understood. They were payments for teaching. In fact, after two months, the checks stopped coming. My logical deduction is that she was hired permanently. The checks now have to be delivered by hand."
Glinda listened to him as if she were processing a new language.
"Elphaba... is she a teacher?"
"Apparently so," Crope replied, shrugging his shoulders. "A teacher of something. What does she teach? No idea. How she got there… I don't know either. But there's one more thing. The checks all came from the same sender."
Glinda looked at him as if her life depended on those next words.
Crope leaned toward her and, in a low voice, as if he were handing over a sacred relic, said,
"Nevermore Academy."
Glinda felt as if a bell had rung in the back of her mind. She'd never heard that name before… but it sounded like a door left ajar. Like a promise.
"Nevermore," she repeated softly, clinging to the name like a lifeline. "That's where… That's where I have to go."
Crope looked at her with a mixture of concern and hope.
"I know you're carrying a lot, Glinda. But whatever you decide… You're not alone. We're still here. Always."
She hugged him tightly. With need. With gratitude. Like someone who finally has a map, even if she can't yet see the destination clearly.
And in her head, only one thing repeated itself with growing intensity:
"Elphaba. I'm coming to you."
Once again, Glinda drove as if there were no tomorrow, gripping the wheel as if she could drive not only across the country, but also through the past.
The drive was long, and as the GPS guided her further from the city, the cityscapes transformed into forests, mountains, open fields, and persistent fog. The very air seemed to change. Until, finally, it appeared before her.
An imposing, ancient building with Gothic towers, dark stained-glass windows, vines climbing its walls, and a dense, almost theatrical atmosphere. Nevermore Academy.
Glinda parked and slowly got out of the car, adjusted her glasses with a trembling hand, and looked up. The facade looked like something out of a dark fairy tale. She pursed her lips in a nervous smile.
"Yes," she murmured. "This is definitely a place where Elphaba would teach."
With renewed determination, she walked toward the entrance, passed through the enormous doors, and entered an endless hallway decorated with gargoyles, gloomy portraits, and dark columns. Her pastel pink outfit glowed like a lantern in the dim light. Every footstep echoed. Some students looked at her in amazement, others with suppressed mockery. The navy blue uniforms and the sober atmosphere contrasted with every inch of her presence.
But Glinda kept her head high.
She noticed a teacher with a strict bun and a stern face, and she addressed her with a courtesy and enthusiasm that seemed to have traveled decades to reach this place.
"Excuse me... Is Professor Elphaba Thropp here?"
The woman stared at her for a few seconds, and without asking any more questions, nodded.
"Wait here, cupcake. I'll go find them."
And she walked firmly down the corridor.
Glinda watched her walk away. Then, without a second thought, she sat down in one of the chairs against the wall. She was alone. Her papers still clutched to her chest, her heart pounding, her eyes fixed on the end of the hallway.
She knew it was only a matter of time. That Elphaba was here.
And that, for the first time in months, fate had finally brought them a few steps apart.
Chapter 11: MAYBE I'M BRAINLESS, MAYBE I'M WISE
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“What does running away mean, really?”
The night was eternal. A blue-purple sky enveloped the castle, which rose like a Gothic cathedral, its towers devouring the clouds, its stained-glass windows casting dull lights onto black marble. Everything was made of an ancient and forgotten material, covered in pale vines that breathed in the wind as if the building itself were alive.
“Most people think it’s a simple act. A decision. A line you cross, beyond which everything changes. But it’s not like that. Running away… is a spiral. A fog that envelops you without you realizing it. An impulse born of fear, although sometimes we disguise it as pride, bravery, or justice.
I ran away. Of course I did. I ran away from the noise. From the stares. From the questions. From their eyes. Especially from their eyes.”
A blonde figure runs through the halls. Her heels clatter like distant bells against the marble floors, echoing between stone columns that seem to watch her. The fabric of her dress—dark pink with gold embroidery—trails behind her like a trail of wilted petals. She runs breathlessly, but without stopping.
"I can't wait any longer!" Glinda cries, her voice cracking, almost childlike. "Where are you?! Please…!"
The shadows don't respond. But then, as she turns a corner, she sees her.
A tall, thin figure, with her back to her. She wears a fitted black dress of antique cut, a long cape that barely touches the floor, a wide-brimmed hat covering her face, and a mask that gleams faintly like porcelain in the dim light. She says nothing. She just walks away, taking slow but steady steps, gliding through the corridors like a ghost who knows every corner of that labyrinth.
"Wait!" Glinda pleaded, tripping over her skirt as she followed. "Don't do this to me! I just want to talk to you… please don't run away!"
“I told myself it was for the best. That I was stronger alone. That it was dangerous to stay. But every time the wind changes direction, I think I feel her near. Every time the night falls with that hue between blue and violet, I remember her scent. Her laugh. That way she used to defend the indefensible just so I wouldn't let myself win an argument. That warmth... that still haunts me.
And where do you go when you escape from the world? Nowhere. You just float. Between shadows, between reflections, between decisions left unmade.”
The figure doesn't stop.
One by one, the doors close behind the masked figure. Glinda runs after it, panting, crying, passing through rooms covered with stopped clocks, swinging chandeliers, and portraits whose eyes follow her steps. The castle begins to tilt, to distort, until finally she enters a hall completely covered in mirrors.
Hundreds of Glindas stare at her from every angle. Some smile. Some cry. Some seem about to speak, but none utter a word. Confusion grips her. She spins, turns, tries to find the way out, but it's as if her reflections are playing tricks on her, multiplying her movements, distorting her figure. And then, a false step.
"Sometimes I dream of going back. But I don't know if it's to face what's left behind... or because I'm tired of pretending not to care.
Because I can't lie to myself forever.
There's something no one says about exile. And that is that the true punishment isn't being far from everything. It's not being able to share who you are with anyone. It's not being able to say her name without it hurting. It's... not knowing if she dreams of you too."
The floor opens.
The abyss is black, immense, endless. Glinda falls, screams, stretches out her arms like a lost child... but she doesn't reach the bottom. Just as her dress rises like a flower shedding its petals in the wind, a hand grasps her tightly.
The masked figure holds her. Gently, without saying a word, he lifts her to her feet. Then, still silent, he offers his hand. Glinda, trembling, accepts it. And a waltz begins.
There is no music. Only the rhythm of their hearts beating. The floor returns to marble, the lights twinkle like stars in a celestial vault, and Glinda spins in the arms of her mysterious companion. She lets herself be carried away, lost in the fragrance of a familiar perfume and the almost forgotten feeling of being safe.
"I... I don't understand," Glinda says softly, still spinning. "I don't know if this is a dream or a punishment. I don't know if you... if you are her. But if you are... if you can still hear me... please let me say it. What I never said."
The masked figure puts an arm around her. She strokes her fingertips along the line of her jaw. Elphaba… she feels it. It's her. It must be her.
Glinda raises her hand to the mask. Her fingers brush the edge.
But she hesitates.
What if it isn't her?
What if it is, but she doesn't recognize her?
What if what she feels is one-sided, a fantasy, an echo of an unshared love?
"I don't know if I want to know," she whispers.
The figure seems to understand. She brings her hand to Glinda's face and, tenderly, caresses it. Then, slowly, she moves her fingers to the edge of the mask… and begins to pull it back.
But just before the mask falls, everything fades.
And in a blink, Glinda returns to reality. She was still sitting on the side of the Nevermore halls, on the rigid wooden bench, her body delicately leaning to one side, her golden curls falling over her shoulders as if they, too, had surrendered to the weight of exhaustion.
The professor hasn't returned yet. The hallway is still dim, just as before. The cold marble still lingers beneath her legs.
And yet, something has changed. For a moment, her heart still dances.
She looks at her hands as if expecting to see remnants of the waltz etched into her skin.
She sighs. She says nothing. But deep down, she knows:
She's still waiting for her.
"Maybe I've become a ghost. Maybe, to her, I'm just an echo, a shadow that no longer weighs.
But there are nights—these nights, so cruelly silent—when I can't help thinking...
If I still feel her, is she waiting for me too?"
CHAPTER 11: Maybe I'm brainless, maybe I'm wise
“But before we continue, perhaps… it would be prudent to take a step back.
While everyone's favorite blonde was having an existential crisis worthy of a baroque melodrama—and probably shedding tears perfectly coordinated with the color of her nail polish—I was… well, surviving.
Or trying to. Because ‘having a normal day’ at Nevermore is about as likely as someone letting me finish a cup of coffee without interrupting me with an ancestral curse or an apocalyptic premonition.
And yet there it was. Wednesday, 10:15 in the morning. A gloomy lounge full of teenagers with too much eye shadow and no interest in modern politics.
This is what they call teaching.”
The voice dissolved like ink in water, merging with the image of a gray morning that tinged the stone walls of Nevermore Academy with steel. The fog still hadn't completely dissipated, and the gargoyles decorating the ceilings seemed to look down with a disdain that Elphaba, deep down, understood. She walked through the halls, dragging a notebook under her arm and a steaming cup of coffee that, more than energy, offered the empty promise of normalcy. The headache was still there, like a sleeping beast just behind her eyes, ready to remind her that rest was a luxury she'd forgotten how to grant herself.
When she reached the classroom, she glanced briefly at the group waiting for her, or rather, the group ignoring her with professional disinterest. Goth teenagers, witches with perfect eyeliner, teenage vampires with hidden headphones, and the occasional creature of darkness pretending to listen while writing cursed poems in notebooks torn from encyclopedias. The end-of-the-world generation. Or the end-of-attention generation.
Elphaba settled herself reluctantly in front of the digital whiteboard. She activated the screen with a wave of her hand—the already worn charm responding with the slowness of a hangover—and pointed to a timeline that wound through the past like a poorly healed scar.
"Today we'll talk about peace pacts," she announced in her cynical professorial tone, her voice raspy but laced with bitter theatricality. "Those agreements signed between leaders who pretend to love each other while hiding daggers under the table. Elegant signatures, speeches full of verbiage and promises that... well, last as long as a candle in a sandstorm."
She walked between the rows of pews, her black robes swaying with casual elegance, as if she herself were oblivious to the space she occupied.
"Can anyone tell me if peace pacts actually work?" she asked with a sharp smile, letting irony sharpen every syllable. "Or... are they just legal ways to take a breather before the next massacre?" The silence was immediate. Not the kind of meditative silence that precedes an intelligent response, but the flat, dead silence that can only be produced by dead brains and empty stares. A vampire in the third row yawned shamelessly. Two witches in the corner snickered as they shared a note with an obscene, poorly drawn drawing. Elphaba barely glanced at them.
She sighed with a deep exhalation that seemed drawn from centuries of accumulated disappointment.
"Perfect," she murmured. "A silence that could be used as a weapon of torture. I imagine if a story doesn't come with special effects or a tragic soundtrack, it loses its charm, right?"
She picked up her coffee cup and took a sip. Cold. Wonderful.
It was then that he saw her. Her hand raised with the icy calm of a funeral ceremony. Straight, silent, determined. Just seeing that slender figure in his eternally black uniform and imperturbable face was enough to make Elphaba close her eyes for a second, as if imploring mercy from the gods of sarcasm.
"Oh no..." she said through gritted teeth. "Here comes the nihilistic catharsis of the morning."
She turned to her, already hopeless.
"Miss Addams," she announced, projecting her voice as if addressing an invisible jury. "Please share your perspective with us. I'm sure we're all eager to hear what death has to say today."
Wednesday Addams lowered her hand as slowly as an executioner lowers a steel blade. Her face was a mask. Nothing flickered in it, not a muscle, not an emotion. Her voice, when it came, was more of a judgment than an opinion.
“Peace pacts don’t fail. They’re designed to fail,” he said with the chilling calm of someone speaking from the grave. “Their purpose isn’t to prevent war. It’s to disguise it. True peace entails sacrifices that civilization is unwilling to make. We prefer empty agreements because they give us the illusion of control… and illusion is always more marketable than the truth.”
There was a vague murmur. A slight reaction, like a collective shudder. Some students looked at each other, unsure whether to applaud or run away.
Elphaba, however, was unfazed. She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow, regarding Wednesday like someone gazing at a disturbing painting in a dimly lit gallery.
“Ah… how comforting. Nothing like starting the day with a dose of sociopolitical fatalism.” She sat on the edge of her desk and placed a hand on her forehead, massaging her temples. “Thank you, Wednesday.” You reminded me I forgot to take my pills for existential absurdity.
Wednesday looked at her for a second. Was there even a hint of a smile? No. Impossible. Just an optical illusion.
"There's no cure for absurdity, Professor. Only adaptation."
"And here I thought I taught history," Elphaba replied with a bitter laugh. "Turns out I'm a therapist for decaying souls. They pay poorly."
Outside, a flock of crows crossed the overcast sky, cawing like harbingers of a destiny yet to be revealed. Elphaba was silent for a few more seconds, letting the discomfort hang over her. Then she stood up, picked up her magic pen, and turned it mechanically between her fingers.
"Fine," she said finally. "Let's move on to the part where we pretend all this makes sense. Page 342, Chapter Seven. The end of wars doesn't always come with swords... sometimes it comes with a smile and a signature in black ink."
But as she spoke, something inside her had already disconnected. Her words drifted like smoke in a closed room. Part of her was still in the dream she hadn't had. In the echo of a melody she couldn't remember.
And even though she wouldn't admit it, the feeling was already beginning to throb in her ribs.
Sitting at her desk, Elphaba tried—like someone trying to mend rotten fabric with dental floss—to disconnect her mind from the class and focus on a pile of papers she didn't even intend to read carefully. She reviewed notes with the same enthusiasm as someone digging at an open wound: knowing that nothing good would come of it. Ink ran like dried blood over the margins, crossed out words, unanswered questions, essays that pretended to be profound but only displayed ignorance masked by unnecessary adjectives. Wonderful.
Her mind wandered. She thought about everything and nothing. In the cold coffee, in the fog that wouldn't go away, in the dark circles under her eyes that became part of her face, and—though she would deny it under torture—in the idiot who had left her hanging the night before in a classroom similar to this one.
Then she saw him.
A raised hand.
For a moment—very brief, fleeting, almost poetic—a silent hope flashed across her chest: Please don't let it be Wednesday. She really couldn't deal with a younger version of herself right now, but with better posture.
But no.
It wasn't Wednesday.
It was Brad.
Brad, with his eternal face of existential confusion and his astonishing ability to understand absolutely nothing and yet speak as if he had something to contribute. Elphaba remained very still, as if she could still dissociate herself from the situation.
"Yes, Brad," he finally said, each word like a rock rising from his throat. "Go ahead."
The boy settled into his seat with the confidence of someone who thinks he's about to say something important.
"Teacher... so, if two countries sign a peace treaty... does that mean they're like... friends? Like... best friends? And if one gets mad at you afterward... can you block each other, like on social media?"
There was a second of absolute silence.
Then, muffled laughter. Suppressed giggles, biting the back of hands, exchanges of looks that said, "Are you serious?"
Elphaba blinked. Twice. Then she slowly lowered her gaze to her desk as if her forehead might find comfort in hitting the wood. But it didn't. Not yet.
She took a deep breath. Very deep.
"No, Brad. It's not exactly the same." "Although... your childish analogy has a disturbing charm," she said, forcing a smile so tight it looked like it was carved with razor blades. "A peace treaty is a formal agreement between sovereign state entities to cease hostilities, not a reconciliation selfie. And no, they can't be blocked on social media. Although, if they could, they probably would. Passive-aggressive memes included."
The classroom fell back into that hum of pseudo-attention that never quite became concentration. Elphaba was about to continue when another hand rose, this time accompanied by a perfectly rehearsed hair toss. It was Clarisse. One of those students who seemed to have been born under a beauty filter and a vanity lamp. Clarisse wasn't asking out of curiosity, but out of habit. A habit based on hearing her own voice.
"Professor," she said, in that sweet, unbearably nasal voice, "if leaders sign a pact and then fight again... doesn't that make them... liars?" Because I once promised my ex we were going to be friends, and then he texted me two weeks later because he couldn't get over us. I mean... is that like a cold war?
Elphaba closed her eyes for a second. Just a second. But it was long enough to review her entire academic life, her degrees, her years of study, her doctoral thesis on symbolic domination systems, and wonder where it all had led her to this.
"A brilliant analogy," she replied with a smile that could have made a statue weep. "And disturbingly self-centered. But yes, Clarisse, you could say it's a kind of cold war... if cold war involved emotional blocks, sad playlists, and social media posts directed at someone who was clearly going to see them."
Laughter filtered through the desks again. Some even applauded quietly. Clarisse smiled, not understanding whether she was being praised or mocked. It didn't matter. She just wanted attention. And she'd gotten it.
And then, another hand.
And another absurd question. And another. And another.
Each one emptier than the last, as if the universe had decided to torture her with a choreographed symphony of stupidity.
Elphaba answered professionally, yes, but her answers were beginning to take on a very different tone. She was no longer talking about world history, but about her personal history. The kind that never showed up. About canceled plans. About disappointments that came not with treaties or signatures, but with messages read and unanswered.
"...because sometimes promises are broken without firing a single bullet, you know?" she said, staring into space. "Sometimes the enemy runs away like a scared child looking for its mommy, or it doesn't show up at all, because it forgot you existed. Or because it just got lazy. And then what do you do? Do you expect a letter of apology? A bouquet of flowers? No, Brad, you don't block a country. But you can stop answering its messages... even if you feel like blowing up its embassy."
The students looked at each other, some uncomfortable, others amused. Clarisse pulled out her cell phone and jotted something down as if she'd just witnessed a scene from modern Shakespeare. A vampire in the back row asked if this was going to be on the exam.
And that's when she spoke... Wednesday.
Without raising her voice, without embellishment, without even irony. With just that cadence that seemed to come from the depths of a crypt:
"Professor... if everyone lies, if no one keeps their promises, if peace is nothing more than an illusion... why continue teaching history?"
Elphaba froze. The pen between her fingers stopped twirling. Her body tensed. The question hung in the air like a suspended knife, sharp and perfect.
The room fell silent.
She opened her mouth, ready to answer, to scream, to throw a chair, to set something on fire, anything. But then...
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNG!
The bell.
The most beautiful, most glorious, most timely bell in the universe.
Elphaba raised her gaze to the ceiling, like someone thanking a god she doesn't believe in.
"Good," she said, her voice still trembling. "You may dismiss. Class dismissed. Leave before I commit an emotional war crime."
The students filed out amid laughter and whispers, leaving behind a trail of cheap perfume, youthful disinterest... and the echo of a question Elphaba wasn't ready to answer.
But as the last students filed out of the classroom amid nervous giggles and loosely closed backpacks, Elphaba gathered her things from the desk with a speed that could only be explained as the result of self-control on the verge of collapse. Her hands were still trembling slightly—with anger, disappointment, and a hint of ill-disguised embarrassment—but her expression was the same as always: sharp eyes, a tense mouth, dignity undimmed by sarcasm.
That's when she entered.
"Oh, perfect," she thought, without even turning around.
Isaac Norman. The idiot.
With his trademark unblemished shirt, his "I'm an emotional ally" smile, and that air of superiority disguised as humility, as if he hovered slightly above the ground for being an intellectually enlightened individual. Elphaba ignored him with professional precision, as if he were an insect crawling in the corner of the classroom. But he, like a persistent idiot, spoke up.
"Elphaba... listen to me for a second, please," he said in a low voice, heavy with false guilt. "Last night... wasn't what it seems..."
She didn't respond.
She grabbed her binder, her books, her mug that said "I'm not in a bad mood, that's just my face," and her dignity, and tried to walk out the door. But he followed her.
"Don't run away from this! I... I was scared, yes! But not because you did anything wrong, it's just... it was a lot at once, and I didn't want you to think..."
"What, Isaac?" she snapped without looking at him, striding down the hallway. "That I'm an intimidating witch? Oh, wait! You already thought that! All you needed to add was a cross and holy water as you ran."
"It's not that... I just..."
"Just what? That you ran away from the classroom like a grade-schooler because a strong-willed woman approached you? Did that seem like "a lot" to you?"
She kept walking as she spoke, with him behind her, like a pathetic echo with a masculine scent.
"I didn't mean to hurt you, Elphaba..." he murmured, more hurt by his own ego than by her.
"Don't worry, Isaac. You didn't succeed. For you to hurt me, you'd have to matter more to me than the sound of your voice bothers me, and that's saying something."
Isaac stopped for a second, visibly hurt. But Elphaba didn't even turn around.
From a corner of the hallway, next to the half-open door of classroom 3-B, a pair of dark eyes watched her with surgical attention. Wednesday Addams said nothing, but her eyes absorbed everything: the body language, the tension, the elegant fury, the hidden humiliation. She enjoyed the drama with the seriousness of an entomologist dissecting human emotions.
Finally, Elphaba entered the staff room and with suppressed strength opened her locker door.
And then it happened.
A small, grotesquely well-made voodoo doll, with green skin and black hair in a twisted tangle, fell, hanging from a makeshift mini-gallows made of thread and a popsicle stick. On the doll's chest was a tiny note:
"Silence witches before they get out of the cauldron."
Elphaba fell silent. Not from horror, not from fear. From annoyance.
Sobbing, crying... that was for the faint of heart. But this... this was irritating. Like a mosquito that comes back after being squashed.
She took it between her fingers like someone finding a dead cockroach in their teacup.
"How original..." she murmured with a sigh.
Isaac, still peeking from the doorway, took a step forward.
"What's that?"
"Nothing you'd understand," he said coldly.
She turned just a bit, just enough for him to see the fire in her eyes without being able to say anything else.
"See, Isaac?" This—she held the doll up to her face—is the kind of thing I get for being in this place. I don't need to add your emotional cowardly dramas to my collection of decorative threats.
The argument between Elphaba and Isaac had reached such a ridiculous point that, had there been witnesses, they might well have thought it was two teenagers fighting over who stole the last piece of gum at recess.
"So now I'm the one who misinterpreted EVERYTHING? I'm the crazy one for thinking that when someone flirts with me and looks at me like I'm a broken work of art, they deserve a modicum of... of clarity?" Elphaba spat, arms crossed, her brow so furrowed she looked like a living Gothic sculpture.
"I didn't say that! I'm just saying... I don't know how to handle what you make me feel!" Isaac gestured as if he could conjure a response from thin air, his shirt already wrinkled and his star-teacher aura collapsing like a house of cards.
"Then take a class in emotional management, idiot! Maybe that way you could..."
But she didn't finish the sentence.
In a gesture that seemed more desperation than conviction, Isaac took her by the hip and kissed her. Not a clumsy or improvised kiss. It was one of those kisses that dismantles speeches, tears down walls, and forces rationality to take a taxi somewhere else.
Elphaba stood still for a second, her body tense, her heart pounding against her ribs like a prisoner with a spoon. After a couple of seconds that felt like an eternity, she surrendered slightly to the gravity of the moment. Her fingers barely clung to his shirt, and the world—for a second—was no longer so unbearable.
And then, the temperature dropped.
A shadow interrupted the intensity of the moment.
Elphaba opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was a pair of black braids, an impeccably white shirt, and two eyes as dark as they were mocking. Wednesday Addams.
Standing right in front of them. Without a defined expression. As motionless as an old portrait. Watching like someone who's witnessed a particularly interesting murder.
"Well, well," he said in the calm voice of someone who enjoys lighting fires from afar. "Am I interrupting something... or are you rehearsing for some extremely mediocre play?"
Elphaba and Isaac separated as if they'd just been splashed with acid.
"It's not what it looks like!" Elphaba snapped, her voice higher than usual, her arms stiff at her sides.
"And what does it look like, Professor?" Wednesday tilted her head with her characteristic homicidal calm. "Because from here... it looks like you've just ruined what's left of each other's dignity."
"Look, brat!" Elphaba tried to compose herself, adjusting her hair and crossing her arms. "This has nothing to do with you. So you might as well go back to your Advanced Emotional Torture class and leave us alone." "Oh, but it's fascinating..." Wednesday began to pace slowly across the room, her shoes clicking like a doomsday metronome. "Two responsible, intellectual, supposedly rational adults... and look at them. Panting, disheveled, confused... Is this what they call romance? Because it looks more like a shared tantrum."
Isaac swallowed. He tried to regain his exemplary professorial posture.
"Wednesday, you should be in class. It's not appropriate for you to interrupt a private conversation between colleagues."
"Oh, this stopped being private the moment you chose to kiss in the hallway like a mid-afternoon novel," she replied with an icy smile.
Elphaba, still burning with rage and embarrassment, tried to regain her dignity with what little emotional oxygen she had left. Isaac, on the other hand, seemed desperately searching for an excuse to save him from the social abyss into which he had plunged himself.
And then, he said it.
"This wasn't what it seems! I was... I was... explaining to Professor Thropp... about passion poetry!"
There was a three-second silence. Three seconds where even the clock seemed to stop to observe the spectacle.
Elphaba brought her hand to her face, crushing it in utter resignation.
"Passion poetry...?" she muttered through her teeth, incredulous. "Is that your argument? Really?"
Wednesday's eyes widened, like a child promised a ritual sacrifice.
"Passion poetry?" she repeated softly, taking a step closer to Isaac. "How unexpectedly fascinating... Professor, please enlighten me. This sounds deeply... inspiring."
Isaac blinked, sweating down his neck.
"Wh-what?"
"Come on, Professor," Wednesday said with a smile as subtle as it was cruel. "You can't deprive us of your poetic talent. After all, I interrupted a lesson, didn't I?" Elphaba, red as a mutated tomato, glared at him murderously.
"Don't even think about it..."
But it was too late. Isaac, cornered and short-circuiting, raised a trembling hand as if that would help sort out his mental chaos. He looked at Elphaba and, his voice cracking with panic, began:
"Your eyes... they're like two green moons... trapped in a starless night..."
Wednesday opened her mouth in an 'o' of false admiration.
"Bravo," she whispered. "Lunar, haunting... like a romantic frog trapped in a fishbowl."
Elphaba brought both hands to her face.
"Dark gods, someone erase me from existence..."
"Your eyes... your eyes, Elphaba... are like... uh... two emeralds... but not like the ones on the cheap, no, no, more like... like... radioactive emeralds of forbidden passion!"
Elphaba covered her face again, but this time she murmured a mantra of despair.
"Make it stop... make it stop..."
Wednesday, on the other hand, seemed fascinated. She kept her arms crossed, her eyes shining with refined sadism, like someone watching a tragic opera staged by amateurs.
Isaac continued, swallowing each word as if it were giving him an aneurysm:
"And your skin... green as the sweetest celery.. that dances under the moon... ah, how it burns in my soul as if it were... pesto in hell!
A moment of deathly silence.
Elphaba slowly lowered her hand and looked at him with an expression that could have withered flowers.
"Did you just compare me to celery?"
Isaac froze.
"No, no, it was an... artistic... poetic vegetable metaphor!"
"And pesto? PESTO!?" Elphaba repeated, taking a step toward him, her gaze burning like a torch. She raised her hand as if to slap him, but stopped herself with a guttural growl.
Wednesday slowly clapped her hands.
"This was... glorious. They should record this and show it at school assemblies. Emotional education and theater of the absurd in one package."
She turned around with all the sarcastic dignity in the world, walked toward the door, and before leaving, she blurted out one last sentence without looking back:
"Thanks for the show. I don't usually laugh twice in a week, but you guys... did it... Oh, and Professor..." Her eyes flashed with irony. "Just in case, check your lockers carefully tomorrow. I'm worried about your security issues."
And she left, closing the door with the gentleness of a sentence served.
Elphaba stood in the middle of the classroom, breathing heavily. Isaac tried to approach her, but she stopped him with a single wave of her hand. She didn't have the strength to argue further. Not after that.
"See what you're doing?" she muttered, more to herself than to him. "You make me into a damn joke in front of my teenage self on steroids."
Then Elphaba turned on Isaac with the fury of an ancient storm.
"You. And your damn 'passionate poetry.'" We're going to have a talk. Long. Painful. And without rhyme.
Isaac didn't respond. He knew he couldn't. He just watched her walk away. And for a second, he seemed to understand that he had no place in that story. Not because Elphaba was too intense. But because he was too little.
And as the distance closed between them, outside in the hallway, Wednesday walked with that eerie calmness of his, already planning the next move in his personal chess game.
He had found a crack in Elphaba. And he planned to exploit it with all the elegance of a sharp scalpel.
During recess, Elphaba slumped onto a bench in the courtyard as if her entire body were a sack of failed spells. The murmur of the students, the laughter, the shouts, the smell of burnt chips… it was all background noise to his saturated head. The day was barely half over, and he already felt like he could write a treatise on teacher emotional breakdowns.
His thoughts circled aimlessly. The classroom. The kiss. The "poem." Wednesday. The voodoo doll. The celery. Was she the celery? Elphaba Thropp? The dreaded academy witch turned into an emotional vegetable by a panicked idiot?
She rested her elbows on her knees, buried her head in her hands, and muttered under her breath,
"Is this my life now?"
She couldn't even bring herself to contact Fiyero. Not after what she'd been through. And with the few who still put up with her… there were barely any traces of real connection left. She was alone. Again.
It was then that someone sat down next to her. His presence was so slight that Elphaba barely noticed him... until he spoke.
"Do you want jam?"
She looked up and saw him.
Eugene Ottinger. The eternal outcast with curlers like springs and glasses as thick as recycled glass plates. Elphaba had seen him wandering the halls like a background character who always appeared at the worst moments, saying the worst possible thing. He once asked three different girls out in the same minute. None of them responded with words, only looks of horror.
"What are you doing here, Eugene?" he asked flatly.
"It's recess. I'm a student. You're a teacher. Time is relative, but hunger isn't. And I have two sandwiches. One with jelly, one with tuna. I'm offering you the best. That's love, Professor."
"It's not love, Eugene. It's sugar."
"And what is love if not a sugar overdose with consequences?"
Elphaba blinked. Okay. Point for the weird kid.
He accepted the sandwich with some suspicion, as if he was still expecting it to explode or turn into a frog.
"Thanks," he murmured.
Eugene started talking. And talking. And talking.
About how bad math was. About how he'd tried to build an emotion detector out of parts from an old fan. About how he suspected the janitor was a retired vampire. And of course, about how if Elphaba were in a movie, he'd be the first guy eliminated for having an obvious crush on the main character.
"...and of course, after the third try, I realized that using duct tape to keep my fingers out of my nose wasn't a viable solution," Eugene concluded, completely convinced he was narrating an epic tale of self-improvement.
Elphaba looked at him sideways, slowly chewing her jam sandwich.
"And to think I teach this for this," she murmured.
"For what? To prevent students from self-harming in public?"
"So that we'll end up sharing jam with a delusional dwarf during recess," she sighed, without aggression.
"Listen, Professor, with all due respect... you're following my conversation. I started talking about boogers, and now we're talking about you."
Elphaba paused for a second. She frowned. She looked at the half-eaten sandwich, then at Eugene. She blinked.
"Oh, crap. You did it again."
"My superpower: involuntary emotional manipulation."
Elphaba snorted. But something in her loosened. Maybe it was the jam. Maybe it was the fact that there was no judgment in Eugene's eyes, just an honest, absurd curiosity. She leaned back against the bench and spoke, at first sarcastically, then with something more real.
"I'm... exhausted, Eugene. I feel like I'm running in circles. Every time I try to move forward, I end up worse. I try to prove to myself that I'm still the same person I was before, that I'm not rusty, that I can handle this... but it always goes wrong."
"Wrong how?"
“Have you ever had a rival who seems to know exactly how to push your buttons? Who outsmarts you at every turn, and on top of that, does it without breaking a sweat.”
“I have a cousin who can burp the national anthem. I don’t know if it’s the same thing, but it makes me feel inadequate.”
Elphaba gave a short, dry laugh.
“And… ‘That’ girl, she’s like a damn gothic version of my teenage self… only edgier and less restrained. And for some reason, the universe decided to throw her in my path.”
“Maybe she’s like a mirror.”
“More like a portable guillotine.”
There was a brief pause. Eugene, knowing for some reason he needed to keep quiet, just chewed his bread more slowly.
“And on top of that,” Elphaba continued, softer now, “the few friends I still have are the same or worse. Fiyero… he used to be the rock. The unwavering one. And now… I don’t know. He’s kind of… trapped. Tired.” And I don't know how to help him without sinking with him.
"Did you tell him that?"
"Which part? The one where I feel like I'm sinking? The one where every attempt at connection seems like a wasted effort? The one where I miss him even when he's by my side?"
"Yes. That's it."
Elphaba looked at him. And for a moment, she considered responding sarcastically. But no. Not with him. Not today.
"No. I never told him that."
Eugene nodded, as if he'd just been given the key to the universe.
"I talk to Darth Vader."
"What?"
He pulled an old, worn action figure from his backpack. It was a small Darth Vader with a torn cape and chipped paint.
"When I have a lot on my mind. He listens without judgment. Although sometimes I feel like he's judging me. But he doesn't say anything. He's just... there."
Elphaba looked at him, almost tenderly. And then Eugene asked,
"Have you ever had anyone like that?"
Elphaba fell silent. The world seemed to pause its adolescent bustle. The screams died down. The sun seemed to slow down a bit overhead. And for a moment, she felt something very like a pang in her chest.
"Yes," she said, after a few seconds. "I had her."
The image was clear, though she tried to push it away. Blonde hair shining in the sun, a smile as radiant as it was irritating, laughter that began mockingly and ended knowingly. A presence that could light up an entire room… or make it unbearably dim. The scent of overpriced flowers. A laugh that first drove her crazy… and then, for some reason, made her smile unintentionally.
Eugene said nothing. He just waited.
"She was... the kind of person you didn't know whether you wanted to push down the stairs or hug until the world shut down," Elphaba continued, not looking at Eugene, talking more to herself. "She was always surrounded by people. She always seemed to have all the answers." And yet, there were moments, just a few, when she looked at me as if... as if she could understand me. As if she weren't afraid of me.
She fell silent. The wind carried a few laughs from the yard, a high-pitched whistle passed through the trees.
"I never knew what we were. Maybe we were never anything. Or maybe we were all we could be, and I didn't know how to see it. Or how to hold it."
"And what happened?"
Elphaba lowered her gaze. Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"And when I needed her most... she was gone."
Her eyes were fixed on the figure of Darth Vader. But in her mind, there was a very different image. A face. A name she couldn't say because it hurt more than she was willing to admit.
"And I don't blame her. Sometimes... it's hard to stay close to someone like me."
Eugene lowered his head for a moment. Then, as if it were the most logical thing in the world, he offered her his Darth Vader figurine.
"You can talk to him if you want. He's not replacing anyone, but... he's available."
Elphaba looked at him, incredulous. Then she let out a nervous, almost shy laugh.
"You're ridiculous."
"And you're sad. We work."
Elphaba took the figure, for just a second. She looked at it in silence, recalling a face that was almost fading from her memory. She felt something catch in her throat. She took a deep breath.
And then she handed it back.
"Thank you, Eugene. Really."
"You're welcome. Now, if you'll excuse me... I must rebuild my sarcasm detector. I think it's about to explode around you."
"Good luck with that."
Eugene left, whistling something similar to the Star Wars theme, while Elphaba remained on the bench, alone again. But something in her chest… felt less tight.
For the first time in a long time, she'd spoken. And someone had listened.
With her fingers still stained with jam and a distant shadow of tenderness fading from her face, Elphaba stood with a steely resolve. With each step back toward the school building, she felt something inside her reassemble. The pain was still there, yes, like a torn muscle, but now covered by armor. She had made the mistake of letting the day control her. But no more. If she was going to finish the day with dignity, she would have to fight for it, claw by claw, gaze by gaze, word by word.
A crooked smile—dark, ironic, decidedly unsettling—spread across her face. That smile many mistook for malice, but which was actually her oldest defense mechanism. Her mental list unfolded like a flaming scroll. And she was ready to cross off each item with the precision of a vengeful surgeon.
Classes first.
Elphaba entered the classroom like a general entering a trench, and as soon as she crossed the threshold, the atmosphere thickened. The students, usually accustomed to pushing boundaries, immediately grasped that this wasn't a good time to tempt the witch. A couple of barely contained giggles were extinguished with a glance. At the first insolent comment—a veiled mockery of her hairstyle—Elphaba turned slowly, without missing a beat in her explanation of magical transformation, and fired off in a dry voice:
"Thanks for your aesthetic analysis, Cooper. I'll be sure to consult you the next time I dress up as a professional failure at sixteen."
The classroom erupted in stifled laughter, and Cooper sank back in his chair like a grumpy turtle. The class continued with icy efficiency. His tone was firm, ironic, provocative. He was in complete control, and he liked it. When the academic supervisor, a woman who spoke in reedy tones and always seemed on the verge of fainting over some minor infraction, entered with a frown, Elphaba didn't flinch.
"Miss Thropp, could we have a moment about your attitude toward students?"
Elphaba turned to her, placed her textbook on the desk with a soft thump, and smiled as if she were about to gut someone with a teaspoon.
"Sure, but I warn you, I don't have time for euphemisms, so if you want to say I was too honest with teenagers with fragile egos, I'll save you the trouble and sign wherever you like."
The supervisor hesitated. A blink, a resigned sigh, and then she left as quickly as she had entered. Point for Elphaba.
Second on the list: Wednesday.
Elphaba's smile widened with twisted joy when, a few hours later, she watched from a corner as the goth opened her locker with her usual nonchalance… only to find a grotesquely adorable voodoo doll wearing a bubblegum pink dress, exaggerated false eyelashes, and a ridiculously large bow. Hanging from the doll's neck was a sign: "Sometimes being adorable is the worst punishment. XOXO."
For a fleeting second, Wednesday raised an eyebrow. She didn't smile, of course. But she stared at the doll for a couple of seconds longer than necessary. Then she put it away. She didn't break it. She didn't throw it away. She put it away. Elphaba felt an inexplicable satisfaction.
Third target: Fiyero.
Sitting at a lonely table, in front of her open notebook and her mangled handwriting, Elphaba tried, again and again, to compose a message. It wasn't a letter. It wasn't a poem. Not even an apology. It was... something. Something that said what I hadn't been able to put into words the day before.
“I don't know if you're okay.”
Crossed out.
“Do you hate me?”
Crossed out hard.
“I don't know how to help you when I don't know how to help myself either…”
She wrote it down. But then she hesitated. What if he didn't want help? What if she was part of the problem? She leaned her head against the table and closed her eyes. The urge to give up appeared like a familiar shadow… until, out of the corner of her eye, she saw it. The last item on her list…
Isaac.
The idiot who had tried to justify his embarrassing scene with celery verses.
He was deep in conversation with a group of kids, probably inflating his ego with some absurd story, when Elphaba stood up and headed toward him like a missile guided by rage. Isaac saw her coming and, with the expression of someone who had just remembered leaving the stove on, tried to flee into the hallway.
“You!” she yelled.
He stopped. He seemed to be evaluating whether he could jump out the window without breaking something.
"Look, Elphaba, if this is about the poetry—"
"Do you really think I'm going to let you finish that sentence?!" she snapped, cutting him off. "We need to talk. Now."
Isaac swallowed.
"Can't it be tomorrow? Or maybe never?"
"No," she said, staring at him. "Today. Because if we don't talk today, I'm going to spend the entire week composing ballads about your pathos and posting them in the school bathrooms. Rhyming and all."
He sighed. Defeated.
"Okay. Let's talk."
And then the conversation began.
With a passive-aggressive tone disguised as politeness, Isaac tried to draw the line.
"Look, I don't know what you think I did, but it wasn't that bad. You're overreacting."
Elphaba glared at him.
"No, Isaac." I'm reacting proportionally to the infinite stupidity you've displayed over the last 24 hours every time we're alone. Do you want me to read you the subtitles of your own humiliation? Because I've got them all written down.
He crossed his arms.
"Sorry if I have human emotions and don't repress them with sarcasm like you do. Sorry if sometimes, I don't know, life overwhelms me and I don't handle it like a bitter robot."
Elphaba smiled, that sinister smile that only foretold storms.
"Ah, how interesting. Because from where I was standing, he looked more like a boy who needed attention and decided to play the martyr in the middle of the hallway as if that were poetic. Spoiler: it wasn't."
"At least I don't hide behind an "I'm superior to everyone" attitude so I don't have to admit I'm broken!"
"Broken? Broken?" Elphaba's voice cracked for just an instant before returning with force. "You want to talk about being broken, Isaac? Because if you think yours is a Greek tragedy, then you never sat in my shoes. I don't hide. I survive. Because if I let my guard down, even for a second, I'm crushed."
"Then maybe you should stop crushing others in the process!"
Elphaba looked at him as if he'd just crossed an invisible line. Her breathing thickened. The energy in the air was like a miniature thunderstorm, ready to explode.
She was one word—just one—away from breaking. From screaming at him. From using every cruel tool at her disposal to end him. He wasn't just Isaac anymore. He was Fiyero. He was Wednesday. He was her sister. He was herself.
And then a soft voice, like a misplaced bell, interrupted the charge.
"Miss Thropp."
Elphaba whipped her head around like a disturbed feline, her fierce expression meeting the magical administration professor's gaze, barely peeking into the hallway, notebook in hand.
"What?" she shot back, unrelenting.
The woman hesitated for a moment before speaking.
"There's someone... someone looking for her. Says she knows her. A young woman... blonde, petite, with curls and a very distinctive accent. Quite... brilliant, I'd say."
The world stopped... Literally.
Elphaba didn't blink. She didn't breathe. Her shoulders, tense with rage, suddenly seemed petrified. For an eternal second, she could do nothing but stare at the professor, not fully understanding.
Her heart lurched, as if it had been released from her chest and was plummeting.
"How... what did you say it was?" she asked, her tone strangely calm, almost fragile.
The woman tilted her head, oblivious to the internal storm she'd just unleashed.
"Blonde. Very dressed up. Like something out of a perfume commercial. She didn't say your name; she only knew that you worked here and that I needed to see you. She's waiting at the reception desk."
Isaac looked at her, confused, but Elphaba wasn't there anymore. Not really. Everything that had been fury, pride, boiling rage, had evaporated in a second. In its place was a familiar vertigo, one she hadn't felt in years.
Only one word repeated itself in her head, throbbing hard, with fear, with desire.
And for the first time all day, all Elphaba could do was whisper, something barely audible:
"It can't be…"
But it was. And she was only a few steps away…
Meanwhile, Glinda continued sitting on one of the wooden benches in Nevermore's administrative wing, her legs impeccably crossed, her hands clasped in her lap, and her back so straight it seemed part of the architecture. From the outside, she might have seemed like a figure made of pink ice, serene, elegant, imperturbable. But the reality inside was different: her heart beat with a humiliating urgency; every second that passed without seeing her made her chest constrict as if an invisible hand were slowly squeezing.
Every so often, her gaze would wander anxiously toward the hallway on her left, that damned, darkened corridor that seemed to stretch ever further, as if playing on her despair. Soon she would appear. She had to appear. Elphaba.
Thinking her name was enough to make the entire air seem to change density. Months had passed. Months since their last conversation, since that night filled with unspoken words, with exchanged glances that broke before they were truly real. Since the silent separation, where neither really knew how to let go of the other, but both did it anyway. Because it was easier to pretend it didn't matter anymore, that it didn't hurt, that it didn't burn inside.
And now he was here. Not for her. Not directly. He didn't want to lie to himself. He had come for help... for Fiyero, for the others, because the world was reeling. But also, inevitably, he was here for her. Because a part of him, one that had never died, needed to see her. To know if she was still there. To know if she still hurt.
And then, right in the center of that tangle of emotions, he heard a small pop.
Not from his heart. From a piece of gum.
Glinda blinked and turned her head, barely, like someone detecting an unannounced intrusion in a moment of vulnerability. And there, sitting in the next chair—which I swore had been empty a second ago—was a young woman with platinum-blonde hair streaked with multicolored streaks, perfectly polished nails, and a smile so wide it seemed to dismantle any shadows around her. The teenager winked at her as she inflated the balloon again, which popped with another loud pop.
"You know if you stare at it that much, the hallway won't magically produce anything, right?" she said, her voice high-pitched but warm, like someone talking to a lifelong friend even though they'd only known each other five seconds.
Glinda opened her mouth, a little confused, unsure whether to answer, ignore her, or ask for help.
"Sorry... have we met?"
The young woman laughed.
"Nope. But I love making new friends. I'm Enid. Enid Sinclair," she said, reaching out to her as if the gesture was the most natural thing in the world in that oppressive, gothic atmosphere.
Glinda hesitated for a second, then, purely out of etiquette, shook her hand.
"Glinda... just Glinda."
"Oh, that sounds mysterious and regal at the same time! Like Cher, but in a charmingly elegant way? I love it."
Glinda gave a faint smile, overcome by Enid's almost violent sweetness. It was like meeting a teenage version of herself, only without the veneer of insecurity she'd worn like perfume in those days.
"So what are you doing here?" Enid asked, leaning toward her like someone preparing a secret. "Are you waiting for someone... important?"
Glinda's gaze hardened involuntarily.
"Something like that."
"Ex, friend, or both?"
Glinda blinked.
"Excuse me?"
"Don't tell me anything! I bet it's an ex... or someone who was more than just a friend, and now you're here, months later, not knowing if they're going to yell at you, hug you, or summon an emotional storm from which there's no escape. Am I close?”
Glinda stared at her.
"How... do you know that?"
Enid shrugged, proud.
"I'm good with vibes! Plus, I have a scary, sexy potential serial killer as a roommate, a mother who wants to get me into heteronormative reintegration programs, an emotional crochet club, and a history of make-up that would make a Mexican soap opera weep. Trust me, I know how to spot a girl on the verge of an emotional epiphany!"
Glinda laughed. She couldn't help it. It was a short, tense, but genuine sound.
"You're... pretty direct."
"Only when I'm right," Enid said, winking at her before taking a granola bar out of her glittery jacket pocket and biting into it shamelessly.
For a few seconds, they were silent. Glinda looked back at the hallway. Then, more to herself than to her new roommate, she murmured, "I don't know how I'm going to react when I see her." I don't know if I want to yell at her, hug her, apologize, or ask her to forgive me. And worse... I don't know if she's going to want to see me. Not after everything that happened.
"Did you hurt her?"
"I let her down," she answered, almost without thinking, and was surprised at how easily she said it.
Enid put down the granola bar and looked at her seriously for the first time.
"And did she hurt you?"
Glinda pressed her lips together.
"Not like I did... But yes. Though I don't think she did it on purpose. I think... she was surviving."
Enid nodded, unexpected understanding on her young face.
"Sometimes it's like that. You survive however you can, and along the way... you forget to care for others. Even if you love them. Even if you love them."
The word hung in the air, as if neither of them dared to grasp it.
Glinda looked down.
"I used to have everything clear. The world, love, magic. I was... I was the one with the answers. But with her... everything became questions. And yet, I never felt more alive than when we were together. Even when we fought. Even when it hurt."
Enid smiled, chewing slowly.
"And you told her that?"
"No... not quite." Glinda's voice cracked slightly. "I left before I could."
Enid put the snack wrapper away, stretching her legs like a cat.
"Then maybe now's the time."
"I'm not sure she'll even want to talk to me," Glinda said, more to herself than to Enid.
"Well, for what it's worth," Enid replied as she pulled out a granola bar covered in glitter (literally), "I think if you're here, it's because there's still something worth saving. And that's... no small feat. Besides, no one comes to this school without a compelling reason! Not even you, Enchanted Barbie." Glinda laughed, and the conversation continued. Enid spoke with that carefree, sparkling cadence that seemed to float above the conventional rules of human stress. She talked about nail colors depending on the mood of the day, how difficult it was to train with wolves when all you wanted to do was watch teen romances, the unnecessary drama that sometimes occurred at school reunions ("as if anyone could outdo me in glitter, please"), and in the midst of it all, every once in a while, she'd throw in a surprisingly sharp observation that made Glinda laugh.
And Glinda laughed. At first shyly, then more freely, caught up in the optimistic whirlwind of that teenager who seemed to have the emotional energy of a hyperactive sun. For a brief moment, she allowed herself to forget why she was there. Why her stomach hurt. Why her shoulders were tense as if she'd been carrying her own elegance as punishment for centuries.
Until Enid started talking about... probabilities.
"I mean, I don't want to be negative or anything," she commented, popping another piece of gum with the nonchalant tone of someone commenting on the weather, "but you have to consider all the scenarios. Like, she might see you and turn away without saying a word. Or worse, say something like, "What are you doing here?" in that voice filled with suppressed contempt. That's super painful, isn't it?! It kind of pierces your soul. Boom!"
Boom, Glinda thought, swallowing. "Or not recognize you," Enid continued, as cheerful as ever. "Although I suppose that would be odd. Unless you've changed a lot. You haven't changed much, have you?"
"Huh?"
"I mean... well, you were probably younger before, obviously. But sometimes the years are unforgiving. And the light in this place... doesn't help. You look fine, obviously, but maybe not as good as I remembered. Expectations can be cruel, can't they?"
Glinda blinked.
"I... I had a rejuvenation treatment a month ago."
"Really?! Ah, that explains why your face has that weird tension, like a museum statue but with a good foundation. But zero judgment, huh! I want to do things as soon as I turn forty too. One can never be too prepared for decay."
Glinda's laugh this time came out... broken. Forced. She was beginning to feel her confidence crumbling like a paper dress in the rain.
"And then there's the emotional part," Enid continued, taking out a new piece of gum. "What if she's already... over you? Like she feels nothing, neither hate nor love. Absolute indifference. They say that's the worst thing anyone can do to you, don't they? Forget you. Erase you. As if you'd never existed."
Glinda felt a sudden emptiness in her chest, a pit that seemed bottomless.
"That's... unlikely," she said, trying to maintain her composure.
"Of course she is! Although, well, I don't know her. Maybe she's capable of it. There are people who do that kind of thing. They encapsulate their emotions, bury them in jars, and throw them into metaphysical rivers where they float until they vanish into eternity. My metaphor!" she added with a proud smile.
"Why are you saying all this...?" Glinda asked, her voice faint.
"Just in case!" You always have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. That way, if something less horrible happens, you feel like a queen. Can you imagine if she came and told you she hated you and rejected you in front of everyone? It would be like a dramatic witches' duel! Iconic!
The color began to drain from Glinda's face. The image of Elphaba yelling at her, rejecting her, or worse, glaring at her with disdain and turning away without a word, formed all too clearly in her mind. She felt herself shrinking inside.
And as if it were the icing on that crumbling emotional cake, Enid looked at her with a sweet smile and added,
"But hey, maybe she's just telling you that you look... 'different.' Which, as we know, is the equivalent of saying 'you've gained weight,' but with polite courtesy. Although I'm sure you look fine. Probably. In this light. At a bit of an angle."
Glinda put a hand to her face with an expression of absolute terror.
It was then that Enid, not noticing (or pretending not to notice) the chaos she had wreaked, leaped to her feet with the energy of someone going to play in the park instead of emotional hell.
"Well, I have to go. My psychopath girlfriend is probably waiting for me for our meditation/dance/energy cleansing session. Good luck with the mysterious ex-witch! You're going to be great. Or not. But either way, it will be unforgettable. Bye!"
And with one last shooting-star smile, Enid left down the hall, as light and bright as an enchanted butterfly that had just stung a flower until it bled.
Glinda didn't move for a few seconds. She remained seated, hands in her lap, eyes wide open, and her heart beating so fast it seemed about to collapse. All the fears she had kept on edge for months—those she had buried beneath rational discourse, beneath her elegant posture and measured tone of voice—now exploded like fireworks inside her. She wasn't ready. She has no idea how to face her. What if Enid was right?!
And then she saw her turn the corner. Enid. Disappearing at the end of the corridor.
"Wait!" Glinda cried, leaping to her feet, as if struck by lightning.
She ran after her, inelegantly, without thinking. Her skirt tangled, one of her heels made a dangerous click, and her dignity fell to the wooden bench. But none of it mattered.
"Wait, please! I need help! Enid, don't leave me! Tell me what to do! I can't... I can't face her alone!"
And somewhere in the corridor, Enid stopped, turning slowly with a mischievous smile that seemed to anticipate everything.
Glinda caught up with her before she could take another step.
"Enid, please, please, please help me! I don't know what to say, I don't know how to act, I don't even know what face to make. Do I smile? Do I look at her seriously? Do I act indifferent or hurt?" Happy to see her or devastated by her abandonment? I have no idea what to do!
The desperation in her voice was so raw it would have made a cloud nervous. Her usually impeccable posture had melted into a tangle of trembling hands, labored breathing, and a look as disoriented as if she'd just woken up backstage at an unrehearsed musical.
"My head is empty!" Glinda exclaimed, fanning herself with her hand as if she could shoo away the emotional chaos. "Empty, Enid! I don't have a single functioning brain cell! I need a script! A strategy! An emotional plan of attack!"
Enid looked at her with those eyes of eternal wonder, still smiling sweetly.
"Aww, you're nervous. That's cute! I feel like putting glitter on your face to cheer you up. But hey, if you want to know how you should feel... hmm, you could ask her." Glinda turned around with the slowest, most dramatic movement her spine allowed… and there she was… Elphaba.
She was barely around the corner of the hallway. Her posture was erect. Her gaze was steady. Her silhouette was unmistakable.
And in that instant, the entire universe collapsed around Glinda.
It was as if her soul leaped out of her body, did a somersault, screamed internally, and then slammed back into her chest with an emotional slap. Her blood ran cold. Her skin prickled. Her tongue turned to paper. Every emotion known to humankind raced through her chest at cosmic speed.
Guilt. Pain. Tenderness. Nostalgia. Terror. Love. Sorrow. Rage. Everything! EVERYTHING.
"HELLO, MISS—!"
"NO!" Glinda let out a strangled shriek as she grabbed Enid and mercilessly dragged her behind a decorative column in the hallway. Like a noble thief, she pressed her against the wall and covered her mouth with both hands, breathing heavily as if she'd just fled from a horde of ogres.
Enid, her eyes wide and sparkling, watched her, fascinated.
Glinda released her slightly.
"Don't look at her, don't greet her, don't exist. Do you understand me?"
"Was that her?" Enid whispered, her smile widening. "The famous... ex-heartbreaker?"
"Shhhh!" Glinda pressed her further against the wall, her nerves on edge.
Enid put a finger to her lips and murmured as if she'd discovered an imperial secret:
"Ohhhhhh! Now it makes perfect sense! The blank stare! The drama! The emotional outbursts! The heels too high to walk in! You're in love with Elphaba Thropp!"
"I'm not—" —Glinda stopped— “Shut up!”
But it was too late. Enid had lit up like a lantern of magical gossip.
—You knew she doesn’t like echoing hallways, didn’t you? She says they give her sensory anxiety. And she hates peaches, but loves cherries. What an intense emotional contrast, right? Oh, and they say she once broke a window with her gaze. Literally. It was when a student made fun of her braids. BOOM! Glass everywhere, everyone clapping.
Glinda began to hyperventilate. Elphaba continued moving down the hallway, each step a drumbeat in her soul.
Enid kept talking. And talking. And talking…
Glinda wasn't listening. Or she was. Or she didn't want to. Her head was in turmoil. Her eyes, sharp like nervous daggers, scanned the hallway. There was Elphaba. Looking around, looking for someone… looking for her?
Glinda's heart tightened like a gift bow. But just as she was about to emerge from her hiding place and gather what little remained of her emotional dignity… it happened.
Isaac… A man. Tall, well-dressed, but with an awkward gait and an energy of involuntary comedy, he trotted up behind Elphaba.
"Elphaba! Wait! What's going on…?" he shouted, waving something that looked like a notebook or a folder.
Elphaba turned around. At first, her brow furrowed as if she were being attacked by a chattering fly. But then Isaac said something. Something stupid. Something completely foolish.
Elphaba crossed her arms. Isaac—or so she heard Enid absentmindedly mutter—didn't seem to take the gesture as a sign of discomfort. He continued talking, and Glinda caught a glimpse of something: Elphaba smiled. She smiled. Not a laugh, not a genuine laugh, but that little curl of her lips—out of nervousness, discomfort, or simply to avoid killing him in public—happened.
For Glinda, though, it was as if the world stopped.
Enid chattered on:
"...and well, it's also rumored that her type is brilliant minds with unresolved emotional trauma. Is that why she's so drawn to philosophical debates, or because she's really just—"
While Glinda felt a sense of national betrayal.
"No... no no no NO," she said quietly. "She can't be flirting. With him!"
"Him who?" "Enid asked, now chewing a unicorn-shaped gummy bear.
"That... that... worm in shoes! Who does he think he is? What did he say to her? A joke about anti-capitalism? A metaphor for self-defensive cynicism? A tasteless poem with rhymes like 'witch' and 'mucha'?!"
"Maybe he told her she looks like a thunderstorm and a symphony on fire," Enid suggested dreamily. "I'd say that if I wanted to impress her."
"No!" Glinda blurted out suddenly, taking a step forward, her eyes blazing.
Enid broke off.
"Not what?"
"I'm not going to leave her!" Glinda declared, her voice firm, her eyes blazing. "She's my woman! I don't care how many square-jawed idiots approach her babbling nonsense! That smile is mine. MINE. I'm going to get it back!" And with a sudden transformation, Glinda rose to her full height, her body enveloped by an energy that can only be described as “furious glamour.” Her posture was that of warrior royalty, her stride firm as if each heel struck the earth with a divine decree.
Enid, impressed, only managed to murmur, “Wow… that was like watching a princess turn into a dragon… of diamonds.”
Glinda advanced toward Elphaba with such powerful determination that the air seemed to open up for her… until, like a slap from the universe, a shrill voice stopped her in her tracks:
“GLINDA! OH GODDESS!!”
Glinda barely had time to turn around before she was embraced by a whirlwind of glitter, cheap perfume, and unbearable enthusiasm.
"What? Oh no," she hissed, her tone high-pitched with emotional urgency.
Clarisse, one of those popular second-year girls who had turned idolization into an art form, had her arm clutched by the girl as if Glinda were a wax figure that could melt with happiness at any moment.
"I can't believe it's real! You're here, in person! I literally saw you on TV talking about the city's renovations and how to stay fashionable. Your speech changed my life! Can you tell me what perfume you wear? Is it enchanted? Can we take a selfie? Do you think rose gold is better than champagne pink? Do you mind if I copy your hairstyle for the ball?! GLINDA, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!"
Glinda, frozen, turned her head slowly toward Elphaba. The witch was already saying goodbye to Isaac. Saying goodbye. But smiling. Again. Again?!
Clarisse kept talking, and Glinda smiled through gritted teeth as Clarisse droned on, her enthusiasm unwavering.
"And when you were on that cover with the senator, wow, you looked amazing! Total CEO vibes! Is it true you're designing the new cultural center? My parents say the renewal plan is the best thing that ever happened to the city! Sure, some people complain about the displacement of entire neighborhoods, but hey, those people never want to change anything! And besides, the new shopping district is going to have a Starbubble! Can you believe it?!"
Glinda blinked, her face motionless, but her stomach tightened.
"Dis... displaced neighborhoods?" she repeated, her voice softer.
"Yes! Three entire areas! My parents say it's to clean up the city, that it's about time. It looks so tidy from the helicopter now!" Clarisse laughed, unaware of the expression crossing Glinda's face. "And besides, now the tourists are going to have to walk around without seeing... you know, strange people."
Strange people.
Glinda felt her chest tighten. For a moment, she couldn't hear Clarisse anymore. All the noise around her faded, as if someone had dunked her head in water.
That damn plan. That facade. Her public smile, her carefully worded speeches. All the image advice she'd followed. She believed—wanted to believe—it was a good thing. But what if it wasn't?
"It wasn't my plan," she muttered.
Clarisse didn't hear her.
"What did you say?"
Glinda looked up. Something inside her began to crack. The perfect smile gave way to an honest, tense, uncomfortable expression.
"It wasn't my plan." I... I only supported it because I believed it would help improve things, not cover up a covert displacement policy. I didn't... I didn't know they were going to relocate entire communities. And if I did know... maybe I didn't want to understand it.
Clarisse frowned, somewhat confused.
"But you defended him at the Senate Gala. You said it was 'the dawn of a new era of civic harmony.'"
"Yes." Glinda swallowed. "And I was wrong. Maybe I'm not as perfect as you think. Maybe I'm nothing more than a well-made-up mistake."
Clarisse looked at her, almost disappointed.
"Well... that's not what you say in interviews. Isn't that a little hypocritical?"
The words hit Glinda like a slap. She felt the debate she'd dreaded unfolding before her, without cameras or an audience, just an uncomfortable truth in the form of a glitter-clad fan.
"I'm not a villain, Clarisse," she murmured, almost to herself.
"But you're acting like you want to be the martyr," the girl said with a sweet but sharp smile. If you knew, why didn't you do anything? And if you didn't know, why did you keep smiling?
Glinda opened her mouth to respond, but fell silent. The weight of judgment—fair or not—slumped on her shoulders like a millstone. For the first time in a long time, she didn't have a retort ready.
And it was then that a familiar, firm voice interrupted:
"Because it's not that simple."
Clarisse turned her head. So did Glinda.
There was Elphaba, standing firmly behind the two of them, her arms crossed, her brow furrowed but with an inquisitive spark in her eyes.
Clarisse tried to retort with a forced smile, but Elphaba, with that cold, precise charm that came so naturally to her, disarmed her with a single glance and a sentence that was impossible to argue with. The young woman, visibly annoyed, turned away, swearing under her breath, and disappeared into the crowd, her enthusiasm turning to bitterness.
Glinda stood completely still, as if her body had forgotten how to function. Her thoughts were in turmoil. She barely remembered how to breathe. Beside her, Elphaba watched her with an expression Glinda couldn't quite decipher... Was it judgment? Understanding? Pain?
And then, without raising her voice, without embellishment, without shields, Elphaba said,
"So? Here I am... shall we talk?"
Enid walked briskly through the halls of Nevermore, giving little jumps of joy that made her blonde ponytail bounce with every step. She uttered soft greetings, a couple of flirtatious winks at distracted students, and a softly hummed pop tune escaped her lips as she stopped in front of a door decorated with glitter stickers, painted claws, and a sign that read: "Biohazard: Adorable and Unstable."
She excitedly turned the handle and walked inside as if announcing a parade:
"Hoooooooooney! I'm home!"
The room was partially dim, the only light falling on a desk covered in tools, schematics, jars of dubious contents, and a half-finished mechanical structure. Sitting with impeccable posture in front of all this meticulously calculated chaos, Wednesday Addams slowly turned her head toward Enid.
"You were gone for three hours and thirty-two minutes. The margin of error for missing you was limited... but acceptable," she replied in her monotone, her smile barely hinting.
Enid giggled as she dropped her bag on the bed and launched herself at it in a whirlwind of pastel colors.
"Awww! Was that a romantic declaration? I'm going to cry!"
"If you do, I have a jar for collecting tears. I want to test if the pH of yours can dissolve steel," Wednesday replied calmly, watching her out of the corner of her eye.
Enid crawled to the edge of the bed, her eyes mischievous.
"But I brought a present..."
Wednesday raised an eyebrow.
Enid, with a conspiratorial teenage smile, showed her the screen of her cell phone: a picture surreptitiously taken from the hallway, where the figures of Elphaba and Glinda finally together, talking, were visible, albeit blurry.
"Valuable information..." Wednesday murmured, her lips slightly curling. It wasn't exactly a smile, but by Addams standards, it bordered on the obscene.
"Am I or am I not crazy about you?" Enid intoned.
"Indeed," Wednesday replied. "And clinically speaking, I could prove it."
"Mmm, sexy," Enid purred as she approached her partner.
Wednesday turned completely around, crossing her arms with funereal theatricality.
"I'd gag you and lock you in a box for days until you confessed all your secrets," he said in a deep voice.
"And I'd chain you to a makeup chair with Christmas lights and make you listen to Taylor Swift until you admitted you loved it," Enid replied with an insolent smile.
Wednesday blinked slowly.
"That would be a war crime."
"Are we talking about love now, then?"
The game continued in conspiratorial whispers and playful threats that, in another couple, would be grounds for psychiatric hospitalization. Until they merged into a quick, contradictory kiss, full of electricity and danger. And then, as if they hadn't just threatened each other with medieval torture methods, they broke apart and headed for the board that dominated the side wall of the room. It was covered with maps, diagrams, and connections made with red threads.
Wednesday took a pin and stuck it right in the center: a small photo of Elphaba with the word "vulnerability" written in black ink.
"Now then," Wednesday said, a spark of delight in her voice. "We can begin phase two."
Enid smiled.
"Phase two of the 'get revenge on Elphaba Thropp, but this time without ruining the tragic romance that's clearly blossoming with Miss Glinda' plan?"
"Exactly," Wednesday agreed, without a hint of irony. "With surgical precision... and a touch of drama."
And together, they immersed themselves in the details of their grand project, partners in the strangest and most enchanting game in the world.
Notes:
Next chapter: Gelphie vs Wenclair.
Chapter 12: IN SUCH TOTAL DETESTATION
Notes:
Warning: you'll find a lot of Addams-style humor below :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
A soft, almost elegant mist spread like a sigh over the hill. The dawn light was nothing more than a faint glow between the dry trees, casting long, broken shadows across the damp field. And there, standing on the summit, was a single figure, straight and restrained like a porcelain statue about to break. He wore a long pink velvet coat, his hair tucked under a wide-brimmed hat, and immaculate white gloves. At first glance, he could have passed for a noble Regency gentleman, a young lord preparing to attend an opera... or his doom.
"Sometimes I wonder when a war truly begins. Is it with the first unspoken word? Or with the first truth we failed to uphold?"
The figure turned slowly when he heard footsteps in the damp grass. The mist parted only enough to reveal another silhouette: tall, sober-looking, but with something wild still restrained in his gestures. He was similarly dressed, though without the excessive effort at elegance. Her dark coat flapped in the wind, as if refusing to fully obey the body that wore it.
"It's time," Elphaba said, her voice low but firm, almost regretful.
The figure answering her—Glinda, though not the Glinda the world knew—allowed herself a small, wistful smile.
"I know. I suppose we can't keep putting it off."
"Not this time."
"They say facing an enemy takes courage. But facing someone you once loved... that's something else. It's tearing out your roots while you're still blooming. It's shooting down the reflection of who you once were when you were with that person.
There's a silent violence in challenging someone you know so well, you could destroy them with a single sentence. And yet you keep choosing your words as if walking on glass, careful not to cut yourself off from what you still feel."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward, but inevitable. They both knew they had reached the point of no return. Not because they wanted to, but because all else had already failed.
"You know," Glinda began, theatrically removing her glove, "It's funny... I always thought if we ever met here, you'd be the one demanding revenge. But here I am. The weapon in my hand weighs more than I imagined."
"It's not revenge I seek," Elphaba replied, her tone so grave that the dew seemed to tremble on the leaves. "It's true. It's the only language we have left."
"I didn't hate Glinda. Not then. Not completely. How do you hate the wind that taught you to fly, even if it then pushed you into the abyss?
But I couldn't forgive her so easily. Not yet. Because she left me alone in the fire... and then pretended there were no flames. Because she loved me in her own way, warm and convenient, while I burned completely."
They both took up positions. A few steps apart, parallel. As if the duel were a dance rehearsed for years in their hearts. Each held an antique pistol, more symbolic than lethal, as if taken from an old dream of pride and ruin. The field was silent, as if nature knew that the echo of what was said there would linger long after the shot.
Bang.
The first shot rang out like a sentence. Glinda took a step forward.
"You didn't see me when I needed you most."
Bang.
Elphaba didn't back down, but the shadow in her gaze intensified.
"I couldn't see you without destroying you... or destroying myself first."
Bang.
"You used my image to protect yourself. To lie to the world."
Bang.
"You taught me to lie with a smile. And you never stopped."
Step by step, bullet after bullet, the words fell heavier than lead. Each statement pierced not the body, but the memory. Time bent between them like a wound that still bled even though no one could see it. The wind lifted dry leaves that spun in circles around them, as if even the air wanted to intervene before the final shot.
Finally, face to face, pistols still in hand. So close they could see the tremble on each other's lips, resentment mixed with longing.
“And yet, when I had her before me, in that moment… I felt like every word I spoke was an echo of what we didn't say in time.
I wasn't seeking revenge. I only wanted to find what remains among the ruins. And if there is truth among them, then I will shoot. Not to hurt her. But so that we finally feel the same pain.”
“One last question,” Glinda said, almost tenderly. “What is left of what we were?”
Elphaba looked into her eyes, and for the first time there was no anger, no defense, no resentment.
“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”
Bang.
But the shot didn't come.
Instead, a soft, steady murmur cut through the scene like a knife through silk. A real, electric, human hum.
Glinda blinked.
Elphaba wasn't a gentleman in a long coat. And she wasn't a porcelain figure in a Jane Austen novel. She stood in a gray stone hallway under flickering lights. And before her was the real Elphaba: thin, intensely present, one eyebrow raised, her arms crossed. She was looking at her as if she'd been talking to her for several minutes without a reply.
"Glinda? Are you okay? You seemed... out of it."
Glinda blinked again. A strange feeling, like reverse deja vu, ran through her body. She still felt the echo of the unspoken words, the weight of the imaginary gun.
"I... yes. I was just... thinking."
Elphaba tilted her head slightly, as if sensing something deeper. She didn't say anything immediately. Her gaze wasn't hard, but curiously soft. As if she knew there was something in the air they both felt and couldn't yet name.
"Ready to really talk?" she finally asked, her voice no longer carrying armor.
Glinda swallowed. Reality surrounded her, palpable and piercing, but it was no less dangerous than the dueling ground.
"Yes," she replied. "Let's talk."
CHAPTER 12: In such total detestation
Glinda's heels clicked with determination—and a certain suppressed fury—through the ancient halls of Nevermore, chasing Elphaba as if each step could make up for lost years. The professor advanced with her always serene gait, but Glinda could feel her shoulders tense, her back straight, too straight… as if she were anticipating a battle.
Around her, the murmurs of the students began to spread like wildfire. Some watched her surreptitiously, others brazenly. Some whispered among themselves, recognizing her face from the news, magazines, or lectures where she spoke of progress, the future, and leadership. But others, those who knew Elphaba, looked at her strangely… it was the first time someone had crossed the walls of her privacy with such familiarity. And that, in Nevermore, did not go unnoticed.
Glinda raised her chin, like a queen walking among the subjects of a kingdom that was not her own. On the outside, she maintained her bearing: impeccable, haughty, brilliant. On the inside, she was a storm about to erupt.
Finally, Elphaba pushed open the door to a secluded classroom. It was spacious, with high ceilings, antique bookshelves, and walls that smelled of chalk and secrets. They entered without a word. Elphaba carefully closed the door, turning the key with a sharp click that resonated louder than expected. Then, unhurriedly, she lowered the blinds one by one, as if she needed that ritual to create a bubble, a parenthesis from the outside world. So that no one would see. So that no one would interfere.
Glinda stood, her arms crossed against her chest, observing everything with sharp eyes: the books stacked in no visible order, the handwritten papers, the blackboard still marked with notes in green ink. Everything had the scent of Elphaba. That mix of method and chaos, analysis and suppressed fury. And yet, there was something else: a completely different life, woven without her.
"Not bad," Glinda murmured, as if carefully choosing her words. "I thought you'd have covered everything with poisonous plants and revolution posters, but... this is almost normal."
Elphaba didn't reply. She finished lowering the last blind and walked to her desk with the calm of someone who knows that anything she says could be used against her. She sat with her hands clasped in front of her, her gaze fixed on Glinda.
"Are you done inspecting?" she asked ironically, but not harshly. "Or are you also going to check under the rug for any bombs I'm hiding?"
Glinda snorted, slowly lowering her arms.
"Don't provoke me, Elphie."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow. The last time Glinda called her that, the world still held some tenderness.
Glinda sat down at the desk as if it were any other meeting. As if she weren't sitting facing an earthquake contained in human form. She settled herself elegantly, her legs crossed, as if that position could protect her from the turmoil she knew was coming. Her fingers toyed with a gold clasp on her coat, a silent way of calming the anxiety growing in her chest. “I didn’t think you’d end up teaching… Especially not in a place like this,” she said with a weak smile, trying to sound casual, as if that could fool them both. “Although I suppose it makes sense. You were never the type to settle for convention.”
Elphaba looked up, her expression impenetrable, a perfectly placed mask.
“And what did you expect? That I’d be in a tower in the woods with a crystal ball and a black cat, waiting for the world to end?”
“No…” Glinda pressed her lips together, uncomfortably. “I just… wanted to know how you’re doing. What’s become of you?”
Elphaba shrugged, the most nonchalant answer she could muster.
“I’m still breathing. Teaching. Making self-important teenagers fear me enough to hand in their assignments on time. The norm.”
Glinda gave a short giggle, more out of nervousness than amusement. Then her gaze darted around the room, as if staring at the walls or the books might tell her more than Elphaba was willing to reveal. But she couldn't help it. Curiosity seeped through the cracks of her resentment.
"I didn't know you were so passionate about education."
Elphaba let out a small sigh as something resembling a smile spread across her face.
"I wasn't, but after leaving Shiz.Corp... I was fed up with corporations, corporate systems, and working for something I didn't really believe in... But with my college degrees, I could teach, and I said... Why not?"
"And why here?" Glinda asked gently. "Why in this afterlife school?"
Elphaba looked at her sharply.
"Why not? No one here is shocked if I throw someone out a window for being an idiot. It's... relaxing."
"Always with the drama," Glinda murmured without thinking.
"And you always with the condescension," Elphaba replied almost instantly, without raising her voice but with an edge in every syllable.
Silence settled again like a thick cloud. Glinda took a deep breath. She was trying. She really was. She wanted to know about her, about her life, about her world, but every word they exchanged was a minefield. And Elphaba... she seemed to know her every step before she took it.
"So you found out what I did?" Glinda finally said, looking at the floor.
"You got the picture right." "Front pages, speeches, the new face of institutional harmony," Elphaba replied, leaning back in her chair. "People adore you. Although of course, it's easier for them when the face they adore isn't next to a green witch who makes them uncomfortable."
"You don't understand," Glinda said, her voice cracking slightly. "You don't know what I went through. What I had to do to support you. So that at least one of us could have a voice."
"Support me?" Elphaba repeated with a bitter smile. "Glinda, you didn't support me. You left me alone."
Glinda clenched her fists in her lap. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. But she couldn't do either of those things without falling apart completely.
"It wasn't like that. You left."
"No." Elphaba's voice was firm, clear as a bell. "I didn't leave. You didn't want to come."
And then, the world stopped for a moment. As if the walls were holding their breath.
Glinda felt a knot form in the center of her chest. She knew it. She'd always known it. She didn't need to be told. But hearing it out loud, so direct, so relentless, hurt more than any memory.
"It's not fair," she whispered. Her eyes were beginning to water. "You don't know what you asked of me. You don't know what I had to leave behind just so... just so you could remain free. I couldn't follow you. Not then. Not with all that was at stake."
Elphaba stood up from the desk and paced across the room, her arms crossed. Her figure cast a long shadow in the dim light that filtered through the slats of the blinds.
"There was always something at stake, Glinda. Always. And you always chose what was brightest."
"That's not true!" She raised her voice for the first time. "You have no idea what it cost me!" Every time I spoke in public, every time I smiled in front of those cameras while you were missing… I thought of you! Of what we would have been if only… if only…!
“If only you had been brave?” Elphaba finished with devastating coldness.
Glinda looked down, devastated.
“Don’t call me a coward,” she whispered.
“I don’t. You don’t need me to. You do it yourself.”
Silence fell again. This time not like a pause, but like an abyss.
Glinda took a deep breath, trying to catch her breath. Something was breaking inside her, something ancient and all too familiar.
“So… what do we do now?” she asked, her voice cracking.
For a moment, there was only silence.
Glinda and Elphaba stared at each other as if each was waiting for the other to say something neither could. They had imagined this reunion, time and again, amid sleepless nights and blurred memories. But now that it was happening… it was as if the common language they had once shared had died.
The air was heavy, as if every unspoken word hung from the ceiling, slowly suffocating them.
Elphaba finally sighed heavily, crossing her arms in a movement that seemed less defensive and more… resigned.
“Glinda…” she rasped. “What are you doing here?”
Glinda swallowed. She had rehearsed the answer. Many times. But now it sounded ridiculous, hollow, even to her.
“I came to ask for your help,” she said gently, knowing how ironic it sounded on her own lips.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, the barest hint of a cynical smile curving her lips.
“And has the world already ended, or is it just about to?” Because that sounds like one of those prophecies that only come true when pigs fly.”
“I know,” Glinda replied, lowering her gaze. “I know it sounds hypocritical. It is. But I don’t know who else to turn to.”
Elphaba watched her silently. Something in his expression, for the first time, wasn't sarcastic, or harsh. Just... tired. Hurt.
Glinda sighed. She was going to give up. To leave it there. To accept that asking Elphaba for something after everything that had happened was crazy. But then...
"It's for Fiyero," she said, almost a sigh.
And that stopped Elphaba completely. As if that word, that name, could extinguish all the flames inside her in a single second.
Fiyero.
Elphaba straightened, suddenly more alert, more... human.
"What about him?"
Glinda hesitated. Not because she didn't want to talk, but because it hurt. Because talking about Fiyero was talking about the past, about an emotional conflict that neither of them had fully healed.
"The City's renewal plan..." she began. "The project pushed by the senator, by Shiz.Corp... and by me, in part..."
Elphaba said nothing. She just waited.
“It’s destroying everything. Literally. Not just industrial areas or old neighborhoods… It’s also wiping out the few businesses that still belong to real people. Places Fiyero bought to keep them from closing. Many didn’t even know he was the one holding them up.”
“And now?” Elphaba asked, her voice lower.
“Now… he’s going to lose them all. If he doesn’t get political or media support, he’ll go down with them. And believe me, he will. He won’t sell. He won’t give up. Even if it drags him down.”
Elphaba clenched her jaw. Of course Fiyero would do that. Stupid, idealistic, stubborn Fiyero. One of the few who never treated her like a monster.
“And he asked you for help?”
“No,” Glinda admitted. “He doesn’t even know I’m here. But I know him. I know this is killing him inside. And I know… he won’t ask for help.” Because she still thinks she can carry the whole world on her shoulders.
Elphaba turned toward one of the windows, barely parting the blinds with a finger to peer into the hallway. Her face was a mix of emotions that couldn't bring themselves to express themselves.
"So, what do you need me for? To go to the Senate? To burn files? To deliver a protest speech on prime time?"
"No. Well... maybe."
Elphaba gave a dry laugh.
"You know I'm not good at following rules."
"That's exactly why," Glinda said, taking a step toward her. "Because I can't break them. I'm being watched, constantly. The senator has eyes and ears in every corner, and Madame Morrible... she's not just a shadow anymore, Elphaba. She's part of the system. Of what I built. I can't fight from within without the whole thing falling apart."
"And that's where I come in," Elphaba said, turning slowly to face her. The useful monster. The secret weapon. The piece that no longer belongs on the board, but can still tip everything over.
"No." Glinda shook her head firmly. "I don't see you as that. I see you as the only one with the strength, the vision... and the courage to do what no one else would dare. Because when you fight, you fight for what matters. For those without a voice. Just like you always did. Even when I... couldn't keep up with you."
Elphaba remained silent. Her green eyes fixed on hers. Searching. Hesitating.
And for a moment... a very small one... it hurt less.
"I swear I don't want to use you," Glinda added, lowering her gaze. "But if there's a way to fix this, I know it starts with you."
Elphaba took a deep breath, closing her eyes. Fiyero. The past. The city. The woman in front of her. Everything was intertwined in a single dilemma.
But while Elphaba was still silently weighing Glinda's words, Glinda opened her bag with a mixture of resignation and determination. From inside, she pulled out a thick folder, overflowing with papers, reports, plans, balance sheets, handwritten notes... everything she had managed to gather about the Ozdust Club and its complex legal and financial situation.
Without a word, she handed it to Elphaba. Her fingers trembled slightly as she let go.
"Here it is," she said simply. "I don't know if it'll help." Maybe it won't change anything. But... maybe you can do more with this than I could even with the entire Senate on my side.
Elphaba took the folder with some suspicion, flipped through a few random pages, and let out a low grunt.
"This is madness..." she muttered, without looking up.
Glinda gave a bitter laugh.
"Yes. Welcome to my life."
But when Elphaba said nothing more, not a hint of cooperation or genuine interest, Glinda gave up. Her shoulders slumped, and her voice, though subdued, betrayed the sadness she'd been trying to hide all along.
"It doesn't matter. Do what you want with it. Or nothing. It's still more than I can do from where I am..." She took a step toward the door. "Thank you for... at least listening."
She was about to turn around when Elphaba spoke, almost a whisper, but loud enough to stop her in her tracks.
"Okay..."
Glinda stopped, not daring to look back yet.
"We can watch it together," Elphaba added, her voice almost apologetic, though she would never admit such a thing. "Not for you, not for me... but for Fiyero. He's the closest thing to a friend I've had in the last few months. He never left me. And I let him go. I watched him sink, and I did nothing. So... yeah. We're going to do something."
Glinda turned slowly, trying to contain the smile that appeared shyly and with a hint of disbelief.
"Are you serious?"
"Don't get too excited," Elphaba warned, crossing her arms. "You're still unbearably brilliant, politically useless, and with a perfume that gives me a headache."
"And you're still dramatically dark, with antisocial tendencies, and a haircut that gives stylists anxiety. So?"
"And yet, we work." Sometimes. More or less,” Elphaba said, lowering her gaze slightly, between amused and resigned.
“So…” Glinda said, picking up a couple of papers she almost dropped. “Where do we see it? We need to review this without my ‘private security’ or some paparazzi showing up with their drone.”
“My penthouse is out. I haven’t been there in months, and it’s probably a nest of anarchist rats by now.”
“What about a discreet café?”
“And weren’t you the one who said it couldn’t be a public place?”
“Right…” Glinda rolled her eyes. “We can’t go to my apartment, not even dream of it… You haven’t earned that right yet.”
“So…”
They both looked at each other. Elphaba was the first to suggest it, almost as a joke. “Nevermore… On Friday nights, the students go home, and the teachers vanish before the clock strikes seven. The place is empty. Nobody would bother us.”
Glinda hesitated... but then nodded.
"Okay. This Friday at eight."
"Perfect. Take the folder. I'll take... whatever comes to mind."
They both approached the door. Elphaba opened it, but neither of them stepped out immediately. There was a moment. A second hanging in the air, dense, strange, indefinable.
And then Glinda, without giving it much thought, asked with a small, crooked smile:
"Does this count as a date?"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow with that air of dry sarcasm that only she mastered.
"The last time we had one, you ended up bound and gagged, begging me."
"Then it's not a date," Glinda replied with a giggle, as she finally walked out the door. "But who knows? Maybe... someday."
Elphaba didn't respond. She just watched her leave. But on her face, for the first time in a long time, something very similar to a smile appeared.
A tiny flame. Almost imperceptible. But alive.
Just minutes later, Glinda descended the main staircase, the heel of her shoes clicking with measured elegance. Her expensive skirt fluttered lightly in the wind. The dim light of the twilight gave her the aura of a melancholic heroine, as if the world were photographing her in slow motion. She had the bearing of someone who has always been adored… and the expression of someone no longer so sure she deserves it.
But what she didn't know was that a certain eerie young woman was watching her from afar. Wednesday Addams watched her from the shadows, her arms crossed, her face unchanging. Her eyes followed Glinda's every step with surgical precision.
—Unpleasantly perfect. Wardrobe meticulously immaculate. Hair designed to stay put even in a hurricane. Smile frozen in social protocol. An eye expression that denotes repressed guilt and rotting arrogance... Wednesday narrowed her eyes in disdain. "I hate her existence."
A figure appeared from behind, enveloping Wednesday in a warm hug. It was Enid Sinclair, smiling mischievously as she rested her chin on her girlfriend's shoulder.
"Aww, that's what you said about me the first time you saw me... and look at us now. Should I be jealous already?"
Wednesday rolled her eyes.
"Don't mistake critical observation for interest. She's a self-deceptive public figure who has risen on the power, aesthetics, and a smile that masks morally questionable choices. She reminds me of you."
"Hey!" Enid laughed, tightening her hug. "I mean... you're right. But you still love me unconditionally."
"Unfortunately." Wednesday sighed with theatrical resignation. However, Miss Upland might be useful. I'm considering incorporating her into my new plan of revenge against Miss Thropp.
"Again with that?" Enid said excitedly, stepping back to face her. "It's about time! It's been weeks since we executed a malicious plan together. I miss the days when we slowly destroyed each other's spirits."
"It wasn't destruction," Wednesday said. "It was a systematic restructuring of the school hierarchy. And it was glorious."
Enid sighed, her eyes dreamy.
"The way you got Bianca to confess in front of everyone that hair extensions and Botox... It was like you'd written me a love poem."
Wednesday nodded.
"There's no greater display of affection than a surgical strike against someone else's vanity."
Enid smiled even wider.
"So this weekend I have to stay here, with you? No parents? No interruptions? No supervision?"
"Correct. You won't be able to go home. There's a lot to prepare before Friday. Access to security cameras, restricted hallways, locks on the staff files..."
"Perfect! Maybe my parents are idiots."
Wednesday turned her face slightly, with a hint of curiosity.
"Do they still call you 'my little wolf of light' and brag about your achievements in their WhatsApp group?" Enid grimaced.
"Ugh. 'Our little furry star of lunar pride.' Every time they say that, I lose years of my life."
"Fine. Then it's a minor sacrifice." Wednesday turned and began walking slowly into the darkened hallway. "Follow me. I need you to examine the electrical schematics for the old wing. If we're going to intercept Glinda and Elphaba in that building, I need to know every blind spot."
"Intercept them? Are we going to spy on them?" Enid asked, skipping after her excitedly. "Or sabotage them?"
Wednesday turned his face slightly to look at his girlfriend.
"Both. This is an investigation... and a warning."
"This is so romantic!" Enid exclaimed, holding Wednesday's hand as they walked. "This is going to be our best night of plotting since we made the theater director cry!"
Wednesday said nothing, but his fingers closed lightly over Enid's.
Night fell completely over Nevermore. Shadows covered the halls, and the air felt like that perfect mix of intrigue, sinister romance... and plans that could change everything.
And so, the following days passed like a breath for the actors in this play... a breath of breath, laden with anxiety, desire, and secrets.
Glinda, always impeccable, reviewed the Ozdust Club documents over and over again. She didn't sleep well, nor did she eat well, but that didn't stop her from fulfilling her commitments. She received her new ID and access card for Shiz.Corp headquarters, which came with strict new "security measures" that continued to make her feel uneasy.
She gave talks, lectures, attended meetings, smiled for the cameras... But her mind, her attention, her soul, were elsewhere.
When her cell phone vibrated and the screen displayed Milla's name, her first impulse was to answer. But then... she hesitated. A millisecond of hesitation was enough for her finger to press reject.
And then she went on with her day, as if nothing had happened. As if nothing had happened.
Elphaba, for her part, lived a disturbingly calm life. She taught classes without getting upset, without sarcasm, without provocation. She accepted questions without mockery, even completely ignoring Isaac, despite his pathetic attempts to get her attention. Even when no one was looking, she sporadically checked Glinda's social media.
She also tried to contact Fiyero on several occasions, but for one reason or another, they never met at the house. There always seemed to be an obstacle: a call, a change of plans, a closed door. And she... didn't insist.
Wednesday and Enid had spent the week immersed in a perverse dance of espionage and romance. They stole credentials, hacked files, obtained old plans for Nevermore, and marked strategic surveillance points. Amidst the conspiratorial murmurs were stolen kisses, discreet caresses, and that triumphant smile Enid wore whenever Wednesday said, "You're more useful than I thought... albeit irritatingly optimistic."
Theirs was somehow disturbingly adorable. The sight of the two of them sharing a dimly lit laptop, Enid munching on candy while Wednesday devised a trap, was the perfect blend of chaos and gothic love. The plan was in motion, and there was no turning back.
When Friday afternoon finally arrived, Elphaba and Glinda were each getting ready on their own.
Glinda applied her makeup in front of the mirror, unaware that her routine had changed. Her eyeliner was more subtle, her hair less perfect. She wore an expensive coat… but underneath, an elegant and… comfortable outfit. This wasn't her preparing to give a lecture. It was another version. More real. More vulnerable.
Elphaba looked at her reflection and wondered what it all meant. A meeting? A temporary pact? A truce forced by guilt? She dressed practically, as always, but for the first time in a long time… she put on perfume. Very lightly. As if she wanted to deny it.
Both of them, unwilling to admit it, spent hours thinking about the same thing: What are we supposed to be tonight? Allies? Or something more?
When the clock struck 7:58 p.m., they were both walking, in opposite directions, toward the same spot: Nevermore.
Empty. Silent. Mysterious… And completely watched.
From the top of the clock tower, Wednesday watched the scene through binoculars.
"They've arrived."
Enid, sitting cross-legged next to her, chewed a bat-shaped gummy bear.
"And how does that make you feel?"
Wednesday slowly lowered the binoculars.
"Irritated. Curious. Clever."
"In other words…" Enid leaned closer and kissed her cheek, "excited."
Wednesday sighed in resignation.
"Maybe."
And then, deep inside the campus, Elphaba opened an old service door… and on the other side, Glinda was already waiting for her.
When Elphaba opened the door, her breath caught in her throat for a split second.
The long, perfectly cut coat fell like a cape over Glinda's figure, but what truly captured her attention was what lay beneath: a sober pink ensemble, elegant but not ostentatious. A perfectly tailored blazer and trousers, a shirt in a slightly lighter shade, without the glitter of sequins or extravagance. It was an outfit designed. Not for a red carpet. But for her. For this meeting.
Elphaba, who was wearing a more carefully crafted outfit than usual—a dark blouse without wrinkles but with a slightly more noticeable neckline than usual, a dark and coherent jacket, polished boots, a faint perfume—said nothing about it. She wouldn't recognize it under torture. But something in her tensed.
Glinda smiled at the sight, with a flash of warmth mixed with uncertainty. Elphaba, however, hid her shudder behind a neutral expression. She nodded silently, with a terse, almost professional greeting. Glinda lowered her gaze slightly, and her smile faltered a little. But she said nothing.
"This way," Elphaba said softly, turning to lead the way without further introduction.
They walked together through the Nevermore corridors, whose automatic lights flickered with a faint laziness as they walked. Everything was quiet, too quiet, as if the building breathed sluggishly in the absence of students and teachers. Elphaba unlocked the door to the staff room: an austere, functional space with wooden chairs, a long table in the center, and a small corner with an old coffeepot, the kind that protests when it gets hot.
Glinda sat down with the restrained grace of someone who doesn't want to look out of place, crossing her legs with an almost unconscious elegance. She looked around, noting the dullness of the surroundings, but didn't comment. She wasn't there to judge.
"Coffee?" Elphaba asked from the corner, as she began to prepare the machine.
"Yes, please. With two sugars."
"I know."
That "I know" hung in the air like a ghost.
As the coffeepot hummed and steamed, Glinda looked around with some discomfort. Then, timidly, she began to speak.
"I don't know if this... if this means anything to you. I mean, just being here. Together. Doing this. I mean... I don't know if you—"
"I'm not here for you," Elphaba interrupted, not harshly, but not gently either. "I'm here for Fiyero."
"I know that," Glinda replied, lowering her gaze. "But still... thank you."
There was a silence. The coffeepot fizzed with a sound that filled the room. Elphaba poured two cups and returned to the table, handing one to Glinda. She sat down opposite her, holding her own cup in her hands. The heat barely burned her fingers, but she didn't move her hands. Somehow, that faint ache kept her grounded.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. They sipped their coffees in silence, avoiding eye contact for too long. Until Glinda, as if unable to bear the tension any longer, spoke:
"I've been thinking a lot about... everything. About you. About Fiyero. About myself, if I'm honest."
"So?" Elphaba asked, not mockingly, just with a tired tone.
"So... I've realized I'm really tired of pretending. Pretending everything's okay, pretending what's happening to Fiyero doesn't affect me, pretending I don't care what you think of me... when I do. A lot."
Elphaba looked down at her cup.
"I don't know what to say to you."
"You don't have to say anything. I just..." Glinda sighed. "I'm just glad you're here."
Elphaba looked up. There was a suspended moment, charged with silent electricity. As if everything they had avoided for years, everything they hadn't allowed themselves to think or feel, was compressed into that instant.
And then, as if in mutual surrender, they began to talk.
Not as enemies. Not as rivals. As two people who had been carrying misunderstandings, unhealed wounds, and nameless emotions for years. Elphaba confessed the loneliness she had felt. Glinda spoke of the pressure, of the emptiness behind the applause. They laughed, shyly at first, and then more freely. They remembered themselves, the girls they had once been, and the women they had become. Two steaming cups in each other's hands. Two souls trying to find each other.
And just as silence settled again, not as a barrier but as an intimate space of contemplation, Glinda looked at her tenderly. She opened her mouth to say something else.
"Elpha..." she began, her voice soft.
But her sentence was never completed.
Her expression changed. A shadow crossed her eyes, and her body seemed to fade backward like a doll whose soul had been ripped from her. Elphaba bolted upright, her heart pounding in her chest.
"Glinda!"
She ran to her, catching her before her head hit the back of the chair. Elphaba shook her lightly, panic in her eyes, but Glinda didn't respond. Her breathing was slow, her pulse barely perceptible.
Elphaba smelled something strange. She grabbed the cup Glinda had been using and sniffed. Her nostrils caught a subtle scent, almost imperceptible, but definitely out of place: a metallic, bitter trail.
"What the hell…?"
Before she could think further, a wave of dizziness washed over her. Everything began to bend around her. Shadows lengthened in impossible directions, and the sound of her breathing grew ever more distant. She tried to crawl toward the door, to let out a scream, but her body no longer responded.
"No... it can't be..."
Her vision blurred. The last image she saw before falling was that of Glinda, still unconscious, her face calm, as if she were sleeping.
And then, darkness.
A few seconds later, at the top of the tower, someone lowered the binoculars.
"Objective completed," Wednesday Addams said calmly, taking Enid's hand.
Enid smiled with suppressed excitement.
"Now the fun part begins?"
Wednesday nodded with a cold half-smile.
"Now it all begins."
Elphaba opened her eyes with a low moan, her vision blurring, her head throbbing as if it had been squeezed in a vice. Everything was tilted, as if the world had been rebuilt by someone with a distorted perception of logic. She tried to move, but her body didn't respond. She felt the stiffness of ropes around her arms and legs, and the gag squeezing her mouth barely allowed her to utter a moan.
When she finally managed to focus, she discovered her surroundings with growing bewilderment.
She was on the stage of the Nevermore auditorium, yes… but not as she remembered it. The black velvet curtain fluttered slightly despite the lack of a breeze. The floor was covered with a long tablecloth, decorated with black arabesques and wilted roses, and on it rested perfectly cracked cups, trays of unrealistically colored cakes, and vases filled with dried flowers. Sitting in an ornate tea chair, Elphaba felt ridiculous, as if she were part of a macabre play she never wanted to be a part of.
Around the table, on other chairs, sat figures she at first thought were human… until her eyes recognized the inhuman stillness of their faces: dolls. Antique dolls, some with uneven glass eyes, others with broken necks or stained dresses. Their tilted heads and frozen smiles welcomed her into a game they hadn't been invited into, but rather dragged in.
And then, she saw her.
Beside her, in a twin chair, Glinda lay still unconscious. Her head lolled to one side, her perfectly combed hair disheveled by the faint, the gag covering her lips, and her hands tied with pink ribbons decorated with fake thorns. She looked like just another doll in that grotesque room.
Elphaba made a desperate sound, trying to alert her. She tugged at her restraints, but only succeeded in making the chair creak under her weight. Finally, Glinda began to move, slowly, and when she opened her eyes—blue, large, and filled with bewilderment—her confusion quickly turned to pure panic. Her body struggled, trying to break free, and her eyes bored into Elphaba's, searching for an explanation, for comfort, for something. But Elphaba could only return a look filled with rage and warning.
It was then that Enid appeared.
She practically floated inside, her eternal optimism shining like an anomaly amidst the gloomy atmosphere. She wore a white apron with small drawings of smiling cupcakes, and in her hands she held a tray of pink muffins topped with whipped cream and glittering sprinkles that looked like something out of a childhood nightmare.
"Good morning, girls!" she intoned cheerfully, her voice so sweet it hurt. "I am so glad you accepted our humble invitation to this very special gathering. I hope you feel... at home."
Glinda gasped against her gag, her eyes bulging, immediately recognizing the colorful girl she'd met a few days ago in the hallway, who'd nearly driven her crazy with her rantings and passive-aggressive comments. Despite having struck Glinda as too sugary for her small frame when she'd first met her, she hadn't imagined she was capable of such a thing, and now she seemed to be playing hostess at a demented banquet.
Elphaba, for her part, clenched her jaw, her brow furrowed with visceral hatred. She knew who Enid was. She used to see her running around the halls with excess energy and joy. The one who used to adorn her notebooks with unicorn stickers and glitter. But she also knew exactly who she hung out with. That bright smile was the perfect cover for something much more dangerous.
Enid approached Glinda first, placing the tray close to her face as if she were offering her a treasure.
"A muffin? I made them especially for you." Pink, soft, and with a hint of lavender... although they have a special ingredient. One that helps you see things more clearly.
Glinda groaned, shaking her head vigorously, until Enid, with a gentle but firm gesture, removed the gag. The first thing that came out of the blonde's lips was a barrage of gasps.
"Are you crazy?! What is this?! Where are we?! Let us go right now, this isn't funny! I'm going to call the police, the principal, whoever! This is a kidnapping! Do you have any idea who I am?! Who we are?!"
Enid listened with an unwavering smile, as if the screams were part of a song she already knew. Then, with irritating sweetness, she said, "Shhh... don't scream so loud, Glinda. The cake is getting cold. You don't want it to lose its frosting."
And without warning, he placed a muffin in her mouth, forcing her to bite with expert precision. Glinda struggled, but the sweet, narcotic taste was already sliding over her tongue, and her body began to relax despite herself.
It was then that a voice, serene as the surface of a dark lake, broke the silence.
"Thank you, Enid." Always so considerate.
From the opposite end of the table, among the shadows that seemed to have been waiting for her, Wednesday emerged.
Sitting cross-legged, steaming black tea in a cup decorated with miniature skulls in her hands, she watched her two guests with an unnerving calm. She wore a black Victorian dress, her collar stiff, her hair in its distinctive braids. Her face, as always, showed no emotion, but her gaze contained everything her mouth didn't say.
"I must admit," she began in a soft voice, articulated with surgical precision. "I admired your attempted attack last week, Miss Thropp. It was clever... insightful. You used my weaknesses against me. A move worthy of... respect. But there is one cardinal rule that the Addamses follow devoutly: you always fight back. And not just any way, but creatively. Unforgettable." Elphaba stared at her unblinkingly, her eyes like daggers eager to pierce Wednesday's serene facade. She didn't respond, but her gaze held an implicit threat.
"And yet," the young Addams continued, "as I studied every step, every act, every attempt... I came to a conclusion. The true saboteurs of your own destiny aren't you each other. It's you. Self-destructive by nature. Prey to insecurities disguised as arrogance and resentment."
The silence that followed grew thick, as if the air itself had stopped to listen. Elphaba frowned, furious, but speechless. Glinda, unable to swallow the whole muffin, was coughing like a kitten trapped in a broken music box.
"That's why," Wednesday continued, closing the folder with a thud, "tonight isn't simply about revenge. That would be too easy. It would be... vulgar. No. This is a lesson. A ritual. A shock treatment, if you will. If you want to have a future, one where you don't destroy each other or sabotage each other with every decision, you must face your pasts. Together."
"What if we don't play your stupid little game?" Elphaba finally asked, when Enid, with obvious delight, removed the gag.
Enid, hearing the question, let out a sweet laugh that made Glinda's skin crawl.
"Oh, Elphy, don't be a killjoy!" "Wednesday," she exclaimed as she stood behind her and, with a dramatic gesture, removed the gag. "Wednesday has such... creative plans for you if you choose not to cooperate."
Wednesday opened the folder again and, with surgical precision, extracted a sheet of paper she held in front of Elphaba.
"This is your alternative punishment if you refuse. I've drawn up a schedule for you to become the president of the Nevermore Mothers' Club. Weekly homework, crepe paper crafts, gluten-free cooking workshops. Meetings with other 'mothers'"—Wednesday made quotation marks with her fingers—"about 'the children's academic futures.'"
Enid theatrically took a small felt badge with embroidered letters that read "MOM IN CHIEF" out of a case and pinned it to Elphaba's jacket. Elphaba didn't even bother to take it off, too busy trying not to explode.
"That's just the beginning," Wednesday added, calmly. I also have tutoring requests for you to tutor students who are repeating a year, mainly in subjects where they believe sarcasm can be a teaching tool. And, of course, the costume committee for the upcoming school play. This year... musical romance.
"Are you sick?" Elphaba murmured through gritted teeth.
"I'm dedicated," Wednesday corrected, her smile failing to reach her eyes. "And I know that the only way to defeat an untamed soul... is to force it to confront itself."
Elphaba swallowed. Enid played with Glinda's hair as if she were a doll, while the blonde muttered unintelligibly with the muffin still in her mouth. Wednesday raised an eyebrow.
"Very well," Elphaba said finally, her voice brimming with scalpel-sharp sarcasm. "Very well, Addams. If you want to play... let's play."
Wednesday nodded, satisfied.
"Splendid!"
And with that, the light above them intensified, as if the performance had just begun. Because yes: this was a show. One designed by a dark and twisted mind... to teach, punish, and, above all, amuse.
And Elphaba knew it: they had just entered a game in which no one would come out clean.
A sort of metallic screech broke the tension of the moment, and before either of them could fully react, a hatch suddenly opened beneath their feet. Elphaba and Glinda fell, rolling down a narrow passage that smelled of dust, dampness, and ill-kept secrets. They tumbled uncontrollably, screaming, struggling in vain to stop their fall, until finally, like discarded puppets, they were thrown through a hidden hatch at the back of an unfamiliar classroom. They landed with a thud on the wooden floor, huffing and puffing and trying to regain their composure as the echo of their fall faded between the walls. "What the hell was that?!" Glinda shrieked, staggering to her feet, her blond hair as wild as a burning bush. She brushed glitter off her robes with agitated gestures, as if the dust of secrets gave her an emotional allergy.
"A shortcut," Elphaba replied through gritted teeth, spitting out a strand of her own greenish hair. "A shortcut that should never have been opened."
Glinda turned on her like a celestial fury.
"And you knew?! Did you know this could happen?"
"What I know," Elphaba said, already standing and eyeing the cobwebbed walls with suspicion, "is that Nevermore was built as a monument to chaos. Full of secret passages, trapdoors, fake rooms, and according to some rumors, even an underground skating rink... though I never confirmed that."
"And who in their right mind would have done that?!" Glinda exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air.
Elphaba glanced at her, her expression hardening.
"Only a true madman could know every access point and activate them with surgical precision."
They were both silent for a moment. There was no need to say her name. Elphaba rubbed a hand across her forehead, while Glinda began to pace in circles in a panic.
"This is a trap! A kidnapping! An ethical and moral assault! Where are my rights?!" Glinda screamed.
"Your rights went down the drain, just like you," Elphaba muttered, frustrated.
The verbal chaos quickly degenerated into an exchange of recriminations. Glinda accused Elphaba of having angered the little psychopath, of causing everything out of anger, of being a bitter shadow and never measuring the consequences of her "defiant" actions. Elphaba counterattacked just as harshly: she reproached Glinda for her superficiality, her eternal need for approval, her silent disloyalty. Neither of them really listened to the other. It was a blame game as intense as it was futile, until something broke the rhythm.
A click. A buzz.
Suddenly, a single spotlight in the classroom switched on, shining a direct white light on a strange object on the dusty desk: a cardboard box, ordinary and out of place, as if the scene were being directed by a mind with a perverse sense of theater.
They both stopped, their breathing still ragged. They exchanged a brief, tense glance. Without speaking, they approached with cautious steps. Elphaba was the first to open the box, warily peeling back the cardboard lid. Inside was a mountain of random objects: crumpled papers, an old, chewed-up pen, a rusty keychain, a torn scarf.
"This is..." Elphaba murmured, half surprised and half confused. "It's my stuff. Trash I threw away weeks ago."
"So it's a box of emotional trash?" Glinda said with nervous sarcasm as she shuffled a finger through some paper. But then, her hand bumped into something firmer.
She pulled out a magazine.
At first, it seemed harmless. It was a fashionable business edition, the kind of publication where Glinda shone like a star. Her face was on the cover, smiling, shining, an icon of perfection. But someone had tampered with the image with uncontrolled fury. Thick lines of black marker covered her smile, horns and a mustache had been drawn on her, and in clumsy, angry letters it read: TRAITOR.
Glinda froze, her eyes fixed on the grotesque transformation of what had once been her pride and joy. Elphaba, seeing the magazine, paled even further, if that were possible.
"That... that shouldn't have been here," she stammered.
"You did this?" Glinda asked, her voice cracking.
Elphaba looked away.
"It was one night. I was alone. I'd taken something... and I was angry. It wasn't with you, it was with everything. I didn't think anyone would ever find it."
"And that's why you drew this?! That's why you made me into a joke?!" Glinda's tone was no longer hysterical; it was hurt. Painful.
"Glinda, listen to me! It wasn't... it wasn't about you. It was about what you represented to me at that moment. I was a symbol. A mistake. And I hated myself for it."
Then, the sharp sound of a loudspeaker broke the moment, enveloping the classroom in an eerie echo.
"Very touching," Wednesday's voice said, amplified and filled with that icy delight of hers.
"But you didn't come here to talk about the past. You came to face it. And we're going to make sure of that. Are you ready to play?" Enid added, with a glee that bordered on the sadistic.
Elphaba and Glinda stared up at the ceiling, trying to find the exact source of the sound. A barely suppressed laugh filtered through the speaker before Wednesday spoke again, her tone as calm as it was cruelly precise.
"All right, students. This will be your first 'game.' A theatrical reenactment... with real emotional consequences, of course. Because here, theater is the most dangerous weapon."
Elphaba snorted in annoyance.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It means," Enid chimed in, with a lightness as irritating as it was deliberate, "that you're about to perform a little number... A school skit. What better way to settle conflicts between two former best friends than with a punishment game?"
Wednesday continued with the precision of a headmaster of a funeral:
"Elphaba, open the second drawer of the desk. Your supplies are waiting for you."
Reluctantly, Elphaba walked over and opened the drawer with an awkward creak. Inside, she found three objects arranged with disturbing neatness: a long, old-fashioned wooden ruler; a pair of round glasses, the kind a stern teacher would use to peer over the frames; and a simple black hair tie for braiding her hair.
Elphaba held them up with disdain.
"What is this? A bad-school satire? This is stupid."
"Wrong," Wednesday corrected with sinister calm. "It's a pedagogical dynamic. Glinda, as a 'wayward student,' needs to learn a lesson. And you, Elphaba, must teach it to her. Use the props. Get into character. Punish accordingly."
Elphaba turned to Glinda, clearly uncomfortable with the proposal.
"I'm not doing this. It's grotesque, childish."
But Glinda, her face still hardened by the disappointment and pain that still throbbed from the discovery of the vandalized magazine, stepped forward with her arms crossed.
"What's wrong? Don't you hate me? Am I not a traitor? Then do it, Elphaba. Come on. Teach me the lesson I deserve."
"Glinda…" Elphaba tried to say, now with a mixture of guilt and alarm.
"Come on!" Glinda cried, her eyes shining with a mixture of defiance and sadness. "You were always good at criticizing me. Now you have permission. Isn't that what you always wanted?"
Elphaba gritted her teeth, holding back. Her breathing became labored. It was obvious Glinda wasn't seeking justice, but guilt. Emotional penance. And as much as Elphaba wanted to stop it… the game was on.
Brusquely, Elphaba pushed up her glasses, picked up the ruler like a sacred rod of sarcasm, and used the rubber band to tie her hair, pulling all her braids into a single, sweeping ponytail, hardening her expression in a perfect parody of an authoritarian teacher.
She stood in front of Glinda, who now sat at one of the classroom desks like a rebellious schoolgirl. The tension was almost theatrical, and yet it laced with real venom.
"Very well, Miss Glinda Upland," Elphaba said in a firm, almost mocking voice, tapping the palm of her hand with the ruler. "Do you know why you're here?"
"Because I behaved like an inconsiderate egomaniac," Glinda replied theatrically, exaggerating her tone of voice like a tragicomedy actress. "Because I was a bad friend. And because someone wrote 'traitor' on my forehead without having the courage to say it to my face."
Elphaba pursed her lips.
"Your behavior was... inappropriate. Vain. And painfully shallow."
"And that justifies turning me into a caricature in a damn magazine?"
Elphaba lowered her gaze for a second, remorse beginning to seep beneath her mask of toughness. But she composed herself. The game demanded action.
Fully embracing her newly imposed role, Elphaba sternly adjusted her glasses, raised the ruler like a sacred rod of authority, and strode forward to stand before Glinda.
"Very well, Miss Upland. The first thing you need to do is correct that posture. Back straight. Chin up. The attitude of someone who doesn't live for the spotlight, please."
Glinda obeyed with an exaggerated sigh, immediately straightening as if she were in an etiquette contest.
"Now, to the board," Elphaba ordered, pointing with the ruler as if she were waving a magic wand.
"What am I going to do there? Draw hearts?" Glinda snorted sarcastically, but approached anyway.
"You're going to write 'I must not betray my friends, even when they offer me a Vogue cover' a hundred times." She began.
With a mixture of resignation and humiliation, Glinda took the chalk and began to write.
—“I must not betray my friends, even when they offer me—”
POM
A strange tap on her back made her frown. She turned immediately, looking around. No one. Only Elphaba standing impassively, motioning with the ruler for her to continue. Glinda blinked.
—What was that…?
Elphaba stood, serious, pointing at the blackboard with her ruler.
—Something to say, miss?
Glinda looked at her suspiciously and went back to writing.
POM!
The tap again. She turned around furiously.
—Are you—?!
—Wasting time again?—Elphaba interrupted, feigning a stern tone as she crossed her arms. “I warn you that this institution’s patience is limited.”
Glinda slowly returned to the blackboard, suspecting something... and this time, as she began to write, she whipped her head around just as...
BANG! The ruler hit her bottom, but this time Elphaba didn't hide it. She raised an eyebrow and smiled faintly.
"Are you crazy?!" Glinda yelled, turning around completely, indignant.
"Excuse me, are you raising your voice at the teacher?" Elphaba said with mock severity, taking a deep breath as if offended.
"You're beating my ass like in a cheap comedy!"
"You asked to play, Glinda. And according to this game, I'm the teacher. You're just a spoiled student. So... no raising your voice at me, young lady."
Glinda clenched her fists, furious, but Elphaba had already spun around.
"Now," she said theatrically, "since you've displayed such a tremendously childish attitude, your punishment will be appropriate."
She walked over to a shelf and pulled out a pastel pink conical hat, glittered with the word "PRINCESS" written in shiny letters.
Glinda's eyes widened.
"No. Don't even think about it."
"Oh, yes. You're going to sit on that little stool over there in the corner, with this beautiful little hat on, and reflect on your decisions. Like a good little girl."
"Elphaba..."
"Professor Thropp, please."
With a mixture of hatred and resignation, Glinda marched up to the stool, adjusted her hat with an epic pout, and sat in a detention position with her arms crossed and a murderous look of contempt directed at her "teacher."
Elphaba smiled contentedly and crossed her arms.
Meanwhile, in a hidden room lit by screens and dim lights, Wednesday and Enid watched everything live from the security cameras, comfortably reclining on a sofa, eating popcorn.
"This is better than any comedy I've ever seen," Enid murmured, laughing, with a handful of popcorn.
"Humiliation, power, unresolved guilt, hats with social irony... I give it a nine out of ten," Wednesday said with complete seriousness.
"Only nine?"
"They haven't cried yet. But we're doing well."
The two of them looked at each other with satisfaction as the scene in the classroom froze with Glinda pouting on her stool and Elphaba resuming her role as teacher... although inside, both were clearly about to explode.
"You're enjoying this too much," Glinda muttered under her breath.
Elphaba, still holding the ruler and a half-smile dancing on her lips, paused for a moment.
"Enjoying it? I'm doing my educational duty," she replied, turning away theatrically. But inside, a spark of truth peeked through.
Glinda raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, please. That wry little smile you give me every time you see me wearing this hat is anything but pedagogical."
Elphaba made a tremendous effort not to laugh.
"Now... quiet in class!" she exclaimed suddenly, banging the ruler against the desk with a resounding CLACK! "Miss Upland has not been authorized to speak." I'll proceed with the final evaluation.
And then, she began pacing as if she were lecturing at Sarcastic Humiliation University™.
"Miss Glinda, also known as 'Miss Popular,' has demonstrated a number of behavioral patterns that warrant close scrutiny," she said, staring at the ceiling as if quoting an imaginary textbook. "Excessive vanity, chronic dependence on external validation, an inflated ego with dramatic tendencies... and a dangerous addiction to pink."
Glinda rolled her eyes but held her ground, though her jaw trembled with suppressed indignation.
"She has interrupted on multiple occasions, questioned the authority of her superior, and—this is the worst part—has attempted to justify betraying her best friend with the excuse of a cover story. Which, to be frank, is nothing new... because we all know that social stupidity has destroyed stronger friendships than this."
"Hey!" Glinda interrupted, indignant.
Elphaba turned around with an offended expression.
"You dare interrupt me while I'm evaluating your performance?! Silence, you insolent fool!"
Glinda pursed her lips again like a scolded child.
Elphaba continued, now in a condescending tone, that of a teacher disappointed by a lost sheep.
"Unfortunately, despite your superficial efforts, there has been no real growth or emotional maturity. The potential is there, but buried under pounds of makeup, unnecessary heels, and poorly managed abandonment traumas."
"That was low!" Glinda squealed, rising from the stool.
"Silence!" Elphaba slammed the ruler against the floor with a dramatic echo.
She slowly approached Glinda, looking at her with the sternness of someone who believes she is teaching a life lesson.
—My final recommendation is a symbolic, but necessary, punishment:
- A week without talking about herself.
- A complete ban on the use of glitter lip gloss.
- And mandatory attendance at a therapy session... with a mirror, so she can finally look at herself.
Elphaba's period started. Silence.
And then Glinda exploded.
—Enough! I got it! You're right, okay?! I was a fool, a self-centered person, and I let it all get to me! I'm sorry! But you... —her voice broke——you failed me too, Elphie...
Elphaba opened her mouth, but said nothing. The air seemed to thicken. That last rebuke hit her like an emotional brick.
Glinda swallowed.
—...You were my world. And you left me alone when I needed you most.
For a moment, Elphaba lowered her gaze. Remorse crept through her mask of sarcasm.
"Glin..."
But before she could continue, a loud CLICK sounded from the speakers, followed by Wednesday Addams's monotone voice.
"Evaluation concluded. First game passed."
The classroom door slowly opened at the far end, revealing a hallway lit by cold, neon lights.
"The next level awaits you. You can take your suppressed emotions with you if you wish. But beware... in the next room, everything you feel will be amplified."
"Oh, fantastic," Glinda snorted, standing up and throwing her "Princess" hat to the floor.
"Amplified...?" Elphaba repeated with an arched eyebrow, still thoughtful.
Enid laughed from the control room.
"This is going to get really good."
And so, Glinda walked past Elphaba without another word. Elphaba watched her leave, hesitating whether to call her… but she didn't. Not yet.
Elphaba and Glinda walked in silence, their footsteps echoing with a metallic sound that accompanied the tension that hung between them like a thick cloud of unspoken things.
Elphaba trailed slightly behind, as if her confidence had suddenly deflated. She looked at the ground, then at Glinda, then ahead… and finally she spoke, her voice low, hesitant, unusually restrained.
"I... I'm not usually good at this..."
Glinda didn't answer.
Elphaba swallowed, fighting that uncomfortable pride that always protected her.
"Sometimes I feel like if I don't control things, I'll fall apart. That if I don't take the strong role, I'll lose myself. And in that game... yes, I admit it. I got carried away. But it wasn't to hurt you. Not like this."
Glinda kept walking, but her jaw tightened. Finally, she stopped, turning sharply.
"And what did you think was going to happen, Elphaba? That I was going to laugh? Applaud? Ask for more?... This isn't your damn playroom in your penthouse, this is life... and there are no safe words here."
Elphaba didn't respond. She just looked at her, with that mixture of guilt and emotional awkwardness that frustrated her so much.
Glinda continued, her voice firmer, but cracking at the edges.
"You're not the only one the world has beaten down. You're not the only one with scars, you know. And sometimes you... you hurt too. But because you're so busy protecting yourself, you don't even realize it."
Elphaba lowered her gaze. That phrase, "You hurt too," was like a slap in the face that not even a ruler could have matched.
"I don't know everything," Elphaba whispered. "I just... sometimes I don't want to feel weak. And in that classroom, for a moment I felt... strong. But it didn't feel right. Not when I saw you like that." Glinda looked at her for a few seconds, wanting to say something more, but emotion tied her tongue. And just then, as if the stage itself responded to that invisible knot between them, a new door opened in front of them with a mechanical hiss and a burst of pink steam. Elphaba slowly straightened, taking a deep breath. Glinda, more serene, without turning around, simply said: "Don't expect me to forgive you with words. I'm not as good at pretending as you are." And she entered. Elphaba closed her eyes for a second. Pride warred with guilt, shame with affection. But the door was calling her too. Without another word, she took a step forward and disappeared behind it. The door closed behind them with a sharp click. Elphaba and Glinda stood before a space that looked like an office in chaos: overturned filing cabinets, flying papers, still-steaming coffee cups as if the staff had vanished minutes ago.
In the center of the room, a small school chair lit with a spotlight and a sign scrawled in black marker read:
"ELPHABA – ACCUSED"
"Why am I not surprised...?" Elphaba sighed, moving forward and sitting down with resignation, a mixture of discomfort and annoyance.
CLACK!
Another spotlight clicked on. At the other end of the room, a makeshift platform—made from stacked desks, folders as steps, and school firewalls—revealed a second sign, this one reading:
"JUDGE – GLINDA"
Glinda, still dusting off her outfit, frowned suspiciously, but approached. As she touched the chair waiting for her on the bench, a piece of cloth fell over her head with an effect worthy of a poorly rehearsed school play.
"What—?!" Glinda struggled with the cloth, tangled in her hair. Elphaba made a move to get up to help her.
"Leave it alone. I can do it myself, thank you," Glinda snapped, still covering her face.
When she finally managed to untangle the mess, she unfolded the fabric and discovered it was a ridiculous judge's cassock—bright bubblegum pink, with decorative ruffles and sequins sewn in a spiral. Resting on one side were a curly white wig and a glittery pink toy hammer.
"Is this a joke?" Glinda whispered, her mouth agape.
In response, the loudspeaker came on with its usual distorted buzz, and, as always, Wednesday spoke.
"Welcome to the Trial of the Green Witch. Elphaba will face her crimes against good taste, emotional empathy, and basic humane treatment. The Honorable Judge Glinda will read the charges from the bench, evaluate the evidence... and pass sentence."
"And if there's time, we'll also evaluate her fashion sense! Because that outfit... ugh!" —Enid's unmistakable voice added.
Glinda eyed the folder on her desk suspiciously, while Elphaba murmured:
"This is absurd."
"Silence in the courtroom!" Glinda replied without thinking, surprised by how naturally it came out.
She picked up the folder. It was thicker than she expected. Its cover read: "CASE 00001 – ELPHABA AGAINST... EVERYTHING."
Glinda took a deep breath and began to read with a new seriousness, without pretense.
"Charge number one: Being cold and distant even to those who want to help her."
She didn't look up. She only heard Elphaba's subtle click of her tongue.
"That's not a crime. It's self-defense."
"Are you defending yourself... against me?" Glinda asked, not harshly, but not gently either.
Elphaba didn't respond. She lowered her gaze.
Glinda moved on to the next one.
“Charge number two: Excessive sarcasm in vulnerable situations.” Elphaba raised an eyebrow, almost amused, but held it back.
“I don’t know how to be… corny,” she finally admitted, her voice low, almost childish. “It’s either that or… nothing. And ‘nothing’ sometimes hurts less.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t hurt less. Just late.”
The silence thickened between them.
Glinda moved on to the third charge, her tone hardening almost imperceptibly.
“Charge number three: Attacking young girls (read: Wednesday Addams) out of a need to display superiority in reaction to a repressed feeling of inferiority.”
Elphaba blinked.
“Did Wednesday or Freud write that?”
Glinda didn’t laugh. She continued, now with a more charged pause.
Elphaba looked away, annoyed with herself. Glinda continued.
“Charge number four: Claiming to be superior to others while shying away from any concrete action to change the course of the world.”
That stung. Glinda noticed. Elphaba blinked slowly, as if that sentence had truly hit her. She pressed her lips together, and after a few seconds, she murmured, “Do you think I don’t try?”
“I think if you do, you hide it so well that no one sees. And then it’s useless.” Glinda lowered her gaze. “And sometimes, I wanted to help you. But you just walked away, as if helping me was humiliating you.”
“Because sometimes it is,” Elphaba burst out, but instantly regretted it. “Or… it feels that way. Like needing you to confirm that I’m not enough on my own.”
Glinda closed the folder for a moment, as if needing air. Then she opened it again with a resigned sigh.
“Charge number five: Giving Enid Sinclair a B- for drawing a blue cat during class?” Glinda read with some confusion, and the speaker immediately came on.
“IT WAS A MAGIC CAT WITH GALACTIC PATTERNS!! PERSONAL EXPRESSION, TEACHER!! EXPRESSION!!!” Enid shouted furiously from the other end.
“Enid, be quiet. You're making a fool of yourself,” Wednesday added with her typical coldness.
“But it was concept art!”
“Shut up, or I'll add 'attempting to justify drawings of cats' to YOUR crime folder.”
Elphaba muttered, sarcastically under her breath.
“I should have given it a C.”
But then… then she got to the last charge.
Glinda read it silently first. Then again. Her expression changed. She tensed. The color drained from her face, then returned in a fiery blush of fury and something darker. Jealousy. Pain. An old wound.
When she looked up, his eyes were a mixture of disbelief and betrayal.
"Charge number six…" His voice trembled a little, but he continued. “Flirting and bonding with the AP Literature teacher, Isaac Norman.”
Elphaba froze. She barely breathed. The impact was immediate, as if an invisible fist had punched her in the stomach. She swallowed. There was no excuse, no defense, no irony to cover it up.
"Glinda..."
"Isaac Norman?" she repeated, her voice deeper, more broken. "And who the hell is that idiot? Your way of forgetting me?"
"Maybe..." Elphaba declared almost in a whisper.
"Of course! Because I was just an accident you wanted to cover up with a bigger one, RIGHT?"
"It wasn't what it seemed," Elphaba murmured. Her voice was weak. Powerless. As if, for once, she didn't know how to be fierce.
"So what was it, Elphaba? A 'literary accident'? An 'exchange of metaphors'? Or did you just not care how it would make me feel?"
"I did care! Besides, you have no right to protest, you weren't there!" she jumped, standing up. But she immediately regretted it and sat back down. "I... I didn't know that you..."
"You didn't know! You didn't know!" "Glinda repeated, furious. Is that your catch-all? Not knowing? Not feeling? Not connecting?"
Elphaba lowered her head. She almost looked like a child trapped in a lie.
"I'm no good at this. With what you do. Feeling everything and saying it and making it beautiful. I analyze it, I gut it, I hide it. I kill it before it can hurt me."
Glinda watched her silently. For a moment, her anger softened. But the damage was done.
The file remained closed in front of her. The audience—nonexistent, save for the invisible eyes of Wednesday, Enid, and the cameras—held its breath.
Judge Glinda slowly removed her white wig, letting it fall to the floor as if it weighed too much. Then she stepped down from the bench.
She stood in front of Elphaba. She looked at her.
"You know what the hardest part about all of this is?"
Elphaba shook her head, barely.
"That I did love you. And you... you did everything you could to make me feel undeserving. Or that it didn't matter."
A long pause.
"And now?" Elphaba asked, her voice cracking.
Glinda shrugged, not cruelly, but not tenderly.
With a sharp movement, Glinda slammed the pink gavel down on the dais table. The hollow sound echoed around the room. She was done. Of the charade, of the games, of pretending it was all a lesson disguised as a school play.
"Sentenced," she declared, her voice sharper than ever. "To speak. To say what she feels. Even if it's hard. Even if it's horrible. Even if she doesn't know where to begin."
Elphaba froze. As if the ground had stopped supporting her. The word "sentenced" echoed in her mind like an unbreakable spell. Not to silence. Not to exile. Not to physical punishment.
Sentenced to feel out loud.
"Objection," she managed to stammer, though she knew it was useless. "I appeal. This is unconstitutional. It's cruel. Unnecessary. I'm not even under a royal oath!"
Glinda fixed her with a dry look.
"Be thankful I'm not making you sing it."
That left her speechless.
Elphaba parted her lips, but no words emerged. Only a harsh exhalation. There was no way out. No tunnel to flee, no shadow to embrace. Only her. Standing. Forced to say what she hadn't even allowed herself to think out loud.
She stood slowly. Her robes rustled with the movement. The rigidity of her posture wasn't one of pride, but of vulnerability. Like a tower that refuses to crumble... but already has cracks.
She looked at the camera. A withering glare. Almost a threat. As if she could turn off the lens with the force of her eyes. Then she looked away. At Glinda. And her face changed.
She wasn't angry anymore.
She was scared.
"I..." she began. She stopped. She swallowed. She closed her eyes for a moment.
"I don't know how to do this. To talk like you. Like Fiyero. Like all those people who carry their hearts in their mouths and offer them on a platter, as if it didn't hurt. I'm not like that. I never was. I was raised between walls. Expectations. Judgments. "You have to be strong." "You have to be smarter." "You have to defend yourself."
She opened her eyes. Her voice cracked slightly, but she didn't back down.
"And one day... defending herself became attacking. Speaking became sarcasm. And loving someone... became a threat."
Glinda didn't move. She listened in reverent silence, restrained, as if any word from her would interrupt something sacred.
"With you... it was easy to hate you at first. You shone so brightly it hurt. Everything I struggled to achieve, you did without breaking a sweat. You couldn't spell well, but everyone adored you. You couldn't solve magic equations, but everyone listened. And yet, you were sweet. God, you were so good! And I... all I knew how to make fun of you. Because it was either that, or accept it: that you scared me. That you made me envious. That you gave me... hope."
The word lingered. Like an involuntary confession.
"You made me want to try. To be better. To be kind. To believe the world wouldn't always treat me like an outcast. But every time I got close... I felt like you were going to discover I wasn't worth it. That you were going to see me for who I really am: someone who learned not to need anyone so she wouldn't be broken."
She looked at the floor, her courage draining away. But he took a deep breath. Once more.
"And yet... when you looked at me, I felt like I could start over. Like it wasn't too late. Like..." She broke off. She lowered her head. Swallowed the words. Breathed. "As if maybe, just maybe... I could still learn to be... something else. Something more than the wicked witch everyone sees. Something more than the defenses I've built."
She turned slowly to Glinda. She looked at her without challenge. No shields. No armor.
"And if you ever... saw that in me, even for a second... then I knew it was worth a try. Not to redeem myself. But because you asked me to. And that... that made it important... but when you wouldn't come with me... It hurt. I felt stupid for deluding myself with hopes that now seemed like mere childish fantasies, and I hid again... but this time it was so deep that I even hid from myself, because I knew coming out again would hurt too much."
There was absolute silence.
Not even Enid's PA system came on. No one interrupted. No one mocked.
Elphaba stood there. Standing. No emotional makeup, no irony, no safety net.
And for the first time... she didn't look any less. She didn't look weak. She looked human.
Glinda, from her makeshift podium, holding the gavel in her trembling hands and her eyes red-rimmed, was about to speak, about to answer.
But then...
"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE," Enid shouted through the PA system, her voice trembling between suppressed tears and outright hysteria. "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!! I'M CRYING LIKE A LEFT PUPPY! AND IF YOU TWO KEEP THIS UP, I'M GOING TO HAVE AN EMOTIONAL SUGAR ATTACK!" The sound of a handkerchief being crumpled and sobbing in the background left barely enough room to breathe before another voice, dry as ever, chimed in:
"And for the record," Wednesday added, with a mixture of weariness and disapproval, "sometimes they embarrass me so much that I'm beginning to understand why some insects eat their mates."
Elphaba put a hand to her face. Glinda burst out laughing, not sure if it was relief or despair. The tension snapped like an old string. The speaker went off with an electric squeal, and with it, the solemn magic of emotional judgment vanished like smoke.
A new door opened with a metallic screech, as if even the house itself was uncomfortable with what it had just witnessed. The lights went out one by one, and the sign "Elphaba – Accused" fell slowly to the floor, like a curtain announcing the end of a performance.
They both walked toward the door. Slowly. As if the steps hurt. As if leaving that room meant leaving a part of themselves there forever.
Just before crossing the threshold, Glinda stopped. She didn't look at Elphaba immediately, as if unsure she deserved that gesture. But then, like someone removing a painful earring, she turned her face and spoke, softly. With that sincerity that was no longer theatrical, but real.
"I always wanted to know how you felt," she said. "Always. I just... wish I hadn't had to ask you like that."
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. Her face was a strange mix: guilt, exhaustion, a shadow of regret... and a twinge of tenderness.
"Me too," was all she managed to say, barely audible.
They looked at each other. Not like before. Not with anger. Not with that poisonous resentment that sprouts when you love someone but don't know how.
Now it was different.
It was guilt.
A shared one. One that doesn't ask for forgiveness, but doesn't run away either. A wound that's beginning to heal... but whose scar will be visible forever.
And then they walked. They crossed the threshold into the unknown together. Not as rivals. Not as friends.
As two people who had finally stopped pretending.
As they moved forward, the duo came across a wooden door carved with twisted, sweetly grotesque figures. Upon entering, they found themselves inside an antique elevator, paneled in dark oak and cracked mirrors. Without warning, the elevator closed with a dramatic screech and began its unsettling downward lurch, as if pulled by frayed strings and invisible hands.
In the background, a distorted pop tune began to play... it was "Material Girl," but slowed down, in a macabre version that sounded as if Madonna had been possessed by a choir of baroque ghosts. Elphaba groaned, "Really? Is this necessary?"
"Ahhhh! No! No no no no! This is too fast!" Glinda cried, flailing, clutching the elevator wall as if her life depended on it.
Meanwhile, in the control room, Enid was regaining her composure. She wiped her tears with a sparkly sleeve, straightening her blond hair like a warrior princess who's cried for love but is now ready to go to war... or to a party.
"Okie dokie, little wolf ready to perform!" she declared enthusiastically, turning on her heel. "The big final test! Oh, by Lupin, it's like planning a final act in a musical mystery... with glitter!"
Beside her, Wednesday Addams watched her with her typical expression, a mixture of boredom and endless, hidden adoration.
"I remind you that it's not strictly necessary for you to do this," she said in her dry, eternal tone, the one that sounded like a poem read from a crypt. But I suppose you're excited to help me with my morally ambiguous plans.
Enid turned to her like a flower opening in the sun:
"Are you kidding?! This is the most fun thing that's happened at this school since the organic chemistry hydra escaped!"
Wednesday raised an eyebrow. He approached her slowly, with the composure of an elegant assassin at a masked ball, and extended a black-gloved hand.
"Then prepare yourself, my moon wolf. Because I have a surprise for you," he murmured.
Enid opened her eyes, glowing with excitement, just as the sinister melody in the background became more rhythmic. From the speakers in the hallway, the echoes of Glinda's screams and Elphaba's exasperated rebukes kept time to the perfectly timed mayhem.
And that was when Wednesday pulled her toward him, with the precision of someone raised by parents who settled duels with Viennese waltzes and murderous glares.
"Tango," he announced.
"Tango!!," Enid repeated as if she'd just been offered a VIP ticket to stuffed animal heaven.
The music became more pronounced, more theatrical. As the elevator descended, down in the darkness, the two young women glided through the control room like two dancing shadows. Wednesday led the way, with precise, icy-cold steps.
"I learned to tango with my parents," Wednesday said, with the seriousness of a prophecy. "Once, at a wake. No one knew if we were saying goodbye or celebrating the end. I always wanted to try it with you."
Enid continued, twirling gracefully, smiling, dangerously.
"Remember what I did to that idiot who tried to hit on you at the Poe basement party?" Enid whispered into her beloved's ear, between a perfectly executed twist and a fall.
Wednesday smiled, teeth bared.
"It wasn't necessary. I locked him up myself in an exact replica of the principal's office made of cockroaches. It took them three days to find him."
"But my gesture was out of love," Enid insisted, feigning innocence. "A little bite on the ankle never hurts to set the record straight."
Wednesday leaned over her, holding her waist with elegant firmness.
"It was..." he whispered, "the most beautiful display of affection I've ever received."
Enid fainted theatrically in his arms. Wednesday didn't miss a beat. He held her, turned her, lifted her in a perfect curve of spine and romantic threat.
"And you..." Wednesday whispered as the lights flickered. Remember what I did when the art teacher dared to give your Gothic moon collage project a C?
Enid gasped, in a state of emotional ecstasy.
"You put shoe polish on her chair and hired a carrier pigeon to deliver an insulting letter in verse! It was so... so... perfect!"
They hugged as they twirled in the final step of the tango, the drama verging on opera.
"What would you do if my mother asked you again if you'd 'outgrown your color phase' and that you should wear pastels?" Enid asked playfully.
Wednesday stroked her girlfriend's cheek with her index finger and, with a barely perceptible smile, whispered,
"I'd invite her to dinner. And I'd serve her a soupçon of inconvenient truths ladled with sarcasm."
Enid let out a little squeal of excitement and launched into a kiss. A kiss sealed between the elevator's rumble, Madonna's distortion, and carefully engineered chaos.
The lights flickered. The system trembled. And as the gothic queens of teenage chaos sealed their moment, they both knew the final test was approaching.
And that, of course, it would be glorious.
Minutes later, the elevator stopped with a final screech, like the sigh of a dying monster. The door opened with a creak more dramatic than necessary, and Elphaba and Glinda staggered out, covered in dust, dried leaves, and trails of suspiciously damp confetti.
"Dammit! I'm going to destroy them! I'm going to write an entire thesis on how to torture psychotic teenagers and present it at the University of Darkness!" Elphaba screamed, shaking glitter off her robes with apocalyptic fury.
"My hair? MY HAIR?!" Glinda moaned, trying to smooth her curls with trembling hands. "This is a war crime. I'm almost certain this violates at least five international fashion treaties."
They both stopped dead in their tracks.
In front of them, spread out like a tacky postcard, was the academy cafeteria… transformed.
Heart garlands floated in the air. Enchanted candles flickered in shades of pink and purple. A two-seat table, draped in a white tablecloth and enchanted china plates, stood in the center of the room. Soft violin music played out of nowhere.
And beside the table, like the hostess of a demented and enchanting restaurant, stood Enid, dressed in a ridiculous apron with bleeding hearts.
"Welcome to 'The Last Supper'... romantic!" she exclaimed with fierce enthusiasm. "Your table awaits, ladies 'ex-partners-with-unresolved-issues.'"
"This has got to be a joke," Elphaba snarled, immediately turning away.
But Glinda, now resigned, took her by the arm and dragged her along like a dress that refused to fit into a suitcase.
"We're here," Glinda murmured, tired, makeup-less, her hair a mess. Let's just... finish this before our hearts are handed to us on a plate.
Enid led them to a round table, adorned with rose petals (probably stolen from the botanical greenhouse), and placed napkins in their laps with a professional bow. In the background, dancing silhouettes could be seen: shadows of Wednesday manipulating two skeletons dressed as waiters, forcing them to serve fake champagne.
Elphaba crossed her arms. Glinda played with her fork, avoiding her former partner's gaze.
"So?" Enid said sweetly, taking out a small notebook. "What did you like most about your past relationship?"
"What kind of emotional torture is this?" Elphaba snapped.
"A non-answer. Negative point," Enid crooned, jotting something down in her notebook. "Glinda?"
Glinda sighed and looked down at the centerpiece.
"It made me feel... like the rest of the world didn't matter that much."
Silence.
Elphaba averted her eyes. Enid raised her eyebrows expectantly. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a dessert spoon.
"And you, Elphaba?" Enid persisted. "Something you'd like to share with the table?"
"I'd rather share dinner with a pack of hungry ghouls."
"Awww!" Enid smiled tenderly. "That was a very you-way of saying, 'Yes, I really liked Glinda.'"
Wednesday, from a corner, let out a slow, sarcastic clap. The skeletons clapped too. One lost a hand in the process.
"This is pathetic," Elphaba groaned, trying to stand. But her chair suddenly sank, as if it had a life of its own, forcing her to remain seated.
"Dinner isn't over yet!" "Enid exclaimed, snapping her fingers. Immediately, the skeletons brought two plates covered by silver lids.
Dinner moved forward. Reluctantly.
A pair of steaming plates were placed before Elphaba and Glinda with almost offensive solemnity: spaghetti with tomato sauce, mounds threatening to spill over.
"Really?" Elphaba whispered, eyeing the noodles as if they were snakes. "How subtle."
Glinda, for her part, gripped her fork like a surgical clamp. Discomfort hung over the table like a thick fog. They chewed in silence. They avoided looking at each other. Until Glinda, helpless, lowered her fork.
"What you said... during that trial... did you really feel like an idiot when I left you?"
Elphaba stopped moving her fork. Her gaze remained fixed on her plate.
"Yes," she admitted, her voice low, raspy. Like a complete and utter idiot.
Glinda lowered her eyes, swallowing hard. Elphaba took a deep breath and continued.
"I felt like you were the only one who saw what I saw. That you believed in me. And then... you stayed. And... nothing more. I felt... disposable. Like it had all been a lie."
Glinda clenched her hands in her skirt.
"It wasn't," she murmured. "It wasn't easy for me, Elphie. I had my reasons too. I didn't leave you because I wanted to..."
"I know," Elphaba interrupted, before Glinda could justify herself further. "As idiotic as my resentment is, I'm not blind. I know you wouldn't have followed the senator or Morrible if you didn't feel it was... the only option. Maybe you thought it would help more. Or maybe you were forced. I don't know. But I know you. Or at least... I want to believe I knew you."
Glinda looked up. For the first time, without rancor. Only pain.
"I... I stayed because... because they made a deal with me."
Elphaba frowned.
"What?"
"They offered me protection for you," Glinda said, her voice cracking. "If I cooperated, if I stayed and agreed to be the 'face of the city's renewal,' they promised not to go after you. They promised you'd be safe."
Elphaba was speechless.
The confession fell like a bombshell on the table.
Elphaba leaned back, confused, her thoughts swirling. But before she could fully react, her lips moved on their own.
"I falsified information on my resume to get accepted to Nevermore. I did it, and I don't regret it."
Glinda blinked.
"Why did you just say that?"
"I didn't mean it," Elphaba said, surprised. "Why did I say that?!"
Glinda then realized something strange. A heat in the face. One feeling of lightness… and an uncontrollable urge to speak.
“And I… I actually hate gala dinners. I only pretend to like them. The white dress I wore to the senator’s last presentation was hideous, but everyone said it looked divine on me, and I didn’t have the courage to say anything.”
“Why are we even saying this?!” Elphaba exclaimed, sniffing at her glass suspiciously.
At that moment, Wednesday appeared from the shadows, wineglass in hand and wearing her usual neutral expression.
“I added a variant of truth serum to the drink,” she announced calmly. “It was developed by my uncle as a salad dressing. Completely safe. Very fun. It increases emotional transparency to… revelatory levels.”
“YOU DRUGGED US?!” Glinda yelled, red as her sauce.
"I prefer the term 'stimulation of romantic honesty in controlled environments,'" Wednesday replied, shrugging.
"I had TWO DRINKS!" Elphaba cried, horrified.
"Then you don't have much time left for self-censorship," Wednesday declared. "Enjoy the emotional climax."
And so it was.
Unable to stop themselves, Glinda and Elphaba began spewing truths at each other like projectiles.
"You always thought you were better than everyone! Even when you were wrong!"
"And you! Always needing approval! As if you were worthless without applause!"
"At least I don't have a martyr complex that I use as an excuse to push everyone away!"
"And you never knew what it meant to fight alone!"
"You're an emotionally dysfunctional witch!"
"And you're a princess with a moral agenda as flexible as your fashion sense!"
And then...
PLOP.
A noodle with sauce landed on Glinda's forehead. Silence. They looked at each other.
Glinda took her fork. She twirled spaghetti. And threw it with military precision into Elphaba's cleavage.
"Very well," Elphaba murmured, eyes narrowed. "This is war."
The next scene was an opera of chaos.
Sauce flying, candles knocked over, plates crashing. Elphaba clutched the pasta, throwing it at Glinda's face. Glinda used her cutlery as a catapult.
Enid ran into Wednesday's arms, staring at the scene in ecstasy.
"THIS IS THE MOST ROMANTIC THING I'VE EVER SEEN!"
While Wednesday hugged Enid and sipped her drink, unfazed, while everything burned with disastrous dignity. "It's like my parents' last anniversary... Only with spaghetti instead of piranhas."
The food fight showed no signs of stopping. Noodles flew with insulting precision, spoons were launched like medieval projectiles, and the room, originally decorated with a sleek, modern aesthetic, already looked like the battlefield of a romantic comedy filmed by a director with a tendency toward chaos. The warm lighting contrasted with the Dantesque scene: overturned chairs, overturned glasses, red sauce stains on the avant-garde paintings on the wall.
"I'M BRINGING DESSERT!" Enid shouted with glitter-filled excitement as she ran into the kitchen.
Glinda, her perfectly styled hair now covered in basil and tomato slivers, stood on top of a chair, pointing a spoon at Elphaba like a magic wand.
"And you never cleaned that ridiculous green coffee pot you used to leave at your house! It had mold! Literally mold, Elphie!"
"It was my favorite coffee pot! Mold is part of the natural fermentation process!" "Elphaba retorted from the other end, using a plate as a shield.
"That's not an argument! That's a threat to public health!"
They both looked at each other, no longer truly angry, barely containing their laughter, soaked with food, old wounds, and the absurd liberation that comes only when there's nothing left to pretend. Between their shouts, their words began to lose their edge and gain an almost absurd honesty, as if, after so much keeping things inside, their hearts had lost their filter.
"I still remember when you gave me that horrible frog keychain! I hated it! But I wore it every day because you gave it to me!" Glinda gasped.
"You hated it?! I thought it was adorable! It was ironic! A stuffed frog with a crown! Just like you, but hairier!" Elphaba burst into laughter, barely able to stand amid her uncontrolled emotions.
"And I still have your black sweatshirt! I washed it with rose fabric softener and cursed you for weeks because it smelled like you!"
"I never gave it back to you because you blatantly stole it! You put it on and pretended you didn't know who it was!"
The scream was followed by a pause. One of those pauses that doesn't belong in chaos, but in the exact moment when something changes. Elphaba, breathing heavily, lowered her arms. The laughter faded. Glinda also dropped her fork, her blue eyes now wider, as if realizing something barely formulated.
"I'm still crazy about you!" Elphaba said, her voice breaking, but firm.
"I haven't stopped thinking about you for a day!" Glinda replied, without thinking, without restraint, without reservation.
"I hate you and I love you so much that I don't know if I want to hug you or hit you with a baguette!"
"I still think about you when I'm in the shower!"
There were no more words.
No signs.
No preambles.
They both threw themselves at each other with a force that had been building for weeks, months, maybe years. The kiss was clumsy, wild, stained with ketchup and bread crumbs, but genuine, as if suddenly all the noise, all the resentment, all the artificial barriers had exploded in a single moment of shared vulnerability. They kissed as if they had just survived a war—because, in a way, they had—and now all that remained was the relief of being alive and together.
Just at that precise moment, Enid burst into the room pushing a huge, shiny steel cart like the climax of a musical. Her face was lit with a mixture of pride, excitement, and impossible expectations.
"SURPRISE!!!! And now for dessert! Heart-shaped cake with berry filling, whipped cream, and melted chocolate!" "Made with my own hands! I called it 'Delicious Reconciliation'!" she announced, with an almost childish twinkle in her eyes.
But what she found wasn't an elegant table waiting for the sweet ending.
It was Glinda and Elphaba, still desperately kissing, stumbling backward without looking and landing directly on the cake as if the universe had planned that moment with cruel and perfect timing. The sound of squishing frosting, the sponge giving way under their weight, and the cream oozing down the sides was as clear as a slap.
"MY CAKEEEEEE!!!" Enid cried, a mixture of Greek tragedy and wayward child.
Both girls jumped apart, startled by the scream, still panting, now also covered in cake. Glinda slowly turned to see what remained of the dessert: an amorphous blob of cream, crushed sponge, and molten chocolate, all stuck to her thighs and dress.
"Oh no..." she murmured.
"Shall we sit on... the heart?" Elphaba asked, still regaining consciousness.
And that was when, for the first time all evening, Wednesday Addams burst out laughing. Not a sly smile or a snicker: a clear, unexpected, deep, sustained laugh. She covered her lips with her hand, as if she couldn't believe it was happening to her, and turned slightly toward Enid.
"See? I told you honesty is more effective than any therapy," she murmured between bursts of laughter.
But Enid was too busy screaming.
"MY CAKE! MY CULINARY MASTERPIECE! MY ROMANTIC SEASON FINALE! THEY SHOCKED IT UP THEIR BUTT!"
Wednesday, shrugging, took another glass of wine from the overturned table.
"Technically, it was with the thighs. But I see your point."
"No fun! That was symbolic! SYMBOLIC!"
Wednesday took a long sip from her glass.
"And symbolically, the game is over. And I think we have a clear winner."
Enid frowned.
"Who?"
Wednesday looked toward the center of the mess.
There were Glinda and Elphaba, still giggling and kissing, covered in food, their makeup smeared, and their dresses ruined, but more alive than ever. No masks. No charades.
"Them," Wednesday replied, with an almost imperceptible smile. "They won. Together."
Enid crossed her arms, grumbling.
"Still... they could have moved a little to the left."
Minutes later, the hubbub in the school had ceased, as if all that frenzy of shouting, laughter, cake-throwing, and confessions had been just a shared nightmare between teenagers with too much ego, hormones, and pent-up energy. The moon, an accomplice to human folly, shone with a serene light that contrasted with the remains of cream, confetti, and dignity scattered throughout the building's hallways.
Enid and Wednesday sat on the school's entrance steps, under the dim light of a flickering streetlight. Enid, her arms crossed and her nose slightly wrinkled, was still visibly upset about the fate of her cake.
Wednesday, at her side, maintained her usual expression of sepulchral indifference, though every now and then she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing again. She'd witnessed many absurd scenes in her life, but seeing Enid shriek like a banshee while pointing at the traces of cream between the folds of Elphaba's elegant outfit was an image she'd have a hard time erasing.
"I can't believe this," Enid muttered for the tenth time that evening. "I decorated it with edible raspberry frosting, Wens. FRAM-BUE-SA! Do you know how much the natural extract costs?"
Wednesday rolled her eyes with funereal elegance, letting out a theatrical sigh.
"I'll do something nice for you. I promise." Her voice was almost inaudible, as if she were uttering a curse instead of a promise.
Enid immediately turned to her as if spring-activated. Her eyes lit up, literally, with her trademark excitement.
“Really?! Something pretty, pretty, or pretty-Wednesday-that-is-actually-scary?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a song written in human blood, or a music box carved from bone…” Wednesday quipped, looking up at the sky as if imploring the gods of darkness to take her away.
Enid clapped her hands enthusiastically, completely ignoring the sarcasm, and settled in beside her with a smile that was too warm for this world.
And then, the school doors opened with a creak laden with symbolism, as if announcing the descent of the apocalypse survivors. Elphaba and Glinda emerged, walking together, albeit with that distance that can only be described as an uneasy truce. Their clothes were disheveled, their makeup a mess (especially on Glinda, who looked like she'd just emerged from a literal emotional storm), and they wore a mixture of embarrassment, elation, and bewilderment hanging from their expressions.
"So," Elphaba said, stopping in front of them, "is everything in order now? Is the school back to its civilized form?"
Wednesday nodded slowly, almost as if she found it hard to admit.
"Yes. The cleanup was... satisfactory. Although I'm still waiting for your counterattack. It would only be fair, after... you know."
"After you made me scream things like 'your cupcake scent makes me want to break glass with my forehead'?" Elphaba countered, raising an eyebrow with venomous sarcasm.
Wednesday raised a finger as if to defend her poetic choice.
"It had rhythm. And it rhymed."
Elphaba exhaled, then glanced sideways at Glinda, who was just now moving forward to speak to Enid, as if she wanted to escape this pending conversation between the Dark Witches of their respective generations. The tension between them seemed to have partially evaporated, as if all that teenage chaos had drained more than just their energy: it had also drained their resentment. "We talked," Elphaba finally said, her voice softer than usual. "Don't get me wrong: I still think this was a circus. But... we needed to talk. Get things out. And while we'll never admit it out loud, tonight helped."
Wednesday looked at her for a long second, silent. Then, with a smile that barely curved his lips, he replied, "Then I suppose there will be no immediate retaliation."
"No. But don't get too excited, Miss Addams. I'll get even eventually. I'm spiteful, not ungrateful."
Wednesday gave a slight bow, as if accepting a fate she knew was inevitable. Elphaba didn't move, as if there was one last question still stuck in her throat.
"Just one more thing," she murmured, her eyes shining with genuine curiosity. "Why did you do this? You could have tortured me in a thousand ways. This... this madness, was it a joke? An emotional trap? A punishment disguised as redemption?" Wednesday looked at her, letting the silence stretch like a shadow. And then, without warning, she let out a wry smile, the kind of smile that holds centuries of sarcasm and an imperceptible hint of tenderness.
"Sometimes, Elphaba, the best tortures... are the ones that end up helping you. Because afterward, when everything calms down, you realize you did the dirty work yourself. I just turned on the music."
Elphaba frowned, puzzled, but then she laughed, a deep, resigned, and real laugh. It was the first time Wednesday had ever heard her truly laugh.
"You're a twisted monster, Addams."
"And you're in love to the core. Don't judge."
They both remained silent for a few more seconds. The distant bustle of the city barely managed to graze the edges of campus, and the cool night breeze gently stirred the loose strands of Elphaba's hair. There was an uneasy calm but also... a kind of clarity in that moment.
It was Wednesday who broke the silence, her voice lower than usual, as if the moment deserved a more intimate volume.
"You know," she said without looking at Elphaba, "sometimes I feel like you and I come from the same mold... One carved with knives, made of shadows, sarcasm, and an innate disdain for sentimentality."
Elphaba gave a short, dry, but not mocking laugh.
"And that's supposed to be a compliment?"
"Maybe. Maybe not," Wednesday replied, finally turning to her. "But even though we are like this, so hermetically sealed, so intent on hiding from the world, we end up orbiting people who are the complete opposite. Light, noise, emotion. Color."
Wednesday lowered her gaze for a moment, as if admitting it would require more strength than all the psychological warfare she'd mounted that evening.
"People like Enid. Like Glinda."
Elphaba didn't respond, but her shoulders dropped slightly, as if that remark had loosened a tension that had been knotted in her back for years.
"I'm not sure Glinda and I will last," she confessed quietly, almost embarrassedly. "It's too complicated. We're... incompatible. Or so I told myself for a long time."
"It doesn't matter if they last or not. The important thing is that you allow yourself to try," Wednesday said, without the slightest sweetness, but with an honesty that cut deep. "Because if you keep running away from it, from her, you'll end up like so many others we know: brilliant, powerful... but completely alone. It's a form of elegant punishment. And the worst part is that we inflict it on ourselves."
Elphaba tilted her head slightly, studying the young woman in front of her as if she were seeing her with new eyes.
"I'm surprised to hear you speak like this."
"Believe me, I'm surprised to hear myself speak like this too," Wednesday admitted with a grimace of resignation. "But if it's any consolation, I hate every saccharine word I'm uttering."
Elphaba managed a very faint smile, barely curling one corner of her mouth. It was more of an involuntary reaction, a response to the relief of being understood. But Wednesday wasn't finished.
"I didn't do it out of pity. Or for entertainment." Her tone hardened a little, more sincere than before. "I did it because... I respect you. Because even though your arrogance, your dramatics, and your eternal martyrdom drivel infuriate me, I know what it's like to live behind a wall of sarcasm and thorns." And I thought, maybe, if someone could disarm you a little, you'd look in the mirror and respect yourself, too.
Elphaba blinked. For a full second, her face showed no expression. Then, very slowly, she nodded.
"Thank you. That... that means more than I thought it would."
"Don't repeat that. It would destroy my reputation," Wednesday joked in her sepulchral tone.
"Not a chance," Elphaba replied, almost tenderly.
The two gazed at each other for a long moment. It was a silent, but powerful gesture. As if they'd sealed an ancient truce without further words.
"So... shall we bury the hatchet?" Elphaba asked.
"For now," Wednesday nodded. "Although if you ever give Enid a B- again, I'll make sure you relive this night tenfold, with Taylor Swift in the background."
Elphaba paled.
"You're cruel, Addams."
"So they say."
Without further ado, Elphaba gave her one last look and turned, walking over to where Glinda was chatting with Enid, who had calmed down, though she still occasionally looked at her hands as if she could magically summon the remains of the lost cake. Seeing Elphaba approach, Glinda smiled at her—not exaggeratedly, not faked, but softly, sincerely—and took her hand with a naturalness that made all previous sarcasm dissolve into thin air.
Glinda said goodbye with a polite smile and a wave to the two teenagers, before walking with Elphaba down the street, speaking softly, as if the chaos of the night had made room for something new. Something more fragile, but more true.
Wednesday sighed, stretching her legs.
"And so ends the soap opera. Lucky I hate second seasons."
Enid leaned against her shoulder, a knowing smile on her face.
"Are you really going to do something nice for me?"
"Yes. But you'll regret it."
"And your dark heart tells you that?"
"My common sense tells me so."
"Then it will be perfect."
And for the first time on that strange, absurd, and emotionally chaotic night... Wednesday Addams didn't have a single complaint.
As Elphaba and Glinda walked toward their respective vehicles, the silence between them was thick, like an emotional fog that hadn't yet decided to completely dissipate. There was a truce, yes, but there were also scars that still hurt to the touch.
"You know what the craziest thing about tonight is?" Glinda said, breaking the silence with a tired laugh. "This whole circus, and we haven't even talked five minutes about the matter of Fiyero and his club... which was the reason we met in the first place."
Elphaba gave a dry laugh, like a resigned snort.
"I know." I suppose we still have a long conversation to do... about many things.
Glinda grimaced.
"After tonight, the last thing I want to do is talk. I want to sleep. A whole week, if possible."
Elphaba nodded, glancing up at the sky briefly, as if considering asking the stars for permission to disappear for a few days.
"And you?" Glinda asked curiously. "Where are you planning on sleeping? Because I know you're not staying in your penthouse."
Elphaba shrugged, looking at the ground as they walked.
"I don't know... I tend to vary my location. There's something reassuring about not having a fixed spot. It makes you less predictable."
Glinda watched her silently for a moment. Then, as if giving in to her own impulse, she sighed with a resigned smile.
"Do you want to come to my apartment?"
Elphaba stopped dead in her tracks. She glanced at her, a look of surprise and suspicion mixed with her.
"I thought you didn't want me to see it..." she said, her voice lower.
"After tonight," Glinda replied, raising an eyebrow, "I doubt there's anything I'd be ashamed to show you anymore."
Elphaba laughed softly, a rare sound in her repertoire. But she still hesitated. Not because she didn't want to, but because... it meant something. More than she could admit yet.
Glinda, seeing her hesitate, narrowed her eyes with a sly smile, and without losing her charmingly dramatic tone, asked, "Well, are you coming?"
Elphaba froze for a moment. The world seemed to stop around her: the wind, the cars on the street, even the echo of her own thoughts. And in that moment—as fleeting as it was eternal—something loosened inside her. As if a part of her armor had finally cracked.
And then… a faint smile—small, honest, almost shy—appeared on her lips.
Glinda turned on her heels, leading the way with that luminous confidence that had always defined her. Elphaba said nothing… But she began walking beside her.
And so, in the middle of the night, as the city sank into a lethargy of dimmed lights and deserted streets, the first drops of rain began to fall as if the night were trying to wash away the chaos left by the day. Glinda's car came to a gentle stop in front of the building, and its engine died, leaving only the distant sound of rain hitting the windshield.
Elphaba was behind the wheel, serious, her fingers still gripping the handlebar, while in the passenger seat, Glinda dozed, her head resting against the window, her makeup slightly smudged and her hair a charming mess. Elphaba sighed before speaking.
"We're here."
Glinda barely opened one eye, grunted in a tone more befitting a gremlin than a style queen, and stood up awkwardly.
Getting out of the car, they both looked up at the sky. The rain was getting worse.
"Are you sure you want to leave your car at Nevermore?" Glinda asked, wrapping her coat around her and glancing suspiciously at the dark night.
"I am. I left my motorcycle in the academy shed," Elphaba replied calmly. "Perks of being a teacher."
Glinda paused for a second, blinking in confusion.
"You have a motorcycle?"
Elphaba simply smirked and walked toward the building's entrance. Glinda followed, muttering something unintelligible about 'living stereotypes on long legs.'
They boarded the elevator. The ride was short, but it felt like an eternity. The tension was so thick it could have been cut with a nail file. Every time one tried to start a conversation, the other interrupted with an awkward comment or an awkward glance. At one point they both spoke at the same time, then they fell silent, then they tried to laugh… and they only succeeded in making the silence feel even more unbearable.
Finally, the elevator stopped on Glinda's floor. In front of her apartment door, Elphaba raised an eyebrow at the hallway decor—antique pink, with gold details that screamed "I was once a princess in a magazine"—and muttered sarcastically,
"Is this the before or after the evil stepmother's spell?"
Glinda slowly turned her head to glare at her. For a moment she seemed to completely regret having invited her, but then she rolled her eyes, gave up with a sigh, and opened the door.
And then Elphaba saw it.
Elphaba had expected many things. An abundance of mirrors, probably. An invasion of unnecessary throw pillows. Maybe a perfume collection with idiotic names.
But not this.
While it had clearly once been an ostentatious princess home—all pastels, with elegant moldings and furniture worthy of a rom-com—the apartment now had the defeated energy of someone who hadn't been able to compose herself in months. Clothes in disarray. Empty cups in random places. A couch buried in blankets and half-eaten snacks. And, most telling of all, a tower of pizza boxes reaching for the sky as a metaphor for an emotional breakdown.
Elphaba stood in the doorway, not knowing whether to laugh, worry, or simply wonder if she'd wandered onto the set of a failed sitcom.
"Don't say anything," Glinda ordered with an icy glare, raising a threatening finger as if casting a spell.
Elphaba, to her credit, just raised her hands as if surrendering to the police. Though inside, she already had five sarcastic comments stored up.
Glinda, resigned, began picking up some of the wreckage while muttering to herself how much she needed a spiritual assistant, a therapist, and an industrial vacuum cleaner.
"If you want, you can use the bathroom," she finally said, while trying to stuff a stack of magazines into an empty cereal box. "I know tonight was... apocalyptic. You could use a shower."
Elphaba nodded gratefully, though her expression was hard to read. She walked down the hallway as Glinda, without looking up, began issuing frantic instructions:
"But don't open the white door at the back! And don't open my closet either! And don't even think about touching the blue box with the unicorn stickers!"
Elphaba stopped, raising an eyebrow from the hallway.
"What is this? A haunted house or an escape game?"
Glinda froze.
"Don't go in the blue box!"
But it was too late. Elphaba was already laughing as she ducked into the bathroom.
"I'm just making fun of you, drama queen," she said in a mocking voice before closing the door behind her.
Glinda sank onto the couch, staring at the ceiling in despair, hugging a pink pillow as if it could absorb her humiliation through the velvet.
"This is going to be a long night..."
Minutes later, Elphaba emerged from the bathroom wrapped in the most ridiculously pink and fluffy robe Glinda must have had in her emergency arsenal. She was clean as ever after all the chaos, dust, madness, and candy they'd been through. Steam still rose from her skin as she walked barefoot across the apartment floor.
On the living room table, a cup of coffee was waiting for her. Dark, black, without sugar. Just the way she liked it. She didn't say it out loud, but something inside her stirred. Sometimes, the small gestures make the biggest difference.
As Glinda immersed herself in what was sure to be a world-record-breaking shower, Elphaba took advantage of the silence to inspect the place. The apartment, still in its melancholic disarray, retained traces of its former splendor. Embroidered pillows, expensive curtains wrinkled from carelessness, furniture that screamed "glamour" but now looked like retired actors: beautiful, but tired.
Her eyes fell on a half-open drawer that seemed about to burst. Curiosity got the better of her. She opened it carefully, and its interior was crammed with magazines. Glossy covers of business, fashion, leadership. They all portrayed Glinda as the iconic image of the city's renewal: empowered, radiant, perfect.
But they weren't on display. They weren't framed. They didn't decorate any wall.
They were hidden, as if they were a confession. A penance.
Elphaba gently closed the drawer. Her gaze then wandered to the piece of furniture on which some picture frames rested. Family pictures. Glinda with her parents as a teenager. Glinda at her graduation. One with a group of friends who looked like they'd stepped out of a magazine. And another...
No. It wasn't in sight.
Something, a tiny corner of paper, timidly peeked out from behind a frame. As if it wanted to hide, but also to be found. Elphaba stretched out her fingers and tugged gently.
Her heart stopped for a moment.
It was a photo of the two of them. Elphaba and Glinda. Moments before the Yule Ball, dressed in their dazzling black and pink gowns. Smiling. Radiant. United.
She held it between her fingers like a relic.
She didn't need to say anything.
"I never took it out," a soft voice said behind her.
Elphaba turned around.
Glinda was standing in the doorway, wrapped in a white bathrobe, a towel wrapped in her hair, and the most human look Elphaba had seen on her in weeks. Vulnerable, as if she didn't know whether to apologize or simply hold her.
"I didn't want anyone to see it," Glinda added, lowering her gaze. "But I couldn't throw it away either."
Elphaba looked down at the photo once more, then looked up.
"I... have it too. Well... a copy. Tucked away. In my "Ethical Philosophy" book..." she admitted, as if it were a secret she'd kept for too long.
Glinda looked at her, surprised, and for the first time in a long time, she was speechless. She tried to say something. So was Elphaba. But her sentences were interrupted, jumbled, clumsy, disjointed.
As if the past were still too close to name.
"It was a long day..." Elphaba finally said, seeking to break the moment with something practical. "Can you show me where I'll be sleeping?"
Glinda nodded immediately, relieved at the temporary surrender.
"I have a guest room," she said, but then paused for a second. She hesitated, lowered her voice, and added, "But... if you want... you can sleep with me."
Elphaba looked at her, surprised, but said nothing.
She just nodded, slowly.
And for the first time in a long time, the two shared a silence that wasn't awkward or forced. It was warm. Calm. Burdened with everything they still didn't know how to say to each other.
Finally, they both sank down onto the bed, as if the weight of the day—and the months that preceded it—had finally overcome them. Elphaba stared at the ceiling, motionless, her thoughts swirling like whirlpools. Beside her, Glinda curled up in the fetal position, the sheet up to her nose, and slowly turned to silently observe her.
Elphaba noticed the gaze and, somewhat awkwardly, returned it.
What followed was perhaps the silliest, corniest, and most necessary conversation they'd ever had. Random phrases, trivial memories, dull jokes. They weren't talking to say something brilliant. They were talking because they needed to break down that wall. That damned wall made of fears, doubts, pride, and open wounds.
"Did you ever think... we'd be together again?" Glinda asked with a half-joking, half-serious smile. "Like... like this."
Elphaba hesitated. Not because she didn't know the answer, but because it was difficult to say. Because wanting something and believing it possible don't always go hand in hand. Sometimes they're at war. Sometimes they merge.
Then Elphaba, in a low voice, said what she couldn't stop wondering about since she'd seen her again:
"What you said... when we were at that absurd dinner with the truth serum... was it true?"
Glinda fell silent.
"About... agreeing to stay with the senator and Morrible...? So they wouldn't go against me?"
The blonde lowered her gaze, her eyes filled with a crystalline glow that refused to fall. The words caught in her throat. Finally, her voice trembling, she nodded.
"Yes..." she said barely. "Yes, it was true."
Elphaba felt a lump in her chest. For her. For both of them.
"Why did you do that...? Why did you sacrifice yourself like that?" Glinda... I wasn't worth it.
Glinda looked up, hurt by the mere suggestion. Her voice was barely a whisper, heavy with pain:
"Of course you were."
And after a pause:
"Maybe... maybe I thought the world needed you more than it needed me. That you... free... could do something I never dared to do. And I didn't mind staying in my gilded cage if I knew you were safe."
The room fell silent. And yet, the weight of their gaze seemed to fill every corner.
Months of pain, of misguided pride, of cowardly silences, of whole nights imagining the "what ifs..." All of it... for nothing. For fear. For not daring to speak in time.
Her voice breaking, barely restrained, Elphaba murmured:
"Don't ever say the world doesn't need you again."
Her eyes moistened, and with a trembling hand, she took Glinda's.
"The world needs Glinda. Free. Radiant. Brave... as only you know how to be."
And after a longer, more intimate pause:
"And I need you too."
Glinda said nothing. She just leaned closer, slowly, and slipped into her arms. Elphaba wrapped her tightly, as if she never wanted to let go.
They cried in silence. Not desperate tears. Not of fear. But of relief. Of surrender. Of love held back for too long.
And for the first time in a long time, neither of them was alone that night.
They slept, arms around each other. And deep down in their hearts... they both knew that the wall had finally begun to fall.
Notes:
I think of all the chapters I've written so far, this has to be the one I had the most fun writing. Simply pitting these two couples against each other was so fun. I consider this the midseason of this season (which I'll tease will be longer than the first) and the end of the first arc. Although there's still a long way to go for Elphaba and Glinda to heal, at least now they can do it together.
Chapter 13: WHEN REALITY SETS BACK IN
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The storm roared like a wild beast over the black waters of the ocean, tearing the sky to pieces with each lightning bolt that struck. The wind howled through the broken masts of a colossal corsair ship that was burning, grounded in the jaws of battle. The scent of smoke and gunpowder mixed with salt and blood spread along the coast like an ancient omen. Muffled screams, distant cannon shots, and the crackling of burning timbers were all that remained of a battle that no longer had victors.
"They say hate is the absence of love. That's a lie. Hate is not empty... it's excess. An excess of something that was once tender, and turned to fire."
From the raging waves, two figures emerged. One, imposing, dressed in a pink corsair general's uniform, soaked, torn, but still shining in the rays: Glinda, her hair tied back in an undone braid, her face streaked with mud and salt, was struggling to carry the body of her enemy... her ally... her something. Elphaba, dressed in the dark robes of a pirate captain, lay unconscious, a deep wound crisscrossing her abdomen like the cruel signature of enemy steel.
Glinda fell to her knees in the wet sand, panting, her strength at the end, Elphaba's body collapsing beside her. They had barely touched dry land when, like a spring, Elphaba opened her eyes, her teeth clenched in a gesture of pure survival. In an instinctive movement, she pulled out a hidden knife and raised it toward Glinda. But Glinda was already prepared. She gripped Elphaba's wrist tightly, the two of them struggling in the foam and ash, their faces mere inches apart. "Why?!" Elphaba spat, her voice cracking with fury and fever. "You should have let me die at sea! You took everything from me!"
"I saved your life!" Glinda retorted, not flinching, her eyes flashing with rage and pain. "And you blame me for that?!"
"You took my fleet! My flag! My men! Everything I was... everything I am!" Elphaba screamed, her voice breaking. "What's left for me but the sea or death?!"
"Me!" Glinda said it without thinking, without framing the sentence or softening it. "It's left for you, damn it!"
"You don't hate what doesn't matter. You don't hate without having loved it first. Sometimes you confuse passion with rage, desire with fury, need with defiance. And maybe that's because... they're the same. The same thing under a different veneer."
The blade fell into the sand. A heartbreaking silence filled the space between them, fiercer than any storm. Their gazes pierced each other, not like daggers, but like anchors in each other's chests. Elphaba breathed heavily, feeling her blood warm the wound... and another, deeper wound in the center of her soul, where no bandages or stitches could heal.
"And what do you want from me, Glinda?" she whispered, her voice hoarse, almost broken.
"I want you to hate me if that's what you need," Glinda murmured, closer than ever. "But don't deny that when you look at me like that... it's not just hate you feel."
Elphaba didn't respond. She couldn't. And then it happened... A kiss.
Raw. Angry. Hurt. Almost violent. But also needy, desperate. As if in that collision of lips and fire they were trying to devour each other to find, deep within each other, a reason not to sink completely.
And just at that moment, Glinda woke up.
A gasp escaped her lips as she opened her eyes, her fingers clutching someone else's arms tightly, her breath ragged as if sand still lay in her lungs. She blinked. Reality slowly reconstructed itself around her. She was in her bed, in her room, the first traces of a new day timidly peeking through the curtains. And beside her, hugging her, her eyes closed and her expression stoic, yet serene, was Elphaba sleeping.
The night still fell heavily upon them, but it wasn't a nightmare. It wasn't a delirium of ocean or fire. It was real.
And she was there.
Glinda turned her head slightly, watching her in silence. For the first time in months, it wasn't a dream. It was Elphaba. By her side. Sleeping in her bed and holding her. Breathing the same air.
And that changed everything.
"I didn't know if what I had with Glinda was love, or if it would ever be. I didn't know if it was suppressed hatred or cursed desire. But I knew I needed her light so I wouldn't disappear completely."
Glinda watched her companion with a hint of a smile on her lips, still trembling, still marked by the weight of that dream.
But she said nothing. There was no need to.
And so, the silence of the night's peace stretched a little longer, like the dream of two shipwrecked women rescued from their own fires.
“I know that... like her, I was also tired of talking. And, for the first time, maybe I just wanted... to stay.”
CHAPTER 13: When reality sets back in
The night vanished like a sigh in the embrace of dawn. The soft light of dawn filtered through the linen curtains, dyeing the room a pale, almost melancholic gold. Elphaba opened her eyes slowly, not because of heaviness, but as if her body refused to break the spell of a peace she hadn't felt in a long time. For the first time in months, perhaps years, she didn't wake up with a tense throat, or stiff muscles, or her soul in suspense. She couldn't remember the last time she had slept so well, or if she had ever slept like this.
The room smelled of lavender and old dust, as if someone had tried to rescue its essence amidst the years and neglect. She sat up slowly, the sheet still tangled around her legs, and reflexively looked to the other side of the bed, as if expecting to find that small golden bundle that had nestled in her arms the night before. But it wasn't there.
The warm hollow in the pillow still spoke of its recent presence, but that didn't stop a pang of unease from running through her. Her brow furrowed, and like an old defensive habit, Elphaba's mind began to play with dire possibilities. Had she changed her mind? Had she run away? Was she crying in some corner? Had she received a call...?
A dull thud, followed by a moan, pulled her out of the vortex.
She stood up, not bothering to look for clothing beyond a dark cotton robe hanging on the door. As she stepped out into the hallway, the sound of objects being moved, furniture being dragged, and cleaning products being laid out like a household arsenal immediately told her the source of the disturbance.
And there she was. Glinda, gloriously beside herself, kneeling on the carpet, wearing a headscarf, elbow-length latex gloves, and an old NSYNC T-shirt she would once have worn just to hide from the apocalypse. In one hand she held a flower-shaped sponge, in the other a disinfectant sprayer. She was battling a stain on the base of a table as if it were a personal declaration of war. As she did so, she muttered something under her breath about “the horror of neglect” and “how I had allowed such deterioration to occur in a space worthy of living.”
Elphaba leaned against the doorframe, her arms crossed and one eyebrow raised, watching silently with a mixture of bewilderment and amusement. She waited a few seconds before blurting out the sentence.
“The last time I saw you cleaning with that fervor, you were wearing a rather more… suggestive outfit. I think it had lace,” she said, her tone dripping with restrained sarcasm. Glinda froze instantly. She shot to her feet, as if caught shoplifting, and whirled theatrically toward Elphaba. One hand on her hip, the other still wielding the sprinkler like a scepter.
"Well!" she exclaimed, with a mixture of pride and self-defense. "It may not have lace this time, but what it lacks in sensuality, it makes up for in vintage authenticity." And then, with a halfhearted gesture, she pointed at herself. "Look at this, huh? 2010 sweatpants. A relic."
Elphaba gave a nasal laugh as she approached, stopping halfway across the room. She watched as Glinda crouched again with almost unnerving agility and attacked another area of the floor with the same determination with which, once upon a time, she might have organized a fashion show.
"And this? An awakening fueled by the spirit of Marie Kondo?" Elphaba asked, with a lopsided smile.
"I didn't mean to wake you," Glinda replied, not looking at her, focused on her crusade, "but this place was crying out for help." She turned away for a moment, wiping her forehead with her forearm. "Besides, it makes me nervous when everything's out of place. I'm sorry, I can't help it, and this place has been like a pigsty for weeks now… By the way, did you sleep well?"
"I slept well," Elphaba said, with a gentleness that momentarily halted the other's frenzy. Glinda raised her head, and for a moment their gazes met. There was something quiet in that confession, something deeper than words. As if saying it was an acknowledgment that she had felt more than rest. That she had felt safe.
"I'm glad," Glinda whispered, and straightened fully. "We really needed this, didn't we?"
Elphaba didn't reply, but her expression said it all.
"Do you want me to help you with this?" "She offered, looking around the semi-chaos living room.
"No, no, no!" Glinda snapped, as if Elphaba had just proposed burning down the apartment. "This is my battle. Besides, you've done enough being so adorable yourself while you slept."
Elphaba raised her hands in surrender, taking a couple of steps back. It was then that her gaze fell on a file folder, half-open on the coffee table. Curious, she approached it and flipped through a couple of pages. She recognized the names. Dates. Poor-quality photographs. Fiyero's club.
"Since you won't let me help you, then I'm going to do something useful," she said without looking at her, opening the folder all the way and taking a seat on the couch. Her green eyes fixed on the first lines of the report. "Looks like this is going to take some concentration."
Glinda turned around, feather duster in hand, one eyebrow raised.
"Are you going to read that... before coffee?"
"Yes." Someone has to take the initiative while you're at war with the stains of the 21st century.
Glinda rolled her eyes with a smile, but before she could respond, Elphaba jumped up.
"And I'm going to make breakfast too. Before you protest, no," she interrupted, raising a hand, "I can take care of this, it's the least I can do. And don't tell me you're not hungry, because I can hear your stomach growling from here."
Glinda stared at her, mouth agape for a second. Then she let out a soft, genuine laugh and raised her hands as if accepting her fate.
"Only if you promise not to burn anything."
"I'm not promising anything," Elphaba said, already walking into the kitchen, the folder tucked under her arm and a smile she didn't bother to hide.
The apartment, still half-tidy, still smelling of artificial lemon and stale coffee, suddenly seemed a little more livable. Not because of the cleanliness, but because routine, that secret language of lasting bonds, had begun to whisper her name in the corners.
Elphaba stretched slightly, letting out a quiet yawn as she walked barefoot toward the kitchen, the echo of her footsteps muffled by the hallway rug. Glinda's apartment, now illuminated by the warm morning light, seemed a different place than the one she had glimpsed in the shadows the night before. Despite the messiness of the cleaning, everything about it spoke of her host's bright, restrained world. It was like stepping into a home decor catalog with a touch of a fashion magazine, but with an unexpected warmth... almost as if that exaggerated order served as a shield for something more fragile.
Upon reaching the kitchen, Elphaba paused in front of the refrigerator. She placed a hand on the handle, still somewhat sleepy, when Glinda's voice, urgent and alarmed, was heard from the other room:
"Don't open that door!
Too late."
Elphaba had already gently pulled the door, which opened with a sigh, revealing the frozen chaos of a woman grieving for her lover. Leftovers wrapped in foil of dubious origins, fast-food boxes stacked like a monument to neglect, expired yogurts, and overripe fruit that seemed to have surrendered to their fate. There was a Tupperware container containing something that might once have been soup... or perhaps rice. Elphaba raised an eyebrow, more impressed than horrified, and stared at the scene as if it were an art installation titled "Ruins of Hope."
"Oh," she murmured with that serene irony that came so naturally to her. "So this is what the post-relationship apocalypse looks like."
Glinda appeared behind her, rag in hand, her expression embarrassed, though not about to let her guard down.
"Shut that! It's a disaster area! I didn't mean for you to see it... yet."
"I thought you were exaggerating when you said you'd hit rock bottom. I was wrong," Elphaba replied, closing the refrigerator with the same care with which one lowers the curtain after a disastrous performance.
"Go to the third drawer in the cupboard," Glinda indicated with a wave of her hand, already returning to her military operation against the dust. "It's where I keep the stashes my father sends me."
"Stashes?" Elphaba asked with a hint of mockery. "Like you're a college student?"
Glinda, kneeling on the floor and scrubbing the baseboard with a fury that could only stem from heartbreak, didn't deign to turn around completely, but her voice was clear:
"My mother started sending them months ago because she said I was too thin. Now she seems determined to fatten me up like a turkey on Thanksgiving Day."
Elphaba couldn't help a stifled laugh as she opened the revealing drawer. There, like a small treasure trove of parental affection, were lined up packages of artisanal cookies, dried pasta, gourmet preserves, healthy cereal bars, imported tea, and even a box of almond flour with a note that read: "Sugar-free, but with love. —Popsicle." Elphaba sighed with a resigned smile. She was so Glinda it hurt.
As she selected ingredients she felt even remotely familiar with—eggs, whole-wheat bread, something she suspected was brie cheese—Glinda continued her crusade, moving up each level in her obsessive purge of impurities. The dust had no escape. Not even the smallest grain at the top of the shelves was safe. The blonde found forgotten objects, magazines from two years ago, a strange stuffed animal, even a spoon that had been missing in action for months. Each discovery was accompanied by an exclamation and a grimace.
"How long have I had this?" she said, holding a cupcake-shaped candle. Who the hell gives away a cotton candy-scented candle? What am I, an amusement park?
Elphaba, who had already started beating the eggs in a pink ceramic bowl, didn't respond. She had Fiyero's folder open on the counter and was flipping through it between kitchen tasks, alternating between reading and cooking with an efficiency unusual for someone who had always proclaimed her contempt for "domestic banalities."
The folder was well organized, with detailed reports, photographs, schedules, names, and even a few personal notes. Glinda had done a meticulous job. In another life, Elphaba thought, the girl could have been a detective... or a home secretary. Perhaps both.
"Hey, why is there a smiley face on this note?" she asked without looking up.
"Because I managed to get that information out of one of the district managers with just three martinis and my best smile," Glinda replied from under the couch. "It was a strategic achievement. It deserves recognition."
Elphaba chuckled, amused and somewhat moved. She finished preparing the scrambled eggs with chives and avocado toast and poured two cups of steaming coffee. The aroma filled the kitchen like a warm balm, washing away the tiredness and shadows of the previous night.
"Good, soldier," she said in a firm but mocking voice. "You've fought bravely, but it's time you laid down your weapons and came in for lunch."
"Give me a second! I just need to wipe down this last corner and—"
"Glinda!" "Elphaba interrupted, already seated on the stool, giving her a look that brooked no reply.
The blonde stood up with a sigh of theatrical resignation, dusted her hands off her old T-shirt, and approached with a light step.
"It smells incredible. How did you manage to do this without setting the fire in apocalypse mode?"
"Magic," Elphaba replied with a shrug.
Glinda sat down opposite her, her face still flushed from the effort of cleaning, and took a sip of coffee. Her eyes closed for just a moment, as if the warmth of breakfast reminded her that there were still simple, honest pleasures in the world, beyond breakups, deceptions, and chaotic homes.
"Thank you," she said, and she didn't mean just breakfast.
Elphaba nodded. No more need be said. There, among the crumbs and papers, among dirty rags and silent promises, something different was beginning. A truce, perhaps. Or perhaps the beginning of an alliance stronger than either of them would have admitted out loud.
As they began breakfast, they shared an unexpected calm, the kind of unspoken truce that can only arise between two people with enough history to not need further words. Elphaba, knife in hand, was spreading something that looked like suspiciously colored cream cheese on toast when she raised an eyebrow at the T-shirt Glinda was wearing.
"NSYNC?" she said in her most neutral tone, which always held a hint of irony. "So this is your official cleaning uniform."
Glinda, who was currently elegantly sipping a cup of coffee as if she were still at brunch on some exclusive rooftop terrace, frowned in annoyance.
"It's comfortable!" she protested. "And sentimental. My cousin gave it to me... or maybe it was a pop nostalgia subscription box. I'm not sure." The point is, I didn't come here to be judged by a sarcastic witch with the hands of a decent cook.
"I accept the praise," Elphaba replied with a crooked smile, raising her toast in a toast. "To your inner boy band."
They both laughed. It was a genuine laugh, even if brief, the kind that opens small fissures in the deepest tensions.
But the lightness didn't last long. With a more serious sigh, Elphaba dragged the folder across the table, as if gravity itself were calling for it.
"Now then," she said. "Time to face the green elephant in the room."
Glinda straightened, her face hardening slightly. They both leaned over the documents, reviewing data, reports, and city maps riddled with cross-outs.
The Ozdust nightclub, now in Fiyero's hands, was among the many establishments marked for "relocation" under the initiatives of the senator and Shiz.Corp. Glinda swallowed as she read the details she'd gathered herself. She knew what they meant. Her name, by action or inaction, was tied to all of this. The words "renewal initiative" now sounded more like a judgment than progress.
"According to reports, they're not closing due to debt," Elphaba said, pointing her fork at one of the underlined paragraphs. "It's a cosmetic purge. They're cleaning the city like a display case, sweeping away anything that doesn't fit their vision."
"And that includes any place that represents diversity, or 'rebellion,' or anything that doesn't fit into a box of minimalist design and conservative morals," Glinda added, her voice bitter.
"Hypocrites," Elphaba muttered. "And Ozdust?"
Glinda took a breath and, with a certain pride creeping into her voice, explained:
"It was the first club to openly accept clientele from multiple minorities, long before it was 'acceptable' to do so. There are documents, testimonies, even photos of protests from the time... if we can prove that, it could be considered cultural or social heritage. That would not only protect the club, but also a good part of the neighborhood."
"A legal glitter bomb," Elphaba said thoughtfully. "I like it. We need to put together a solid presentation, gather historical evidence, gather statements, expose their ulterior motives..."
"And give them something they can't demolish with a check or a court order," Glinda added determinedly.
Just as they were beginning to put together a plan, Glinda suddenly remembered something.
"Wait a minute!" she exclaimed, putting down her coffee with a subtle tap that made the spoon tremble. "I had some notes on my phone. Things I found about the club's history, old news..."
She stood up, walked to her bag, and, after rummaging through cosmetics and crumpled tissues, turned on the device for the first time in many hours. The screen flashed. Notifications poured in. But one in particular made her stop dead in her tracks.
Milla's Message
"Hello? Did you disappear from the planet or were you abducted by a unicorn? Are you still interested in me or did you secretly become a nun?"
Glinda's heart stopped for a second. The world went silent. She had completely forgotten about Milla.
Not because of cruelty. Not because of neglect. But because of... Elphaba. Because of everything they had been through in the last 48 hours. From the tension, the complicity, the laughter in the early morning, and the silences that spoke volumes more than many of her previous relationships.
Her fingers trembled a little. The message was written in a humorous tone, yes. But also with a hint of disguised reproach. She knew him well.
For a moment, she thought about responding. But then Elphaba's gaze lifted from the table, calm, curious, without pressure. Glinda locked her cell phone and put it back in her purse with a speed that was all too obvious.
She returned to the table as if nothing had happened. She sat down. She drank her coffee.
"Is everything okay?" Elphaba asked, looking at her with those eyes that always seemed to see beyond what was being said.
Glinda smiled. A measured, ambiguous smile.
"Yes. Everything's fine. Where were we?"
But as they resumed their conversation about tests and strategies, Glinda's mind was no longer entirely on the folder, or the city, or even breakfast. Something inside her had shifted. A crack. A question. A choice left unmade.
"Why did I forget? How did I forget her like that?" The question kept recurring. Until a few weeks ago, Milla had been at the center of many of her decisions. How had everything changed so much, so quickly?
"Do you think Fiyero has access to more files that would be useful to us?" she asked, more to keep up than out of true concentration.
"If he doesn't have them, he surely knows someone who does. But that means... talking to him," Elphaba said, without taking her eyes off the papers, although her tone became drier.
Glinda sighed. Returning to Fiyero, confronting him, was more than a formality. It was stirring up fresh wounds and, perhaps, making them bleed again. But it was also inevitable if they wanted to save the club… and, in a way, themselves.
“We’re going to need a strategy,” she said, getting up from the table and grabbing a notebook. “We’re going to make a list of key contacts: former owners, artists, community members who’ve worked or been through Ozdust. If we can gather enough material for a formal historic preservation petition…”
“We can stop the project,” Elphaba finished.
“Or at least ruin the narrative for them.”
As the morning wore on, Elphaba began taking notes.
She ran the tip of the pen over the surface of the notebook with the same intensity she used to read a legal file: with a sharp, focused gaze, lips pursed, and one eyebrow raised. She jotted down names, underlined dates, drew arrows between ideas, as if it all held a hidden meaning waiting to be unraveled. Glinda watched her from her spot, her chin resting on one hand, her breakfast forgotten in front of her, her toast half-eaten, and a silly smile beginning to form on her face.
Elphaba, without looking up, noticed the weight of that gaze. She frowned and muttered dryly, "What? Do I have crumbs on my face?"
Glinda blinked, coming back to reality, and shook her head with a small laugh.
"No..." she said, her voice taking on a soft, nostalgic quality. "It's just... I missed seeing you like this. Working, I mean. So focused, so bright."
Elphaba looked up, surprised. Her eyes softened, though she didn't want to admit how much those words had touched her.
"From across the office, of course," Glinda added quickly, bringing her coffee cup to her lips to hide the blush that was beginning to creep up her neck.
Elphaba gave a short, deep, warm laugh.
"Yes, because from this side, I imagine the view wasn't as interesting," she replied with a crooked smile.
"No, not at all," Glinda said with mock indignation, turning up her nose with charming theatricality. "An aesthetic nightmare."
They both laughed, and for a few seconds the weight of the pressing issues seemed to fade.
Elphaba, however, still smiling, tilted her head slightly, as if testing the waters.
"And you have another officemate now?" she asked, her tone more casual than she actually felt.
Glinda's eyes widened and she shook her head firmly, almost too quickly.
"No!" she exclaimed. "No, I don't have anyone."
Elphaba blinked, taken aback by the vehement response. She hadn't expected that. But before she could say anything, Glinda frowned briefly, suddenly understanding the real meaning behind the question.
"Oh! No, no... I didn't mean 'partner' like that," she said, giggling awkwardly, shaking her head. "I mean, I don't have a 'partner' like that either, for the record. But no, Elphie. I have an office all to myself now."
"A crystal tower for the queen?" Elphaba quipped. "Exactly," Glinda laughed. "It's spacious, with huge windows, a river view, and free coffee. But... it's also quiet. Lonely. It feels strange to me, sometimes."
Elphaba put her pen down on the table, interlacing her fingers in front of her. Her expression softened, no mockery this time.
"You don't seem very happy in that position," she commented carefully.
Glinda sighed, lowering her gaze.
"It has its advantages," she said, stirring her empty cup with her spoon. "And at first, I really thought I could do something useful there, you know? Change things from within, make a difference. Besides, well..." She smiled a little coquettishly. "I look amazing on camera. They prepare my outfit every morning, like a TV star."
"A star shining to hide the smoke from the fire," Elphaba murmured, half-joking.
Glinda laughed briefly, though the laughter quickly died on her lips.
"What exhausts me most is feeling like... that's all I'm there for. For the photo ops, the fabricated speeches, the hollow promises. I don't even know if I have real authority or if I'm just the pretty face of the senator's platform."
Elphaba nodded slowly, and for once, she didn't respond with irony. She looked at her with a certain tenderness, with that expression she rarely allowed to escape her in public.
"It must be hard," she said, simply and sincerely.
Glinda nodded, grateful not to have to pretend in front of her.
"And you?" she asked then, in a lighter, almost playful tone. "Do you love teaching? Is teaching your secret calling and you never told me?"
Elphaba let out a wry laugh that echoed throughout the room.
"Oh, yes!" I love repeating the same things to twenty confused brainiacs who look at their phones more than the blackboard. It's a dream come true. I truly feel like I'm cultivating the minds of the future." She paused, then added sarcastically. "If the future is a wasteland of intellectual laziness."
Glinda burst into genuine laughter, covering her mouth with her hand. Elphaba joined her, and for a moment they both laughed like in the old days, when political tensions and heartbreaks didn't weigh on them like they do now.
The folder, the breakfast, the messages, the doubts... everything hung in the air for a few minutes, as if nothing existed but that shared laughter.
And perhaps, in that suspended instant, they both understood how much they had missed each other. Even though neither of them had said it yet.
Finally, the shared laughter faded like the echo of a happy memory, leaving a peaceful silence in its place. The atmosphere in the small kitchen was charged, not with tension, but with something deeper: recognition, trust… perhaps even nostalgia.
Elphaba was the first to break the silence, her voice calm, without sarcasm, without harshness, just a simple but honest question.
"Glinda... knowing the game from the inside out, having worked in the lion's den... Do you really think this is enough to save the club?"
Glinda looked down at the folder between them. She ran her fingers along the edges of the pages, as if searching there for a clearer answer than the one she was carrying in her chest. She let out a long, resigned sigh.
"The truth," she began bluntly, "is that the government and Shiz.Corp are going to attack us with everything they have if we move forward with this. They'll do whatever it takes to protect the renovation project. It's not just a matter of business, Elphie. It's pride. The senator can't stand losing. And Morrible—her mouth twisted in disdain—she never forgets a threat.
Elphaba crossed her arms, thoughtful.
"So what can we do?" she asked, not disguising her concern.
Glinda looked up, her expression hardened by dawning determination.
"Our best move is not to go to trial. We need to put pressure from within, use public opinion, make connections. Make the senator fear scandal before it breaks. Make him see the risk of bad press and back off for convenience."
Elphaba nodded slowly. Her lips formed a small smile, sly and tired.
"That... that's a good move," she said, then raised an eyebrow, looking at her out of the corner of her eye. "But for that, we need someone who knows how to talk. Who knows how to smile, play the game, make people listen without realizing they're being manipulated." Glinda gave a wry laugh, as if she already knew what was coming.
"Me?" she asked, tilting her head with a feignedly innocent smile.
"You," Elphaba confirmed, pointing the pen at her like a magic wand. "Do what you do best. Events, cocktail parties, fake charities... I've got some followers. Make them nervous."
Glinda sighed dramatically and slumped back in her chair, as if she'd just been asked to clean the sewers of the entire Shiz.Corp building with her own hands.
"Ugh, one more gala and I'm going to end up knowing the name of the sommelier at every luxury hotel in the city!"
Elphaba watched her with amusement.
"I'm sure you already know."
Glinda smiled reluctantly, but then raised a finger, suddenly serious.
"But if I do this... you also play your part."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Which part?"
"You have to talk to Fiyero."
Elphaba froze for just a second, her expression hardening as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water over her.
"I don't know if that's a good idea."
"It's the only one we have," Glinda insisted firmly. "He's the owner of the club, and besides... you guys have things going on. This isn't going to work if you're not in sync."
"We're not even in the same orchestra," Elphaba grumbled, crossing her arms.
"Doesn't matter," Glinda said with a small smile. "You're going to have to play anyway. Even if it's off-key."
The two of them looked at each other for a second longer, with a mixture of complicity and resignation. Finally, with a gesture almost in unison, they nodded. Missions accepted.
"So..." Elphaba said, standing up, "you're going to dress up and I'm going to torture myself emotionally?"
"Exactly," Glinda replied, also standing up. "Just like old times."
An hour later, the sun streamed through the apartment's high windows as if it didn't mind interrupting. Elphaba, still a little sleepy but now more focused, was dressing in yesterday's clothes. She noticed they were clean, impeccably folded. Glinda had washed them. That made her smile silently as she buttoned her shirt in front of the mirror.
From the bathroom, Glinda's voice echoed cheerfully.
"I've already scheduled a meeting! It's this afternoon, at the Levosse art gallery." Everyone will be there: influencers, donors, businesspeople, the typical hypocrites with too much power. It's the perfect place to plant the seed.
"Perfect for you," Elphaba murmured from the bedroom. "I still can't reach Fiyero. I've called all his numbers, checked his social media, asked his previous assistant. Nothing. It's like he's vanished."
There was a moment of silence in the bathroom. Elphaba could imagine Glinda stopping, frowning in front of the mirror while curling an eyelash.
"Just a second..." Glinda said, emerging in a silk robe and walking purposefully to an antique vanity table. She opened the top drawer and, after rummaging through postcards, combs, and gold-monogrammed envelopes, pulled out an old business card with slightly bent edges.
"I knew it!" she exclaimed, showing it to Elphaba.
The card, written in eccentric font, read:
Sir Brrr
“Comedian, philosopher, and occasional archivist”
[followed by a sequence of numbers]
Elphaba frowned with a mixture of surprise and distrust.
“Sir Brrr? The comedian who performed cynical stand-up comedy on the club stage? That guy always seemed to know more than he was letting on…”
“He was the one who gave me the information about the club’s history,” Glinda explained. “The one I used to put together the proposal. He wants to help, that’s obvious. And he probably has an idea where Fiyero might be. You should call him.”
Elphaba hesitated for a second, but nodded.
“Okay. It can’t get any worse than this.”
The two of them continued getting ready, each focused on their roles. Elphaba slipped the card into her coat pocket. Glinda touched up her makeup with surgical precision. And as they were about to leave, ready to go their separate ways that evening, something hung in the air.
A question. A silence filled with possibilities.
Glinda, standing in the doorway with her satchel in one hand, lowered her gaze for a second. Then, with a shy smile and her voice barely above a whisper, she asked, "Do you... want to meet again tonight?"
Elphaba froze. Not because she didn't want to, but because everything felt too fragile, like walking on newly formed ice. They had been apart for so long, building versions of themselves far from each other, that returning to a shared routine seemed... harder than it should have.
Elphaba looked at her gently. A pause. And then she answered, "I'll call you."
It wasn't an empty promise. It was the most honest thing she could give her. And Glinda, though slightly disappointed, understood. She nodded, calmer.
"Okay."
And so they parted ways, each walking in opposite directions, down different steps of the city they had tried so hard to change.
Behind their polite smiles and determined steps, their minds were in chaos: names, strategies, shared memories, unanswered questions... and an uncomfortable, persistent certainty.
Nothing would ever be the same. But it didn't have to be the same either.
It was something new... And that—though uncertain—could also be hope.
Just a few minutes after saying goodbye to Elphaba, Glinda walked through the imposing doors of the Shiz.Corp building. Upon reaching the main entrance, she took out her gleaming golden access card—decorated with a cold, minimalist logo—and swiped it through the electronic reader. The beep confirmed her access, but Glinda frowned slightly. I'll never get used to this, she thought. Something so impersonal, so... empty.
The building was a colossus of glass, metal, and pretension, but that morning, Glinda walked through its halls not as the impeccable, aloof boss everyone was afraid to cross, but as a whirlwind of charm, confidence, and unexpected warmth.
"Good morning, Sheryl! Did you do something to your hair? It looks amazing on you."
"Oh, Rick, that new suit makes you look ten years younger, I swear!"
"Boq, watch out... I think the receptionist is going to blacklist you if you keep this up," she joked with a smile as she passed Boq, who was leaning on the reception desk trying to woo the receptionist.
Hearing Glinda, Boq blushed and clumsily pretended to rearrange some papers.
The energy was different. It was as if a more authentic—and, some might say, dangerous—version of Glinda had surfaced.
Finally, she arrived at her office on the top floor. Upon opening the door, the first thing she noticed were the three framed magazine covers hanging on the entry wall:
“The New Face of Progress: Glinda Upland and the City's Bright Future”
“Beauty, Power, and Purpose”
“From Youth Icon to National Leader”
In all of them, Glinda appeared radiant, perfectly coiffed, smiling... and empty. Without hesitation, she walked over, peeled them off one by one, and, with a strangely lighthearted determination, tossed them into the trash. There was no drama, no tears. Just a decision already made.
As she organized her desk, turned on her computer, and slipped off her uncomfortable heels for a pair of fluffy slippers (which she hid under the desk), Boq appeared, notebook in hand, clearly bewildered.
“Uh… Glinda… I mean, ma'am… I have the day's agenda, as you requested.” At eleven he has a meeting with the Urban Innovation Committee, then lunch with the marketing department, and at three—
“Boq,” she interrupted with a dreamy smile, gazing out the window, “have you ever felt like your job is like a helium-filled balloon that everyone admires but has no idea where it’s going?”
Boq blinked.
“Is that… a metaphor?”
“Probably.” She gave a light chuckle and turned to him. “Cancel everything. Or postpone it. I have a social event this afternoon, and it’s more important than anything.”
“Everything? Even lunch with the senator?”
“Especially lunch with the marketing people. I don’t feel like pretending to care about their opinions today.”
Boq nodded, still processing everything, frantically jotting things down in his notebook.
As Glinda chattered excitedly—more to herself than to Boq—it seemed that the only thing that mattered was that the afternoon's event went perfectly. She paced back and forth across the office, placing and removing items from her desk, opening the emergency closet with her "B and C wardrobe choices," and even trying on a pair of earrings in front of the mirror hanging behind the door.
Boq, somewhat disoriented, stood at attention with his notebook in hand, trying to keep up:
"I confirmed everything for the event, Glinda. The venue is booked, we hired the support service you had starred, and I already have the guest list verified. I even spoke to the sound team."
Glinda nodded with satisfaction, twirling herself in front of the mirror, examining herself from every possible angle.
"Perfect, Boq. What do you think?" Does this dress give me the "imposing but approachable" vibe, or should I try the bright fuchsia one that makes me look a little more... "humanitarian in distress"?
Boq blinked, confused, caught between protocol and the fact that Glinda had never asked his opinion on her outfit before.
"Uh... I think... you always look... very good. Professional."
"Oh, that doesn't say anything!" Glinda replied with an awkward smile, turning back to the mirror. "What if I wear an elegant braid with it loose in the back? Or is that too much of a 'school act in the country'?"
As Boq tried to decipher whether to answer or give up, he pulled out his last note with some discomfort.
"Oh... and one more thing. The new head of security... Agent Chistery."
Glinda stopped her beauty ritual. Her eyes met Boq's through the mirror.
"What about him?"
"He was asking about you this morning. He wanted to know your schedule, your scheduled appointments, even where you'd been last night. He said it was part of your routine report to the senator."
The silence fell awkwardly. The enthusiastic glow on Glinda's face, until then lit like a state lamp, suddenly went out. She took a step back, more slowly now. She turned to Boq, but no longer with the same ease.
"Of course... 'routine.'"
That word hung in the air like something stale.
It wasn't the first time the senator had sent someone "to look after," which really meant "to watch." And of course, Chistery wasn't just any agent. He was one of those silent, efficient, almost invisible men... except when they needed you to know you were being watched.
"Thank you, Boq," Glinda finally said, her voice lower. "Postpone everything for the afternoon. Anything other than the event, cancel it or let someone else handle it. I don't want any distractions today."
Boq nodded, closing her notebook.
"Anything else?"
Glinda looked at the mirror one last time. She was no longer smiling.
"Yes... make sure there's no extra security personnel at the event. Nothing I haven't approved. Understood?"
Boq looked at her with a touch of concern, but nodded.
—Understood.
Glinda was left alone in the office. For the first time in weeks, her reflection returned her serious gaze. Control. Strategy. Image.
The city at that hour was a half-awake monster. Neon lights flickered impatiently as cars slithered like metallic insects under the rays of the afternoon sun that already seemed to threaten to burn out. Elphaba sat alone at a bus stop, the plastic roof covered in irregular droplets that danced with every vibration of the traffic. No one else was around at that hour. Just her, her long, light-absorbing black coat, and the distant sound of a siren that seemed to be traveling in the opposite direction.
She had her phone in her right hand, and in her left, a crumpled card with somewhat kitsch gold lettering: Mr. Brrr - Comedian, Philosopher, and Occasional File Clerk. A part of her—the logic, the part that still relied on rational systems, structures, and strategies—screamed at her that this was a bad idea. That calling a clown with an onomatopoeic name to resolve a global crisis was the height of patheticness.
But the other side—the one who had experienced exile, betrayal, and broken relationships—knew they didn't have many cards left to play. And that Fiyero, for better or worse, was one of the few pieces on the board that could still move. If they wanted to save him—and by extension, perhaps save something bigger—they had to get to him before his own cynicism devoured him completely.
He dialed.
The waiting tones sounded long, interminable. Each beep was a question. Every second, a peso.
And then:
"Hello hello hoolaaa!" a shrill, deep, and theatrical voice finally answered. "You're on the phone with Brrr, the only comedian who charges double if you don't laugh. Who's calling? Is it to insult me or to invite me to a funeral? Because I have a busy schedule for both." Elphaba put two fingers to her temple and took a deep breath, fighting the urge to hang up.
"It's Elphaba," she finally said, her tone neutral.
"Who?"
"Ugh... Elphaba Thropp, we've already met..."
"I don't remember any trope named Elphaba..."
Elphaba gritted her teeth, her teeth tight and weary. "I... was at your Christmas party."
There was a pause. Then, on the other end, a shriek as high-pitched as it was sudden:
"The green one?! The one with the horrified look?! The one who stole three martinis and then yelled at the tree for 'judging' her?! Gods! Of course I remember! It was outrageous... and one of my best Christmas memories, by the way!"
Elphaba closed her eyes, already resigned to that kind of answer.
"Yeah... well. Listen, Glinda gave me your number. I'm working with her on this whole Ozdust Club mess, and we need to track down Fiyero. I thought you..."
She didn't finish her sentence. There was no need. Brrr was already panting theatrically on the other end of the line.
"Oh... Elphaba, I don't know how to tell you..." She paused dramatically. "Fiyero is dead."
Silence.
Absolute.
The bus stop became a coffin of sound. Elphaba felt all the air leave her for a second, and the card fell from her hand to the wet floor without her noticing.
"WHAT?" she murmured, frozen.
But Brrr burst out laughing, as absurd as her existence was absurd.
"Lie, lie! Calm down, tragic witch! He's alive, very much alive. Only he's been sleeping on my couch for twenty-four hours like a beautiful, depressing piece of furniture. He hasn't said a word since he arrived, but he snores with the intensity of a mythological creature. Do you want to see him? Come. Although I warn you, my apartment smells of potato chips, desperation, and expired deodorant." Elphaba exhaled so hard she almost doubled over. Her breath rushed back as if she'd been diving and had just surfaced.
"Thanks... really. I'm on my way."
"Great," Brrr replied. "Bring me some coffee if you want me to open the door for you. Or a bomb, that always lightens the mood."
Elphaba hung up with a resigned smile. Brrr was unbearable. But also, somehow, a light in the emotional swamp where Fiyero had sunk... and where they might still be able to rescue him...
But first... she had to report on the progress of her mission to the only person who truly mattered to her in all of this.
The soft purr of the engine was barely audible inside the luxurious Shiz.Corp limo. Outside, the city slid like a living painting between the tinted windows. But Glinda was barely paying attention. Sitting elegantly, legs crossed, her dress carefully arranged, she stared at her cell phone screen, smiling like a teenager who'd just received the message she'd been waiting for for days.
On the screen, a new green bubble appeared:
ELPHABA: "I know where Fiyero is. I'll stop by Nevermore to pick up my motorcycle and then I'll pick him up."
Glinda couldn't help but giggle softly as she typed quickly.
GLINDA: "I still can't believe you have a motorcycle. Since when have you had one? And why am I only just finding out now?"
The reply came almost instantly.
ELPHABA: "Since I hit my early midlife crisis. I thought you'd enjoy the mental image."
Glinda laughed again, resting the phone on her chest for a second, letting that small moment of levity warm her heart. For the first time in a long time, she felt something in her life had spark, color. As if everything around her wasn't just part of a gilded facade.
"Glinda," Boq said from the seat across from her, eyeing her cautiously while holding a tablet. "The guest list is confirmed, the catering has arrived, and security is coordinated as you requested. Would you like me to double-check the order of appearances?"
"Huh?" Glinda looked up, as if coming back from a dream. "Oh, no, Boq. I trust you. Everything's going to be... perfect."
She looked back at her cell phone. One last message flashed on the screen:
ELPHABA: "Good luck, blonde. Now it's your turn to play your part."
Glinda gave a mocking smile.
"And yes, I guess it's my turn now."
The limousine came to a slow stop.
"Here we are, miss," the driver said.
Boq opened the door and got out first, looking around like an impromptu bodyguard. Glinda followed him, dazzling as ever, but with a different aura. She was no longer just the PR queen of Shiz.Corp, nor the pretty face who graced the front pages. Today she was a woman with a purpose.
In front of her stood the Levosse Art Gallery, a modern building, all glass, steel, and vertical gardens. A ribbon of golden lights marked the entrance, where the first attendees were already beginning to arrive: businessmen, artists, investors, and, most importantly, representatives of the senator's inner circle.
Glinda took a deep breath. As she walked down the red carpet, she felt like every step was a decision. She was going to put her charisma, her influence, and her talent on the line... not for a contract, not for her reputation, but for a just cause... and for her.
With a resolute gaze, she turned slightly to adjust her hair reflected in a window, smiled to herself, and murmured,
"I'm not going to let you down."
She walked into the event, radiant like a beacon. And this time, her brilliance wasn't just meant to dazzle. It was meant to change the course of things.
"Glinda," Boq said from behind her, discreetly handing her a thin folder. "Here are the profiles of the key people. Starting with the director of urban planning and the editor of The Emerald Post. Don't forget to smile... but not too much. You know? Politics."
"Thanks, Boq. Do your thing and keep the paparazzi away from the idiots," Glinda replied as she opened the folder.
As she walked through the space, decorated with contemporary art and abstract sculptures, she began to position herself. In each conversation, she dropped a nuance, a subtle concern, a touching story about the inclusive origins of the Ozdust club. He made sure every comment seemed casual, but it was all calculated: how he tilted his head, how much eye contact he made, how long he stayed in each group.
In a corner of the room, a rival senator whom Glinda knew disagreed with the policies of the current renovation project was drinking alone. Glinda didn't hesitate and approached. Elphaba always said she could make a stone talk if she wanted to. Today was the day to prove it.
But as she spoke, as she laughed and gently touched the arm of a skeptical businessman to emphasize her point, her mind buzzed again every time her phone vibrated in her purse. It was Elphaba. "I'm just arriving at Fiyero's house. He's not answering, but the lights are on. If I'm not out in half an hour, call Sir Brrr."
Glinda swallowed and hid her tension with a charming smile as she toasted the city's future. Inside, though, she wished she could be there, at that door, next to Elphaba. She didn't know what she would discover, or if Fiyero would want to help... but she knew one thing for sure:
She was no longer alone. And this time, she would do the right thing.
The Levosse Gallery was bathed in dim, golden lights, the walls adorned with modern art that seemed to scream sophistication, though no one was really looking at it. The guests—politicians, businessmen, philanthropists, and various faces carefully curated for the cameras—sipped champagne and laughed with that false ease that only comes when everyone has something to hide.
And in the middle of it all, like a star surrounded by satellites, Glinda.
Dressed in an elegant pearly white ensemble that further enhanced her natural glow, she moved from conversation to conversation as if dancing, doling out smiles, compliments, and charming anecdotes like breath mints. Her sweet voice floated through the air:
"Oh, did you know that building in Emerald Square was once a secret poets' club?" she said with a charming laugh. "Of course, now it's a detox juice franchise... progress has a pretty cruel sense of humor, doesn't it?" The group was laughing, and Glinda was already with another. Charm was her shield, her sword, and her disguise. But behind every word, every laugh, there was calculation. She wasn't just gaining sympathy: she was recruiting allies. She needed to put the senator in check before he could move his first piece.
But across the room, near the bar, the reality was much less glamorous.
A young waitress, cheekily chewing gum, was leaning against the bar as if she owned it, watching the scene with boredom. She wore a tight uniform, provocative glasses, that attitude that told the world, "I don't care about anything," and her name stood out on her uniform: "Milla." The head waiter hurried over.
"Milla! What are you doing standing there? There's no food in the east section, move!"
She rolled her eyes, removing the gum with two fingers and tapping it against the bottom of the tray before taking it.
"Yes, yes, I'm coming, General," she muttered sarcastically, and walked off disdainfully, the tray in one hand and a stolen croquette in the other, which she popped into her mouth without any remorse.
As she walked among the guests, her eyes fell, as if drawn by an old magnetism, on a figure impossible to ignore:
Glinda.
Milla paused for a second. Her smile stretched from ear to ear like a feline grin. Fate, it seemed, had a sense of humor too.
With a confident, almost sensual gait, she approached behind the group of businesspeople with whom Glinda was animatedly conversing. Just as Glinda was talking about "cross-sector strategic alliances" and gesticulating enthusiastically, a familiar voice, with a honeyed, poisonous tone, interrupted her.
"A sandwich, Miss Glinda?"
The voice slid like poison through silk.
Glinda felt a chill before turning around. Her body tensed instantly. It wasn't a voice she could forget.
She turned slowly, and there it was.
The impeccably fitted waitress uniform failed to disguise her insolent, confident demeanor. Her red hair tied in a high ponytail, the large glasses accentuating piercing green eyes, and that smile... that smile she knew all too well. It wasn't cordial. It was a threat wrapped in gift paper.
For a second, no one said anything. The group of businessmen noticed the tension, but only one of them tried to hide it with a long sip of champagne.
"Milla..." Glinda said, barely a whisper.
"What a surprise, huh?" the redhead said, her intonation perfectly balanced between politeness and venom. "Me serving food to the bigwigs. Who would have thought it? You so tall and me so... useful?"
Glinda forced herself to compose her face, straightening her back.
"Thank you," she replied neutrally, delicately taking one of the bites. "How... professional of you to be here." Milla bowed her head, as if thanking her for the compliment, but her gaze pierced Glinda's words like a laser beam.
"And you're as... lovely as ever," she whispered sarcastically. "It must be exhausting pretending for so long."
A pause. The silence felt like a taut string about to snap.
"It was nice seeing you," Milla added, giving a small, fake curtsy before moving away into the crowd, handing out snacks as if nothing had ever happened.
Glinda stood still, croquette in hand, her smile still plastered but empty. No one in her group dared to say a word. She took back control like an actress returning to her scene after a technical glitch.
"Sorry about that," she said softly. "Sometimes the past wants to be invited to the party, too."
And with a new smile, Glinda continued.
But inside her, something was stirring.
As Glinda navigated the toxic, glittering waters of the world that had once adored her—and now seemed to devour her with a perfect smile—in another part of the city, a black motorcycle roared briefly before shutting off in front of an old apartment building, nestled in an area that oscillated between the decadent and the quaint. Elphaba abruptly took off her helmet. Her expression wasn't one of those that sought neither beauty nor impact, only efficiency: absolute concentration. She knew she had no time for doubts or sentimentality.
The building smelled of dust, burnt wires, and soup from a packet. She climbed the stairs, which creaked with each step as if the building itself were protesting the effort. The lights flickered with a melancholy laziness, and Elphaba found herself surrounded by echoes of an old party: laughter distorted by memory, fragments of off-key songs, clinking glasses, and the unmistakable sound of her own annoyance that night.
Finally, she reached the door she was looking for. He hesitated for a second. Then he knocked hard.
From inside, a familiar voice—theatrical, shrill, unmistakably him—answered:
"If you're the landlord, tell him the tenant ran off to Tahiti and left only a cactus in its place! And I'm not paying the cactus's rent!"
Elphaba rolled her eyes.
"It's me, Brrr," she said in a tone that was more threat than greeting.
From the other side came a dramatic gasp, and immediately afterward, the door creaked open.
There stood Brrr, as Brrr as ever: a burgundy velvet robe, fuzzy slippers, a steaming cup of what probably wasn't tea, and that charming, dangerous smile, like a magician on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
"Northern Witch of Sarcasm!" she exclaimed, opening her arms as if welcoming her into a Roman theater. "Come in, come in!" This pigsty is rarely graced with such… greenish visitors.
Elphaba entered without responding. Her heavy boots made a dull thud on the stained carpet. The apartment was organized chaos: humor books mixed with cheap philosophy treatises, comedy masks hanging on the walls next to framed photos of past parties, and a pair of cats that scurried away upon seeing her enter.
"You're not very decorative today," she murmured, looking around.
"I know. My soul doesn't look much better either," he replied with a crooked smile. "But at least the curtains match my hopelessness."
As they talked, Brrr led her down the narrow hallway. His voice lowered a little, becoming more serious, almost conspiratorial.
"I found him last night. Outside the club. Alone. Soaked, like something out of a sad music video. He wasn't talking. He wasn't fighting. He just... looked at me. And I don't know, Elphie... sometimes you recognize another wounded animal. I brought him here. I gave him soup. He didn't eat it. I offered him sleep. He didn't say anything. He just plopped down on the couch like a sack of bones with an invisible crown. And ever since then... there he is."
They turned into the living room, and Elphaba saw him.
Fiyero.
Lying on the couch as if he'd collapsed from his highest point. His hair tangled, his wrinkled jacket half-removed, a Brrr blanket covering him like a lazy corpse. He was breathing, yes, but his face was devoid of any tension or awareness. It was him... and it wasn't.
Elphaba stood still for a few seconds, studying him. Then she narrowed her eyes.
"Is he drugged?"
"No more than the average citizen," Brrr replied. "Just tired. The kind of tiredness that sleep doesn't cure."
Elphaba leaned closer. She looked down on him. She crossed her arms.
"Fiyero," she said. Nothing.
"Fiyero," she repeated, louder. Silence.
He snorted. Then, without much ceremony, she grabbed the nearest pillow and smashed it against his face.
"Fiyero, wake the hell up!"
His body jerked. He let out an incomprehensible groan and waved his arms as if trying to ward off a nightmare.
"What... what the hell?!" he muttered, bolting upright, his hair flying in all directions, his eyes half-closed. "Where am I? Who hit me with a cloud? I feel like I've been run over..."
"Hello, Your Majesty," Elphaba said coldly. "Maybe if you slept in a real bed, like any functioning person, maybe you could move like a human being."
Fiyero looked at her, disoriented. His face went from confusion to astonishment. Then to annoyance.
"Oh no... you."
"Yes. Me." She held his gaze. "And I didn't come to save you. I came to tell you that either you get off that couch, or I'll drag you to what's left of your throne. Your choice."
Brrr, meanwhile, sat down in an armchair, watching with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
"What about me? Should I get some popcorn? Should I leave you two alone for a kissy-kissy fight?"
No one answered. Because in that room, at that moment, there were only two people: one who had fallen... and one who wasn't going to leave him there.
Fiyero ran his hand over his face, still half asleep, still with that expression of someone who would prefer to return to the world of dreams, no matter how dark. He opened one eye, tilted his head, and, with a sarcasm that still sounded pained, blurted out,
"And what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be lying on my couch, wallowing in your own pity? I thought that was all we had in common lately."
Elphaba clenched her jaw. She didn't respond immediately. She took a step closer, as if the words hurt, but wouldn't stop her.
"And you?" she retorted. "How long has it been since you've been back home? Or do you already consider it a total loss, like everything else?"
Fiyero laughed softly, mirthlessly. He slumped back against the sofa, staring at the ceiling as if he expected it to collapse on him.
"I couldn't." He spoke almost in a whisper. "Since the last note from the bank arrived... it's over. It's over. The club, the dreams, everything. I fought with everything I had. I went into debt, I humiliated myself, I clung like an idiot to a hope. But this damn city... it destroys you. And then it charges you for it."
Elphaba pressed her lips together. She knew it wasn't acting. It was true. She'd seen it. And not only that: she'd felt it. That same desperation that burrows under your skin and makes you doubt even your most strongly held convictions. The same city that applauds you while it consumes you.
"Fiyero..." she said with a gentleness she rarely used. "You're not alone in this. Not all is lost. There's still a chance."
"A chance?" Fiyero gave a bitter laugh. "Of what? Of failing with style?"
"Of fighting one more time," Elphaba said, with that harshness she used when what she felt was too real. "Of saving the club. You. Whatever's left of this city. Everything. Whatever we can."
He frowned at her, confused.
"And why are you telling me this, you of all people?"
Elphaba straightened, like someone who knew what she was about to say wasn't going to be easy. She took a deep breath.
"Because I spoke to Glinda."
The silence that followed was abrupt, almost comical. Brrr, watching from her armchair, her tea in hand, raised her eyebrows as if she'd spilled a bit of scandal in her lap.
Fiyero blinked, stunned.
"Wow... With... Glinda? You spoke to Glinda? Without divine intervention or a certified mediator?"
"Yes," Elphaba replied, not bothering to justify further. "And before you start with the questions, I'll tell you this: we haven't reconciled... completely. There's still... so much to resolve between us.
"But... did you talk?"
"Enough. Enough. We both understood that, for now, there's something more urgent than our reproaches and scars." Her eyes shone with determination. "We want to save the club. And we want to save you. Even if you're not helping out much, by the way."
Fiyero watched her. The cynicism in his expression began to crack. As if a part of him wanted to believe. Wanted to cling to that rope thrown in the middle of his shipwreck.
"And what do you expect of me? To pick myself up like the tired hero of a cheap play?"
"No," Elphaba replied. "Just that you don't give up before we can try. To get up. To help us. This place needs you. We need you. Even if we don't entirely deserve it."
For a moment, there was only silence between them. Long. Filled with thoughts and unhealed wounds.
Fiyero lowered his head. Then he raised it, with a weak, crooked smile.
"And Glinda really said she wanted to help?"
"She did. Even with complete words."
Fiyero gave a raspy laugh. Tired.
"Well... if you two can tolerate each other for five minutes without throwing shoes and sarcasm, I suppose I can at least... get up."
Fiyero's "determination" had the consistency of stale Jell-O. Or worse, Brrr's blender, which was struggling not to explode as he blended a dubious combination of pea protein, ginger root, and something that might have once been a banana.
"This will pick you up," Brrr said with the smile of an impromptu natural guru. "Or it'll send you to the bathroom. One of two things."
Elphaba didn't bother to turn around. She sat across from Fiyero, pulling out a small notebook filled with notes and folded papers.
"Listen. What Glinda and I discovered is important. The club, the building... even this entire neighborhood has historical value. It was a center of expression and protection for marginalized communities for decades. That could make it a social landmark, maybe even legally protected."
Fiyero narrowed his eyes.
"And where did they get that? Who gave them that information?"
"Well, it was..." Elphaba began, but didn't finish.
"It wasn't me!" Brrr shouted from the kitchen, raising his hands with a whisk dripping with a suspicious substance. "I didn't tell anyone."
Elphaba glared at him.
"Thanks, Brrr. Your stealthy collaboration was super helpful."
Fiyero closed his eyes, frustrated.
"This isn't going to work. They don't understand how this game is played. If we dare to report anything, to speak out... the senator, Shiz.Corp, and all their corporate lackeys are going to crush us. They're going to make our evidence disappear, us... the club. Their hands aren't going to shake."
Elphaba leaned toward him, her cool.
"That's why we're not going to report them head-on. The plan isn't a direct confrontation. It's pressure. It's politics. We're going to infiltrate. To influence. To pull the strings where it hurts: their reputations." If the senator starts to look like an enemy of civil rights, if the media smells a scandal, if his donors get uncomfortable... he'll cave.
Fiyero frowned. The logic was there. It was almost irrefutable. But his shoulders remained slumped, his eyes dull.
"Sounds good. Very good, even. But that doesn't change the fact that I..." He paused, as if the words weighed on him. "I don't know if I can do it. Maybe I don't have anything left to give. Maybe... I've run out."
Silence.
Elphaba looked at him for a long time. Not with judgment. With something that, to her, was almost a show of overwhelming affection. She placed her hand on his. She held it there for a few seconds. Her voice barely lowered.
"Fiyero..."
And then she yelled at him.
"Of course you can do it, idiot!"
Fiyero jumped, more from fright than conviction.
"What the...?!"
“I’m tired of watching you crawl around like you’re already buried! You’re Fiyero Tiggular! The guy who spent half his college life partying hard on campus, the one who told his idiot aristocratic father to go to hell, the one who was all over the magazines because he took the entire Moscow ballet to a private party on his sailboat without asking!” Elphaba pointed at him, as if that would be enough to resurrect him. “I’ve seen you burn for smaller causes! Don’t tell me that now, when it matters most, you’re going to go out like a wet candle!”
Brrr poked his head out, lifting his monstrous smoothie.
"And if he's going to do it, at least drink this first. I put turmeric in it. It's good for the soul."
"Don't help, Brrr!" Elphaba shouted without looking at him.
Fiyero, for the first time in days, laughed. Barely. A broken, dry sound. But real.
"I missed this," he said, looking at Elphaba with a flicker of something more alive. "You yelling at me until I felt human again."
"Then get used to it. Because if we're going to fight, I need you awake. And sharp. And less like a tragic martyr from a pulp novel."
Fiyero nodded, still not enthusiastically, but with something that was dangerously close to hope.
"So where do we start?"
Elphaba smiled. One of those smiles that tasted like gunpowder ready to explode.
—From the inside. From the inside. We're going to set this system on fire... from its foundations.
Fiyero finally stood up, or at least tried to.
—Okay, I get it, Princess Leia, but before we start the revolution... where's your "new partner in crime?"
And meanwhile, at the gallery's social event, Glinda had already exhausted most of her repertoire of dazzling smiles, studied compliments, and carefully edited anecdotes. Her cleavage was tight, her shoes were tormenting her, and she'd already told the story of the Eastside jazz club three times, with different punchlines. She rested a trembling hand on one of the tables in the room, exhaling as if she were releasing a part of herself with the air.
Boq, never far away, approached her, notebook in hand.
—Are you okay, Glinda?—he asked with his usual mix of concern and efficiency.
—Yes... yes, I'm fine,—she replied, forcing a smile. Her voice was a little weaker, as if each word cost energy. She looked around. "I just... need a moment without talking to humans."
"Would you like to go outside and get some fresh air?" he suggested.
But Glinda wasn't listening anymore.
Her eyes were glued like magnets to the other side of the room.
Milla.
Dressed in her waitress uniform, with her red hair tied back and those damn glasses that made even her sarcasm stylish, Milla was shamelessly stealing snacks from one of the tables, looking around like a wayward teenager more than an employee.
Glinda sighed.
She couldn't escape this.
While Milla continued in her own little world, a tray in one hand and a canapé in the other, Glinda smoothed her skirt, straightened her back with that poise she used for the cameras, and walked toward her.
"Milla," she said in a firm, almost icy voice.
Milla turned slowly, as if she had been waiting for that voice all night. The smile she flashed was anything but innocent: sharp as a razor, sweet as poison in a crystal goblet.
"My lady!" she said with an exaggeration that bordered on mockery, tilting her head slightly as if Glinda were a decadent queen and she were a servant forced to perform. "What can this lowly servant do for the Empress of Appearances? Would you like me to shine your shoes? Pick your food? Oh, I know! Please let me be your seat so you can sit on me—it will be a true honor!"
Glinda clenched her jaw.
"I'm not up for your games tonight, Milla."
"Oh?" She tilted her tray slightly and pretended to be thoughtful. "I meant it. After all, who am I that you should remember me?" Days without responding, missing, and now you're showing up in a gallery playing at saving the world in an expensive dress and those shoes that are clearly killing you.
The comment hit the mark. Glinda faltered, and for a second, the confidence crumbled from her posture like gold dust falling from her dress.
"It wasn't that simple..." she began, trying to explain, though the words came out clumsy, garbled.
"I'm not interested, Glinda." Milla lowered her voice, her tone becoming colder, almost intimate. "I didn't come to ask you for explanations. I came because I'm paid. And because... let's face it"—she leaned closer, close enough so no one else could hear—"seeing you uncomfortable gives me a pleasure I didn't know I needed."
"Milla," she began quietly, without taking her glass. "You don't have to do this. I'm asking you, please. I'm here for something important. For something that... really matters."
Milla tilted her head, like someone watching a dog trying to talk. Her eyes sparkled with that mixture of mockery and enjoyment so typical of hers.
"Oh, don't tell me you're here to save the world. How adorable." She lowered her voice slightly, leaning closer. "You know, I always wanted to see the great Glinda in her natural habitat. This place of mirrors, expensive wine, and people who love you for what you look like. And now that I see you here… I must say. It's quite disappointing."
Glinda swallowed, resisting the urge to back away.
"You're still the same little girl, eager for approval. Looking at them as if every nod was a pat on the head. Waiting for someone to tell you who to be."
The emotional blow was more effective than any slap. Glinda felt her blood heat beneath her skin. But still, she didn't respond. Not there. Not now.
"You're mistaken," she said finally, her voice taut like a rope on the verge of breaking. "This isn't about you or me. This is bigger."
Milla gave a low laugh, devoid of mirth.
"Oh, I'm sure it is. But... maybe that's why I'm here! To remind you that what's big, what's bright, what's important, doesn't erase what you are. Or what we are. And you, Glinda, can't stop obeying. You never did. You just change masters."
The air between them became stifled. Milla played with the tray, running a finger along the rim of her glass.
"I was thinking... I could give you a simple order. Like, I don't know, take off your shoes and walk across one of the tables. Or maybe kneel and thank me for my service? Oh, I have a better one." You could say out loud how well you know how to obey...—Milla paused to savor her own venom—I'm sure those executives would enjoy seeing what lies beneath all that catalog perfection.
Glinda took a half step back, her eyes blazing with suppressed fury.
"You're sick," she finally snapped, her voice low but deadly. "This is neither the place nor the time for your insane games—"
""Insane"?" Milla interrupted, raising her eyebrows, feigning childish offense. "Oh, but Glinda... weren't you that way too when you begged to be called 'servant'? Or have you already forgotten what made you tremble?"
The silence between them was brutal. A taut cord about to snap. Glinda felt the words tremble in her throat, halfway between a scream and a cry, but then, like a dagger from the darkness, came a voice that froze her blood.
"Glinda!"
They both turned. Milla curious. Glinda panicked.
There they were... Her parents.
Glinda stared at them like a child caught with her hands in the cookie jar. Suddenly, all her control, her facade of power, crumbled like a house of cards under a gust of wind.
"Mom! Dad!" she stammered. "I... wasn't expecting you..."
Milla stepped back, savoring the moment like an artist who has completed her masterpiece. She leaned gently toward Glinda, brushing her ear with one last word.
"Take care, Princess. Not all necklaces can be seen. Some... can be felt."
Glinda barely had time to catch her breath before she saw her parents weaving their way through the crowd with that mix of determination and theatricality that had defined them for as long as she could remember.
Highmuster Upland, with his eternally warm smile and brisk gait, looked like an actor who refused to leave the stage. He wore a midnight blue suit that shimmered softly in the gallery lights, and his expression when he saw her was a mix of pride and relief. Beside her, Larena Upland glided with the grace of a panther in full dress: impeccable, composed, her ivory gown fitted without a single wrinkle, her hair pulled back in a gravity-defying bun, and a gaze that could analyze, classify, and pass judgment in less than a blink.
"Glinda!" her father exclaimed, opening his arms, visibly moved. "Just look at my little star. You're radiant."
She forced a smile, knowing that any other gesture would be scrutinized, filed away, and probably discussed later. She barely managed to return the hug when her father added, lowering his voice slightly,
"Though I must say, we were starting to get worried... It's been weeks, Glinda. No calls, no letters. Is everything all right?"
Larena didn't even wait for Glinda to reply. She was too busy scanning the surroundings with her usual mixture of disdain and superiority.
"And what... interesting surroundings." Levosse was always an... eclectic space," she commented, as if the word "eclectic" meant "decadent." "I imagine that's part of your new... social agenda, isn't it? Events, speeches, politics... I didn't know you aspired to become a neighborhood activist, dear."
Glinda fought the urge to sigh and lightly pursed her fingers, like someone adjusting their mask in the middle of a performance they didn't ask to star in.
"It's not that, Mom. It's just..." she searched for words in a mind that suddenly felt completely empty. "It's been a very... hectic couple of weeks. I needed time. For myself."
"Time for you," Larena repeated, one eyebrow perfectly arched. "And that includes ignoring your family? And letting the media make things up because you don't clarify your position? And looking more and more... how do I put it... worn out?"
"My dear," Highmuster chimed in, trying to ease the tension with a gentle laugh, "come on, let's not start with that. This isn't the time or the place."
Larena ignored him as always.
"And your dress, Glinda. Is that silhouette new, or are you simply straying from classical standards?"
Glinda gritted her teeth. Her mother's words felt like icy darts, cold, precise, beautifully camouflaged in a polite wrapping. She searched for strength within herself, remembered why she was there, why she had gathered her strength again, why she was fighting again. It wasn't for them. It hadn't been for a long time.
In that instant, Larena extended her empty cup toward the nearest figure, without looking directly at her.
"Would you take this, please? Thank you."
Glinda didn't need to turn around. She knew immediately who the "lucky" bearer of the cup was. She felt the whole world slow down for a second. She closed her eyes.
Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Shit.
Milla.
The glass was taken with a soft crystal click, and the silence that followed was too long to be accidental. Glinda opened her eyes slowly, just in time to see Milla—with that wide, purposeful smile—bow slightly, with a wry grace that mimicked with disturbing perfection a servant in the court of some forgotten kingdom.
"It will be a pleasure, Mrs. Upland," she said in a honeyed voice. "What an immense honor to have such a presence among us. I dare say you don't see a silhouette like that from the classic portraits of the Esmeraldian aristocracy.”
Larena barely looked at her, just nodded with an automatic smile, like someone too used to flattery to notice it.
But Glinda felt the blood drain from her face.
Milla wasn't finished.
"And you," she continued, turning to Highmuster with a faint sadistic glint in her eyes, "how charming, what vitality. The way you walk, that energy. You'd think you'd rejuvenated ten years just by seeing your daughter. Although of course..." she tilted her head slightly, "the absence of news can make a reunion feel like a miracle."
Highmuster gave an awkward laugh.
"Oh... well... yes, it's been a while. But Glinda was always independent, wasn't she, little one?"
"Independent," Milla repeated, almost savoring the word. "What an interesting choice. Sometimes independence is mistaken for abandonment, don't you think?"
Larena finally gave her a look. It wasn't one of appreciation. It was an inspection.
"You're new here, aren't you?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Oh, not so new," Milla replied, still smiling. "Just one of those small, invisible pieces that hold together big events like this. But you know how that works, right?"
Glinda wished a hole would open up beneath her feet and swallow her up.
"And you've met before?" Highmuster asked, his curious gaze darting from his daughter to Milla, like someone trying to complete a charming puzzle. His tone was genuine, almost excited by the idea of his daughter having a friend "from home."
Glinda opened her mouth to answer, but Milla was quicker.
"Of course!" she exclaimed with a warmth as artificial as a well-polished plastic flower. "Glinda was an inspiration to all of us at the shelter."
"Shelter?" Larena repeated, as if the word left her with a taste of cardboard.
"Yes, Mrs. Upland," Milla said, turning to her with an angelic smile. I work at a pet shelter, humble but full of love. We help abandoned dogs, especially the small breeds, you know? The ones that tremble and have enormous eyes like something out of a Greek tragedy. Glinda came representing the government, as part of her support for community causes. It was an unforgettable day. Not because of the cameras, of course." He glanced briefly at Glinda. "But because of her enormous heart."
Highmuster took a step forward, visibly moved.
"Did you really do that, Glinda? That's... that's wonderful. That's what this society needs!"
"Mhm," was all Glinda managed to muster, still staring at Milla as if she wanted to dissolve her with her mind.
"Oh, yes," Milla nodded, turning to him with a look that seemed straight out of a midday soap opera. "Especially that little Chihuahua. Remember, Glinda?" So shaky, with those round little eyes and those pointy little ears…" She clenched her fists against her cheek as if speaking of a newborn baby. "How he moved us! We both started to cry! And, Glinda, do you remember that cute little sound he made?"
Glinda watched her as if she were watching an absurd play without a script. She understood nothing. And yet, she understood everything.
Then Milla turned her head very slowly toward her, with a smile as sweet as it was sinister. She said nothing. She made no obvious gesture. She just looked at her.
And Glinda knew. She knew exactly what that look meant.
Don't say it. Do it.
She swallowed. She closed her eyes for a second, summoning all the dignity she still had. And then…
"Woof," she said in a very low voice.
Larena blinked. Highmuster tilted his head, curious.
"Woof," Glinda repeated, a little louder this time, and then, with a resigned sigh, launched into a series of high-pitched barks and exaggerated imitations of a nervous puppy. "Woof woof! Grr! Woof!"
Larena looked at her as if she'd just seen her daughter suffer a nervous breakdown in public. Highmuster's mouth was open, surprised, but still hoping that maybe, just maybe, this was part of some endearing story.
Milla clapped like an excited little girl.
"He does it just like that! Just like that! See? That's empathy, that's commitment! Not all public officials dare to put themselves in the paws of a puppy traumatized by abandonment!"
"This is absurd..." Larena murmured, pursing her lips as if the very sound of the barking gave her hives.
"Ah, Mrs. Upland," Milla said, not turning to her, but knowing exactly where she was. "Does compassion seem absurd to you? I suppose that's no longer fashionable in high society, isn't it?"
Larena crossed her arms coldly.
Meanwhile, Glinda stood there, a tight smile plastered to her face, still half-crouched, pretending to be that damn Chihuahua. Internally, she was screaming. Externally, she kept barking.
And Milla wouldn't stop.
"And remember when you all alone figured out how the puppy communicated he was hungry? He twitched his tail!" She looked directly at Glinda with another dynamite smile. "He was so... enthusiastic. And you figured out exactly how to communicate with him! Remember?"
"I'm not going to," Glinda began, but was met with another glare from Milla. "More insistence. Clearer.”
And Glinda did. She turned around slightly and, with shame that sank into her bones, wiggled her bottom from side to side.
Highmuster gave an awkward laugh.
"Well, heh... he does have a sense of humor, that's for sure."
Larena was motionless. Her face was a mixture of discomfort, suspicion, and deep distaste. Her voice was a knife wrapped in velvet.
"I didn't know you'd started... visiting kennels, Glinda. Is that the new public profile you want to project?"
"Well, Mother," Glinda replied, the smile still frozen on her face, "we all have to start at the bottom."
"She said that when she visited the shelter too!" Milla chimed in, delighted. "She literally said it when she tripped over the Shepherd's water bowl and ended up sitting on the floor. Right then and there, she decided to donate 100 cans of food. What a noble scene!"
"Incredible," Highmuster murmured, patting his daughter on the back. "You should be on the news more for things like that."
Glinda nodded. With the blank stare of someone who no longer feels the chains.
Milla, for her part, had already taken control of the situation. She talked, laughed, and cast knowing glances at Glinda while showering her with new imaginary anecdotes, small social proofs of a ridiculous and false connection. Between the lines, each sentence was an order, a provocation. And Glinda knew that if she didn't follow them, the humiliation would only become more explicit.
Highmuster's forced laughter began to die down, and Larena no longer tried to hide her displeasure.
"This has been... quaint enough," she said, turning to her daughter. "Glinda, come with us. Now."
"Of course," Glinda said, relieved to have an outlet, even if it was in the form of a sentence. She grabbed both of them by the arm more firmly than necessary and practically dragged them away from Milla, who said goodbye with a small, mocking bow.
When they finally moved far enough away for the murmur of the party to drown out any retorts from Milla, Larena snorted.
"Glinda," Larena began, turning to her with her arms crossed and a frown. "What the hell was that? Who is that woman? And since when are you friends with people like her?"
"We're not," Glinda answered quickly, too quickly. "She's just someone... trouble."
"Troublesome?!" Larena raised her voice, indignant. "And you hang around with that kind of people? Is this part of your new life of events and worthy causes? Because if it is, my dear, you're opening yourself up. To scandals, to rumors, to blackmail, to disasters!"
"Larena..." Highmuster intervened softly, trying to calm her, but clearly affected as well. "Glinda... We're not here to fight you. We're just... worried. You haven't written. You haven't called." And now you're surrounded by strange people, in places you've never been, with that dull sparkle in your eyes. Something's up. And if something is... you can tell us. You know that, right?
Glinda looked down. It was so tempting. Her father was the only one who sometimes, sometimes, seemed to truly see her. Not as a symbol. Not as a trophy. Just as his daughter. But she couldn't. She couldn't talk about Milla, or the Ozdust Club and her crusade to save it, or the lies she'd had to live with... or Elphaba. Not in front of them. Not now.
"I know, Dad," she said finally, her voice hoarse. "I know. But there are things that... I have to work through alone."
Larena crossed her arms skeptically.
"Solve what, exactly? Do you realize how suspicious that sounds?"
Glinda turned to her with forced calm.
"Not everything has to sound right to be necessary, Mother."
Highmuster studied her for a long moment, then nodded gently.
"Just promise me you're not sinking into something you can't get out of."
"I'm not sinking," she replied, though she wasn't sure if it was true. "I'm just... navigating. A tricky tide."
While the secrets piling up like dynamite beneath Glinda's smile threatened to explode at any moment, the atmosphere in Brrr's apartment was more relaxed, though no less intense. The table was covered with crumpled papers, underlined, crossed out, diagrams, arrows, and at least three cups of cold coffee.
Amid the strategic chaos, Brrr appeared with a tray. On top, a pair of margaritas in large glasses, with perfectly arranged lemon slices and salt on the rims.
"Serious meetings deserve serious drinks," he announced proudly, placing them on the table as if they were confidential documents.
"Weren't those energy shakes an hour ago?" Fiyero asked, raising an eyebrow.
"One evolves," Brrr replied, and disappeared with a tail swipe worthy of an eccentric butler.
Elphaba, without looking up from the paper she was holding, pointed to an underlined point.
"Look at this. The entire district has a recorded history as a zone of cultural expression dating back to the 1970s. If we connect that with the file Glinda found on the club's community activities in the 1990s..."
"You can draw a solid narrative of social value," Fiyero added, surprising himself.
"Exactly." Elphaba jotted something down with surgical speed, while her other hand fumbled for her margarita.
Fiyero watched her for a moment. Her mind was focused, her eyes sharp, her voice with a conviction I hadn't heard in a long time.
"It's good to see you like this," she finally said, with a half-smile. "In your element. With that determination. As if the world finally had to move to your rhythm."
Elphaba looked down, half-smiling, like someone trying to hide a laugh.
"Glinda told me something similar this morning," she admitted in a barely audible tone, as if embarrassed to remember someone had sincerely praised her.
Fiyero seized the moment.
"You know, up until a few days ago, you were just like me... if not worse. I could ask you what happened, but I think I know. Or rather... who."
Elphaba took a sip, and as she placed her glass on the table, she smiled with shy sincerity.
"It wasn't just because of her. I... I was already fed up with myself, with doing nothing." But yes,” he nodded slightly. “Glinda had a lot to do with it. She pushed me without pushing me, if that makes sense.”
Fiyero nodded. He did.
And then they talked. As they usually did. Without masks, without the need for defensive irony (though there was always some to embellish the silences). Elphaba told him what had happened with Glinda: the tension, the confrontation, the unlikely truce. Fiyero listened with real attention, occasionally chiming in with a question or an observation that wasn't meant to judge, only to understand.
“I suppose it's not easy,” Fiyero said. “With everything that's going on between you two.”
“Nothing worthwhile is,” Elphaba murmured, to both of their surprise.
Brrr, who had silently returned and was listening from the kitchen while washing a blender (without much conviction), dried her paws and approached slowly.
“Can I say something?” she asked, as if asking permission was a new habit.
"You can't help it, so go ahead," Elphaba replied without looking up.
"What you two have with Glinda... isn't simple. But it's not something that happens every day, either. There are bonds that you only understand if you live them. And others that you can't understand even if you live them, but still... they don't let go."
Fiyero frowned, intrigued.
"Was that a reflection or a threat?"
"It was a philosophical comment redolent of mint liqueur and loneliness," Brrr declared dramatically.
Elphaba laughed. A genuine laugh, the kind that comes unexpectedly.
And for a few minutes, amidst the margaritas, papers, and philosophical nonsense, the war against the system, the recent pain, and the imminent threat remained outside the apartment. The only thing that mattered was that they were together. And that, for the first time in a long time, they were talking not like desperate soldiers... but like friends.
Elphaba stared at her margarita for a moment. The ice was already beginning to melt, forming small streams within the yellowish liquid. She held the glass in one hand and the marker in the other, but she wasn't writing. She was just... thinking.
Fiyero, without hurrying her, just watched her. Brrr settled onto the nearby sofa, making as little noise as possible, as if she knew any clumsy interruption could break something fragile that was about to blossom.
"You know what the worst part is?" Elphaba said suddenly, without looking at either of them. "I keep telling myself this. That this isn't anything. That it won't last this time. That it's not real. It's just another one of those stupid dreams I've been having all these months."
Brrr twitched his ears attentively. Fiyero just nodded, silently.
"And I believe it. Or I want to believe it. Because it's easier," she continued, putting down the marker. "Because if it's ephemeral, if it's an illusion... then it doesn't matter if it breaks. Then I'm not stupid for wanting it."
"But do you want it?" Fiyero asked bluntly.
Elphaba finally looked at him. Her eyes held no tears, but they did have that dull glow that appears when you're about to say something too true.
"Yes," he admitted, his voice lower, more fragile than he'd ever allow in public. "I love her, Fiyero. I've loved her since she first angered me. Since she stood in front of me with no idea what she was saying and still managed to make everyone listen. Since she looked at me as if she didn't understand anything... but still stayed close."
There was a silence, the kind that doesn't bother anyone.
"I always thought I'd fall in love with someone who understood me," he added. "But Glinda doesn't understand me. Not completely. And neither do I understand her. But... I can't stop looking for her. I can't stop wanting her to see me. To choose me. Because even after everything we've been through... I'd still choose her."
Brrr made a low sound, almost a thoughtful purr.
"Maybe love isn't about finding someone who understands you," he said. "But about someone who decides to try, even when they can't."
"Since when have you become a wise man?" "Elphaba joked, wiping her glasses with the hem of her shirt unnecessarily.
"Since I've been caught in an emotional triangle with more drama than an Oz soap opera," Brrr replied, crossing her legs with dignity. "Don't underestimate me."
Fiyero laughed softly, then looked back at Elphaba.
"And what are you afraid of?"
Elphaba was slow to respond. This time she did take her time.
"That it won't be enough. That all the courage, all the strategy, all the love I have won't be enough to sustain her. To sustain this... I already lost her once, and that destroyed me completely." She made a vague gesture, encompassing both her life and that fragile thing she had barely begun with Glinda.
"And what do you want?" Fiyero asked gently, as if afraid of breaking what she was building.
And Elphaba, for the first time, didn't shy away from the answer.
“I want to wake up and have her there. Not as a miracle, not as an exception. I want her to be there… because she chose to be. I want a fight in the morning and a make-up in the afternoon. I want her to tell me I'm wrong, and then hug me just the same. I want…” she sighed. “I want a life with her. As impossible as that sounds.”
The three of them fell silent, and for a moment only the distant hum of the city was audible, as if even she knew she should lower her voice.
Fiyero nodded slowly, almost respectfully.
“Then fight for it.”
Elphaba looked up.
“Even if there are no guarantees?”
“Especially if there aren't,” he replied.
Brrr stretched out his paw and very carefully pushed a daisy toward her.
“Let's drink to unlikely loves,” she said. “They're the ones worth the most.”
Elphaba raised her glass. Fiyero did too. They clinked glasses gently, unceremoniously, but with intention. And they drank.
And so, as if the universe knew that moment had reached emotional critical mass, Elphaba's phone vibrated with a soft but penetrating buzz, breaking the delicate stillness of the confession. Elphaba didn't move at first, as if refusing to look at the screen might prolong the moment she'd just experienced, as if she were afraid the spell would be broken.
But Brrr and Fiyero already knew.
They didn't say anything, but shared a knowing look. Elphaba slowly picked up the phone. She unlocked it. And there it was.
A short message, but clear in its intent...
"I need to see you. Please... I know things are still awkward between us, but... I can't stand this anymore. You're the only thing that makes sense."
Meanwhile, miles away—but not as far away as it seemed—Glinda stood in a corner of the event, holding her cell phone in her hands like a rosary. Answer. Please. Tell me you're there.
While she waited, she heard the murmur of her parents still talking nearby, Larena's critical voice sharper than ever.
"That tone, that girl... there's something twisted about her. Not just because of her status, it's the way she looks, as if she knows everything but says nothing."
"Maybe she was joking among friends," Highmuster tried.
"And what kind of 'joking' is that? One second Glinda is talking to senators, and the next she's barking like a Chihuahua because that girl asks her to..."
At that moment, Milla walked behind Larena with exquisite ease. Without stopping or even looking at her, she said loudly enough for Glinda's mother to hear:
"Oh, be careful with that bite. It has a powerful laxative effect. It helps reduce bloating in photos, but you know... the price of glamour."
Larena froze. She blinked. Then, as if the food had turned into dynamite in her mouth, she quickly spat it out onto a linen napkin and, with a look of silent horror, bolted for the bathroom. Highmuster trotted after her.
From the sidelines, Milla couldn't contain a triumphant laugh as she slipped through a service door, heading for the back of the place.
Glinda saw her. And something inside her—something deeply exhausted, broken, and angry—snapped.
Enough was enough.
Heart pounding in her ears, she strode through the living room, ignoring everyone and everything. She pushed open the service door and entered the back hallway. The air there was colder, thick with the smell of spices and detergent. She passed shelves, trays, boxes… she turned a corner…
PLOP!
A perfectly spherical meatball shot down from above… and landed with surgical precision inside Glinda's cleavage.
"What the hell...?!" she exclaimed, throwing her torso back, a mixture of surprise and disgust.
"I BLOWN A DUMMY!" Milla shouted from atop some stacked crates, raising her arms as if she'd just won the Ozball championship.
Glinda scooped out the meatball with two fingers, trembling with rage.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Milla?!" she snapped, her voice barely contained.
"Specifically? A lot of things," Milla replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "But are you bothered by the meatball, or by the fact that your parents have a bad sense of taste?"
"This isn't funny!"
"No?" She slowly climbed down from the crates, still smiling. "Because from here, it looks like a comedy. A curly blonde, a family with a throne complex, and me, the buffoon with a spoon."
"I'm not a curly blonde! And stop messing with my parents!" “Of course not! You just hide, cry in corners, beg impossible girlfriends, and let your mother walk all over you like a tablecloth. That’s… perfectly stable.”
“You don’t know anything about what I’m going through! Stop making fun of me in my face!”
“Of course I do!” Milla spat, taking a step forward. “How could I not? Look at them, Glinda. Your parents. That cardboard world. This damn charade! How much longer are you going to keep pretending you fit in?”
“It’s not pretending! It’s my life!” Glinda replied, increasingly cornered. “Whether you like it or not, it’s where I grew up, it’s the people who raised me. Not everything is a conspiracy to destroy me.”
"So what? Are you going to live your entire existence tiptoeing, saying the right thing, smiling even though you're a wreck inside? God, Glinda! Even I'm sick of watching you play the broken princess."
"Sick of it?" she repeated, incredulously. "Are you sick of it? You? The same one who appears stalks me at work, controls me like a doll when I'm lonely, and turns everything she touches into a spectacle?"
"I'm doing it for you!"
"No!" Glinda cut her off, her voice breaking now. "You're doing it for yourself. Because you love having power over me. Because you knew I was in a vulnerable place when we met, and you used that to make me doubt everything and everyone. To make me depend on you."
Milla looked hurt for a second. She lowered her gaze, but it was only for an instant. Then she looked up sharply.
"You think so?" "I know that."
A tense silence filled the hallway. The refrigeration system was still whirring somewhere. The smell of cold food grew more and more alien.
Glinda took a deep breath. She was shaking, but she wasn't going to cry.
"I don't want this anymore, Milla. I don't want any more of you. I don't want any more of this relationship that makes me feel dirty and guilty every time I close my eyes. It's over."
She turned around.
She started walking.
But she didn't take more than three steps before Milla's panicked voice reached her:
"No! Wait! Glinda, please don't go like this!"
Glinda didn't answer.
"You can't leave me like this! I warned you, you can't!"
And then, the tone changed. Milla let go of her fear and replaced it with something much sharper.
"If you leave now... I'll tell everything."
Glinda stopped.
"What did you say?"
She turned slowly. Her face was a mask of shock… and terror.
Milla stood in the middle of the hallway, her face twisted with fury, despair, and vulnerability.
"Your parents. Your friends. Your perfect world. Do you want them to know? What we did. What you were with me. What you hid all this time while pretending to be the kingdom's favorite gilded girl."
"You…" Glinda could barely get a word out. Her heart was pounding. A lump formed in her throat.
"Don't leave me, Glinda," Milla said with a broken smile. "Because if you leave me… I'll destroy you."
The sentence fell like a sentence, frozen.
Glinda didn't cry. She didn't break. But something inside her did. She felt it, like a string that finally snapped from being stretched so far.
She looked at her. With fear. With anger. With disgust. With sadness.
And above all… with a new certainty: that relationship was rotten to the core.
Glinda walked with a firm stride, like a statue marching to the gallows. Every muscle tense, every breath labored. Milla watched her with a satisfied, wolfish smile. When Glinda arrived in front of her, Milla began to circle her slowly, like a shark smelling blood in the water.
"I knew you wouldn't leave," she whispered with poisoned sweetness. "I knew that deep down, this is what you want. To be mine. To be humiliated. For someone to see you as you are, without your dresses, without your masks. Just you… pathetic, fragile, lost."
Glinda clenched her fists.
"Isn't that right?" Milla continued, pacing around her. "You've always needed someone to punish you for being a lie on legs. And well... how lucky you are to have me."
Milla licked her lips, as if savoring her victory.
"You want me to shut up? You want me to say nothing? Then you're going to have to ask me. On your knees if you have to. But at least a 'please, Milla, save me.'"
She stopped in front of her.
"Come on. Do it. Say it. Beg."
Glinda blinked. Her lower lip trembled. Her eyes glistened with tears she wouldn't shed. Her heart pounded in her chest as if it wanted to escape her body.
"Please..." she murmured, almost voiceless. Milla smiled arrogantly.
"What did you say?"
Glinda looked at her... Steady. Slowly. Precise
She took a deep breath… And then she spoke.
“Please… shut up and go to hell.”
Milla’s smile froze.
“What did you say?”
“Are you deaf now too?” Glinda retorted, her voice clear, sharp as glass. “I’ll gladly repeat it: go to hell, Milla. Do what you want. Tell whoever you want. Shout what you know! I don’t care anymore.”
“You’re in no position to act brave, Glinda,” Milla blurted, her smile now distorted by bewilderment. “You have no idea what I’m offering you. I’m being nice to you.”
“Nice?” Glinda laughed, a dry, bitter sound. “Your kindness isn’t kindness. It’s emotional blackmail disguised as concern. It’s abuse painted as sarcasm. You don’t want to help me. You just want me to never leave, because that would make you feel small.” Invisible.
Milla took a step back, as if struck.
"You don't know me."
Quick as lightning, Glinda shot up her hand, grabbed Milla by the collar, and yanked her violently toward her. The sharp crack of the taut fabric resonated like a whiplash in the air.
Milla's eyes flew open.
"Listen to me, Milla," Glinda spat, her voice low and firm, but trembling with suppressed fury. "Don't come back. Don't ever... mess with my family. Or my friends. Or anyone I care about."
She was so close that Milla could feel the vibration in her chest with every word.
"Because if you do," she continued, "I don't care what you think you know. I don't care what you think you can threaten me with. If you touch what I care about again... I'll destroy you. Do you understand me?" She suddenly let go of her, and Milla shot her a look of hatred that hid fear.
"Go to hell! If you think I'm going to let a damn Barbie trample me..."
"Shut up! I'm not afraid of you anymore," Glinda continued, her voice cracking but firm. "I don't care about you anymore. You can't control me with threats, or guilt, or... this. This version of you... is pathetic. And I refuse to be a part of it anymore."
Milla stared at her, not knowing what to say for a moment. The air felt thicker, as if the walls themselves had heard the final crack.
"You're no longer part of my story... Goodbye."
Glinda turned and began to walk away.
But this time, it wasn't a flight. It was a decision. It was freedom.
Glinda walked faster than she had ever walked in her life. Her heels tapped furiously against the gleaming marble of the gallery, echoing like war drums. The painting, the laughter, the glittering dresses, and the artificial smiles dissolved behind her like a made-up nightmare. She pushed through the front door of the building without looking back, almost stumbling as she descended the steps, and emerged onto the sidewalk like someone emerging from a shipwreck.
The night air hit her hard, icy, pure, mercilessly real. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if trying to hold the world in her lungs. But it didn't work. The bitter taste was still there, clinging to her throat like the stale perfume of a party she didn't want to remember. Her pulse pounded in her ears. The world was spinning. And then, without warning, her legs began to tremble. The full weight of that cursed afternoon—the looks, the laughter, her—came down like a ceiling collapsing on her fragile body. She felt she was going to fall, that the floor was approaching quickly, that she was going to break—
But she didn't.
A firm arm held her, and a voice—dry, sarcastic, and absurdly reassuring—said just within earshot:
"Do you always make such dramatic exits, or is this just a special night?"
Glinda turned, as if that voice were an anchor in the chaos. And there it was. Standing in the orange lantern light, as if she didn't quite fit into Glinda's elegant world, but that was precisely why she looked so... perfect. Elphaba looked at her with that crooked half-smile she only showed when something worried her more than she was willing to admit. Her eyes, dark and attentive, said everything her mouth had yet to utter.
Glinda didn't respond. Not a word. She just looked at her for a moment, like someone finding an oasis in the middle of the desert. And then, without thinking, without permission, without restraint, she threw herself into her arms.
Elphaba stiffened for a second, surprised, as if she couldn't remember what she was supposed to do with a warm body crying against her chest. But soon—very soon—her arms rose and wrapped around Glinda gently, as if she were afraid of breaking her. She said nothing. She just held her.
"Thank you," Glinda whispered between stifled sobs. "Thank you for coming... I... needed..."
"I know," Elphaba murmured, her tone lower, softer. "It's okay."
Glinda couldn't stop trembling. The events of the afternoon came flooding back: the cruel looks, the threat, the rage, the struggle to maintain a mask that no longer served. And in the middle of it all, there was Elphaba. So real, so peaceful in her strangeness. So alien to that world… and at the same time, the only part of it Glinda wished to hold on to.
"I blew it," she stammered through tears, her voice heavy with guilt. "I didn't get any names. I didn't recruit anyone for the club. I got distracted… everything got out of control… I couldn't—"
"Glinda," Elphaba interrupted firmly, pulling away slightly to look her in the eye. "I don't care about that now. Do you hear me? I don't care. Whatever you survived in there... I know it was more important than any list of names."
Glinda looked at her, her eyes misty, confused by the ease with which Elphaba seemed to understand everything. The warmth in her voice, the brutal, disarming honesty, was almost unbearable.
"Aren't you disappointed in me?" she asked, lowering her gaze, barely above a whisper, as if she feared the answer more than anything.
But Elphaba just shook her head. And then, with all her characteristic simplicity and forcefulness, she said,
"Never."
It was one word. Just one. But for Glinda, it was a balm. A lifeline. A beacon of light in a storm.
They smiled at each other. Barely. But it was enough.
And they embraced again, this time tighter, more conscious. It was no longer just comfort: it was a silent pact.
But while both were wrapped in that momentary bubble of solace and relief, a soft, hesitant sound broke into their little refuge. A light cough, accompanied by discreet footsteps that didn't quite break the tension, but definitely drew attention. Separating themselves with an almost simultaneous movement, Glinda and Elphaba straightened their bodies, quickly regaining their composure.
In front of them, standing with a kind smile and a gaze filled with restrained curiosity, was a middle-aged man, dressed in an impeccable dark suit that reflected the sobriety of a man accustomed to formal settings. Glinda instantly recognized the gentleman: he was the editor of The Emerald Post, one of the most upright local newspapers.
"Good evening, ladies," the man greeted politely, a friendly twinkle in his eyes. I've been looking for you all afternoon, Miss Upland. I was very interested in the conversation we had a few hours ago about that club and the neighborhoods you mentioned.
Glinda felt the seriousness and enthusiasm in the editor's voice give weight to what she had been hiding and fearing. The man continued, his tone calm and purposeful.
"I founded this journal to tell the small stories that often get lost in the noise of the big city, to bring to light what would otherwise remain invisible to most. I am convinced that what happens in that place," he said, gesturing slightly in the direction where Glinda had spoken, "is a story people deserve to hear."
With an elegant gesture, the editor took a carefully designed card from his pocket and handed it to Glinda.
"Here is my contact. Please call me whenever you want. I would love to work with you on this story."
Without waiting further, the man nodded and left, leaving behind a sense of possibility and urgency.
Glinda and Elphaba looked at each other in silence for a moment, as if sharing a mixture of disbelief and hope. Then, unable to stop it, a smile spread across their faces, and wordlessly, they embraced again. This time, it wasn't just comfort, but the silent promise that, together, they could face whatever came.
The trip back to Glinda's apartment was marked by a new lightness, as if words flowed more easily once the storm had passed. Between shy laughter and well-placed sarcasm, Elphaba seemed less distant, and with each step, Glinda clung more to that small miracle of company. The world kept turning, yes, but for a moment, it seemed she wasn't turning alone.
They climbed the stairs amid jokes and the occasional confession dressed in irony. However, as they reached the door, just as Glinda took the keys from her purse with an almost automatic gesture, she stopped. She turned to Elphaba and looked at her, a twinkle in her eyes that wasn't just a reflection of the hallway light.
"Hey... before I..." she began, her voice lower, laden with a hesitation she didn't know how to translate. "You don't have to stay... I mean, not if you don't want to, of course. But... if you stayed, even for a while, it would be... good."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, amused by Glinda's awkwardness.
"'Good'? How convincing," she murmured, crossing her arms. "Is that the best you can do, Glinda the Enchantress?"
"I'm just winging it, okay?" Glinda protested, blushing. "I just... I'd like you to stay. But I don't want you to think it's out of pity or because I'm weak or anything. It's because... because it's you."
There was a thick silence between them. For a moment, it seemed Elphaba was going to respond with one of her evasive answers, but Glinda's gaze didn't waver. And then, with an almost imperceptible expression, Elphaba took a step forward, just enough to bridge the distance without saying a word. Glinda smiled, and her heart sank a little: perhaps she could piece together something real.
She was about to continue speaking, to tell her what she'd been bottling up—the matter with Milla, the poorly healed wounds, the truth she could no longer put off—when her eyes fell on something that froze her blood.
The apartment door was already ajar.
A chill ran down her spine. Glinda swallowed and cautiously reached out, pushing the door open just a few inches further. The interior was dark, quiet… too quiet.
Elphaba, with quick reflex, took a step forward and stood slightly in front of Glinda, her body tense, alert. There was no longer any trace of humor on her face.
"Were you expecting someone?" she asked quietly, without turning around.
Glinda shook her head slowly. No.
With slow steps, they crossed the threshold. The air inside the apartment was cold, but not from temperature: it was a chill of presence, as if something didn't quite fit in that familiar space. Glinda's heels clicked on the wooden floor, muffled by the tension. Elphaba moved like a shadow, observing every corner.
And then, a voice emerged from inside, calm, polite... and completely out of place.
"Ah, they're finally here."
They both stopped dead in their tracks. Elphaba immediately extended an arm toward Glinda protectively, without taking her eyes off the figure who, leisurely and with a half-smile, was stirring the contents of a china cup in the kitchen.
Standing by the breakfast nook, as if he owned the place, was Senator Oscar Zoroaster—Oz—impeccably dressed, his tie barely loose as if he'd been relaxing there for hours. His expression was calm, but his smile held an edge as sharp as the knife resting a few inches from his hand.
"You had chamomile," he commented, raising the cup that undoubtedly belonged to Glinda. "A very good choice. Always so refined."
A few feet away from him, like a faceless shadow, stood a tall, broad-shouldered man: Agent Chistery. His dark suit, glasses, and rigid posture made him look more like a statue than a human being, but his presence spoke volumes: vigilance, strength, and menace.
Elphaba narrowed her eyes and spoke in a low, measured tone.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Oz gave a soft, almost musical chuckle and set the cup down on the counter at leisure.
"Just paying a courtesy call. Isn't that what old friends do?" He directed an intense gaze at Glinda, who remained frozen, as if her mind was trying to process the danger without accepting it. "I thought we could chat... now that everything is so interesting."
Glinda felt her legs tremble. Every word Oz spoke was laced with venom, disguised as kindness. The senator's presence in her home was an invasion, a declaration. And worse: he knew she couldn't just kick him out.
Elphaba took a step closer, now between him and Glinda, her voice firmer.
"I'm sorry... Oz, but I think it's a little late for visitors, don't you?"
Oz looked at her with mock regret.
"Oh, Elphaba... always so direct. But I didn't come to fight. I came to talk. With both of you."
The silence became almost unbearable. The air seemed thicker, thick with tension.
Glinda swallowed. Her gaze flicked from Elphaba to the senator, from her recent past to a present that was pushing her toward the abyss.
Senator Oz didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.
Calmly, he moved around the kitchen as if he were in his own home. He took a small sugar packet, delicately broke it open, and poured it into her cup of chamomile tea as he spoke, each word carefully measured, wrapped in an icy politeness that only made his message more terrifying.
"My dears... how lovely to see you together again." He paused, stirring his tea with a slow, precise motion. You know, it's funny how things tend to repeat themselves in this city. Secrets, whispers, alliances. It reminds me of a cheap opera.
Glinda couldn't help but tremble. Her legs seemed about to give way, but she remained upright. Elphaba, on the other hand, was pure ice. Not a blink, not a relaxed muscle. Every fiber of her body was tense, ready.
Oz didn't need an answer. He just continued talking, as if reciting a trivial anecdote during an elegant dinner.
“Glinda, Glinda… You’ve had a busy few weeks, haven’t you?” Oz continued, pacing leisurely around the apartment as if it were his own. “Looking for information in dusty places, talking to idealistic journalists and investors, whispering dangerous ideas in art galleries, where the elite feel safe and deaf. You thought no one noticed. But I did.”
Glinda felt the chill creep up her spine.
“What do you want?” Elphaba asked firmly.
Oz smiled as if that was the question he’d been waiting for.
“It’s not about what I want. It’s about what you guys think you can do. This little club, these ‘forgotten’ stories, the people you want to ‘awaken’. It’s lovely. Really. I found it… endearing watching Glinda organize it so carefully. That’s why I didn’t interrupt. Because what I wanted… was for her to take me to you, Elphaba.”
The room seemed to freeze.
“I knew you were still around,” he continued, turning to look at her directly. “I’ve had you on my radar since last Christmas. Your rejection was such a disappointment, you know. But I learned to be patient. I never leave loose ends. So… I orchestrated an opportunity. Nevermore. A safe place. Secluded. Perfect for someone like you. Watched. Silent. Neutralized.”
Elphaba stepped forward, standing face to face with him. Her expression was pure, suppressed fury, but her voice was a steely whisper.
“I’m not as easily tamed as you’d hoped.”
Oz smiled, satisfied.
“Just what I wanted to test. And see if you’d come out of the hole you were hiding in to protect her.”
His gaze slid back to Glinda. This time, it was like a razor.
“And it worked. Thanks to you, Glinda. You led me straight to her. Just as I expected.”
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the tea in the cup seemed to suddenly cool.
He looked back at Glinda, who took a mere step back. Elphaba narrowed her eyes, an icy fury beginning to boil in her chest.
"You could go on with your lives," Oz said, raising his hands as if offering a truce. "I have no desire to destroy you. Not if you give me reasons not to. You can give up this foolish attempt at rebellion, and Glinda, you'll have a week off to reflect. A week to consider whether it's really worth fighting me."
He approached the sofa, and with a casual smile, leaned down to arrange the cushion as if it were his home. His tone became lower, more intimate, and also more chilling.
"Don't get me wrong. I prefer to have you as friends. But... believe me, you don't want to have me as an enemy. I know where you live. What you fear. What you love. And how easy it would be to turn your days into a parade of misfortunes. Step by step. Without leaving a trace."
Oz turned to Chistery, who with a silent movement was already heading for the door.
"Thank you for the tea," he said finally, and with a mock bow, he disappeared as gracefully as he had entered.
The door closed with a soft click. A small sound. But the silence it left behind was total.
Glinda stood still, feeling the air weigh tons. Elphaba breathed slowly, as if counting to ten before exploding. Seconds, or maybe minutes, passed in which neither of them said anything.
And then Elphaba spoke with a final coldness.
"Grab your things."
Glinda looked at her, stunned.
"What?"
"We're leaving here." It wasn't a suggestion. It was a statement. "Pack up what you need. This house isn't safe anymore. And neither are you."
Notes:
I promise that BDSM play between the protagonists will soon return. It's not long now. In BDSM, trust in each other is everything, and there are still gaps of mistrust to heal between them, so they still have some steps to take together.
Chapter 14: WE KNOW THERE'S BLAME TO SHARE PART 1
Chapter Text
“The imaginary ink with which I write no longer bleeds, but sometimes my memories do.”
Night had woven its thickest blanket, enveloping the world in an expectant silence. Under the pale light of a mist-veiled moon, a vast field, eternally damp with fog, opened up like a ghostly tapestry. The sound of hooves pounding on damp earth broke the stillness, each gallop more urgent than the last. A mounted silhouette, wrapped in a cloak as black as mourning itself, cut through the mist like an apparition from another time.
The figure finally arrived before a Victorian mansion, as imposing as it was unsettling. Its façade, blackened by age, rose among the twisted trees like a crown of decaying stone. The flickering light from a single window offered the only hint of life. At the foot of the steps, the rider dismounted, his steps firm and heavy, and knocked on the great door with his gloved fist. The echo of the blow seemed to resonate into the very depths of the house.
“I have come to understand that there is a moment—a barely perceptible crack—where desire slips into guilt. Not like a lover, not like a thief, but like an echo. An echo of what we could have been if we hadn't loved so much, if we hadn't desired so much… or if we had had the courage to love without wanting to possess.”
The door opened with a groan of ancient wood. A blank-faced servant, dressed in formal robes as old as the mansion itself, stepped aside and bowed before inviting him in.
“The lady is expecting you,” he murmured in a hollow voice.
The figure advanced through long, gloomy corridors, decorated with portraits whose eyes seemed to follow every movement. The mansion smelled of melted wax, damp wood, and buried secrets. At the far end, a massive mahogany double door opened before her, revealing the main hall.
It was a cathedral of shadows. The walls, covered in scarlet and black tapestries, rose beneath ceilings decorated with gilt moldings blackened by time. Only the fire in the fireplace provided light, dancing with a sickening intensity, casting long, sinister shadows across the room. In the center, in an armchair that was more throne than seat, sat the hostess… Milla.
“The thing about our relationship is that it wasn't just a temptation… it was also a test. A test I sometimes failed because I mistook surrender for redemption. There are those who know how to disguise their need with tenderness and their cruelty with fascination. But I, as always, wanted to save someone who had already chosen their ruin.”
Dressed in a purple velvet corset, a black lace skirt, and a cape that fell like dark smoke from her shoulders, Milla seemed the very embodiment of power and poisonous delight. Her eyes, lined with the precision of an assassin, shone with a mixture of cunning, desire, and danger.
"You came," she whispered with a crooked smile, her chin barely lifting. "I knew the fire hadn't completely extinguished you."
The rider removed his hood, revealing Elphaba's face, though different from the one the world knew. Her usual rebelliousness had been tinged with melancholy; her clothes had taken on the tones of romantic mourning: a fitted corset, lace gloves, a black skirt that brushed the ground like a raven's tail.
"I only came for her," Elphaba said in a deep, restrained voice.
"For her?" Milla laughed with a perverse sweetness as a tiny golden bell rang, as delicate as it was menacing. Its tinkling echoed through the room, seemingly bouncing off her bones and memories, like an ancient melody summoning ghosts. And then, in response to that cursed sound, the service door opened with ceremonial slowness, admitting a figure that stopped Elphaba's breath in her chest.
It was Glinda.
But it wasn't her Glinda. Or at least, not at first glance. The woman who crossed the threshold with measured steps, lowered gaze, and straight back, looked like a doll trained to please. Her outfit was a cruel mockery of her former self: a maid's uniform fitted with almost fetishistic precision, in contrasting black and white, with lace trim, an apron as useless as it was symbolic, and a miniskirt that revealed too much, as if even her dignity had been trimmed with capricious scissors. Around her neck, a thin necklace of black pearls hung like a decorative noose. Elphaba felt her stomach twist with a mixture of rage, embarrassment, and an undeniable pang of pain.
"But there is something even crueler than desire: what we are willing to sacrifice for the one we love. Not for what we feel... but for what we think we feel. Because to love is to trust, but to desire... is to dominate. And when the two cross paths at the same altar, what is sacrificed is not the body: it is the will."
Glinda walked toward Milla without hesitation, stopping beside her, not daring to raise her eyes. Milla did not hide her delight. He took her by the chin and forced her to look up like someone showing off a stolen jewel. His smile was poisonous, the kind not rehearsed in front of a mirror but born from the depths of refined cruelty.
"Do you see what I've done to your little star?" Milla said in a voice like rotten velvet. "All her vanity, her noise, her hollow brilliance... all that energy desperate for attention, channeled, refined... tamed. Now she's useful. Silent. Adorable."
Glinda didn't blink when Milla commanded her:
"Get on your knees, darling."
Without a word, she obeyed. With mechanical grace, she bowed before Milla, placing her delicate hands on her thighs, her head bowed, her lips sealed. The image held something deeply obscene in its choreographed perfection. Milla, toying with a golden lock of Glinda's hair as if petting a tame kitten, tilted her head in mock tenderness.
“Look, Elphaba. So submissive… so attentive. Every word I say to her is a prayer. And do you know how I did it?” He leaned in a little, as if sharing a delicious anecdote. “When the Emperor’s men brought her to me, she was a wreck: screaming, kicking, saying she would never bend. I thought it was adorable. But it took one sentence to break her…” He paused, reveling. “They told her that if she didn’t cooperate, you would pay the consequences. That if she didn’t smile, you would suffer. That if she didn’t obey, they would make you disappear.”
Glinda closed her eyes, trembling.
“And it was magic, Elphaba. Magic. In an instant, the fire went out in her chest. She accepted everything. Because every time she was given an order, she was reminded that it was for your own good. For your safety. For love. Isn’t that beautiful? She gave herself for you. She sacrificed everything for you.” “Glinda was the only one who could look at my shadow without looking away. And that terrified me more than any fire or spell. Because she could see what I was hiding… even from myself.”
Elphaba took a step forward, but the carpet felt like a swamp clinging to her boots. Her hands trembled with rage and pain, because everything Milla said rang so wickedly true. Her Glinda… was this what she had wordlessly shouldered?
“Tell her yourself, Glinda,” Milla whispered, lifting the girl’s chin with a dagger-like finger. “Tell her how much you love who you are now.”
Glinda raised her eyes to Elphaba’s. Her lips trembled like dry leaves. A tear slid down her painted cheek.
“I am… happy…” she murmured, her voice cracking, as if each word lodged in her throat.
Milla clapped softly, as if appreciating a flawless theatrical performance.
"Now show her your affection. Kiss her. Make it beautiful, like in fairy tales."
Glinda stood slowly. She walked toward Elphaba, and when she stood before her, her fingers brushed the black fabric of her coat. In her gaze, however, there was neither devotion nor obedience. There was a desperate plea.
"Please," she whispered against her lips. "Kill me."
Elphaba swallowed, the lump in her throat formed by centuries of helplessness. She took her face in her hands, trembling. Her eyes bore into Glinda's with the intensity of a rising fire.
"You don't need someone else to save you," she said firmly, and slipped something cold into her hand. A small dagger, hidden in her sleeve, as sharp as her determination. "You just need to remember who you are."
“There is no power more terrifying than placing one's freedom in the hands of another. That isn't love. It's something deeper. Dirtier. More human.”
Glinda held it. She felt it. The metal seemed to give her something back: strength, fury, truth. Her fingers tightened around it, and without a word, she spun around and threw it forcefully toward the burning fireplace.
The explosion was immediate, brutal, as if the world were exploding with rage along with them. Milla screamed, engulfed in flames, becoming an inglorious echo. The fire grew violently, devouring curtains, carpets, walls, everything.
Elphaba hugged Glinda, covering her with her body, protecting her. They rolled together to the floor as hell danced around them. In that instant, amid the sparks and smoke, amid the roar of what fell and what burned, they looked at each other.
There were no masks left. No lies left. It was just the two of them, at last.
And when their lips were about to meet, when the entire universe seemed to stop before that inevitable moment...
Glinda woke up.
She woke up on the sofa in the lobby of Elphaba's building. She was breathing heavily, her hands clenched in her lap, her heart pounding in her throat. The fire still burned in her eyes.
Elphaba, across the room, looked up from the counter where she was signing some documents.
"Are you okay?" she asked, with that impossible mix of brusqueness and tenderness.
Glinda looked at her... and didn't know whether to smile or cry.
“Dreams are the only space where the soul can confess without being interrupted. What Glinda dreamed that night wasn't a vision. It was a warning. It was her reflection, caught between the desire to be saved and the fear of saving herself.
Because, in the end, we all have a dark desire inside. And we all have someone for whom we'd be willing to lie, to submit, to wear a uniform and pretend it's our choice. And we all, too, keep the knife with which we could free ourselves... if only we had the courage not to use it on ourselves.”
Glinda blinked several times as she slowly sat up from the leather sofa, her breathing still somewhat ragged. Elphaba, standing a few feet away, watched her closely, holding a pair of magnetic cards freshly issued by the concierge.
"Everything's ready," Elphaba said softly. "We can go up. I'm sorry for the delay... it seems the security system has been changed since I left. I had to request a new key card."
Glinda nodded silently, still enveloped in the emotional fog of sleep. As if the words were coming from a room adjacent to her consciousness. Moving with an almost invisible effort, she approached her numerous and extravagant luggage: four shiny suitcases, two cylindrical hat cases, and a handbag the size of an ordinary suitcase. Each one was an exact reflection of her former lifestyle: excess, cosmetic care, escapism.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow as she watched her try to maneuver all the items.
"Do you want help?"
"Thank you," Glinda replied in a whisper. Her voice was husky, vulnerable. Almost foreign to her.
Elphaba took two of the suitcases with ease. She looked at them for a second and then let out a small laugh, one of those that barely shook the chest.
"I don't want it to seem like you're my servant."
The sentence came out like a friendly joke, something light to break the ice. But as soon as the words touched the air, Glinda stopped dead. She stiffened. It was only for a moment, but long enough. Elphaba noticed the suppressed shudder, the way Glinda lowered her head before forcing herself to continue walking toward the elevator, in complete silence.
Elphaba followed her, suitcases in hand. Together they stepped into the glass capsule that took them high into the building. For a few seconds, all they could hear was the hum of the elevator and the city stretching farther and farther below.
"Glinda...?" Elphaba glanced at her, still watching closely. "What was that? Are you okay?"
Glinda took a deep breath. Her reflection in the elevator glass looked pale, like a younger version of herself, too fragile.
"Yes... It's just... I haven't slept well in days," she replied, still not daring to look at her.
"Nightmares? Or premonitions?"
The question was direct. No judgment. Just genuine interest.
Glinda gripped the chrome elevator railing.
"I'm afraid it's both," she said with icy honesty.
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She just looked at her with that mixture of skepticism and concern that always tinged her silences. The answer didn't surprise her, but it troubled her deeply.
When the elevator doors opened, a different air from the building's lobby enveloped them like a secret threshold. Outside, the city shone, distant and indifferent. But inside, something was silently brewing.
Because Glinda had dreamed of chains, yes… But she had also dreamed of fire.
And Elphaba, though she didn't yet know it, was no longer alone in her resistance.
CHAPTER 14: We know there's blame to share Part 1
After a few minutes of fumbling with the lock—a silent struggle that included barely muttered curses and a frustrated kick at the frame—Elphaba finally managed to open the penthouse door. The sharp click resounded like a pent-up gunshot, and they both stood there on the threshold, motionless for a moment.
Elphaba crossed her arms. Glinda adjusted her bag on her shoulder. Neither of them said anything.
It had been over a month since Elphaba last set foot there, and although her logic told her the place should be just as she left it, something in her stomach churned as she stepped inside. Because it wasn't. Not quite.
The dimness of the foyer revealed measured chaos. Not a noisy disaster, like the one Glinda had created in her own apartment—clothes flying through the air and furniture rearranged amidst fits of crying—but a more introspective kind of mess. More... Elphaba.
There were books stacked in unsteady towers next to the sofa, cups with dried dregs of cold coffee, and dark clothes draped over the backs of chairs. The blinds were half-closed, and the air smelled of confinement, damp silence, and stale thoughts. A pair of empty bottles rested at the foot of the window, next to a wrinkled blanket, a witness to many bedless nights.
Glinda bit back a comment—one that automatically came to her tongue, sharp, brilliant, inevitable—and swallowed it like poison. Not now. Not with her. Especially after what Elphaba hadn't told her about her apartment.
Elphaba, for her part, pretended not to notice the impact the scene had on both of them. She opened the curtains wide, dropped her bag on the floor, and began gathering the scattered clothes without making eye contact.
"Come in. Make yourself comfortable," she said in a neutral, almost mechanical voice. "You know where everything is." Tibbet promised he'd come and water the plants, and, well…"—she checked a pot that was still alive against all odds—"it seems he kept his word."
Glinda left her things in the living room without passing judgment. She scanned the space with the delicacy of a princess walking on enemy soil: she didn't want to leave a mark, or provoke a reaction. She sat down carefully in one of the armchairs, smoothing her skirt as if that would help restore order. She knew well that this kind of chaos, in Elphaba, was more dangerous than any scream. It was the kind of wound that heals on the outside and festers on the inside.
As Elphaba briefly disappeared down the hall toward the laundry basket, Glinda scanned the living room.
Elphaba dropped the dirty clothes into the bathroom basket with a hurried sigh. The thud of the lid was followed by a stagnant stench that emerged like a slap. She frowned, covered her nose with her sleeve, and muttered an insult to herself. Nothing serious. Nothing she couldn't wipe away. But the air was a sour mix of neglect and memory.
And just as she was about to return to the living room... She stopped.
In the middle of the hallway, her gaze was drawn to it. As if the door had whispered her name.
The black door. Shiny. Cold. Seemingly harmless.
But Elphaba knew what lay behind it... Her playroom.
Her heart skipped a beat. Not for the place itself, but for what it represented. For the echoes locked within those walls. For the sighs, the laughter, the moans, and... the last thing. The last thing she shared with Glinda among those chosen shadows.
Her body reacted before her mind. A knot tightened in her stomach, that stabbing pang of something that had been desire and was now only… a toothy absence. She had sealed everything shut that night. Not for safety, but for fear. Of what she discovered. Of what she awoke. Of what she didn't know how to handle.
Of that part of her that had revealed itself so clearly, so intensely, so savagely true, that now she wanted to hide it even from herself.
The temptation to turn the doorknob was there. It burned like a whisper beneath her skin.
But she didn't.
Instead, she took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds… and forced herself to return to the living room.
Glinda was standing now. Her back to her. Facing the open window that overlooked the balcony. The night spilled over the city like a dark ocean filled with flickering lights. From there, you could see everything: the enchanted bridges, the floating rails of suspended trains, the polished towers of crystal and onyx.
And yet, the only image worth looking at was Glinda's.
She stood with her arms crossed, motionless, upright. Her silhouette, outlined by the moonlight, looked like a sculpture. But it was that gleam in her eyes that was disarming. That flicker of nostalgia, longing, and fear. A flash that no one else could have decoded.
Except Elphaba.
Because Elphaba knew that look.
She'd seen it before, in the darkness, when everything burned with desire. She'd seen it afterward, after the goodbye, when even hatred couldn't seal the pain. It was the look of someone whose soul was wrapped in contradictions and yet still searching for something. Maybe hope. Maybe redemption.
Elphaba swallowed, wishing she had a lighthearted line, a joke, an escape. But she couldn't. Instead, she simply moved closer. Slowly. As if the air between them were glass. She stopped two feet away, silent. Only the city lights breathed between them.
"I always liked this view," Glinda finally said, without looking at her. "It made me feel like everything was bigger than us. That there were things... that didn't depend solely on what we did wrong."
Elphaba leaned against the windowsill, her hands in her pockets.
"That sounds... almost optimistic. I don't know whether to give you a medal or ask if you're sick."
Glinda smiled faintly. But she didn't answer immediately.
"Elphie... have you ever thought about... what it would be like if we could go back?"
Elphaba didn't answer immediately. The question struck her in too soft a place.
"All the time," she confessed finally. "But every time I do, I remember why I wouldn't."
Glinda turned, finally. And their eyes met. Direct. Hesitant. Skin deep.
"Because it would hurt just the same... or because you know you'd do it again?"
Elphaba looked at her with a thread of vulnerability she rarely allowed to emerge.
"Because I know I'd choose you again. Even though I knew it would end like this."
Then Glinda spoke, without looking at her, her voice floating between them like glass about to fall.
"I'm scared, Elphie..."
The confession hung suspended for a moment, lingering in the dimness of the room like a perfume that wouldn't evaporate. Elphaba leaned closer, her voice soft and deep like a coat.
"You'll be okay. I promise. This building is a fortress. No one is going to touch you. Not the senator, not his dogs, not anyone. I'm not going to let them hurt you again."
Glinda turned slowly, her eyes fixed on Elphaba's. There was something in her gaze that wasn't just fear: it was exhaustion, it was disappointment, it was the doubt of whether they could really continue to hold each other up without collapsing together.
"What if locking yourself up here isn't enough? What if there's no room high enough, no doors thick enough?"
Elphaba shook her head. Her voice, when she answered, was almost a whisper, broken by determination.
"If we have to, we'll leave. Together. We'll put this behind us. The club, the city, the fight, everything. None of that matters anymore. All that matters now is you."
Glinda blinked. Her body seemed to tense, as if an electric current were running down her spine. She stood very still, studying her. Something had changed. Something deep and final in Elphaba's voice. Something that shook her, not like a caress, but like an alarm.
"What are you saying?" she asked finally, her voice higher than usual. "That you're going to give up everything for me?"
Elphaba nodded, with a calmness that came from exhaustion rather than peace.
"Yes. I'm saying exactly that." I'm not going to lose you again, Glinda. Not because of my decisions, not because of my anger. Not because of that damned club, not because of a revolution no one else is ready to face. It's not worth it. You are.
The silence that settled between them wasn't comfortable. It was tense. Fragile. Like a tightrope over an abyss of memories. And then, Glinda's eyes opened as if she'd suddenly been slapped with a revelation.
"I can't believe this," she whispered in disbelief. "Just an hour ago, you were ready to burn down the Senate. To expose everyone. To tear the renewal initiative to shreds and spit in everyone's face... and now your big plan is to hide with me in your stupid crystal fortress?"
Elphaba frowned, hurt by the tone, but she didn't back down.
"It's not hiding. It's protecting you. I can't risk you, Glinda. I already lost you once, and I almost didn't survive. I'm not going to repeat it." "And what about everything else?" Glinda asked, her voice now thick with suppressed fury. "What about Fiyero's club? The people who still believe in you? That city you were trying to save, or at least... liberate? Do you think the solution is to close the door and pretend the rest doesn't matter?"
Elphaba swallowed, leaned a little closer. There was a heartbreaking urgency about her, a mixture of pleading and stubbornness.
"It matters, yes, but..." Elphaba stopped, searching for the words. "What matters most is you. I can't let anything happen to you. Not anymore. If that means locking myself with you in this cursed tower and letting the world burn out there... I will."
The answer hit like a bucket of icy water. Glinda took another step back. Her blue eyes, tired but sharp, bore into Elphaba's with a mixture of suppressed rage and deep pain.
"And when did you decide that was the right thing to do? Since when is running and hiding the Elphaba Thropp answer? Because this..." she said, raising a trembling hand toward the luxurious, messy apartment, "this is not the woman who told me she'd burn the world down if necessary. This is what I found at Nevermore: a broken, resigned Elphaba, who teaches you not to think, who hides behind ironies and empty bottles. I... I thought you were back. But now it seems you're just running away again."
Elphaba took a step toward her, her face broken.
"I'm not running away. I'm... keeping you away from danger... I'm sick of others suffering because of my damn obsessions that I can't even control and... For the first time, I'm not being selfish."
"By moving away from danger? Or away from yourself?" Glinda snapped. "Because if you think you're sacrificing yourself for me, you're wrong. The only non-selfish thing you're thinking now... is that for the first time in all of this, you'd rather lose the war if it means not losing me. But I... I can't be the prize for your surrender."
The sentence hung like an irrevocable sentence. Elphaba stared at her, mute, broken, not knowing how to undo what she'd said, how to correct her course. Glinda pressed her lips together, as if to avoid saying something more hurtful. She turned, went to her suitcases, and took them with firm hands, as if the movement itself kept her whole. She crossed the living room without looking at her again and walked down the hallway with straight, purposeful steps. The guest room door closed with a soft click, but it sounded like a slam in Elphaba's soul.
And there she stood, alone facing the burning city. The skyscrapers and floating bridges no longer shone as they had before. They were only distant beacons, silent witnesses to a truth she could no longer ignore.
Once again, Elphaba felt that her desire to protect Glinda might be driving her further away than any external enemy.
And the fire that once drove her now seemed like ash in her throat.
The hours passed with the slowness of a damaged clock. Neither Glinda nor Elphaba could sleep, even though they both lay in perfectly made beds, pretending that their motionless bodies would soothe their minds. But the silence of the penthouse only amplified their thoughts, as if each idea multiplied against the walls, returning again and again to the same thing: the hallway that separated them. To the short, insurmountable distance. To pride, to fear, to the words that weren't fully spoken.
Glinda stared at the ceiling with her arms crossed, her eyes wide open. A part of her wanted to get up, go to the other room, and end the absurd cold that had enveloped them. But... what would she say? What if Elphaba didn't want to talk? What if she was waiting for her to tell her there was no going back? Or worse... what if she was waiting for Glinda to apologize?
Meanwhile, across the hall, Elphaba tossed and turned in her sheets, her jaw clenched. She'd replayed every word spoken and unspoken, searching for the exact moment where everything went wrong. Should she have kept quiet? Lied? Promise to continue the revolution even though she no longer cared? But most of all... should she go now, cross that damned hallway, and tell her that all she wanted was to hold her and stop feeling like she was losing her more with each passing minute?
And just then, they both heard a sound.
First, it was a soft click, barely a metallic scrape. Then the unmistakable creak of the lock turning. For a second, each of them thought with a mixture of relief and triumph: it was coming. She gave in. But the sound wasn't coming from the hallway, but from the entrance. From the front door.
They both sat up in bed at the same time, their senses alert, their hearts racing as if, instead of beating, it was pounding against their ribs to escape. Glinda put a satin robe over her nightgown and tiptoed out, her blush a mixture of nervousness and curiosity. Elphaba, barefoot, was already standing in the hallway, listening with a serious face. Glinda opened her mouth to speak, but Elphaba signaled her firmly to be silent. Then she turned slowly and walked toward the entrance with feline steps.
Glinda, paralyzed for a few seconds, reached for the first thing she could as a defense. A hairdryer. Not very useful, but she held it in both hands as if it were an ancient sword. Meanwhile, Elphaba, without saying a word, walked over to a broom leaning against a corner and grabbed it decisively, wielding it like a bat.
The handle turned.
A click.
A brief, overly tense pause.
And finally, the door opened.
The moment a silhouette crossed the threshold, Elphaba launched herself like lightning. She swung the broom and slammed it into the intruder with a force that left no doubt as to her intentions. Glinda shrieked with a scream higher than any alarm, pointing the hairdryer at the figure crumpled to the floor.
"AAHHH!" —the voice of the fallen man blurted out, in a shrill, hurt, and offended tone—Lady Gagastein heels, that went straight to my emotional hip prosthesis!
Elphaba froze.
She blinked.
The half-lit face of the intruder was suddenly familiar.
"Crope?"
The man on the floor thrashed dramatically, rubbing his side with both hands as if he had just been the victim of a Shakespearean tragedy.
"Crope?!" Glinda repeated, dropping the hairdryer as if it was burning her hands.
"Yeah, right, it's me," Crope said, dropping to his knees like a fallen star. "And while we're at it, I'd love to know since when I've been greeted with medieval domestic violence."
Just then, behind him, a second figure appeared, much more nervous, with a pale, trembling face, holding in both hands... a glitter sprayer.
"Is he okay?" "Tibbett gasped, his eyes wide. "I told you not to come in like that, I told you! If he was a thug, he would have finished us off, and... Elphaba? Glinda?... They're alive! They're here! They're back!"
Without hesitation, Tibbett hugged Elphaba and then Glinda awkwardly as she shed a few undisguised tears. Elphaba, still holding the broom, helped Crope slow down and then hugged him without saying anything, just holding her arms steady and resting her chin on his shoulder.
Everyone was laughing, not because anyone had said anything particularly funny, but because the relief was so great that they could only burst into nervous laughter. They laughed at the scare, at the broom, at the hairdryer, at the glitter. At the lost time, at the unspoken words, at being alive. At being reunited.
Elphaba and Glinda looked at each other. Their eyes shone, as if all the pride, anger, and distance had melted into that absurd, magical spark of reunion. Crope, still overacting his hurt, looked at them with a crooked smile.
And for the first time in a long time, in that penthouse at the edge of heaven, the world seemed a kinder place.
"So..." Crope said, winking as he brushed the glitter off his shoulders, "who's making the drinks?"
Just a few minutes later, the atmosphere of the penthouse had completely transformed. The four of them were gathered around the dining table, illuminated by the soft, warm lights from the ceiling. Tibbett had prepared a tray of hot chocolate decorated with whipped cream, star-shaped marshmallows, and—of course—edible gold frosting. Glinda had tried to protest the excessive sugar, but ended up with two cups. Elphaba, though feigning indifference, drank with gusto.
"So?" —Crope said, gesturing with a golden spoon—. “It turns out we guarded this place for months like a sacred temple, only to have them walk in like two shadows in the middle of the night, without warning, without a postcard, without a “hello, I survived”… honestly, I'm offended.”
"Crope, please!" Tibbett interrupted, pulling out a silk handkerchief he used only for drama. "We thought you were trespassers! I almost threw lemon acid at Elphaba! Thank goodness I only had glitter on hand! Glitter. Do you know how difficult it is to defend yourself with fashion?"
"That's never difficult for you," Crope retorted, sipping elegantly.
"But come on, come on, enough about us. We want answers! Gossip! Drama! Tears if possible!" Tibbett interrupted with his classic hysteria.
Elphaba rolled her eyes and muttered something, but Tibbett didn't stop. He sat up straighter in his chair, pointing a silver spoon like a judge in a music court.
"First: how is it that you, Elphaba, are teaching at an elitist academy for brats?! You!" The most brilliant, anti-establishment, and dangerous witch on the continent! Now you're writing conduct reports?
Elphaba frowned uncomfortably.
"It's not so terrible... there are students with good questions... Sometimes," she murmured.
"And you, Glinda?" Tibbett continued, turning to her with theatrical speed. "Your face is everywhere! You're the face of 'City Makeover,' there are posters of you in the squares, a line of lipsticks with your signature, for God's sake!"
Glinda looked down, stirring her hot chocolate distractedly.
"I didn't exactly ask for that... it was part of a PR campaign... bigger than I imagined," she said quietly.
But Tibbett wasn't done yet. He raised his arms as if summoning the spirits of gossip.
"And most importantly," he whispered dramatically, moving to the center of the table, "what the hell happened after the Yule Ball?"
Elphaba stopped drinking.
Glinda stopped stirring the spoon.
"YOU!" Tibbett pointed with both hands. "You were the most perfect, most powerful, most aesthetic couple on the continent. Your matching dresses, your shared aura, your looks. You had us all sighing! And suddenly... poof, you're gone. One to the left, one to the right. And now you're here again! Together? Or not together? What happened? Can you explain, or should I throw myself off the balcony with a dramatic scarf?"
Elphaba crossed her arms. Glinda bit her lip. They looked at each other.
Silence.
For a moment, the hot chocolate seemed to lose its sweetness, and the previous laughter hung suspended like a half-written note.
"It's not easy to explain..." Glinda said first.
"Nor is it pleasant to remember," Elphaba added.
Crope, calmer, placed his cup on the table and looked at them with genuine compassion.
"Then take your time," he said softly. "We don't need everything in one night. We're just... glad to see you. Both of you. Here."
Tibbett nodded, calmer, his handkerchief now in his hands.
"It's just... we miss you. A lot. And seeing you again, after all this time, together... it seems like a strange dream filled with velvet and unresolved trauma."
Glinda gave a nervous laugh. Elphaba lowered her head, and for a moment, their hands brushed across the table. It wasn't a planned gesture. It was pure instinct. And without looking, Elphaba didn't push her away.
Then Glinda took a deep breath.
"After the ball... a lot happened. More than we could handle. And... we made mistakes. We didn't know how to go on... together. But it seems, I think, we don't know how to be apart either."
Elphaba swallowed. She added, "And now... we're here." Because even though we try to escape from each other… we always come back. We always end up in the same place.
Tibbett sighed deeply.
“That was… beautiful and tragic,” she said, her voice trembling. “Like a Celine Dion farewell ballad.”
Crope rose from his seat.
“And the best part is, it doesn’t end there. Because this time,” she looked at them both with a soft smile, “you might not have to separate.”
Glinda looked at Elphaba.
Elphaba held her.
They said nothing. Not yet. But in their shared silence, one thing was clear: there was still much to resolve… but they were glad to be in the same room again, at least.
And while Crope went to get more marshmallows and Tibbett set about washing the mugs before the hot chocolate residue damaged the paint, Elphaba and Glinda stood there, both desperate to find a way to resolve the differences that threatened to tear them apart.
Glinda, looking for something to do with her hands—and her heart—offered to help Tibbett wash the cups.
"At least let me rinse them before you put glitter on them," she said with a half-smile.
"Never underestimate me!" Tibbett replied, putting on a sequined apron that read "Dish Queen" while whipping up suds in the sink like something out of a Broadway scene.
Meanwhile, Elphaba, sitting in one of the armchairs, rummaged through her bag with a frown, shuffling through papers, a folded notebook, a broken quill, and a small bottle of dried ink.
"Looking for this?" Crope said from the balcony door, lifting a pack of cigarettes between his fingers with casual elegance.
Elphaba looked up, with a resigned half-smile.
"I thought I didn't smoke anymore," she admitted, but with a glimmer of relief.
"Only when Tibbett isn't looking," Crope replied with a wink. "And in cases of major emotional emergency. That qualifies."
They both stepped out onto the balcony. The night breeze was cold but liberating. The city unfolded before them like a tapestry of lights, rivers of cars, and buildings that seemed asleep, oblivious to everything happening within those four walls.
Crope lit a cigarette and passed it to Elphaba. Then he lit his own. For a few minutes, they said nothing. Just the sound of distant traffic, the faint crackle of the filter igniting, and the smoke dissolving into the air.
Until Crope broke the silence:
"Glinda came looking for you."
Elphaba blinked, confused.
"What?"
"A few days ago," Crope explained, not looking directly at her. "She showed up here, no makeup, no hair. She looked like she hadn't slept. She was... desperate. She wanted to find you. She asked if I knew where you were."
Elphaba went very still, the cigarette halfway to her mouth.
"And what did you tell her?"
"The little I knew. That you were teaching at Nevermore Academy. It wasn't much, but... it was enough, apparently."
Elphaba inhaled deeply, letting the smoke linger for a few seconds before releasing it. Her eyes were fixed on the city, but her mind was far away.
"I never stopped to think about how she found me," she admitted. "She just showed up and... I accepted it. As if it were inevitable. But of course... it had to be you. Always sticking your nose in where you're not wanted," she added with a faint smile.
"And you're always running away as if you felt you didn't deserve anyone to come looking for you," Crope replied, his tone soft but with genuine affection.
The breeze was growing colder, but Elphaba didn't flinch. She continued staring into space, the city stretching out in front of her like a stage she no longer felt a part of. The cigarette had almost burned out in her fingers, but she didn't notice.
"I'm scared," she murmured suddenly, so quietly that Crope almost thought she'd imagined it.
He turned his face toward her, but didn't interrupt.
"It wasn't running away from my life that destroyed me," Elphaba continued, her voice cracking inside. "Or not entirely. It was running away from her. And now that she's here, so close again... I feel like I don't deserve her."
Her eyes were shining, though they still held back tears.
"Do you know what she did, Crope?" she said, a lump tightening in her throat. She stayed. She stayed when everyone else left. She was part of that damned senator's initiative, agreeing to be his face, his public figure, to protect me. To keep me safe. And I... all I did was disappear. Sink into my own misery. Into my shame. Into this... dark pit of self-pity I'm only just climbing out of.
He paused, swallowing the weight of his own words. The cigarette burned completely out, and he dropped it to the floor with trembling hands.
"And now that I'm back... I don't know if I have the strength to stand by her," he confessed, closing his eyes tightly. "Because if I fight... and lose her again... I don't know if I could bear it. But if I don't fight... maybe I'll lose her too. Or worse... I'll disappoint her again."
There was a silence. Not the awkward one from before, but one that understood the weight of what had just been said.
Crope didn't respond right away. He just walked over and placed a firm hand on her shoulder. Not with pity, but with genuine affection. With respect for the vulnerability I'd rarely seen in Elphaba.
"What if it's not about deserving?" she finally said gently. "What if loving... and being loved... was never about merit, but about choice? She chose you, Elphie. Knowing how difficult you are, how stubborn, how emotionally dysfunctional." She gave him a faint smile. "She chose you anyway."
Elphaba let out a broken laugh, half sobbing, half disbelief.
"I don't know if I can forgive myself, Crope."
"Then start by forgiving her. For everything she did for you. For everything you didn't allow yourself to accept."
Elphaba nodded slightly, her shoulders hunched as if she were carrying a building on them.
"What if I fail her again?"
"Then you'll do it by fighting. With your eyes open. With your heart in your hands. And if she's still there when you finish speaking... then you didn't lose her. You won her. Again."
Crope moved a little closer and hugged her. It wasn't a cheesy, melodramatic hug. It was a firm hug, the kind that doesn't save you... but holds you a little longer.
Elphaba finally let a tear fall. Just one. But it was enough.
"Don't let me go yet," she murmured.
"I wasn't going to."
And for a moment, on that balcony suspended above the city, there was something like comfort. Something like healing.
Inside the penthouse, the soft hum of the dishwasher filled the silence as Glinda searched for something—anything—to dry the already clean cups. She opened two drawers, then a third, and finally huffed in frustration.
"How can someone have three kinds of exotic tea, but not one damn decent dishcloth?" she muttered.
"That's a dishcloth," Tibbett replied, pointing at a hanging towel, looking personally offended. Only she seems to have survived two apocalypses and a burning drag queen parade.
Glinda gave a short, light laugh, like an echo of something forgotten.
"I missed you," Tibbett said suddenly, with unexpected sincerity.
Glinda looked at him. He nodded.
"Me too. A lot. I'm sorry I haven't been in touch more, I..."
"Please, you were easier to spot than a Wi-Fi signal downtown," he interrupted with a smile. "You were everywhere. Billions, conferences, campaigns, interviews... even on a hand cream wrapper! Did you know that?"
Glinda forced a smile. It was pretty, like everything about her. But this time it didn't have its usual sparkle. It was more a reflection of what she used to be than a genuine expression.
Tibbett leaned in a little, curious.
"Tell me, Glinda... what's the special shampoo for political celebrities like?" Does it smell of hypocrisy with hints of desperation?
"Tibbett!" Glinda laughed, half surprised and half amused.
"Sorry, I just want to know everything. I want the upper-class gossip, the betrayals at galas, the mayors' secret lovers. Make me tick!"
Glinda laughed, more genuinely this time, with a hint of nostalgia in her voice.
"I missed this... talking to you... about important nonsense."
Tibbett watched her for a few more seconds, then lowered his voice.
"But don't give me the magazine summary, okay? You don't have to act with me, Glinda."
Glinda looked at him, surprised. As if she hadn't expected anyone to see her so clearly.
"What?"
"I know you," he said tenderly. That Glinda posing with the senator, the one who gives speeches about progress and hope... that's not the Glinda who wore heels to cook pancakes or the one who cried watching animal rescue documentaries. That's not her. And don't get me wrong, it's a good performance. Brilliant. But I know that underneath it all is someone who's... well, maybe just really tired of pretending.
Glinda lowered her gaze. She pressed her lips together. She felt the mask crack, like an invisible fissure had opened right in the middle of her chest.
"I don't know when I lost myself," she said softly. "At first it was for Elphie, to help her, to cover for her absence... then it was for the city, for a cause, for feeling like at least something had meaning. And before I knew it, I was trapped in this version of me who smiles in every photo but... feels empty when she gets home."
Tibbett said nothing. He just listened to her. As they rarely did.
"Sometimes I wake up and have a hard time remembering the last time I was me," she continued, her voice faint. "Not the public figure. Not the politician. Not the woman on the poster. Just... Glinda. The one who was lost and happy in a blizzard. The one who believed that with Elphaba I could..." She broke off, swallowing emotion. "That with her, everything else mattered less."
Tibbett took her hand gently.
"Maybe that Glinda isn't lost. She's just hiding... waiting for you to tire of the show."
Glinda nodded, speechless, and for a second, in the silence of the kitchen, it seemed as if the world stopped so she could breathe like herself again.
"Do you know something...?" she said, leaning on the edge of the counter, not looking at Tibbett. "I used to come by sometimes." I drove around, pretending it was just a coincidence, but it wasn't. I looked at this building in the distance, and... I liked to imagine that, the day I walked through that door, everything would be perfect again. Like before. Like when I was with Elphie.
Tibbett watched her silently. Glinda spoke with the fragile voice of someone beginning to accept a painful truth.
"Every time I had to stand in front of a camera to say something I didn't believe... every time I smiled next to that senator or attended some gala where I felt invisible even though everyone was looking at me... I kept telling myself the same thing: 'It's because of Elphaba. Because that way she's okay. Because when I come back, she'll welcome me... and everything will be okay. Like before."
She let out a short laugh, almost a moan of irony.
"And... she wasn't even here. Elphaba hadn't lived in this penthouse for months. She was as lost as I was. And yet... I left her alone." I convinced myself I was helping, but all I did was abandon her when she needed me most. And now...
Her voice broke. She had to pause, stop herself.
"Now, every time I think we're close again... she pulls away. Like she can't fully trust me. Like she needs to protect herself... from me." Her eyes filled with tears. "And I can't blame her. I left. I pretended. Maybe... I broke her more than I thought. And now I don't know if I can fix it. I don't know if she still loves me... I don't know if she deserves to love me."
Tibbett approached slowly and took her hands gently.
"Glinda..."
She looked up, filled with pain.
"You weren't perfect. Neither was she. But darling... neither of us survived all of this intact. The important thing is that you're here now. That you came back. And yes, Elphaba is broken. But so are you."
Glinda blinked, surprised.
"What does that mean?"
Tibbett smiled, squeezing her hands tenderly.
"That if you want to heal... you won't achieve it separately. Elphaba needs you, that's obvious. But you need her too. Not out of nostalgia. Not because you want to go back to the way things were. But because... together is when they are most true."
Glinda lowered her head, swallowing the lump in her throat. Tibbett hugged her tightly, as if trying to hold her whole with just his arms.
"It won't be easy," he whispered, stroking her hair lovingly. "But love never is. And what you have... you don't see it every day."
Glinda hugged him back. For a moment, the weight of the world didn't disappear, but it became more bearable. Because she wasn't alone. Because there was still something to save.
Glinda was still clinging to Tibbett, seeking the comfort she had so desperately needed without admitting it. But when she opened her eyes, something caught her attention. A few steps away, next to the dishwasher, a small metal wastebasket overflowed with crumpled papers and small bottles of liquor. The scene seemed out of place with the usual tidiness of the penthouse... or at least with Glinda's image of Elphaba.
Without saying anything, she gently released herself from the embrace and approached the wastebasket. Something was sticking out among the papers: a folded envelope, stained with dried droplets, perhaps from water or... tears?
With a mixture of doubt and curiosity, Glinda carefully pulled it out. The letter was crumpled, written in handwriting she recognized immediately, even in its most shaky and messy form.
"Tibbett...?" she asked softly, still carefully flipping through the paper. "Do you know what this is?"
Tibbett looked at her uncomfortably. His expression grew tense, uncomfortably neutral.
"I only know part of that story," he replied, taking a step toward her but not attempting to take the letter from her. "I didn't mean to put my foot in it. It's not something she told me... not entirely."
Glinda looked up, puzzled.
"Elphaba didn't tell me any of this...?"
Glinda looked down at the stained sheet again. In the upper right corner, a "Sister" could be read, written boldly, as if at least that name needed to be said, even if the rest was impossible.
Tibbett watched her gently.
"If she didn't tell you... it's probably because she couldn't." He paused. "Glinda you know she's like that. She shuts herself away. She punishes herself. But... that doesn't mean she doesn't love you. Maybe it just means she doesn't know how to tell you.
Glinda nodded slightly, her fingers still clutching that letter. It felt like she was holding a piece of Elphaba she hadn't seen... one filled with pain.
Tibbett sighed.
"What I do know," he said with a soft, sad smile, "is that you two still have a lot to talk about."
Glinda was still holding the letter between her fingers when Elphaba and Crope entered the apartment. She instinctively tucked it against her chest, as if the paper was still burning with what she didn't know.
"It's late," Crope warned with a slight smile. "We should go if we don't want Tibbett to start yawning like Grandma."
Tibbett shrugged, feigning indignation.
"Hey! This Grandma still has a few drinks left."
"Yeah, and that's why," Crope added, winking at him.
Tibbett laughed and went to him.
"Promise me you two won't disappear for another six months," he said to Elphaba, giving her a tight hug.
"I'll try," she replied, and although her voice was soft, there was a trace of genuine promise in it.
Glinda hugged them both, more warmly this time, grateful for the space, for the memories, for the company. It went without saying: all four of them knew that this time, the goodbye wouldn't last so long.
When the penthouse door closed and silence fell again, Elphaba turned to Glinda. For a moment, they just stared at each other. The distance that had separated them for months was still there, but it trembled. It felt more fragile.
Glinda opened her mouth, intending to ask about the letter… but Elphaba interrupted her first.
"Glinda…" she said in a deep voice, almost a whisper. "I want to apologize for earlier. For… for how I acted. It wasn't fair. Not after everything you did."
Glinda watched her cautiously, but didn't speak. She waited.
“I’m not going to back down from wanting to stay safe,” Elphaba continued. “But I don’t think I ever truly explained why. It’s not just about hiding or punishing myself—even though it often feels that way. It’s about not having to watch the people I love suffer because of me.”
Her eyes settled on Glinda, steady, vulnerable.
“You suffered for me. You gave up so much. You gave yourself to a cause that wasn’t even yours…just to protect me. And what did I do? I hid. I drowned in myself. I didn’t even have the courage to call you.”
“Elphie…” Glinda began, but Elphaba raised a gentle hand, asking for just one more moment.
“I know I pushed you away. That I didn’t trust you the way I should have. That even now, I still doubt. Not you. But me. That it’s right to drag you into all of this again.” She paused, swallowing back her emotion. But that doesn't change how I feel about you. It doesn't change that... I love you, Glinda. That I always have. It's just that sometimes... love isn't enough to stave off the fear. And I... I'm so afraid of losing you again that I'd rather walk away before it happens.
Elphaba looked away, as if she'd just confessed to a crime.
Glinda took a step forward. She took her hand.
"And don't you see, Elphie...? I've felt the same thing. Fear. Guilt. Silence. But I'm still here. Because I love you too. And I don't want either of us to keep running away. Not you from me... and I from you."
The tension dissolved for just a second. Their gazes met. The silence was no longer awkward. It was... sincere.
Glinda thought of the letter, the bottles, Elphaba's months of solitude. She decided not to mention it. Not yet. Now she understood that there was much more than hurt; there was also will.
They both remained silent for a few more seconds, their fingers still intertwined. There was no doubt the spark was still there. It was soft, shy… but alive. The conversation had opened a space, an intimate one, one they hadn't shared for a long time. And there, amid the vulnerability and exhaustion, something else was born: tenderness.
Glinda smiled, tilting her head slightly, as she often did when she flirted with Elphaba without words. She took a step closer, her eyes sparkling, a playful tone slipping into her voice:
"You know… we could go to the game room… Maybe repeat our old tradition? Play hide-and-seek until… neither of us wants to hide?"
Her hand gently stroked Elphaba's arm. The moment was perfect. The laughter before, the honesty, the safe space. They were finding each other again. But suddenly…
Elphaba took a step back. Small, almost imperceptible, but real. She looked away. The air grew thicker. And then she said it:
"Glinda, no. Better... do you want some tea? I have a lavender one Tibbett brought."
Glinda blinked. Tea?
"What?" she asked, almost in a whisper.
"It's late and... we're tired, perhaps it's better to rest," Elphaba continued, as if nothing had happened. As if that intimate space hadn't existed just a second ago.
But it had. And Glinda had felt it as clearly as the sudden rejection had now. She frowned, confused. Then hurt. And finally, determined.
"What's going on with you, Elphaba?"
Elphaba tensed.
"Nothing. Just... it's not the time."
"Isn't it the time, or don't you want it to be?" Glinda took a step closer, firm. "What are you running away from now? From me? From us? From yourself?"
Elphaba looked away, her lips pressed together. Glinda continued, without stopping.
"Is that it? Now we pretend there's nothing? After everything you said? After making me think we're still... that we can still be something?"
"Glinda, stop!" Elphaba raised her voice. It wasn't anger. It was... desperation.
Glinda took a step forward.
"Why are you doing this?" she whispered. "Why is it that when we're okay again... you back down?"
Elphaba pressed her lips together. She didn't respond.
"Is it because of the letter?" Glinda insisted.
That was what finally broke the silence.
Elphaba let out a sigh. Long. Tired. Painful. She sat on the edge of the chair and lowered her head as if it weighed her whole body.
"After Christmas..." she began, "I spoke to my father."
Glinda froze. She didn't need more to understand that this was going to hurt.
"Oh no..."
"Because..." Elphaba's voice trembled, as if she didn't want to say it. "Because after the conversation with the senator... when he revealed to us... That terrible event my father had caused against a foreigner and what it would mean for my family... I realized. That the letter Nessie sent me... the one I never wanted to read... was because of that."
Glinda approached slowly. Elphaba didn't look at her.
"When I got back to the penthouse, I looked for it. I turned everything upside down. I found it."
A pause.
"I read it. And it was like something was ripped out of me. It confirmed my worst suspicions about the event, and then it told me I should support the family. That I should be with them. It blamed me for leaving. It told me… that it wasn't fair to burden Father with all of this. That I was being selfish. That I was breaking away from everything that had once made us 'respectable.'"
The word spat out with bitter irony.
"And yet, I couldn't believe my sister… that Nessie would say that to me. So I did what I swore I would never do. I called him."
Elphaba clenched her fists.
"And it was… devastating. As always."
Glinda sat across from her, speechless.
"He told me I was a disappointment. That I was a mistake. That everything I did was dirty. That I was sick." For being who I am. For the ideals I believed in and stood for. For loving the way I love. For wanting what I want.
Her voice cracked.
"I felt... contaminated. Like I was carrying something rotten inside me. Like... if you knew everything about me, you'd look at me like that too. Like he did. Like Nessie did. Like the world does."
Glinda swallowed, her eyes moist.
Elphaba put a hand to her chest, squeezing it.
"And then... everything fell apart. I stopped eating. I stopped sleeping. I shut myself away. I drank every night. And everything that had once been a part of me, what had been my art, my refuge, my safe space... the BDSM, the play, the control... became something darker. I no longer did it to explore or release, but to punish myself. I started surrounding myself with people who only wanted my body, who only fed my darkest instincts, because then I didn't have to think. Or feel. Or remember." A tear fell silently. Elphaba didn't even try to wipe it away.
"And now, every time you come close, every time you look at me with those tender eyes... I feel like I'm betraying you. Like I'm dragging you into that. Into that darkness I don't know how to extinguish now. That's why I'm afraid to continue this fight against the senator, afraid of what might happen because of my stupid obsessions. I don't want to... I can't risk hurting you."
Glinda didn't respond immediately. Her chest was rising and falling heavily. But her eyes never left Elphaba's.
"And don't you see that that... that's already hurting me?" she said finally, her voice a pained whisper.
Elphaba looked at her, confused.
"You're not protecting me by pushing me away, Elphie. You're leaving me alone."
A pause.
"I don't want you to hide that part of yourself. I love it. I love your art." I love the way you give yourself away. The way you seek real connection, even in the darkness. What hurts me is that you think you have to do it without me. That you think I couldn't understand. That I'm not strong enough to be by your side. That you'd rather fall alone than let me hold you.
Elphaba opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Only tears. Glinda took her hand firmly.
"You know what's dirty?" she said, with suppressed rage. "That you've been led to believe that what you love, what defines you, what you believe, what sets you free... is something that should be hidden. The only dirty thing here is the hatred you were taught to internalize."
A charged silence.
"I don't want to save you, Elphaba. You don't need that. I just want you to stop punishing yourself. For you to look at me... and understand that I love you. With all that you're afraid to show me. Because I don't just want the part of you that smiles. I want the one that fights. The one that bleeds." To the one who breaks and gets back up.
—He... He said... That I was a monster.
Elphaba closed her eyes. Finally, she allowed herself to cry. Not silently. Not with her breath held in. But with the full weight of years of guilt, shame, and accumulated pain. Glinda hugged her. Tight. Without reservation. Without judgment.
—You're not... Not to me... And to anyone who really knows you.
And in that hug... Elphaba didn't feel saved.
She felt seen.
Glinda held Elphaba in her arms, rocking her with infinite patience as the tears flowed free, salty and ancient. Tears of years of suppressed tears. She said nothing. She just held her. And she would have held her until the world stopped if it would ease even a bit of the weight.
Finally, the sobs stopped. Not for lack of sadness, but because they were finally allowed to flow. Elphaba raised her face, her eyes still red and wet, but something different shone in them: gratitude. For Glinda. For her tenderness. For still being there.
"And now what...?" she asked in a low, broken voice.
Glinda held her gaze, with a soft, firm half-smile. She stood and held out her hand.
"Come with me."
Without letting go, she led her to the kitchen. It was a warm, quiet place, almost outside of time. Glinda turned the knob on the stove, and a small blue flame crackled brightly in front of them both. For a moment, silence reigned.
Then, with a voice full of softness and strength, Glinda said:
"I want you to throw that letter into the fire."
Elphaba looked at her, as if the weight of that paper in her hands was twice the weight of her own body.
"And what if I can't?" she murmured.
Glinda didn't hesitate.
"Then I'll help you."
"And if I hurt myself again...?"
Glinda took her face in her hands.
"Then I'll be here to help you again."
Elphaba looked down at the letter. That letter she had avoided for so long. That had hurt her more than any physical wound could. She opened it once more. She read without reading. She felt every word like a blow. Every demand. Every manipulation. Every attempt to shame her, to diminish her, to tear out her soul.
And then, with a deep sigh, she let it go.
The paper fell slowly into the flame. First it curled, then it blackened, until it was engulfed by the fire. The words disintegrated one by one: "family," "shame," "disappointment," "selfishness"…
Each one turned to ash.
Elphaba felt a knot in her chest, as if something were finally coming loose, breaking, freeing herself. When she looked again, Glinda was still there. Looking at her with that tenderness so dangerous, so immense. As if she saw her whole. As if nothing that had burned could change who she was in her eyes.
Elphaba took a step. Then another. Until she was in front of her.
And then, without needing words, Glinda caressed her face, slowly, as if she had memorized it.
Elphaba closed her eyes.
And they kissed.
It wasn't a kiss of lust. It was a kiss of acknowledgment. Of acceptance. A kiss that said, "Here I am, here you are, this is who we are."
The fire crackled behind them. But it no longer hurt.
The fire now burned for her.
The kiss didn't end. It was transformed.
Little by little, almost unconsciously, Elphaba and Glinda's bodies began to move in a slow, tender, and deeply intimate dance. There was no rush, no masks, no disguises. Only pure, unpretentious desire, fueled by newly rediscovered trust and long-suppressed emotion. Between breathless kisses, trembling hands relearning each other's terrain, and whispers that were more heartbeats than words, they gently drifted to the floor of the main hall.
The laughter began when they tripped over one of the scattered cushions on the carpet, and they ended up on their knees, panting between giggles and stolen kisses. Glinda, with a mischievous smile, climbed on top of Elphaba, who greeted her with eyes filled with that indecipherable mix of love and wonder. A look that said, "I can't believe you're here, now, with me."
And then, without needing another word, they did it.
They made love.
It wasn't scandalous, clumsy, or out of a movie. It was real. It was private. It was theirs. An act without witnesses or drama, where every caress was a conversation and every moan, a confession. They lost themselves in each other, without fear, without judgment, without shame. The kitchen fire had long since gone out, but a deeper one burned within them both. The night was theirs, and they surrendered to it like someone who knows they're touching something sacred.
And when it was all over, when their bodies calmed and their hearts found a slower but equally intense rhythm, they didn't separate. They didn't cover up. They didn't apologize. They held each other in silence, skin against skin, sharing the warmth that only comes when love and acceptance intertwine.
Hours passed without them noticing. The world outside kept its distance, almost as if it knew it should wait. It was dawn, silent and golden, who finally dared to enter through the high windows, slipping between the curtains and caressing the naked bodies on the floor with its soft light.
Elphaba opened her eyes first. She felt strangely light, as if something inside her—something that had been locked away for years—had been released without her noticing. She turned her face slightly, and there was Glinda, still asleep, her lips parted and a peaceful expression Elphaba had only ever seen in dreams. She couldn't help but smile. A silly, honest, foolish smile... but happy.
Glinda blinked a few seconds later and found her staring at her. She smiled back. That same smile.
"What?" she murmured, stroking Elphaba's cheek with her fingers.
"Nothing... you just look beautiful," the brunette replied, her voice still hoarse from sleep.
"Ugh... that's not fair, I just woke up," Glinda giggled, pulling the blanket they had miraculously managed to pull up sometime during the night over her head.
"And yet you are."
They both laughed. Those soft, half-asleep laughs that feel like a caress. Then they stayed there, curled up on the floor, murmuring weightless nonsense. They talked about absurd things: moving to a cabin in the middle of the woods, opening a magic potion bakery, adopting a black cat that reminded them of Crope, inviting Tibbett to live with them so he could scold them when they got too intense. Nothing made sense, but it didn't matter. The moment was perfect, and even though they knew they couldn't stop time, they tried to trick it with those small, dead-end conversations, just to drag out the eternal a little longer.
And then, fate decided to intervene.
Knock, knock, knock.
They both froze. One shared glance was enough to send them into panic mode, and before they could even fully cover themselves, the young man's voice came from the other side of the door:
"I brought you breakfast!" I figured everything in the fridge is already rotten, and honestly, after the night you must have had… I think you need sugar. And protein! And strong coffee! —Tibbett shouted from the other side of the door.
Elphaba and Glinda sat up as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown over them.
"Good heavens, good heavens, good heavens!" Glinda murmured as she wrapped herself in the blanket.
"Why doesn't the ground swallow me up?" Elphaba whispered, searching among the cushions for her underwear.
Tibbett continued talking cheerfully from the other side:
"Relax, I'm in no hurry! I just knocked in case you were... uh... awake. Or half-alive. Or needed help. Or a shovel. I'm not judging! I'm staying out here until you say I can come in!" Glinda glanced quickly at Elphaba, who was already chuckling as she clumsily put her shirt on backward.
"Well," Glinda said, half-choking with laughter, "that was the end of the perfect moment."
"Nah," Elphaba replied, leaning in to kiss her forehead. "It's just the beginning."
Glinda looked up at her, her hair tousled, her smile intact.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"I love you."
Elphaba swallowed. Not with fear. With excitement.
"And I love you."
And then, as if they hadn't just experienced the most intimate night of their lives, they started fighting over who would open the door for Tibbett... and who would hide behind the couch.
Before Elphaba could even utter another syllable, Glinda gathered a handful of clothes from the floor and bolted for the bathroom, almost as if the floor was burning beneath her feet.
"Glinda!" Elphaba exclaimed, frustrated, watching the trail of blonde hair disappear behind the bathroom door with a hasty slam.
Grumbling under her breath, Elphaba finished slipping into a large, comfy tee—hers, at least she thought so—but when she reached for her pants… well, there was no time. The first thing she found was a pair of pale pink leggings, and without much thought, she slipped them on. It wasn't until they were snug around her legs that she noticed something shiny on her rear end, but the insistent knocking at the door left her no room to get fussy.
With a deep sigh and a fleeting glance in the mirror—in which she attempted to comb her hair using only her fingers and superhuman willpower—she headed for the door. She grasped the handle with the confidence of a witch accustomed to facing the unthinkable… though nothing had prepared her for this.
When she opened it, Tibbett was there. Radiant as ever, with two paper bags in her hands, a fresh smile, and an overflowing energy that contrasted with the absolute emotional dullness Elphaba felt at that moment.
"Good morning! Well, I don't know if it's that good. It sounds more like 'morning after the emotional storm,' but I brought croissants, fruit, and juice," she said, entering without waiting for a formal invitation. "And before you say anything: yes, I know there's probably nothing edible left in the fridge. It literally smelled like regret when I opened it last night."
Elphaba barely had time to close the door behind him before Tibbett was already in the kitchen, talking nonstop, moving as if he'd rehearsed every step. She followed him, trying to keep up with him while also trying to so desperately not to look guilty, in love, or both at the same time.
"And I was thinking," he was saying as he arranged the food on the counter, "I noticed something last night... there's still some friction between you two. You know, glances, awkward silences, unresolved issues. We should work on that. You can't live together without sorting out whatever it is..."
He broke off mid-sentence. His gaze suddenly fell on Elphaba's bottom.
"Is that...?" he asked, frowning and taking a step closer.
Elphaba, puzzled, looked down. And there it was. Bubblegum pink. Sparkles. Big, flirty letters that said "Sweet & Sassy." On her bottom.
She didn't breathe for three full seconds.
"This isn't what it looks like," she tried to say, just as Glinda appeared behind her.
And it wasn't any better. Wearing light blue shorts and a T-shirt with a unicorn in pajamas and the phrase "Sleep like a Princess," her hair in a messy half-braid and her cheeks still flushed, Glinda looked like a teenager who had just snuck into her crush's house in the middle of the night. She tried to hide it with a forced smile as she sat down with all the dignity she could muster at the breakfast nook.
"Hi! That smells lovely. Croissants, how thoughtful!" she said cheerfully, as if she hadn't just stepped out of the bathroom after an obviously romantic night with her former enemy.
Tibbett, now standing between them, a croissant in one hand and a look somewhere between confused and sharp, watched them like a detective who had just found his key piece of evidence.
"So... did something happen last night?"
Elphaba and Glinda exchanged a fleeting glance. Elphaba spoke first:
"Nothing. We just... talked."
At the same time, Glinda replied,
"It was a very... revealing evening."
Tibbett blinked. They both froze.
"Uh-huh," he said, with a slow smile that boded no good. "And what about the sparkly tights?"
Silence.
Five seconds later, they were both sitting on the couch, like two students caught cheating on a test, while Tibbett sat opposite them, hands clasped, with the solemn expression of a family therapist.
"Good," he began, looking first at one, then at the other. "Who wants to start?"
"Start what?" Elphaba said, crossing her arms.
"Couples therapy, obviously. Because if you think that after years of sexual tension, unresolved drama, and nights of naked confessions, I'm not going to intervene... you're wrong."
Glinda sighed, burying her face in her hands. Elphaba snorted, resigned.
"This is hell," she murmured.
"No, honey," Tibbett said with a bright smile as she pulled a notebook from her bag as if she were in her consulting room. "This is love. But first, we need to address the pink, sparkly elephant in the room… or rather, on your ass."
"Wait a minute, do you have any kind of preparation for this?" Glinda asked, with a raised eyebrow and a genuinely doubtful expression as she crossed her legs on the couch.
"No," Elphaba replied instantly, arms crossed. "She just took some stupid elective course at university on 'personal conflict resolution and social dynamics.' It was because she wanted extra credit and air conditioning."
"That course was intensive!" Tibbett retorted indignantly. "And besides, Crope is busy until noon, so I have a free window, I'm bored, and you two clearly need professional intervention. So... hush, here comes the first trust exercise."
Elphaba and Glinda exchanged awkward glances.
"Good," Tibbett continued, his tone solemn as he opened his imaginary notebook. "Exercise one: 'What I See in You.' Elphaba, I want you to look at Glinda. Observe her, carefully. And tell her, honestly... everything you like about her."
Elphaba blinked.
"Pardon?"
"No sarcasm. No irony. No magical threats. Just... honest appreciation," Tibbett clarified firmly, giving her a "go on, try it" gesture.
Elphaba sighed dramatically, as if she'd been asked to donate an organ at that moment. She turned to Glinda, who was smiling at her expectantly, as if waiting for a declaration of love under a shower of petals.
Elphaba turned to Glinda, who was offering her a sweet, almost expectant smile. The green witch swallowed uncomfortably and began,
"Well... I like... how... you wear so much pink without looking like cotton candy. And... your hair doesn't always look like a wig. And... when you talk a lot, sometimes, I kind of... get used to it..."
Glinda's smile slowly turned into a puzzled grimace.
"Was that a compliment?"
Tibbett threw his hands up in exasperation.
“Gods! What was that?! Is this how you talk to someone you like?! You want me to train you myself?!”
“I don’t need training!” Elphaba spat, her pride on the verge of hurt.
Then something in her eyes changed. A spark. A slow, mischievous smile. An idea struck her, and not just any idea: a deliciously mischievous one.
Elphaba leaned toward Glinda with a smile Glinda knew all too well—her power-play smile. Her voice deepened, caressing.
“Actually… if we’re going to talk about what I like about you… we could start with how you look when you’re on your knees in front of me, obedient, quiet… waiting for instructions. How you blush when I order you not to speak, yet still look at me as if you want to scream with pleasure. How you cling to my wrist when you can’t take it anymore, yet you keep going.” The way you say 'please' to me with that shaky little voice...
Glinda, whose eyes had initially widened, took only a couple of seconds to understand the game. And her expression changed. She bit her lower lip, lowered her gaze for a second, and when she looked up, her smile was pure devotion.
"I like it when you tell me I'm yours," Glinda whispered, sitting up slightly. "When you make me repeat it. When you make me wait for you... and I obey, even though my whole skin burns for you..."
Tibbett, who at first tried to intervene like a good "therapist," now looked at them with the growing discomfort of someone who accidentally opened the wrong door at a party.
"Well. This got... a little too therapeutic," he murmured, closing his invisible notebook and jumping to his feet. "I think this exceeds the limits of my unofficial training. You two are clearly already... very close. Like two erotically compatible LEGO bricks."
She headed for the door, muttering things like, "I'll never be able to look at breakfast like that," "my poor virgin ears," and "I have to talk to Crope right now."
"Thanks for the croissants!" Glinda shouted happily as Tibbett closed the door behind her.
Silence reigned for a moment, until the two looked at each other... and burst into laughter.
They laughed until they fell off the couch, until their cheeks hurt, until Elphaba ended up hugging Glinda while she tried to catch her breath.
"'Without looking like cotton candy'?" Glinda repeated, giggling. "Was that serious?!"
"I was nervous!" Elphaba defended herself, burying her face in her shoulder. "Just try talking about emotions with someone looking at you like you're their breakfast!"
And so, amid laughter, hugs, and the remnants of sexual tension disguised as therapy, they both understood that, while they were far from having it all figured out... they were on the same couch. Playing the same game. And hopefully, soon, in the same bed.
They both laughed so hard that for a moment the world seemed to weigh less.
Glinda, still with the sparkle in her eyes, let her fingers slide gently down Elphaba's arm, tracing small circles, almost like a silent invitation. Her smile became a little more mischievous, her gaze more intense.
"So... where were we, ma'am?" Glinda murmured in a sweet, cheeky voice, seeking to reignite the game, waiting for that dominant, playful glint in Elphaba's eyes.
But it didn't appear.
Glinda noticed it immediately: the doubt. A barely visible, but undeniable flicker. Like an invisible knot in Elphaba's chest that not even laughter could fully untie. The green witch lowered her gaze, an instant too long, and that instant was enough.
It wasn't rejection.
It was fear.
Glinda sat up a little, her smile softening with compassion. She didn't need a confession to know what was happening. Elphaba had faced so much. She had defied her father's words, had said out loud that she had no reason to hide. But there were still ruins inside her, dark corners where the judgment of others still echoed. Especially when it came to that part. The one that wasn't magic or rebellion. The one that was desire, surrender... and vulnerability.
Glinda wasn't frustrated by the lost game.
She was hurt by the wound that still bled in someone she loved.
"I'm sorry," Elphaba murmured, almost in a hoarse whisper, as she stood up from the couch. "I haven't been back to the building in weeks. I need to talk to the front desk, see what happened to my mail... and get my newspaper delivered again." It's absurd, but I need it.
Glinda nodded. She said nothing. She just stroked his hand briefly, as if to say, "Go, but don't run away."
Elphaba ran to her room and, after a quick change of clothes, left the penthouse with her characteristic strong gait, although her steps sounded more thoughtful than determined.
Glinda was left alone in the apartment. The sun filtered through the enormous windows, illuminating the half-dead plants that neither of them had bothered to water in weeks.
She sighed. She was silent for a few seconds. Then she pursed her lips.
"No, no, no. This isn't going to stay like this," she said to herself.
She dragged herself dramatically across the carpet, like a heroine in a decadent soap opera, to one of her many luggage suitcases. She opened one of the internal zippers, then another, and finally a third that seemed completely invisible. The secret zipper.
"You and me, baby... we're going to change a witch's life," she murmured.
And smiled.
Almost an hour later, at the reception desk, Elphaba was already on her fifth consecutive explanation. The young receptionist, who had already misspelled “Elphaba T” on four different forms, looked on the verge of defeat.
“Thropp… El…phaaa…baaaa… Oh. It’s “E. Tropp.”
“Tropp?”
“Yes. Without the H. And without “Elpha.” Just E. Tropp. Is that you?”
“Do I look like E. Tropp?”
“Hmm… maybe?” the boy tried to joke, receiving in response one of those looks that Elphaba could have withered a plant with.
Elphaba sighed.
“Forget the database. I just want to get the damn newspaper back to the penthouse. It’s not that hard.”
"Well, you see, we need a recent authorization. Or a signature. There are protocols."
"Protocols? It's a newspaper, not a National Bank vault."
"Yes, but you weren't there. And there were changes in delivery management. There were complaints about lost packages. So the system now resets if a resident hasn't had any activity in more than fourteen days. Do you know how many packages of lingerie arrive daily? Some neighbors get aggressive. There have been... incidents. One involved a stuffed animal. I won't go into details."
"I appreciate the effort to be graphic, but it's not helping. I just need the newspaper back up. Please."
"I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, you can keep the one that arrived today."
The young man rummaged behind the counter and pulled out a newspaper with slightly curled corners. He held it out as if it were a peace offering. Elphaba took it suspiciously.
"Thank you... What's your name?"
"Jason."
"Thank you, Jason." She said it in a neutral tone, but it was already a step. "Can you... not write 'Tropp' again?"
Jason nodded quickly.
"Yes, yes. With an H. As in 'sorceress.'"
"Exactly," Elphaba replied, turning on her heel.
But she didn't walk away.
She stayed there.
She rested her elbows on the counter and began to slowly flip through the newspaper, pretending she was just scanning the headlines. The truth was, she didn't feel like going back upstairs just yet. Not with that half-swallowed discomfort in her chest. Not with Glinda's gaze still lingering in her memory.
And not with that awkward silence she felt within herself.
The front pages were politics, society ads, a pathetically optimistic column by an influencer about "embracing your inner magic." Elphaba considered setting the newspaper on fire just because of the title.
But then she reached the front page.
"Demolitions for the city renewal project began ahead of schedule."
Elphaba frowned.
She looked down at the caption.
"Several buildings in the western quadrant have already been evacuated. Demolitions began this morning, including unregistered structures that, according to official sources, 'represented no heritage value.'"
Her heart leapt.
Elphaba felt the air in her lungs thicken. These "unregistered" structures were homes, communities, makeshift shelters... and also laboratories, workshops, libraries. Her places. Places where she had experimented, worked, helped. Where part of her history lived. Part of who she was.
Part of what she didn't yet dare share.
She closed the newspaper tightly. The dry sound of the paper in her hands seemed to set a new rhythm in her heart.
She could no longer run away from who she was.
And Glinda... Glinda deserved to know everything.
The elevator seemed to have conspired with the universe to stop at each intermediate floor with a slowness that bordered on the insulting. Elphaba drummed her fingers against the surface of the crumpled newspaper, reading and rereading that damned headline that burned in her mind like a prophetic warning. The demolitions had begun ahead of schedule. Before she could organize anything, prevent it, or even protest. Something bigger was looming, and for the first time in a long time, Elphaba felt out of step. Late.
When the elevator door finally opened on the penthouse floor, she stepped out briskly, almost running, turning the corner of the hallway with the urgency of someone who needed to share a real concern, one that couldn't be postponed by jokes or flirting.
She flung the door open, without looking, her voice already in her throat:
"Glinda, I need—"
She stopped. Literally. As if time had stabbed her dead.
Not only did the penthouse look different: it felt like a mirage concocted by a sweet and deeply eccentric mind. The lights were softened by pastel tulle veils hung with gold clothespins. The sofa had been covered with a lace fabric that smelled suspiciously of expensive perfume and despair. But what truly unsettled her was her "playroom," or at least what had once been the playroom. The door, normally locked and guarded with the solemnity of a pagan shrine, was open. And from it peeked out furniture... redecorated. One of the punishment benches had been covered with a frilly pink slipcover. One of the crosses had been adorned with satin ribbons. Her shelf of leather and metal objects now displayed fake flowers among the whips.
Elphaba felt her soul leave her body for a moment. Her mouth was wide open, hanging as if waiting for someone to fill her in on the explanations.
"What the...?!" was all she managed to utter.
"Welcome, mistress," crooned a honeyed voice, emerging like a mischievous enchantment from the hallway.
And there she was.
Glinda.
The very same, incomparable Glinda, wrapped—or rather, compressed—in the submissive maid's uniform that Elphaba had jokingly given her almost a year ago and that Glinda had sworn never to wear "unless the sky fell or there was an invasion of dancing bears."
A shiny black corset cinched her torso with straps that groaned for dear life. White lace bordered a neckline so generous it seemed on the verge of declaring itself sovereign. A ridiculously short miniskirt revealed garters that trembled with every step. On her head, a lace cap that should have been designed for a doll, not a blonde sorceress.
And the smile. That radiant, perfect... and dangerously confident smile.
"What did you do to my playroom?!" Elphaba exclaimed, finally finding her voice.
"Just... a little themed redecoration," Glinda replied in the most innocent voice in the world as she approached with controlled, sensual steps, as if she were strutting down a parody runway.
"Themed?! It looks like a children's birthday party and a Victorian brothel collided at 80 kilometers per hour!" Elphaba exclaimed, unable to decide whether to laugh, scream, or cry.
Glinda didn't flinch. She walked over and gently took the newspaper Elphaba was still holding, as if handing a nuclear weapon to a diplomat.
"So much bad news, Mistress... you should relax." "Allow me to attend to you," she said, giving an exaggerated curtsy and barely lifting her skirts, following the most foolish and improvised protocol the green witch had ever witnessed.
"Glinda! This is... this is...! Why are you talking as if we were in a midnight German soap opera?"
Glinda raised an eyebrow, staying in character.
"Because this mistress needs to reactivate her throne, and I, her loyal maid, cannot allow her to continue doubting the queen she is," she whispered to her, and suddenly knelt with such dramatic precision that Elphaba brought a hand to her chest, convinced her heart was about to sue her for breach of trust.
"Glinda, by all that is holy, I beg you... stop polishing the table with your breasts," Elphaba almost screamed, overwhelmed by the sight of Glinda wiping with very, very unnecessary circular motions.
"Are you sure, mistress?" Don't you want me to kneel... here...'—she gestured theatrically to a pillow strategically placed at the foot of the sofa—'and read poetry to you about surrender to love and domination, in a low voice and with a French accent?'
'Since when do you know how to do a French accent?!'
'Since this morning. Practicing with your audiobooks!'
'What audiobooks?!' Elphaba looked like she was about to peel the skin off her face.
''Power Fantasies: How to Explore Your Dominant Role Without Losing Your Cool,' narrated by a 'Mistress Black Sugar.' You had it in the folder called 'Secret Academic Research #7.' A bit of an obvious clue, if you ask me...'
'Oh, merciful God...' Elphaba said, pressing her temple with her fingers. 'I can't believe you're doing this right now...'
'Why not? You said you wanted trust,' Glinda replied, with a mixture of tenderness and impudence. You said you didn't know how to share that part of you... Well, surprise, darling: I do know how to do it. And if that means making a fool of myself dressed as a maid in your penthouse, redesigned like a cheap romance novel... then I will. Because I love you. And because I'm convinced that, between you and me, ridicule doesn't exist. Only possibilities.
Elphaba looked at her. She blinked twice. Then, without warning, she began to laugh. A long, open laugh, one of those that springs from the ribs and ends up drowned in tears.
"Really...?! You decorated my furniture with plastic flowers?!" she managed between giggles.
"I didn't mean to damage the originals! Besides, look, I named your whips. This one's called Mr. Nibbler."
"Gods..."
Glinda leaned even closer, with that mixture of silly tenderness and emotional courage that only she could manage without seeming absurd.
"Do you know what would make me happy?" she asked. "If you would teach me. Your way. Whenever you want. Without shame. And if in the meantime I need to turn your playroom into an apocalyptic Moulin Rouge to make you smile... I will do it whenever it's necessary."
Elphaba looked at her. Slowly, deeply. She still felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. The demolitions, the secrets, the fear of being who she was without reservation. But in that instant, with Glinda standing before her, dressed like a secondhand fantasy and looking at her with the most sincere love she had ever known... it all seemed bearable.
"You're completely insane," Elphaba said with a shaky smile.
"And you're completely enchanted," Glinda replied, curtsying with exaggerated pomp.
Despite Glinda's charming efforts, Elphaba simply wouldn't be swept into the delirium as easily as her counterpart had hoped. Elphaba stood with her arms crossed, trying her best to remain serious, though her mouth twisted dangerously with each attempt to stifle laughter.
"What is it, Mistress?" Glinda said, hands on her hips, giving a dramatically offended look. "Do I not deserve punishment for invading her sanctuary?" Shouldn't she be on her knees, begging for forgiveness with guilt and glitter in her eyes? Shouldn't she be making me squeal like an animal? "Woof." "Woof."
"Gods, Glinda!" Elphaba was a little firmer this time, her patience reaching its limit. "You? Begging for forgiveness? Barking? What the hell? You're playing a postmodern version of Mary Poppins in an enchanted cabaret!"
"You're sabotaging the emotional climax of the scene!" Glinda complained, spinning on her heels with childlike dignity. "This can't go on like this!"
And then it happened.
A flash crossed Glinda's eyes. A dangerous, determined spark that could only herald an act of glorious madness.
"If you're not going to punish me... then I will!"
"You what?" Elphaba stammered, wiping away a tear of laughter.
"What you heard!" Glinda exclaimed, striding toward the witch. "You have been a terribly irresponsible mistress! Indifferent! Emotionally negligent! And if you fail to live up to your duty... then you will be subdued."
"Submissive?!" Elphaba repeated, her laughter so uncontrollable she nearly skidded to the floor. "Are you going to punish me? I can't do this, Glinda, I really can't!"
But Glinda didn't stop. The determination on her face overcame the ridiculousness of the whole thing, and that was saying something.
"Enough laughter!" she exclaimed, raising a finger in an authoritarian gesture. "To the chair!"
"What chair...?" Elphaba gasped.
Glinda pointed dramatically at one of the special chairs in the play corner, the one designed with straps and a reinforced frame for clearly non-decorative purposes. Elphaba's eyes widened.
"Don't even think about it!" "She exclaimed, but there was little she could do when Glinda, in a surprisingly effective maneuver, took her by the hand, spun her around with a graceful flourish, and, before she could protest, sat her firmly in the chair.
"Ow! Hey, watch your hair!" Elphaba protested, still unable to stop laughing.
"Shut up, you insolent brat!" Glinda declared, untying one of the satin ribbons she'd used to adorn the decorative cross. With surprising skill (probably the fruit of some undeclared practice), she began tying her wrists to the armrests.
"Oh my God, this isn't happening!" Elphaba cried, laughing so hard she could barely speak. "You're tying me up like you're wrapping me up for a Valentine's Day sale!"
"Shut up!" Glinda replied, now completely immersed in her role. "The prisoner doesn't speak until told to!" Once tied up, Glinda took a step back, took a deep breath like an actress before a monologue, and adopted a completely ridiculous position: one hand on her heart, the other raised, as if solemnly swearing something sacred.
"Since my mistress refuses to assume her role..." she declared with a mischievous smile and a TV commercial tone, "...I have decided that someone must take the reins in this household. And since I am a woman of resourcefulness and decorative vision..."—raising her arms as if blessing the air itself—"I will do it!"
Elphaba, still tied—more symbolically than actually—to the velvet chair with those ridiculous lavender satin ribbons, watched her with a mixture of disbelief and growing alarm.
"Glinda..." she began, in a warning tone. But Glinda wasn't listening. She was too busy "reimagining" her surroundings as a rosy, absurd version of the White House.
"First, the decor." Goodbye to these dark, funereal, “grieving witch” tones. This place needs color, life, prints! I'm thinking of replacing the rugs with something more inviting: pink plush or maybe fuchsia velvet. The black leather sofa... out! We'll put one in the shape of lips. And an entire wall of gold-framed mirrors. Too much Versace? I don't care.
Elphaba squinted at her, like a cat about to pounce.
"Then the wardrobe," Glinda continued, counting on her fingers as if dictating a manifesto. "Your high-necked black blouses... burned in a symbolic ceremony. Your combat boots... replaced with stilettos. And we're going to explore the power of pastel mint. I promise you green and mint can live together in harmony!"
"Glinda..."
"And now that we're living together, there will be rules," she continued, without pausing. "Rule number one: no sarcasm before breakfast. Rule number two: every Friday night is romantic movie night, no complaints or excuses about 'predictable plots' or 'empty narrative structure.' Rule number three: no using sarcasm as an emotional shield! And..."
That was when Elphaba inhaled deeply and, in a firm voice, not raising it more than necessary, ordered:
"Stop."
Glinda froze. She stood with her back to us, her hands still in the air as if she were presenting the final act of her grand reinvention of the penthouse. She didn't turn around immediately. She just smiled shyly, knowing without looking that Elphaba had sat up, straightened her shoulders, and that something in the air had changed.
The game was really beginning.
The knots, as expected, offered no resistance. Elphaba barely twisted her wrists, and the ribbons slid open as if they, too, understood that such improvisation was an insult to her intelligence. She sat up slowly, elegantly smoothing the dark green blouse that hadn't even wrinkled.
Glinda, standing straight, watched her with bright, expectant eyes. Elphaba looked at her for a long second, in silence. A charged pause. A pause she knew exactly how to use.
And then, her voice firm, deep, sharp as a verdict, she ordered:
"On all fours."
Glinda obeyed immediately, almost with a shiver of emotion running down her spine, as she murmured:
"Yes, Mistress."
Elphaba crouched beside her, kneeling, with the serene posture of a figure who didn't need to raise her voice or exaggerate to wield power. She placed a hand on Glinda's lower back, just between her shoulder blades, like a gentle anchor, and began the ritual. "Rule number one..." he said firmly, and with his other hand he slapped her bottom with a loud thud.
"Splat!"
"Yes, Mistress," Glinda replied with a smile that trembled with suppressed emotion.
"Don't impose your rules on my space again. My walls, my rules."
"Splat!"
"Yes, Mistress."
"Rule number two: No romantic movies on Fridays without my prior approval. If you cry, don't blame me."
"Splat!"
"Yes, Mistress."
"Rule number three: If you're going to dress like my maid, you're going to behave like one. With discipline, pride... and good knot-tying technique."
"Splat!"
"Yes, Mistress."
"Rule number four: There is no room for animal behavior. You are not a pet. You are a worthy woman. You are my sub, yes, but you are also my mate. My equal... and the woman I love."
Glinda blinked. For a moment, her hands trembled slightly against the penthouse's shiny floor. The last sentence pierced her chest like an unexpected caress.
"Yes, Mistress," she said, softer now, with a lump in her throat that had nothing to do with playfulness.
"Stand up," Elphaba ordered, sitting up with perfect posture.
Glinda did so, slowly, upright, and attentive. Her cheeks were flushed, but not just from the theatrical tapping. There was something else. Something in the air that had become thicker, more authentic. More them.
"May I..." Glinda said, almost in a whisper, "may I kiss you, Mistress?" Elphaba watched her. She leaned closer, and just as Glinda was about to close the distance between their lips, she elegantly raised a hand and stopped her, placing it gently on her face, not harshly, but with all the authority of her role.
"You're not entirely forgiven yet."
Glinda caught her breath.
"First..." Elphaba continued, barely turning her face toward the living room, where the chaos was still scattered with cushions, ribbons, flowers, and an overturned teacup, "...you're going to clean up this mess."
And then, for the first time in a long while, Elphaba smiled. Not a sarcastic or mocking smile. A real smile. A knowing one.
Glinda lowered her head in a ceremonious bow and, without a word, set off. Gathering pillows, smoothing curtains, arranging everything with a dramatic efficiency worthy of her character. Every now and then, she'd glance sideways at Elphaba, like a naughty schoolgirl waiting for another pat... or a kiss.
And Elphaba, from her perch, arms crossed, watched her with that perfect blend of tenderness and authority. She knew that order wasn't just returning to the penthouse.
It was returning to them.
While Glinda, still deeply immersed in her role as obedient maid, began to dismantle the makeshift set she'd set up in the penthouse, Elphaba watched her from across the room. There was something ironically charming about seeing this woman—who just a few weeks ago had chaired committees, argued with architects, and kept the city council in suspense with her speeches—now solemnly crawling to retrieve a unicorn-shaped vase from under the sofa.
Elphaba settled elegantly into the armchair, one leg crossed over the other, with the calm but firm demeanor of someone who doesn't need to say much to make her point. But then, amidst the cushions and vestiges of chaos, her gaze fell upon the newspaper she had left abandoned half an hour earlier, when she had arrived in the midst of that absurd display.
She picked it up. She skimmed it.
And she remembered.
The article. The headline. That urgency that had brought her running there, which in the maelstrom of the "game" had been buried under layers of laughter, fake leather, and selective obedience.
"Glinda," she said, barely raising her voice, "I need you to see this."
Glinda, who at that moment was on her knees picking up prop petals as if they were real jewels, turned her head with a sweet smile but didn't move.
She remained in character. Waiting for instructions. Pretending not to understand, that her only mission was to fulfill her "mistress's" wishes.
Elphaba narrowed her eyes. She exhaled through her nose. And then she said it.
"Popular."
The word cut through the air like a silent gunshot.
Glinda froze. She straightened immediately, as if an electric current had run down her spine. The mask dissolved. Her eyes widened, not because of the command, but because of the emotional charge. That word.
The safe word.
The one they had chosen one night over laughter and glasses of wine, over promises they didn't know if they would keep. A secret word that broke the game instantly, that marked a non-negotiable boundary.
And Elphaba... she still remembered it.
Glinda swallowed. She rose from the floor without a sound, walked over to the armchair where Elphaba was holding the newspaper tightly, and sat down beside her. When her eyes fell on the headline, she felt her stomach sink:
"Demolitions for the city renewal project began ahead of schedule."
The minutes dragged on.
Glinda didn't blink. As if rereading the words might make them mean something else.
"No..." she murmured. "This was scheduled for two weeks from now. Barely two weeks. The committee tried to move it up, but they were stopped and..."
Elphaba said nothing. She just watched her from the side. With attentive stillness. She knew how to read her gestures like a map. The slight tremor in her hands. The way her lips pursed as she silently calculated. Elphaba just waited. She knew she would understand.
And then, Glinda did. She understood everything...
The senator told her to take a week off to "think" and clear her mind, but that wasn't really what he'd intended...
It wasn't a pious courtesy. It was a play.
They'd deliberately sidelined her.
"They didn't want me to interfere," she said quietly, more to herself than to Elphaba. "They knew if I was present... I wouldn't allow it."
Her eyes filled with a thick, hot rage. She didn't scream. She didn't cry. But it showed in her tense jaw, in the way the newspaper trembled slightly in her fingers.
"The project is finally moving forward," Elphaba said neutrally. "Without hesitation. Without you."
Glinda turned her face toward her. Her fury turned to pain. A mixture of political betrayal... and personal disappointment.
"They took me off the board," she whispered.
"Not by much," Elphaba replied, this time letting something warmer seep into her voice. "They know you... but not as well as I do. They knew you could be a threat. But they didn't imagine what you'll do now that you know.
Glinda remained silent. She looked at the headline again. She slowly closed the newspaper. She sighed deeply, as if putting on a different mask again, not that of a maid or a sub, but that of a politician, a strategist, a woman who fights when they give up on her.
Nerves running through her body like an electric current, Glinda paced back and forth across the room. Over and over again. Elphaba watched her, sitting on the edge of the sofa, elbows on her knees, jaw clenched. The tension could have been cut with a butter knife.
"There must be something... something," Glinda murmured, without pausing, as if the movement helped her think. "Morrible and the senator are going too far. They're demolishing mercilessly, as if the city were a game board. There must be a rift... something..."
And then, as if a spark had ignited amid the mental chaos, she stopped dead in her tracks.
"The Ozdust Club."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Fiyero?"
"Yes," Glinda nodded, her voice thick with urgency. "Their club is on every initiative movement map. It's a key point." If we can prove that this place is historically and culturally untouchable... we could prove that the reform has structural flaws. Not just ethical ones. Real ones.
"A very well-aimed bullet," Elphaba muttered, crossing her arms. "But the senator already knows about our crusade for that club. And he's made his moves. He won't allow any council member to back him. His alliances are tied."
Glinda nodded in frustration. Her voice was shaking.
"Yes, we have the Emerald Post... but that's not enough. Not without a solid figure publicly backing the initiative to protect Ozdust. Something that can be put on the front page with weight."
They both fell into a suffocating silence. Ideas clashed, spiraled, but didn't hold. Fiyero's family would never support him on this. Glinda... she was the face of the renovation; she couldn't just come out and say she was against her own legacy. And Elphaba... no one even knew she actually existed. The senator had taken it upon himself to erase every public trace. Elphaba was a ghost. A necessary shadow. But invisible.
There was no name.
There was no voice.
Until, suddenly, the room grew colder.
Glinda knew it. She felt it before she said it. Like a stone falling on her chest. The idea hit her with surgical precision. Her expression transformed, and Elphaba noticed.
"What is it?"
Glinda looked at her.
And it was hard to say. It hurt, as if she had to tear out a part of herself.
"We have to go see... my parents."
TO BE CONTINUED.....
Chapter 15: WE KNOW THERE'S BLAME TO SHARE PART 2
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
FOUR YEARS LATER…
The sharp sound of a door opening broke the silence of a sun-filled midday. A pair of heels clicked against the marble of the foyer, followed by the clumsy snorts of two women struggling to drag an emerald-colored sofa down the hallway of a luxurious penthouse. The decor had changed since their college days: now everything was polished, polished, elegant, as if someone had tried to recreate the charming chaos of a livable but magazine-worthy home. Still, that perfect image crumbled slightly with each gasp the two gave as they maneuvered the sofa until it dropped, with a muffled sound, right in the center of the spacious living room.
"There it goes!" Glinda exclaimed, fixing her newly acquired bangs and plopping down on the left side, her legs extended over one of the armrests, her heels still dangling from her toes. "That was attempted manslaughter," Elphaba murmured from the opposite side, lying with her arms stretched above her head, her jet-black hair slightly shorter and messier, now only half braided, and her makeup smudged from the effort. "I hate you."
They both laughed, lying head to head, breathing in unison as if they'd just climbed a mountain.
"And can you explain it to me again?" Elphaba asked, her eyes closed, motionless, her voice soft, laden with a patience that knew only too well who she was sitting next to. "Why exactly did we just carry this monster up three flights of stairs, when there was an elevator?"
Glinda sighed, with that dramatic tone she used even when talking about things as trivial as tea not reaching the right temperature.
"Because I can't live in a place where the furniture doesn't match the curtains. Have you seen that gray sofa?" It was an eyesore. This, on the other hand... this is harmony. This green has character, like you, but without that bitterness you were born with.
Elphaba snorted a laugh without opening her eyes.
"It's a sofa, Glinda. Not a life partner."
"Exactly! That's why it shouldn't make me feel like I'm living with my divorced aunt who hates spring."
"Glinda... You've been living here for three years now..."
A quiet pause stretched between the two of them, as the glass roof let in the warm sunlight. Glinda broke the silence, turning her head toward her.
"Are you still writing that?" Glinda asked, turning slightly so she could look at her out of the corner of her eye.
Elphaba snorted.
"It's not 'it,' it's my book."
"Uh-huh. And which part are you on, oh great storyteller of our domestic epic?"
"Guess."
"The epic trial part?"
—Nope.
—What happened at the roadside bar on the way to Kansas?
—Now that'll be fun to write. But not yet.
—When did you steal my clothes and make me wear that stupid bunny suit? God, I was boiling over in that thing.
Elphaba stifled a laugh and turned around, leaning her elbow on the back of the couch, her face now lit by a wide, wicked grin.
"I hope so, but no... I'm getting to the part where we met your parents."
Glinda let out an exaggerated moan and covered her face with both hands.
"No, no, no! You can't put that in the book. I won't survive the world knowing what happened that morning in my room."
"You mean when you hid me under your bed like a panicked teenager?" Elphaba said with delighted sarcasm. "I think it was sweet... In a way."
Glinda giggled into her hands, then turned and hugged one of the couch cushions, still lying on her back, as if seeking to hide from the memory.
"Are you going to describe everything exactly as it happened?"
"Of course. It's the only part that writes itself," Elphaba replied, stretching out her arms as if she could touch memory itself with her fingertips. "Although... I could use help detailing some of the dialogue." Your mother has such a... theatrical style.
Glinda bolted upright, her blue eyes shining with a mixture of alarm and mock indignation.
"No! Don't even think about asking her. She'll be unbearable! Ever since you and her became best friends, I feel like you're plotting against me."
"So what if we do?" Elphaba countered, feigning innocence. "It's quite funny."
"I know! And that's because you're her favorite! My mother writes more messages to you than to me! To you!" Glinda exclaimed, pointing at her as if it were heresy.
They both laughed again, this time with that kind of laughter that makes your chest ache with joy, born of years of complicity, of shared absurdities and secrets that no longer need to be spoken aloud.
And then, Glinda turned her face toward her, a half-smile that hid her intent, and asked casually, "And since we're in this position... wouldn't you tie me up like only you know how?"
Elphaba glanced at her, her smile sharp and seductive, her eyes narrowed in that feline way she used when she had the advantage. She sat up slowly, leaning on one arm, and approached Glinda as if she were going to kiss her. Her face was inches from hers... until, without warning, she playfully tapped her cheek and murmured mockingly, "Glinda, it's eleven in the morning. For the love of leather."
She stood up and stretched her arms, letting her oversized T-shirt slide down her thighs as she walked toward the desk.
"You're such a killjoy!" Glinda protested dramatically. "Since you're almost thirty, you're getting old. Old and boring!" Elphaba stopped dead in her tracks. She turned slowly with an expression of mock outrage, narrowing her eyes.
"Take it back."
"Never."
"Fine," Elphaba declared as she lunged for her laptop. "Then I'm going to write down everything that happened that day. Every detail. Including your secret romantic stories."
"Don't you dare!" Glinda shouted, launching herself after her. "I forbid you, Elphie! I forbid you with the authority of other people's shame!"
But Elphaba was already typing quickly, with a mischievous smile. Glinda, between giggles and fake screams, tried to pull her away from the keyboard while the two fought for control of the mouse. The scene was pure domestic chaos, a mixture of love, play, and comical battles for control of shared memories.
And as the penthouse echoed with their hubbub, one thing became clear: what had begun as a story of entanglements and contradictions was now a life together where chaos was harmony, and each battle a new excuse to love each other a little more.
CHAPTER 15: We Know There's Blame to Share Part 2
PRESENT…
The car's engine purred with an almost therapeutic softness as they moved through the elegant curves of the city's outskirts. The tall buildings and chaotic sidewalks were left behind, replaced by streets lined with perfectly aligned trees, meticulously pruned gardens, and high walls that hid mansions of ancient architecture with a modern touch, as if even time itself had to submit to the tastes of the families who lived there. These were neighborhoods where money wasn't on display: it was hinted at in every inch of marble, every wrought-iron fence, every car stopped in the driveway with discreet but exclusive license plates.
Elphaba drove with a calmness that seemed out of this world, her posture erect, her face serene, her hands firm on the wheel. Her eyes barely moved from the road, as if everything around her—including the verbal chaos erupting from the passenger seat—was simply white noise.
"What if I just get out early? I tell them I was coming alone, that you... I don't know, got sick. Or were arrested for environmental rebellion. Something like that. They'd believe that. I tell them it was a spontaneous decision, a personal initiative. I don't have to say you're directly involved. After all, technically we could argue that you're only supporting from an ethical... or philosophical... or emotional... or spiritual standpoint. Right?"
Elphaba didn't respond. Not yet. She just glanced at her for a split second, one eyebrow barely raised.
"Oh my God, this is going to be a disaster!" Glinda exclaimed, shrinking in her seat and looking back out the window at the road, as if searching for an escape route among the closely trimmed hedges and neighborhood safety signs. "We haven't spoken in days." Since the gallery incident, everything has been… weird. My mom sends me passive-aggressive texts, and my dad, well… he sends emojis. Of airplanes. I don't know what that means. Is he traveling? Is he running away from me? Does he want me to run away? Who sends an airplane emoji without context?
"Maybe it just means he's on a plane," Elphaba finally said, her voice so calm it bordered on ironic.
Glinda glared at her, though the effect was more comical than intimidating.
"It's not funny. You don't understand what it's like to face them after all this. And then introduce yourself. You're… well, you," she said, pointing at her with a vague but expressive gesture. "You're brilliant, yes, powerful, intense, mysterious, revolutionary, with that thing in your eyes that's scary and sometimes also turns me on a little, but they're not going to see that. They're going to see… a symbol of everything that doesn't fit into their perfect world."
Elphaba pursed her lips slightly, as if half of that description amused her and the other half didn't interest her in the least.
"Are you telling me I haven't earned a place in the Conservative Society Parents' Club?"
"I'm telling myself my mother will probably try to convert you to Catholicism the moment she sees you!"
"And that's worse than the blows in the gallery or the headlines calling you 'the angel-faced voice of gentrification'?"
Elphaba turned down a polished cobblestone avenue, while Glinda snorted helplessly, biting the inside of her cheek like a teenager on the eve of a catastrophic school exhibition.
"Besides," Elphaba added gently, like someone who doesn't want to stir up too much but also can't help it, "wasn't this the plan? To go all the way. To shake up the structures. To play with fire. To change something real."
Glinda leaned her forehead against the glass, her eyes fixed on the reflection of the passing trees.
"Yes, but I didn't think that would involve asking my mother for help. My mother, Elphie. The woman who considers it scandalous to wear red nail polish to a dinner with ambassadors. And now I'm going to walk into her house and say, 'Hi, I need you to publicly support my institutional rebellion, and while I'm at it, let me introduce you to my anti-establishment revolutionary girlfriend with a history of corporate sabotage'?"
"Technically, I never got caught," Elphaba murmured, turning toward a rotunda flanked by bronze statues. "And the 'girlfriend' thing, we haven't fully discussed, but I appreciate the clarity of the introduction."
"This is no time for smooth, seductive sarcasm!" Glinda exclaimed, rising slightly from her seat as if that might release the pressure building in her chest. "This isn't an act of diplomacy. It's a leap of faith. It's the end."
Elphaba kept her eyes straight ahead, but the sigh she let out was long and deliberately theatrical.
"Do you want to turn around?"
"No! Yes! I don't know!" Glinda stretched out against the seat, crossing her arms like a spoiled child about to scream. "We can't turn back. We're already here. It would be worse if we didn't go in. But, for God's sake, why did this have to happen right now? Why did this have to be the moment I show them I'm with someone? And not just anyone, but with you! With Elphaba Thropp, the most amazing and intimidating woman I've ever met!"
"You're repeating yourself," Elphaba muttered, turning into an intersection guarded by a ridiculously abstract sculpture by some local artist funded by the cultural committee.
"Because I'm panicking, Elphaba!" Glinda blurted, turning to her with pleading eyes. "I don't understand how you can be so calm." This is a disaster waiting to happen. It's like a scene from one of those sitcoms where everything goes wrong, except we won't laugh at the end. I'm going to be disinherited. And you'll probably be exorcised.
Elphaba raised both eyebrows, though her tone remained calm.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
Glinda let out a desperate groan, leaning her forehead against the window.
"Can we at least pretend this is a terrible idea and that nothing good can come of it?"
"You've said it three times already."
"Because it is!"
There was a long pause. Just the whir of the engine and the crunch of tires on gravel. Then Elphaba spoke, her voice softer, almost distracted.
"You're doing this because you think it's worth it, don't you?"
Glinda turned her face, surprised by the sudden seriousness in her tone.
"Of course I think so."
"So what does it matter if your mother thinks I dress like a 1950s literature teacher? Or if your father thinks I'm here to convince you to join an anti-establishment cell? You know what you're doing. And that's more than most people can say."
For a moment, everything stopped. Even Glinda seemed to forget to breathe.
"How come you always do that?" she asked in a whisper.
"What?"
"Make me feel... like I can do it."
Elphaba shrugged.
"I guess that's my way of loving you."
Glinda said nothing. She just smiled, small and shaky, and watched as the entrance to her childhood home grew closer with each passing second.
The car stopped in front of the golden gates with a soft squeal of brakes. Glinda swallowed, slowly reaching out her hand as if she were going to press a self-destruct button and not the intercom buzzer. Her trembling finger pressed the round button embedded in the white marble base, and for a brief, glorious moment, the silence on the other end made her harbor the most desperate hope: maybe no one was home… maybe they were out at some charity gala, an art auction, an elite yoga retreat, anything… But then, with a crackle of static that seemed to mock her hopes, a raspy, high-pitched voice answered on the other end.
"Upland Residence?" the voice said. "Who... who's speaking? Who...?"
Glinda closed her eyes with a stifled sigh and murmured to herself, resigned,
"Here we go..."
"Is that... the one with the bread? The gluten-free bread?" The voice wavered as if solving an esoteric riddle.
Glinda turned to Elphaba with a strained smile, whispering,
"Mrs. Clutch. She's worked here since... well, forever." It takes her about five attempts to recognize me. Last time she mistook me for the girl who cleans the statues in the garden...
But before she could continue mocking me, the voice on the intercom responded with disconcerting clarity, almost offended by the suggestion of forgetfulness:
"Miss Galinda Arduenna Upland, born on a Thursday at 5:47 a.m. in the East Wing of Elysium Sanitarium, with a mole in the shape of a clover on her right shoulder blade! How could I not recognize the girl who ruined three pairs of curtains playing ocean princesses?"
Glinda's mouth fell open. Elphaba covered her mouth to keep from laughing.
"I think your memory loss story has expired," she murmured mockingly.
The gates opened slowly with a heavy whir, and the car glided inside, following the white stone driveway that led directly to the immense Upland mansion. An almost theatrical structure, with Ionic columns, decorative gargoyles that had never known rain, and balconies used more for photos in Dynastic Architecture magazine than for overlooking the garden.
Elphaba surveyed the scene with a raised eyebrow.
"And you called me an elitist?" she commented, stopping at a fountain with a sculpture of herself as a child hugging a pony. "Is that a replica of you?"
"I was five! And it was Mom's idea!" Glinda defended herself, crossing her arms, though with a visible mixture of embarrassment and nostalgia. "They made me pose for like twenty minutes for that. My tights got itchy, and the pony had dry ice coming out of its nose..."
They finally stopped in front of the main staircase, and Glinda climbed out of the car with clumsy steps. Elphaba, on the other hand, got out with a serenity that contrasted cruelly with the panic of her companion.
Glinda turned to her as if she were about to enter the interrogation room of a dictatorship.
"Listen, this is important," she said urgently, pointing her index finger at him. Don't talk about politics. Don't talk about modern art. Don't talk about social justice, or industrialization, or patriarchy. If Mom mentions something, you nod and smile. If Dad asks about your studies, say something with "scholarship" and "academic excellence." No sarcasm. And for heaven's sake, for the love of God, don't criticize the piano in the music room. It was brought from Vienna. That Vienna.
"What if they ask me what I do with the perfect daughter of high society?" Elphaba asked, playing with her car keys.
"You say you're my partner, ambiguously, and that I'm a free spirit who saved you from your nihilistic cynicism! Or... or something like that. I don't know. Improvise! But tactfully, okay?"
Glinda froze in front of the door, not knowing whether to offer her arm or not. She lifted it. Lowered it. Raised it again. Finally, Elphaba, with a long sigh, took it firmly.
"Come on. Before you suffer a diplomatic collapse."
The front door opened before they could knock. And there, as if no time had passed even a day, stood Mrs. Clutch, dressed in her immaculate blue uniform, thick stockings, and white cap that seemed at odds with all the gilded splendor of the hall.
"Miss Glinda!" she exclaimed excitedly. "Is she taller? And... Oh my God, her skin... Oh no. No, no, no. That's not good. You know what I said last time: that's what happens to girls who eat grass. I warned you, but of course, you were the one who put mud on your face and made potions with mint leaves..."
Elphaba opened her mouth, then closed it again.
"Mrs. Clutch, I'm not Glinda," she said finally, suppressing her laughter with admirable discipline. Glinda was already as red as a ruby. She quickly stepped forward.
"No, no! She's my companion, Elphaba. I'm Glinda. Remember?"
The old woman blinked several times, looking from one to the other.
"Oh, really?" she replied with a hint of hesitation, narrowing her eyes. "Hmph. Well, this one looks more like Miss Glinda when she used to dye her eyebrows with her mother's lipstick."
"That never happened!" Glinda protested in a shrill voice, though she already knew that arguing with Clutch was like arguing with a marble wall: pointless and humiliating.
"Come in, come in, girls. Your parents are in the main hall. Lord and Lady Upland are... well, as always," she added with a sigh of resignation that had been there for decades.
Elphaba took Glinda's hand gently, barely a touch, but enough. Glinda swallowed and nodded, entering the house with her eyes lowered.
The two women crossed the foyer in silence, their footsteps echoing on the gleaming marble as the echoes of their arrival faded between towering columns and impossibly unnecessary chandeliers. Glinda, wearing the tightest smile she'd ever had to wear, moved her head from left to right as if searching for an emergency exit disguised as a flower vase. Her parents were nowhere to be seen, which was a relief… for now.
Elphaba walked behind her, her hands in the pockets of her black jacket, taking everything in with a mixture of disinterest and restrained amusement. The decor was so obscenely elegant it bordered on the parody: French tapestries, imported marble statuettes, and a crystal chandelier that could probably light up an entire stadium. She turned her head toward one of the walls and then… stopped dead.
"... What... the hell?" she muttered.
Glinda stopped, turning to her nervously.
"What's wrong? What did you see? Did you say 'demons'? Was it a rug? Was it the sculpture of Cupid in his underwear? What was it?"
And then she saw it.
Hanging on a wall in the main hall, framed with almost offensive exaggeration, a mural-sized portrait depicted a very young Glinda—maybe twelve—posing between her parents, all dressed in white and gold outfits and with serious, calculatedly noble expressions, as if they were the archdukes of an imaginary country. The background showed the family garden, but retouched with an unreal celestial light. A Latin inscription adorned the border of the bottom of the frame read: “Virtus, Stilus, Imperium.”
Elphaba brought her hand to her mouth, not in outrage but to stifle the laughter that rose like a wave. Glinda paled more than she thought physically possible.
“No… no, no, no,” she whispered. “That painting was in storage. Papa said it was ‘too much’ even for us. It was in a vault! It had to be in a vault!”
“Is this real?” Elphaba asked, a mixture of shock and disbelief. “Your parents made you pose like this? Who painted this? A Vatican artist on his day off?”
“It was for a special edition of Heritage and Style. I was eleven! My teeth were falling out!”
Glinda tried to explain, stammering out absurd justifications that died in her throat before they were born. But then, as if the universe were waiting for the perfect moment to destroy her completely, a voice echoed from the top of the stairs:
"Ah, I see you've found our little family gem."
They both turned. Descending the steps with a forced, theatrical elegance, as if gravity itself obeyed her out of respect, came Larena Upland.
She was wearing a white haute couture ensemble, with an ivory silk scarf perfectly knotted around her neck, a diamond brooch in the shape of a hummingbird, and heels that made not the slightest sound when she stepped. Her icy-blonde hair was styled in a perfect wave that looked sculpted by Swiss engineers. Every step she took seemed to say, "I'm above all this. Even you."
"Galinda," she said, with a measured smile and a voice as soft as fine glass, but as sharp as a blade. "What a... surprise."
Glinda swallowed.
"Hi, Mom. Meet..."
"Yes, yes, we'll get to that now," Larena interrupted, without taking her gaze from the painting. "We recently restored it. A piece so symbolic of family unity couldn't remain hidden. Tradition should be displayed, celebrated." Especially in these times when everyone believes they can have an identity without lineage.
Glinda wished the floor would swallow her up. Elphaba, on the other hand, smiled with the impudence of someone who knows she's free.
"Family unit?" she said, raising an eyebrow. "Is it before or after the auditions to enter the aristocracy?"
Glinda closed her eyes. Internally, she crumbled into a thousand pieces. Please, someone stop time. Or make the Vienna piano explode.
Larena stopped dead a few feet from them. The smile she was wearing froze for a split second, as if assessing whether what she'd just heard was a misunderstanding or a direct provocation. Then she forced a shallow laugh that died as quickly as it was born.
"Charming," she said neutrally. "Very... spontaneous. Like a caricature of herself."
She held out her hand, palm down, as if waiting to be kissed.
"Larena Upland." Dame of the Gloriannette Foundation, Cultural Ambassador of the European Aesthetics Consortium, and Vice President of the Symmetrical Gardens at Oz Park. And you are…?
Elphaba took her hand without kissing it, shook it with just enough force to make Larena feel she wasn't in control.
"Elphaba Thropp. No title, no consortium, no garden. Just a social studies teacher and… 'caricature,' depending on the eye."
Larena lowered her head slightly in recognition, though the flicker of discomfort in her eyes spoke volumes. Glinda remained as rigid as a statue, wishing she could jump back in time and avoid this moment.
"How interesting," Larena murmured. "Student. How… human."
Elphaba smiled even wider, like a wolf scenting fear.
"I try hard to sound like it."
Glinda made a nervous, coughing noise that no one believed.
Glinda straightened, regaining some composure after the diplomatic ambush she'd just experienced.
"Mom, we came because..." she began to explain with an awkward smile, but Larena interrupted her with an elegant but sharp gesture.
"Come with me to the kitchen, dear. I need a hand."
And without waiting for a reply, she turned and began marching down one of the side corridors, as if it were customary. Glinda froze for a second, frowning.
"The kitchen?" she muttered. "Since when does Mom come into the kitchen?"
She turned to Elphaba with an apology.
"Give me ten minutes. Or less. Or an eternity, depending on how much she wants to torture me. Just... Don't touch anything. Especially not the piano."
Elphaba gave her a mock nod.
"I promise not to summon the ghost of Mozart while you're gone." Elphaba shrugged, with a wry half-smile, and plopped down on one of the absurdly expensive sofas in the main hall.
Glinda hurried after her mother, trying to keep up with her down the hallway decorated with porcelain vases and family portraits staring in silent disapproval.
"Mom, listen to me. We came here because I need..."
"We'll talk later, Galinda," Larena replied without turning around. "First, the basics. There are things more important than your reasons... like a good pomodoro sauce."
As she reached the kitchen—a spotless, modern, and minimalist room that seemed designed more for a magazine than for actual use—Glinda was speechless.
Larena Upland, the woman who had given lectures on the art of delegating, was standing next to a huge pot, stirring with a wooden spoon with delicate but firm movements. Behind her, Clutch—dressed in her personalized chef's apron—did everything else: chopping, seasoning, cleaning, and occasionally correcting what her boss was doing with her eyes.
Glinda blinked.
"What in the name of foie gras is going on here?"
Larena didn't look at her.
"After your 'little friend's' little act at the gallery," she said, her tone neutral, almost cold. "I started to question some things. Those big words you used... about superficiality, vanity... among others. They made me feel..."
She searched for the word like someone glancing through a menu with distaste.
"...spoiled."
Glinda tilted her head, genuinely puzzled.
"And that's why you decided to... cook?"
"I'm not a marble statue, Glinda," Larena replied, turning slightly toward her with a serious expression. "I'm perfectly capable of engaging in ordinary tasks. I'm proving my worth beyond my titles. I think it's important to lead by example."
Clutch, without looking, gestured "of course, ma'am" as she removed an artisanal loaf of bread from the oven that she had probably made herself from scratch.
"That's... well, I guess," Glinda replied, crossing her arms. "Having new hobbies. Although for the umpteenth time, Milla isn't my friend. It was... Just a mistake, which I've moved on from. Besides, we talked about that."
Larena raised an eyebrow.
"Not as well-spoken as you think. I still have to process some things... like the way you nodded along to every vulgar remark that came out of her mouth. And now you bring a new... companion, unannounced, to a family dinner."
Glinda opened her mouth to explain, but her mother raised her spoon like a scepter.
"And before you start justifying, let me finish the reduction. If the sauce is ruined, I won't be ruined, but the balance of flavors will be. And that, Galinda, is a basic principle of life: sometimes what matters most is in the details that no one appreciates."
"And since when do you value the reduction of a sauce?" "Since I decided not to be a caricature of a rich woman without purpose," Larena said without any sarcasm, though her tone was so perfect it hurt.
Glinda slumped into one of the chairs, frustrated.
"Mom, Elphaba's here because she helped me with something very important. It has nothing to do with Milla, or rebellion, or hidden agendas. I just want you to be nice to her."
"And was she nice to me?" Larena asked without taking her eyes off the pot. "She's been sniping at me from the moment I came down the stairs. Bold, sure, but not exactly diplomatic."
"And didn't you start by hanging a giant portrait of me, complete with a metaphorical crown?" Glinda countered.
"Tradition, my dear. What you call shame, others would call legacy."
A tense silence fell. Clutch approached and very gently lowered the heat, gesturing with his eyes to Glinda as if to say, "Breathe, child."
Larena finally turned to her daughter and, without losing that icy perfection, said,
"Please finish setting the table. Then we can talk about your new friendships and your new ideas about the world."
And, as if nothing had happened, she went back to stirring the pot.
While in the kitchen, Glinda repeated to herself like a Zen mantra that she wasn't going to explode, she wasn't going to scream, she wasn't going to rip the ladle out of her mother's hand and stick it in the wall, Elphaba began her own tour of Upland Manor.
Barely seven minutes had passed, and she already felt like her wait had lasted longer than the entire last school year she'd worked. And although she didn't usually lose patience easily, her boredom—mixed with a natural tendency toward biting curiosity—led her to leave her place in the living room.
The hallways were wide, absurdly wide. The carpets seemed made so no human or animal sound could ever be heard. The walls were plastered with portraits of Glinda: Glinda with medals, Glinda with crowns, Glinda at the piano, Glinda on horseback, Glinda receiving flowers from poor girls that looked like something out of a charity commercial.
"What is this... a visual biography or a cult?" Elphaba murmured, unable to suppress her crooked smile.
Then she saw a room with glass cases filled with trophies bearing plaques with titles like Best Presentation in Luxury Themed Gardening and Participation Award for Regional Floral Packaging.
"This... this is going to be useful. Forever."
She continued walking and found a life-size painting of Glinda as a teenager, dressed as a fencer, with a falcon on her arm. Below it was written: "Virtue, Courage, Victory." Elphaba nearly choked with laughter.
"Who paints a portrait of themselves like that at fourteen?"
And then she heard it.
Zzzzzzuuuuuummmm... PLOK!
An arrow streaked through the air from the end of the hallway and slammed into a distant target. Elphaba stopped dead in her tracks, stunned, just as a male voice—enthusiastic and completely out of place in this museum-worthy setting—exclaimed,
"Was that one a close call, huh?! A close call!"
The voice came from a man with thinning white hair, a matching beard, and a beaming expression. He was wearing traditional training clothes mixed with Olympic archery accessories, as if someone had tried to create a clothing line called Retired Warrior™.
Elphaba recognized him immediately: it was Highmuster Upland, the family patriarch. She'd seen his face in the magazines, usually smiling next to a wife who seemed more interested in avoiding a smile than in smiling it.
“Oh, hey you!” the man said, lowering his bow. “Excuse me, but could you do me a favor and take a look at where it went this time? I’m going all in on that one.”
Elphaba blinked, then cautiously approached the target. She eyed the arrow lodged just inches from the bull’s-eye.
“Uh… that’s pretty close, I’d say. Almost dead center.”
“‘Almost’?!” he repeated as if he’d just been told he’d invented the wheel. “Oh my God! Not this time. Always to the left. Always. It’s got to be the shoulder.”
He turned around again, his expression mock-tragedy in his face, and added, twisting his arm dramatically, “Riding accident. Little jump, clumsy horse, even clumsier ego. Nothing serious, except for this wayward deflection that ruins every damn arrow. But I’m not complaining!” At least I didn't end up with the bow embedded in my head like the ambassador from Raxor.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, amused.
"Is that literal?"
"Oh, completely. Though I'm not sure if it was the bow or a ceremonial spear. In any case, I learned that if you're going to practice sport mounted on an animal more fearful than you, you should do it without a foreign audience."
Elphaba laughed, to her surprise. Highmuster seemed to speak with an infectious mix of enthusiasm and unfiltered sincerity.
As the next arrow was carefully nocked into the bow, Highmuster continued to enthusiastically recount how, on a diplomatic visit, he accidentally mistook a nation's anthem for a tavern song and ended up receiving a merit badge "for charm." Suddenly, almost as if the situation had only just clicked, he asked, "So tell me, young lady, who exactly are you?" Elphaba, who had been enjoying herself more than she would have admitted out loud, straightened her posture slightly and replied politely,
"Elphaba Thropp. It's a pleasure to meet you."
But just as the man raised his bow once more, Elphaba tilted her head and studied him closely.
"Excuse me," she said, moving closer. "You're right, there's a deviation in your shoulder, but if you aim slightly to the right and relax your wrist as you release..."
Highmuster looked at her like someone receiving a divine revelation.
"Like that?"
"Exactly."
The arrow flew, traced a perfect arc... and plok, it struck dead center.
"By the candy of Olympus!" Highmuster exclaimed with childlike glee. "IT HITS THE BULL'S TARGET!"
He turned to Elphaba and took her hand excitedly.
"That was brilliant, brilliant. Where did you learn that? Are you a professional archer? A reformed spy? Or were you trained by Amazons?"
Elphaba smiled modestly.
"Not at all. I teach it to my students... I tell them if they want to throw paper balls at each other, at least do it properly." Highmuster's eyes widened, even more fascinated now.
"Professor?! I love teachers! They always rescue me when I'm about to die due to some careless disregard for their advice. What do you teach? Quantum physics? Combat philosophy?"
"Social studies. At Nevermore Academy..."
And then, as he said that, he tensed slightly. Not because he was ashamed of his title, but because of what was coming next. She hesitated for only a second—just enough for Highmuster to notice the pause—and added casually,
"A close friend of Glinda's."
Highmuster raised an eyebrow. Just a second. Then he smiled tenderly again.
"Glinda? You came with her? Wow! Then you must be someone special. My little girl doesn't usually have 'close friends.' She has admirers, yes. Former classmates who owe her favors, too. And people who want to be around for... reasons." He made an ambiguous gesture. "But you... you seem like a real person."
Before Elphaba could react—and perhaps try to correct or qualify that last sentence—a familiar voice burst forth energetically from the end of the corridor.
"Popsicle!"
Glinda came running in, her dress billowing behind her like a torn heroine's cape. Within seconds, she threw herself at her father in an exaggerated, almost childlike hug, as if she had suddenly transformed into a six-year-old. "My little Glint!" Highmuster said, briefly lifting her from the ground as if she weighed nothing. "But look at you, you're even more radiant than last time! Has anything changed?"
"No, I'm just happy to see you!" Glinda replied, smiling as she fondly stroked his beard. "And you were already telling Elphaba your stories?"
"Oh yes! And let me tell you, this young lady is formidable. She saved me from yet another humiliation with my personal dartboard. And she's a teacher, too!"
Glinda turned to Elphaba with a look that said, "Have you already charmed him without realizing it?" but she only said, "Yes... she tends to do that."
"And she comes from Nevermore!" Highmuster added. "How about that? A poetic institution! I love this. Why didn't you tell me you were bringing some interesting people this time?"
Glinda gave her a mock-offended smile.
"I always bring interesting people!"
"Glinda, you once brought a 'spiritual influencer' who communicated with plants. He spoke to me for half an hour through a potted plant."
Elphaba couldn't contain her laughter.
"In my defense!" Glinda said, raising her hands. "He said the ficus had opinions!"
"And very judicious ones, I must say," Highmuster joked.
The atmosphere was filled with a strange, welcoming warmth, so alien to Larena's constant judgment that Elphaba almost felt she was in another universe within the same house.
But just as Glinda opened her mouth to steer the conversation back to its original topic, Larena's voice rang out from afar, its pitch slicing through the air:
"Glinda! Did you leave without cleaning the cutting board?"
Elphaba and Highmuster exchanged a glance. He rolled his eyes with a resigned smile.
"The queen calls, damsel." You'd better go before I start passing judgment.
"Ugh." Glinda sighed and looked at Elphaba. "Don't go. Honestly. This will only take two centuries."
"I'll wait for you here, 'close friend,'" Elphaba replied with a smile.
And as Glinda walked away, Highmuster murmured softly to Elphaba, conspiratorially:
"I'll tell you something, young Elphaba. Whatever it is you and my daughter have... I like it. You're clearly not the type to be intimidated by gilded mirrors or three-syllable names."
Elphaba, unsure how to respond to such openness, just nodded with a gentle smile.
"Nor by the statues of teenagers with falcons."
Highmuster burst out laughing so loudly that the arrow he'd begun nocking fell to the floor.
Seconds later, as Glinda and Larena's screams began to rise to a crescendo worthy of a tragic opera, Highmuster and Elphaba found themselves in the living room, surrounded by exquisite decor that looked untouched in centuries... save for a medieval sword mounted above the fireplace, with Christmas lights surrounding it.
"Wine?" Highmuster asked, holding up an elegant bottle. "I promise this one has more grapes than glamour."
"Of course," Elphaba agreed with a faint smile.
As the wine was poured into glasses that probably cost more than her apartment, a high-pitched scream cut the air from the kitchen.
"I don't need your approval, Mother! I already have half the country's!" “And the other half thinks your dress looks like cotton candy in crisis!”
Highmuster gave a deep laugh, shaking his head with resigned affection.
“Old gods, those two… I miss them when they’re far away. And then, when they’re near, I remember why I miss them.”
Elphaba couldn’t help but laugh too, but in a more cautious tone. She studied Highmuster for a moment, then remarked,
“I must say… you and Larena… you’re very different.”
Highmuster raised his glass as if toasting that observation.
“Guilty! Yes, completely different. She’s…” he searched for the word as he swirled the wine in his glass, “intensity, precision, fire. And I… well, I’m more the type who wonders if griffons actually wanted to be tamed or just wanted a scratch behind their wings.”
Elphaba raised an amused eyebrow.
“That would explain the flashing sword.”
“Doesn’t it?” "Glinda hates it," Highmuster said excitedly. "She says it's 'an aesthetic insult.' But Larena still hasn't removed it. I suppose that's her way of saying she still tolerates me."
They both laughed, and then Highmuster, still smiling, lowered his voice a little.
"But yes, we are different. Very different. And that was what attracted me to her. When I first met her, she was giving a speech at a ceremony so tense that even the tapestries seemed to hold their breath. And there she was: steady, confident, impeccable... and so sure she was right that it seemed impossible not to fall in love."
"And you?" Elphaba asked, gently interested.
"I tripped on the carpet, spilled a cocktail on an ambassador, and yet she still invited me to dinner." He sighed with a genuine tenderness that Elphaba hadn't seen in him until that moment. "Sometimes opposites don't clash. They complement each other. One lets down their hair, the other combs it again." One lights the flame, the other keeps it from burning down the house.
Elphaba looked down at her glass, silent for a few seconds. She couldn't help but think of another "opposite" relationship in her life. One that also made her stumble, question... and feel. One that bore the name of another Upland.
"Funny..." she murmured unintentionally.
Highmuster gave her a mischievous look, but said nothing. Instead, he took another sip and casually changed the subject.
"Did Glinda tell you about the time she tried to ride a goat... and ended up being carried on a stretcher to the infirmary?" he said in an excited voice.
From the kitchen, Glinda's voice penetrated walls and dishes:
"DON'T TELL HER ANY STORIES ABOUT ME!"
Elphaba smiled, turning slightly toward the kitchen.
"Too late, dear. She already said 'goat' and 'stretcher.'"
"TREASON!"
"You'll see when I tell you about the part about the duck bandage!" Highmuster added between bursts of laughter.
Elphaba let out an honest laugh, one she hadn't allowed herself in a long time. Despite the chaos in the kitchen, the trials, the tensions... there was something about that conversation that felt like home. Imperfect, loud, but genuine.
The laughter slowly faded, like the echo of a memory that doesn't want to completely disappear. Highmuster remained silent for a few seconds, playing with the rim of his glass, as if searching the wine for the courage for what he was going to say. His eyes, always so lively, became more serious, more human.
"Hey, Elphaba..." he finally said, his voice sounding lower, almost fearful. "Since you're a social studies teacher and... well, a close friend of Glinda's"—he paused briefly, with a smile that denoted respect—"I wanted to ask you something." Something that... maybe I shouldn't, but...
Elphaba looked at him silently, barely nodding.
"It's about this... big renovation project," he continued, choosing each word carefully, as if afraid of treading on shaky ground. "The one Glinda's so involved in. The one in the city. The one Shiz.Corp is pushing with the senator."
Elphaba said nothing. Her pulse began to race.
"Look, I know Glinda wouldn't be involved in something like this if she didn't believe in it. At least... I want to think so. She's in all those interviews, defending the project, talking about 'urban revolution,' 'smart inclusion,' 'private sustainability,' and all those trendy buzzwords that sound like music to investors."
Elphaba forced a smile. The same words she'd heard dozens of times. Empty words wrapped in marketing.
“But sometimes…” Highmuster continued, his voice even lower. “Sometimes I feel like there’s something she’s not telling me. I don’t know, Elphaba. I’m her father. I know her. I’ve seen her glow with passion and I’ve seen her smile out of obligation. And lately… I don’t know. That smile isn’t hers.”
Elphaba swallowed. The wine no longer tasted of anything.
“I know that you… you know what she’s involved in,” Highmuster added with a mixture of hope and fear. “I know that you understand all of this… Do you think… she’s okay? Is she happy with this? Does she truly believe in what she’s doing?”
A lump formed in Elphaba’s throat. It was as if all the air in the room had been replaced by a single question. Was he telling her the truth? Was he telling her that his daughter was caught in a dirty, corrupt power game, manipulated by executives and politicians to portray an image she didn’t share? Was she telling him that Glinda had chosen to sacrifice herself, to lie, to smile in the chambers while her soul shrank… just to protect her?
The thought of breaking the heart of this kind man, who spoke of swords decorated with lights and duck-shaped bandages… seemed unbearable.
She lowered her gaze. She felt his words were a minefield.
"Glinda is… strong," he said gently. "Very strong. More than many people realize. Sometimes… so strong that she forgets she can ask for help."
Highmuster nodded slowly, a quiet sadness in his eyes.
"I thought so." He sighed. Then, his voice a little lower. "Sometimes I wish she didn't have to carry so much. That she would allow herself to not be perfect."
Elphaba gripped her glass tightly.
"Me too," she murmured.
They both fell silent. No more words were needed. Elphaba hadn't spilled the beans, but she had confirmed enough. Highmuster knew that. And even though she didn't have all the pieces, she understood that her daughter was in the middle of something difficult... and she wasn't alone.
From the kitchen, a shout from Larena interrupted the moment:
"Glinda, for the love of decorum, you can't compare a multimillion-dollar bidding procession with a charity fashion show!"
And Glinda's voice, exasperated, responded:
"Why not?!! In both cases, there are people with more ego than talent, and they all want to be in the picture!"
Highmuster let out a sad but warm laugh.
"My little velvet revolution..."
Elphaba looked at him. That mixture of pride, sadness, and love that crossed Highmuster's face made one thing clear to her: he already knew more than he was letting on. And yet, he was there. Supporting. Loving. Hoping she was okay.
Perhaps, Elphaba thought, not all parents need to know everything to be there when they're needed most.
Before the shouting in the kitchen reached decibels worthy of a street opera, Highmuster stood up with a resigned sigh, as if he knew he had to fulfill his role as peacemaker. He took a last sip from his glass, set the wine aside, and, before leaving the room, turned to Elphaba with a warm, almost paternal smile.
"Hey," he said, in that calm voice he used to close important moments. "I like you, Elphaba. I really do."
She looked at him, a little surprised by the sudden sincerity.
"You seem like a nice girl. And a good friend, too. I'm glad Glinda has someone like you around." There was a pause. "Honestly... I like you a lot more than that other redheaded friend I had."
Elphaba went completely still.
"Redhead?" she asked, trying to sound casual, even though her stomach did a sudden lurch.
"Yeah, that one... what was her name?" "Oh, never mind. I didn't trust her. Too smiley. One of those people who smile with their teeth but not with their eyes, you know?" She gave a short laugh, as if it carried no weight. "Anyway, excuse me for a moment... I must calm the storm."
And with that, she left for the kitchen, where the battle between mother and daughter still raged.
Elphaba was left alone in the living room, the echo of those last words repeating in her head. "That other redheaded friend." Something inside her tensed. Until that moment, she had believed—no, she was sure—that Glinda was telling her everything. After everything they had been through together. After all the risks, the confessions, the scary nights, and the difficult decisions. Was there a piece of the puzzle she didn't know?
Elphaba tried to eat, but she could barely swallow. Her mind was whirring like a broken blender: the mention of the mysterious “red-haired friend,” the secrets of the renovation project, Larena’s questioning glance across the table. Although she tried to remain composed, it wasn’t easy to hide the slight tremor in her fingers when she picked up the fork, nor the forced smile she offered whenever Glinda looked at her, visibly worried.
And then the parade began.
“So, Elphaba…” Larena said with a perfectly rehearsed smile, as she served another portion of salad. “Where exactly are you from?”
Elphaba blinked, still a little lost, but managed to murmur,
“Gillikin. Well, near there.”
“Oh, right,” Larena said, as if that meant anything. “And what did you do for a living before becoming a teacher?” Before Elphaba could respond, Glinda spoke quickly:
"She worked at Shiz.Corp with me, Mama, in charge of several projects and divisions. She has an impressive resume, Mama, you know that. I told you we worked together."
"Oh, yes," Larena said, as if she'd just remembered, though her tone sounded more inquisitive than genuinely interested. "And how did you meet? It was at the office, wasn't it?"
"Yes," Glinda said, more dryly now. "I mentioned it in that email."
But Larena didn't seem satisfied. She turned directly to Elphaba.
"And your family? Are you still in touch with them?"
Silence. Elphaba lowered her gaze. Her hand tightened on the tablecloth. This was a subject even Glinda handled with great care, because she knew the pain and complexity behind it.
"Mama, stop," Glinda intervened, this time firmly. "It's none of your business."
"Sorry, Glinda, I'm just trying to get to know you better," Larena replied, her tone offended, though each word felt like a perfectly calculated needle.
Then came the final blow.
"So tell me, what's the real reason for this surprise visit? Because, pardon my saying so, but you haven't set foot here in months, Glinda. So forgive me if I assume this isn't just a girls' getaway..."
The sentence hung in the air like a veiled threat. Elphaba felt the entire air in the room thicken. Glinda's father stared uncomfortably into his glass. Glinda pursed her lips, furious.
And just when it seemed the situation was about to explode, Elphaba took a deep breath. She looked up, and with a calm she didn't even know she possessed, spoke clearly:
"We came because we need your help, Mrs. Upland."
Larena looked at her, surprised.
"My help?"
"Yes," Elphaba continued, her voice firm. We're trying to save a place. A neighborhood. The renewal project the government is funding... and Shiz.Corp is collaborating on... is destroying it. And Glinda and I... well..." she looked at Glinda for a second, as if asking permission, "...have been working quietly to try to stop it."
There was a thick silence, as if all the cutlery had frozen in midair.
Larena narrowed her eyes.
"'Stop it'? But why?"
Highmuster cleared his throat, uncomfortably.
"Larena, please..."
"No, I want to understand," she said, looking back at Elphaba. "Are you saying you came here to convince me to use my connections to stop a project approved by the Senate and City Council?"
Elphaba looked her straight in the eye.
"I'm saying we came because that project is a facade. Because what's being done in the name of progress is eviction, cover-up, and corruption. Because Glinda knows it." Because you are a powerful family. And because… if anyone in this city is going to listen… it's you.
Elphaba knew she had just lit a fuse. But for the first time in days, she felt honest. Clear. True to herself.
The room fell completely silent. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the wall.
And Glinda, with a mixture of relief and fear in her eyes, simply took Elphaba's hand under the table.
Larena pressed her lips together, visibly indignant, as if she couldn't accept what she had just heard. Her gaze fixed on Glinda with a mixture of disbelief and suppressed rage. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could utter a single word, it was Highmuster who spoke.
"Glinda…" he said in a low but firm voice, looking directly at his daughter. "Is it true?"
Glinda froze. For a moment, she seemed small, as if the weight of everything she had carried became physical in that instant. He looked at his father, then at Elphaba, and finally lowered his gaze.
"Yes," he whispered first. Then he raised his face and said it more forcefully. "Yes, it's true."
Larena gave a dry, incredulous laugh.
"What are you talking about?"
But Highmuster didn't look at her. He only had eyes for Glinda.
"So tell me," he continued, his voice growing tense. "What is the truth behind the project?"
Glinda swallowed. Her throat was dry, but there was no turning back. She took a deep breath.
"The project is not what it seems. All the talk of progress, of modernization, the sustainability hype... is just a facade. In reality, it's a maneuver for control. For ideological, social, and cultural cleansing. The senator and his circle are using Shiz.Corp to redesign the city in their image. Literally.
Larena shook her head.
"That's absurd."
"No, Mother," Glinda said, turning to her. "It isn't. The plan is to eliminate areas that 'don't align' with what they call Emerald City's new identity. Entire neighborhoods, historic sites, queer spaces, artistic spaces, dissident spaces—everything will disappear. Including Ozdust and the entire area around it. They want to turn it into a themed shopping mall. 'Inspired by the past, focused on the future.' The senator's words.
The silence was as thick as the night outside. Larena breathed heavily, while Highmuster kept staring at his daughter. Disappointment and concern etched in every line of his face.
"So," he said, his voice even softer, "if you knew all this, if you knew what they were doing... why you? Why are you the public face of this project?"
Glinda froze. Elphaba felt her hand tighten again.
"Father..." Glinda began. "Because I had no choice. Because if it wasn't me, it would be someone worse. Because... because they knew the city listens to me, respects me. They put me there to sell the project. And I... agreed. I thought I could control it from the inside. I thought maybe I could change it."
Glinda continued to explain, her voice both firm and shaky, the lump in her throat threatening to shut her out. But then she stopped. The silence was sudden, thick.
She lowered her gaze for a second, took a breath... and spoke the final truth.
"I... I agreed to play along," she confessed. "I did it so they wouldn't hurt Elphaba... That was the deal."
The room froze.
Elphaba felt her breath catch in her throat. Larena and Highmuster's eyes widened. No one said anything for a few seconds. But they didn't need to. The weight of what she'd said was brutal, devastating.
Then Larena stood up slowly, as if Glinda's words were poison she could no longer hear.
"This is absurd," she said with a mixture of disgust and disappointment, her voice sharp as a blade. "You... an Upland woman... sold out to a cause you don't even support? You lied to everyone, even to us, even to me...?"
Glinda stared at her, paralyzed.
"For her? For just anyone?"
The word pierced the air like a poisoned arrow.
Elphaba said nothing. She couldn't. She just felt as if the ground had opened beneath her feet. Glinda clenched her fists. Tears burned in her eyes, but she wouldn't let them out.
"Mom..."
"No!" Larena raised her voice. "I'm sick of your excuses. You don't know what you've done. You've ruined our name, our reputation, everything we've built... on a whim." Why? Out of rebellion? Out of shame for who you are?
"I know perfectly well who I am!" Glinda burst out, her voice cracking with suppressed rage. "And that's precisely why I did it. Because I wasn't going to stand idly by and watch what I care about be destroyed."
"And you don't care about us?" Larena countered, staring at her. "Your father? Me? Our family?"
Glinda was breathing heavily.
"She's not your family," Larena said, as if it were the final blow. "We are."
That was when everything broke.
Glinda stood up slowly. She was trembling. Not from fear. From fury. From pain.
"You have no idea what family means," she said, in an icy whisper that rumbled like thunder. Don't talk to me about what I chose, because I chose it precisely because you never knew how to choose me... or the one I truly love.
And without another word, without looking back, Glinda turned and left the room.
Larena, on the other hand, glared at Elphaba. "I hope you're happy... you destroyed a family." And with her chin held high and her pride intact, she left, walking firmly as if she didn't want anyone to notice the trembling in her hands.
Elphaba stood there. Alone. Sitting. Not knowing what to do with the knot in her chest. Unable to erase the sound of that poisonous word: anyone.
In front of her, Highmuster remained seated, his elbows resting on his knees, staring at the floor. He looked defeated. Like a man who had just seen his familiar world crumble.
"I'm sorry..." Elphaba finally said, her voice soft, barely audible.
He didn't respond immediately. He just took a deep breath.
"It's too late for you to return to the city," he murmured. "The guest room is ready. You can stay tonight."
Elphaba felt her eyes water. Despite everything... there was still warmth in those words.
"Thank you," she whispered.
She was about to stand up when Highmuster said, almost as if thinking aloud, "Glinda really cares for you... She really does. I've never seen her fight so hard for someone."
Elphaba turned to look at him. She stood still for a moment. Then she lowered her head and, in a small voice thick with emotion, replied, "I know."
Elphaba walked through the long, tidy hallways of Upland House as if she were treading on forbidden territory, as if with each step she drew a little closer to the center of a life that wasn't hers. Her boots tapped softly on the white marble, oblivious to this world of gilt moldings, antique-framed portraits, and shimmering stained-glass windows that tinged the corners with a warm, almost sacred glow. On the walls, family photographs silently told the story of a life woven between affection, privilege, and pride.
She saw an image of Glinda, as a child, riding a white pony with a pink bow in her mane. Another, at what must have been some school gala, dressed in a robe of honor and with a smile that barely fit on her face as she hugged her parents. There were more: portraits of vacations, birthdays, sunny afternoons in gardens where everything seemed perfect. A timeline of love and belonging, of deep roots and tall branches.
Elphaba felt a knot in her stomach she didn't know how to undo. It was an old ache, one she thought she had under control, but seeing it captured on these walls made it hurt again like it had in her childhood. She never had that. Her childhood was a collection of closed doors, avoided glances, harsh words, and silences that lingered like punishments. She didn't have a photo of her hugging her father. She couldn't remember a single time anyone had looked at her with that kind of pride.
And now... now she was the one who had torn all that away from Glinda? Had she, with her love that didn't fit, that made her uncomfortable, that broke molds and family narratives, come to steal that warmth? Elphaba stopped in front of a family portrait: Glinda, about fourteen years old, between her parents. Everyone was smiling. Everyone looked so happy. She felt the air thicken.
Then, without thinking, something drew her. A half-open door at the end of the hall. She approached as if answering a silent knock. It was a room.
She gently pushed it, and as she opened it, she felt like she was entering a time capsule.
Everything in that room screamed Glinda's adolescence. The walls were a dusty pink, decorated with hand-painted flowers in the corners. On the shelves, untouched stuffed animals were neatly arranged. A glass cabinet displayed school medals, public speaking trophies, and festival participation plaques. The vanity was filled with empty perfume bottles, neatly lined cosmetics, and locked diaries. There were posters, necklaces hanging aesthetically from golden hooks, and a glitter frame that read, "Shine on, my star," handwritten by her mother, dated her fifteenth birthday.
Elphaba moved forward slowly, as if each object were sacred. She touched the corner of an old annotated book with her fingers and saw a music box that, when opened, played a melody that seemed terribly fragile. Everything was perfect. Everything was foreign.
It was Glinda's life. A life where nothing about her fit.
Elphaba sat up in bed, very slowly, not even daring to lean forward completely. Everything in that room was like a dream she'd never been able to have, like an emotional language that was completely unknown to her. She didn't feel part of that world. She couldn't give it to him. And then, for the first time in a long time, she hesitated.
Did she really have the right to be there? To want to be part of a story that wasn't hers? Had it been a mistake... to love her?
"You're in my room," said a voice behind her, calm but heavy with something painful.
Elphaba turned immediately. Standing in the doorway was Glinda. Her Glinda. Though not her usual self. Her dress was slightly wrinkled, her makeup washed away by tears, and her hair loose and disheveled. Her eyes were red-rimmed and wet, not from weakness, but from an emotional storm that had yet to fully pass.
Elphaba stood up instantly, uncomfortable, guilty.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "The door was ajar... and..."
"It doesn't matter," Glinda interrupted, not harshly, but not gently either. She closed the door behind her and entered. They stared at each other for a moment that seemed eternal.
"I didn't know this was..." Elphaba said, scanning the room. "It's as if... time had stood still."
"My mother insisted that we not change anything." I guess I wanted a version of myself I could always control.
Elphaba lowered her gaze. The silence returned. It wasn't awkward, it was thick, filled with unspoken thoughts.
"I didn't want to destroy this," Elphaba murmured finally, her voice breaking. "I didn't want to take this away from you. Your family... this home. All this stuff I never had, Glinda. I didn't want to be the reason you lost it."
Glinda approached, her steps slow, measuring her own pain.
"Do you really believe that?" she asked with a mixture of disbelief and sadness. "Do you think what happened was your fault?"
"I don't know," Elphaba whispered. "I just know I saw you... as a child, smiling in those photos, protected, loved. And then today... I heard your mother speak to you. How she... said all that. And it was me who caused it."
Glinda stopped in front of her, and in a sudden gesture, took her hands. She held them tightly.
"You didn't destroy anything." Her voice was firm now, though it was still trembling inside. "What happened today isn't your fault. This... this only showed what they never wanted to see. What I always knew. That true love has no right shape. That sometimes you have to fight, even against what you love most, for what you know is right."
"But it hurt," Elphaba said, unable to stop herself, tears beginning to fall. "It hurt watching you choose between your mother and me. To feel that... that maybe you chose me out of pity, out of guilt, out of..."
Glinda hugged her. Tight. With her whole body. As if she knew words weren't enough.
"I chose you because I love you, Elphaba. Not out of pity. Not out of guilt. Not out of defiance. Because I love you. And if that means leaving behind everything I thought I should be, I will. Because with you, I am who I want to be. And that's worth more than any perfect photo on a wall." Elphaba, between sobs, hugged her too... and kissed her with equal affection and passion. In the middle of that untouched room, amid dusty trophies and youthful necklaces, two women found their true selves, one that didn't fit into molds or expectations, but that burned with an honesty impossible to break.
Elphaba still had her face hidden in Glinda's neck, inhaling that sweet scent that always made her feel out of time, when she felt the blonde tremble gently, not from crying this time, but from something more mischievous, more playful. She pulled away just enough to see her smile with a spark she hadn't seen all night.
"I'm going to tell you a secret..." Glinda whispered, a hint of mischief in her voice, brushing her lips. "But you can't laugh. Well... not too much."
Elphaba frowned, intrigued.
"Now am I the one who has to promise not to laugh?" Glinda laughed softly, stood up with a graceful surge, and took her hand.
"Come on. I want to show you something. But promise me you'll never tell. Not even if they torture you with potions or mismatched designer clothes."
Elphaba pretended to think about it.
"Tough decision. But a deal."
Glinda walked toward the enormous wardrobe in her room, that closet that seemed to have more square footage than some university libraries. She opened the double doors as if revealing the entrance to a hidden world. And, to Elphaba's surprise, it did. Behind the shelves of perfectly hung ball gowns by color, a narrow passageway appeared, lined with pink curtains and warm, heart-shaped lights.
"Is this...?" Elphaba asked, her eyes narrowed.
"My real room," Glinda replied with a guilty little smile. "Well, the real Glinda's room. Or, at least, the one I used to be, before I learned to pretend. I never thought I'd bring anyone in here. But if anyone should know... it would be you."
Elphaba entered slowly, as if exploring a sacred relic. The small, hidden room felt like a secret sanctuary built by an overly emotional, unsupervised teenager. Everything was excessive, adorable, absurd. The walls were covered with musical posters, fairy lights, magazine clippings, and collages where the words "destiny," "sparkle," and "magic" were repeated ad nauseam. There were stuffed animals wearing crowns, small mirrors with sayings written in pink marker, and a sequined star-shaped cushion that said "Follow Your Sparkle." In one corner, an antique glitter-decorated radio was still playing, playing romantic melodies as if time had stopped.
Elphaba gasped. Not out of mockery, but from the immense tenderness that filled her. This was Glinda. Not the politician, not the public speaker, not the perfect daughter. But the daydreaming girl who believed in happy endings and hid her vulnerability behind glitter and filters.
They both sat on the floor between pastel pillows, like two teenagers in the middle of a forbidden sleepover.
"Do you have any idea how hard I tried to keep this from happening?" "Glinda said, leaning back with an amused sigh. "It's ridiculous, isn't it?"
Elphaba looked at her with a mischievous smile.
"Ridiculous is a mild word. This is... this is the most adorable shrine to self-absorption I've ever seen."
"Hey!" Glinda protested, giving her a gentle shove. "I built this when I was thirteen! Thirty percent drama, seventy percent glitter!"
"And one hundred percent you," Elphaba replied in a lower voice, now stroking one of the cushions as if she were touching something fragile.
Glinda looked down, embarrassed but smiling.
"I never brought anyone here. Ever. Not even my closest friends. I was afraid they'd laugh... or think I was immature, silly, too intense. But you... you already know the worst parts of me. And yet you're here." "With pleasure," Elphaba said, her smile softening. "In fact, I think I'm getting attached to that sequined star."
Glinda laughed, and the sound was like a burst of bells. She shrank in on herself, covering her face in embarrassment.
"You can't get attached to her. I gave her a name!"
"Oh, yeah?" Elphaba asked, raising an eyebrow. "Which one?"
"Celestina."
Elphaba burst out laughing, making Glinda nearly fall to the floor in embarrassment.
"I told you not to laugh!"
"You handed it to me!" Elphaba exclaimed, wiping away a tear of laughter. "Celestina... my god, this is better than any speech you've ever given in interviews."
"Stop it!" Glinda said between giggles and protests. I'm going to throw you out of my secret sanctuary for disrespect.
"Too late," Elphaba whispered, staring at her intently. "I'm already in. Out of this room. And out of you."
The words hung in the air for a moment, more powerful than any joke, more sincere than any previous confession. Glinda moved closer slowly, until she was barely inches from her face.
"Thanks for laughing," she said finally. "It's good to do this again."
They kissed, this time without tears, without guilt, without pasts weighing on their backs. Just two girls in love in a secret hideaway, building a new memory in a corner of the world where, for the first time, they could be who they truly were.
Elphaba settled among the cushions like a curious cat, tangled in the soft warmth of the secret hideaway, when something caught her eye: a brightly colored notebook rested on a low shelf, almost hidden beneath a pair of decorative pens and a glittery picture frame. It was small, with pearly rainbow hardcovers and a broken lock hanging uselessly from the spine, as if Glinda herself had forced it one night of emotional urgency.
"What's this?" Elphaba asked, turning the notebook over in her hands as the warm light in the room highlighted the iridescent reflections.
Glinda rolled her eyes, as if her naked soul had been captured.
"Oh, no! No... that wasn't meant for you to see."
But it was too late. Elphaba had opened the notebook with that half-smile she only showed when she was enjoying a compromising situation too much. The first pages were full of neat calligraphy, with hearts on the i's, marginal drawings of bows, flowing dresses, and impossibly romantic character names: Lady Aurelia, Captain Lysandra, Evelyne of the Night.
"Stories?" Elphaba asked, flipping through them slowly, one eyebrow raised and a muted smile on her face.
Glinda slumped back, covering her face with her hands.
"My love stories. Not real ones, of course. I wrote them when I was… I don't know, twelve, fifteen. I couldn't tell them to anyone, so I hid them there."
Elphaba flipped through them some more, her expression thoughtful, leaving behind titles like Passions in the Ivory Tower or The Secret of the Sea Maiden.
"You know what isn't in here?" she said finally. "Men. Not one."
Glinda lowered her hands slowly. A shadow of understanding—or perhaps forgotten revelation—crossed her eyes.
"There weren't any, were there? That's why I couldn't show them to anyone; these silly little writings were the only way I could express my true desires." “Victorian ladies who run away together in carriages. Pirate captains who fall for maids in disguise. Shadowhunters and runaway princesses…” Elphaba smirked. “You clearly have a type.”
Glinda took the notebook with trembling hands, as if she’d just rescued a part of herself from the ashes of time. Her eyes moved from page to page, as if reading something for the first time. But it wasn’t new. It was old. It was hers.
“I always thought it was just fantasies. That I was playing. That it was the aesthetic, the emotion…” she murmured, her voice suddenly more fragile. “But lately… I’ve been having dreams. I dreamed of kisses that woke me with my heart racing. Of touches I couldn’t explain. And in every one, there was…”
Elphaba said nothing. She just reached out and ran her fingers over Glinda’s wrist, giving her space, but being there. Present. Real. True.
Glinda sighed, exhaling something other than air: years of confusion, of sweet repression disguised as glitter. And just as the room seemed filled with a revealing silence, Elphaba let out a sound that broke the tension like a needle in a balloon.
"What's this?" she asked in amusement, pulling a clear plastic box from under a pile of cushions.
Glinda looked up... and gasped.
"NO! NOT THAT BOX!" she yelled, lunging toward it desperately. "That's my box of shame!"
Too late. Elphaba had already snapped a picture.
"Is that you dressed as a giant carrot in a school play?!" she cackled. "What the hell... is that? An alien... princess? With little antennae?!"
"It was for an interdisciplinary project!" Glinda shrieked, red as a tomato. "Give me that right now, Elphaba!" "Oh, no, no. This is art," said the witch, holding up another photo. "And this one! It's you dressed as a 'disco fairy,' dancing with a human Christmas tree!"
Glinda covered her face with both hands, unable to contain her laughter laced with pure panic.
"I'm going to die! I'm going to die in this room, and you'll be left alone with my corpse and my ridiculous photos!"
Elphaba was already crying with laughter, sprawled on her back among the cushions, the photos scattered around like a magic deck of aesthetic disasters. Glinda tried to gather them up hastily, but Elphaba snatched them away, mockingly.
"Don't worry, Glinda. I'll still love you, even if you were Carrot of the Year in the school play."
"It wasn't a carrot! It was a metaphor for natural vitality!"
Between laughter and tears of laughter, Elphaba was stirring the bottom of the box when her fingers touched something... different. She pulled out a somewhat worn photograph, slightly wrinkled, as if it had tried to be destroyed more than once... but survived. She looked at it... and immediately burst into laughter that brought her to her knees.
"Oh... for... good heavens!"
"What?" Glinda asked, already breathless, as she picked up photos at random. "What did you find?"
Elphaba just slowly lifted the photo, speechless.
Glinda froze.
"No! No, no, no, no, NOOOOO!"
In the picture, a very young Glinda—almost unrecognizable—smiled with a mixture of innocence and teenage torture. She wore two thick pigtails on the sides, oversized glasses that slid down her nose, braces with bright pink elastics, and a Christmas sweater that was clearly not ironic. His eyes begged for oblivion.
Glinda launched herself into a rage.
"GIVE IT TO ME! Give it to me right now, or I swear I'll turn into a storm of blushes and drama!"
Elphaba, still laughing, nimbly dodged, ducking between the curtains, twirling around the sofa, using cushions as shields.
"This is a historical gem! An archaeological relic from the Age of Glinda Nerdus Maximus!"
"YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE DOING!"
But suddenly, Elphaba stopped. Very still, the photo still held high. Her expression changed from amusement to something more calculated... sharper. A slow, dangerous smile spread across her lips.
"Do you want the photo?" she said softly.
Glinda stopped, panting, disheveled, her cheeks red.
"Yes," she replied, trembling.
"Then... kneel."
Elphaba said it with unsettling calm, knowing full well what she was provoking with every word. There was a faint tremor of defiance in her tone. A change. A new game.
Glinda blinked. The air in the room seemed to change temperature. It took her a couple of seconds to realize that this wasn't just a joke between friends anymore. It was an invitation.
Her cheeks burned even more.
"Pardon...?" she whispered, though her body was already responding.
Elphaba narrowed her eyes mischievously, lowering the photo just an inch.
"Kneel, Glinda. If you really want this photo back, you're going to have to earn it."
The tone was so confident, so authoritative... and so deliciously unexpected. Glinda swallowed. A part of her wanted to protest. To scream. To squirm.
But another part—one that had been dormant for some time—ignited with an electric spark.
With a resigned sigh and a shiver of anticipation, Glinda knelt slowly between the cushions. She couldn't look Elphaba directly in the eye.
"That's how I like it," the witch murmured, pacing around her like a black cat circling its golden prey. "Do you know what the best thing about this picture is, Glinda?"
"W-what?"
"That even there, with your ridiculous pigtails, your magnifying glasses, and your metallic smile... you were adorable. And you knew it. Only now you've hidden it beneath tons of makeup and control. But I saw it. All of you. And now I have the power."
Glinda looked up, and something in her eyes gleamed with soft defiance.
"And what are you going to do with that power... Elphie?"
Elphaba smiled like a witch about to cast an irreversible spell.
"Whatever I want... Now sit up straight, Glinda the Magnificent." Let's start with your punishment: Admit... that you were—and are—a lovable nerd.
Glinda bit her lip, her cheeks flushed.
"Never."
Elphaba pretended to start to get up.
"All right, all right!" Glinda cried, dropping to her knees. "I was a nerd! With capital letters and exclamation points! I had a handmade glossary of magical and cosmic TV terms with little drawings!"
"And what else?"
"I had... romantic fanfiction based on my dolls!"
Elphaba laughed so hard she fell back, clutching her stomach.
"You're worse than I thought!"
"I know! Let me live!"
"Not so fast. Order number two: Put on those hideous glasses I just found in your box."
"No! Not those!" She looked like a possessed owl!
"Exactly. A sexy owl. Do it!"
Glinda, protesting theatrically, put them on while Elphaba looked at her as if she were enjoying a romantic comedy show specially written for her.
"Perfect. Now... say 'I'm turned on by forbidden knowledge and hard-bound books.'"
"Elphie!"
"Say it or the picture will go straight to all your social media!"
Glinda couldn't help it. The laughter, the embarrassment, the emotion of the moment, everything overwhelmed her.
"I'm turned on by forbidden knowledge... and hard-bound books," she said finally, in a dramatically sensual voice, exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness.
Elphaba stared at her for a few seconds, silent. Something in the atmosphere changed. The game continued, but a different current ran beneath the surface.
"Now," she said in a lower voice, almost a whisper, "tell me what you felt when you wrote those stories in your notebook." Those of pirates, maidens, period ladies...
Glinda swallowed. The air grew thick. She slowly took off her glasses, letting them fall onto a heart-shaped pillow.
"I felt like... like I wanted something I couldn't name. That I couldn't have. I wrote about women... who loved each other in secret, as if the world wouldn't allow them to exist. And I imagined myself being one of them. Not out of rebellion... but because in that world, I was free."
Elphaba approached, very slowly. She knelt in front of her, no longer laughing, her eyes fixed on hers.
"And now?"
Glinda took a deep breath.
"Now I no longer need to imagine it."
And then, as if time had shrunk, as if the secret hiding place had been waiting for just that, they both drew closer, slowly, inevitably, until their lips met in a kiss that wasn't playful or fleeting, but deep and full of everything unspoken. The notebook, the photos, the pillows, everything blurred into the background as their hands searched for each other, recognized each other.
Elphaba held her waist, firm, while Glinda tangled her fingers in her hair, undoing what little control remained. There were no masks, no roles. Just them.
A sleepover night that turned into a night of confessions, of desire, of love hidden beneath layers of perfection and sarcasm, unfolded with every laugh, every command, every kiss.
Without separating for a moment, with kisses punctuated by soft laughter and caresses that spoke louder than any words, the two crawled between heart-shaped pillows, forgotten stuffed animals, and a comforter decorated with faded stars. Glinda's childhood bed creaked slightly beneath their entwined bodies, but they didn't care. On the contrary, everything in that room—the cheesy, the ridiculous, the utterly authentic—was now part of the spell that enveloped them.
Elphaba paused for a second, caressing Glinda's cheek with a gentleness unusual for her. Her eyes shone, not with magic, but with humanity, with sincerity. Glinda smiled at her between gasps, with a mixture of shyness and surrender, as if her body were confessing secrets her lips couldn't yet speak.
And then they let themselves go.
The murmurs turned into sighs, the sighs into gasps, and the world beyond those walls faded away. There were no rules, no masks, no appearances to maintain. It was just the two of them, shedding not only their clothes, but everything that had kept them separate, afraid, contained. Elphaba touched Glinda with an intensity that was as fierce as it was tender, knowing every corner as if it had been designed for her hands. Glinda responded with a passion wrapped in tenderness, in desire pent up for years, allowing herself to be loved as she had always dreamed: without fear, without judgment, completely free.
And as passion swept them away in waves, a part of Glinda, deep inside, kept thinking.
How many times had she imagined this. How many times had she closed her eyes in this very bed, hugging a pillow, wishing she could bring a girl. One who wasn't part of an impossible fantasy or a story hidden between the lines. A real girl. One she would choose. One who would love her not in spite of her cheesy ways, but because of them.
And now that girl was here. Laughing with her. Touching her. Kissing her. Loving her with an intensity that melted away all doubts, all fears. Elphaba, so unpredictable and defiant, was here, knowing her like no one before. Without teasing. Without masks. And she adored her for everything she was, even for what Glinda had always tried to hide.
The room, once a refuge from the outside world, was transformed that night into something else.
An altar of confessions.
A nest of shared secrets.
A sacred stage where, at last, both could love and be loved.
And as their bodies swayed in that symphony of desire, laughter, and tenderness, Glinda knew with absolute certainty something she had previously only dared to write in invisible ink:
She was exactly where she belonged.
The room was dim, illuminated only by the faint light that came through the window. Their still ragged breaths were gradually calming, and the silence that remained afterward wasn't uncomfortable. It was intimate. Warm. A silence that said: I'm here, with you, and that's all I need.
Glinda, her hair disheveled and her cheeks still flushed, snuggled up to Elphaba, holding her with an almost childlike intensity, as if she feared that if she let go, all of this would disappear.
Elphaba looked up at the ceiling with a smile on her lips, and with that irony that never left her, she murmured:
"One of your stuffed animals is watching us. The rabbit. It has that expression of eternal trauma."
Glinda let out an exhausted laugh, covering her face.
"Don't look at him! He's been traumatized for years," she joked between giggles, hiding further in Elphaba's chest. "I never imagined something like this would happen in this room..."
"Haven't you ever brought someone here before?" "Elphaba asked, raising an eyebrow in mock surprise and mockingly. "Not a single innocent soul seduced among lace curtains and boy band posters?"
Glinda blushed and snorted nervously.
"Please! I could barely bring friends over for a sleepover without my mother making a scene. Much less boys. And if I'd tried to bring a girl over like this... ugh," she let out a nervous laugh, "my mother would probably have staged an exorcism."
"So I'm was your first?" Elphaba asked in an ambiguous tone, amused but also curious.
Glinda shook her head with a small smile, almost embarrassed.
"No... I was with a few girls in college. But... there was always alcohol. It was always something she'd tell me afterward that 'it didn't mean anything,' that it was just 'experimentation'..." She made quotation marks with her fingers and sighed. "It was hard to admit it wasn't just that."
Elphaba nodded slowly, gently stroking her arm. They were both silent for a moment. It wasn't awkward. It was just dense, sincere, vulnerable. Finally, Elphaba broke the stillness with a softer, almost cautious tone.
"I want to ask you something... but if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine."
Glinda lifted her head slightly, still holding her.
"You can ask me," she said somewhat cautiously, though her gaze tried to remain open.
Elphaba hesitated for a second. Then she looked at her seriously, though not harshly.
"Your father... mentioned a redheaded 'friend'..."
Glinda froze. The smile slowly disappeared. The air seemed to thicken.
"Milla..." she whispered.
Elphaba turned her face slightly toward Glinda, sensing the change in her breathing, the way her once warm and relaxed body now slowly tensed beneath her touch.
"Glinda?" she asked gently, her tone slipping between concern and patience.
Glinda swallowed, still clutching Elphaba, her forehead now resting on her collarbone, as if she needed to hide. She was completely exposed… not just in body, but in history, in past, in everything she had buried and pretended to forget.
"She's not my friend," she finally said, barely above a whisper, as if saying her name aloud might shatter something in the air. "Even though I once thought so…"
Elphaba said nothing. She waited. She always knew when to speak… and when to simply listen.
"I met her at a gala, a few months after you left," she said quietly, not looking at Elphaba. "Milla was working at the bar. She saw me from across the room… as if she could smell how broken I was. She offered me a drink and… well, she never left me."
Elphaba said nothing. She just gently tightened her hold, a sign that she was still there, listening.
"At first, I thought she was just company. Someone to distract me. But she…" Glinda stopped, swallowing hard, "she knew. She knew how to treat me. She knew I let myself be guided. I gave myself to her completely. Without thinking. Without question."
A pause.
"And she knew how to take advantage of it."
Elphaba slowly turned her head to look at her. There was no judgment on her face. Only a mixture of surprise and something harder to define... a kind of silent rage, directed not at Glinda, but at that absent figure called Milla.
"What did she do to you?" she asked, her voice calm, though strained.
Glinda swallowed again. Her fingers gripped Elphaba's arm a little tighter, as if she needed to anchor herself to her so she could continue speaking.
"She didn't hit me. Or yell at me. It was worse... she manipulated me. She told me how I should act. How I should feel. She made me feel guilty about anything that didn't revolve around her. When she wanted to 'play,' she did it even when I wasn't in the mood. She told me that if I was truly good to her, I should always obey. And I... did. Because I was empty. Because I needed someone to tell me what to do. And she knew it." Elphaba sat up slightly, cupping her face in both hands, forcing her to look at her.
"Did he hurt you, Glinda?"
Glinda's blue eyes filled with tears, but not a single one fell. Her voice cracked, and she replied, "Yes. But not the way everyone thinks hurts. He broke me in ways no one noticed. And when I realized… I didn't know how to say no."
Elphaba leaned closer and touched her forehead to hers.
"You're not with her anymore," she whispered.
Glinda shook her head slowly.
"No… Not anymore. It was hard… harder than it should have been. But I decided to move on. To forget that part of my life. I pretended nothing had happened. That it had all been a silly thing in a moment of spite. That's why… that's why I haven't told you about her yet."
A silence filled with electricity and tenderness settled between them. Elphaba didn't press any further. He simply caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, then kissed her softly on the lips. An unhurried kiss. No immediate desire. Just love. Protection. Promise.
"Thank you for telling me," Elphaba said. "Not because you owed me. You didn't owe me anything. But I'm glad you let it out... with me."
Glinda gave a small, shaky laugh and rested her head on his chest.
"Thank you for staying."
And so, between slow caresses and gentle words, they let silence settle once more, this time as a refuge, not a barrier.
The room, which had already witnessed their passion, was now also witness to their healing.
The dawn light slipped lazily between the pastel pink lace curtains, filtering the room in warm, soft tones like a sigh. Glinda's childhood bedroom, with its floral wallpaper and framed diplomas from speech contests, had become the setting for a new kind of story. Between teddy bears with crooked bows and bookshelves filled with young adult novels, the two women slept tangled together as if sleep had tried to reconstruct them into a single form: arms where legs should have been, one head buried in the other's chest, one leg dangling from the bed with a sock pulled only halfway down.
Glinda, her blond hair spilling across her childhood pillow, snored gently, her face buried in Elphaba's shoulder. Elphaba slept on her back with a serene expression but one eyebrow raised, as if even in her sleep she doubted the logic of the universe. The small bed, designed for a modestly proportioned teenager, creaked menacingly under the weight and the marital disorganization of both. And then, the world decided to interrupt them.
A sharp knock on the door, repetitive and shrill, like the pecking of a mechanical bird, rattled the paintings on the walls.
"Miss Glinda! Are you awake, my dear?" a high-pitched voice crooned from the other side. "I brought the clean sheets! Would you like me to pick up the laundry?"
The effect was immediate. Glinda let out a nasal whine, somewhere between sleep and confusion, and lifted her head just a few inches before dropping it with a stifled moan.
"No... it can't be..." she murmured, still in a haze.
"What's that?" Elphaba growled, without opening her eyes, burying her face deeper into the pillow. “Turn off that damn clock…”
“It’s not a clock! It’s Mrs. Clutch!” Glinda sat up abruptly, tangling in the sheet like a creature caught in a net. She thumped clumsily at Elphaba’s arm. “Wake up! Get up! She’s going to find us!”
Elphaba groaned, rolling toward the edge until, with a loud, silent-comedy plop, she fell to the floor.
“Good heavens, Glinda! Why can’t we ever have a normal morning?”
“There are no normal mornings in this house! Especially not when you’re naked in my bed and Mrs. Clutch wants to change the sheets!” Glinda squealed, frantically grasping for the nightgown that had flown the night before to the desk lamp. The pink fabric hung mockingly, unreachable.
From the floor, Elphaba sat up with broken dignity, covering herself as best she could with a pillow and staring at the ceiling in annoyance.
"Tell me that lady doesn't come in without permission..."
"She does it all the time! That woman changed my underwear until I turned eighteen!" Glinda was already spinning like a top, gathering socks, her blouse, Elphaba's clothes that looked like they'd been thrown at the largest teddy bear. "Oh gods, gods, I can't breathe!"
"Miss Glinda!" the voice on the other end insisted. "Do you want me to pick up the dirty laundry now?! I brought a hamper!"
"NO!" Glinda yelled, her voice as high as a whistle. "No, there's no need, Mrs. Clutch! Not today, thank you, you may go, goodbye, have a good day!"
An awkward silence followed, as if even Mrs. Clutch knew that tone meant "crisis emergency." But after a few seconds, her voice sounded again, persistent and curious.
"But, miss, are you all right? You seem upset! Are you sick? Is anyone else with you?"
Glinda paled.
"No, no, I'm perfectly fine! Just... I'm just doing morning yoga, yes, yoga and energy cleansing, you know, a new routine..."
Elphaba squinted at her from the floor, clearly suppressing laughter.
"Yoga? Naked with your room a mess?" she muttered sarcastically.
"Shut up, Elphaba, shut up!" Glinda snorted, nudging her with her foot so she slid under the bed. "Hide! Make yourself invisible, pretend you're a bad memory, anything!"
"I could turn into a cursed sock and that lady would still find me. She has chaos radar."
Glinda barely managed to cover herself with the first nightgown she found hanging on the back of the door—one of those soft satin ones with a lace collar that she used to wear in her “refined lady-in-training” years—when the situation ceased to be a problem and transformed into an impending catastrophe. With a clumsy but desperate movement, she turned to Elphaba, who was still half-asleep on the floor, and pushed her with her foot, pure urgency in every word whispered in suppressed panic.
"Under the bed! Now! Roll! Roll like your life depended on it!"
Elphaba opened one eye, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like a curse, but she obeyed. She rolled with dry, resigned movements, barely managing to slide under the low bed frame just as the door, like in a nightmare on a timer, opened with a long, dramatic creak. There, like a character from a Victorian novel who refused to disappear with the passage of time, appeared Mrs. Clutch. She wore her eternal white apron, a messy bun in her gray hair, and that expression somewhere between cordial and critical that was so characteristic of her. Seeing the chaos in the room—rumpled sheets, clothes on the floor, a crooked lamp, a pair of slippers dangling from a stuffed animal as if they'd been thrown in the middle of a battle—the old woman paused for a second, her eyes narrowed, her nose wrinkled.
"Good heavens!" she exclaimed with a dry, almost mocking laugh. "So that's why you didn't want to let me in, huh, Miss Glinda? You always were such a little whirlwind! This room looks like it's survived a hurricane... or not."
Glinda forced a smile that felt more like a spasm. She felt her cheeks burning, her heart pounding in her temples. She wanted to die, evaporate, transform into a decorative pillow. But she just folded her hands in front of her nightgown, feigning composure.
"Yeah, well... erm... you know me! What a mess, ha ha... what a mess!"
"A mess is an understatement!" the old woman replied, bending down with surprising agility for her age and beginning to gather dirty clothes with deft hands. She soon had a pile of wrinkled blouses, single tights, and a tutu that no one could remember ever buying.
Glinda followed her with her eyes, as if with the strength of her mind she could push her back toward the door. But Mrs. Clutch kept moving, moving toward the side of the bed where, under a mattress that was beginning to creak dangerously, Elphaba lay like a sullen, trapped black cat.
"Well! I've got half the clothes! Should I leave you some clean sheets? These are crooked more than my spine, and that's saying something."
"No, no! It's fine, really! I'll take care of it!" Glinda took a quick step toward the door, as if she could lure her out with her mere presence. "Here, take this!" And she handed her a randomly rolled-up towel.
She was in the midst of an internal crisis when something caught her eye. In the reflection of an old framed poster—a promotional photo of Glinda winning a speech contest at thirteen—she saw something that made her blood run cold.
A hand.
Green.
Slowly emerging from under the bed, like an underwater creature. Heading straight for the floor.
"No. No, no, no. Elphaba!" Glinda whispered, barely moving her lips. But the witch, with her cursed silent persistence, extended her fingers until she reached her target: a black lace bra resting like criminal evidence right in the middle of the carpet.
Glinda froze, her eyes wide as porcelain saucers.
In a precision movement, Elphaba managed to grab it and pull it into the darkness just as Mrs. Clutch turned... and stopped.
Not because she'd seen the hand, but because she'd seen the bra.
One that, clearly, was no longer on the floor.
One that she herself was now holding.
"What is this...?" the woman murmured, frowning. She studied the garment as if analyzing a coded map. Then she looked at Glinda, and then back at the bra.
"It's not..." she said slowly. "It's not yours, is it?"
Glinda felt the universe collapse.
"Huh? What? That? Of course it's mine! Who else would it be? Oh my God, Mrs. Clutch, what a strange question!" she said in a squeaky voice, giving a very fake giggle.
But Mrs. Clutch stretched it out with two fingers and assessed it as if she were sizing up a piece of police evidence.
"Are you sure? Because, darling, I don't mean to sound indiscreet, but this is a cup..." she squinted, read the label, "... larger."
Glinda blinked.
"Yes! Yes! I'm... going through a hormonal change. A growth spurt! A breast revolution! Late adolescence!"
The old woman looked at her. She didn't look convinced. Or rather, she seemed to be trying not to laugh. Her eyebrow lifted dangerously.
"You're not... thinking about getting one of those modern things done, are you?" the old woman finally asked, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "Those... surgeries. You know... breast augmentation."
Glinda blinked as if a bucket of ice water had been thrown in her face.
"What?! No! For heaven's sake, no! Where did she get that idea?"
"Well, my dear," Mrs. Clutch said, sitting on the edge of the bed (to which Elphaba, below, stiffened like a spring about to burst), "I remember when you were a teenager you had a meltdown because you said you 'couldn't even fill a garden fairy's bodice'... And you cried for three days watching Jayne Mansfield movies, saying that 'no one takes a future star seriously if she doesn't have... frontal presence.'"
Glinda put her hands to her face, red as an apple polished with butter.
"That was years ago! It was a hormonal phase! I was fourteen!"
"The obsession with larger-sized bras isn't usually a phase," the old woman replied seriously, inspecting the lace garment as if it were a prehistoric fossil.
Under the bed, Elphaba nearly choked with laughter. She covered her mouth with both hands, silently kicking the mattress like a drowning cat. Just thinking about Glinda crying in front of the mirror and saying, "Why doesn't puberty magic work on this?!" was killing her. Literally. Tears were already in her eyes.
“I’m not thinking about any surgery! There’s no augmentation in my future! This isn’t a confession! Not a stage, not an experiment!” Glinda shrieked, her voice deep in controlled panic.
The old woman stared at her silently, her eyes suspicious for a moment…
“And the black lace? Didn’t you used to prefer cotton with bows?”
“I’m… exploring my dark side. My… mature side? My Parisian side!”
The silence was overwhelming.
Mrs. Clutch sighed.
“Well… whatever you’re exploring, make sure you don’t lose any more clothes under the bed, okay? You never know what you might find in the dust,” she said, winking at her.
Glinda paled.
“Yes! Of course. Absolutely. Nothing under the bed. Forbidden.”
“And for the love of all saints, clean up this room.” Looks like you've been fighting with a lion and two cabaret dancers.
And with that, she turned and strode out of the room, leaving behind a cloud of lavender perfume and suspicion in the air.
Glinda dropped to her knees beside the bed, lifted the sheet, and found Elphaba giggling quietly, a sock stuffed into her mouth to keep quiet.
"You!" Glinda whispered, half furious and half defeated. "You're such a mess! He almost caught us! Why did you have to grab him right then?!"
Elphaba shrugged, still lying on her side as if sunbathing under the bed.
"I wasn't going to leave it there. It was expensive... you should know about that... you've seen a lot of Jayne Mansfield movies, haven't you?"
"SHUT UP!" Glinda put her hands to her head, pacing in circles around the room. Then she stopped, noticing something that made her lips curl into a stern line. "Where are your clothes?"
Elphaba raised her eyebrows, made a face of resignation, and shrugged theatrically.
"Mrs. Clutch took them. All of them. Including my favorite bra. A decent, comfortable one that didn't have ridiculous flowers or useless lace."
Glinda let out an almost feline growl and yanked open her closet.
"This can't be happening! I can't have you parading naked around this house like it's a modern art campus."
Elphaba regarded her with a raised eyebrow, her arms crossed over her chest.
"And what am I supposed to wear? One of your glittery outfits? Something pink and tight that smells like candy and desperation?"
"I have more clothes than that!" Glinda retorted, already rummaging through hangers with an irritated expression. And you can't go out without a bra, Elphaba, it shows! You're... you're more noticeable than I am.
"Thanks for that inadvertent compliment," Elphaba snarled. "But if you think I'm going to wear one of your bow-tie bras, you're sorely mistaken."
"Well, I'm sorry," Glinda said sharply as she threw a couple of items at her, "but either you wear that or you go naked to breakfast with my parents. Your choice. Aesthetic humiliation or total destruction?... Please choose the former."
Elphaba, looking at her with a mixture of annoyance and resignation, picked up the garment as if it were burning between her fingers. She examined it like someone studying a forgotten relic.
"This looks like something from a 2007 indie music festival."
"Well, choose that or you starve!" Glinda retorted, turning her back on her while muttering. Although maybe that doesn't sound so bad to you.
Half an hour later, the house seemed to still be asleep under a veil of quiet elegance. The morning light filtered through the windows with a golden hue, and the marble hallways shone with its usual neatness. Glinda descended the stairs with her perfected gait: back straight, hair perfectly tied in a loose ponytail, and natural makeup that bordered on heavenly. Beside her, Elphaba advanced with a much less graceful gait, huffing as she arranged the ridiculous outfit she had chosen: a cotton blouse with a psychedelic unicorn design and black and green striped pants. The worn, hooded jacket looked like the costume of a teenager eternally trapped in an alternative carnival. And to make matters worse, she had to endure the uncomfortable feeling of Glinda's bra, which not only constricted her like a punishing corset, but also stung as if it were made of nettle threads.
“I don’t understand how you can wear this,” Elphaba grunted, hunching her shoulders and running a hand over her collarbone in disgust. “Is it designed to torture or to support?”
Glinda, who had been trying to apply some lip gloss without staring too hard at her friend in that disastrous outfit, sighed exaggeratedly.
“Good heavens, Elphie! I offered you the mint green set with the palazzo pants! That’s at least from my boho transitional era. But no… You had to choose that. You look like a groupie from an indie folk band from ten years ago.”
Elphaba rolled her eyes, ignoring the comment as she readjusted her shirt and muttered something about textile capitalism and the tyranny of the bra.
“Besides… You chose it,” Glinda snorted without looking at her. “I offered you something more decent.”
“And that included a sequined heart-shaped top.”
"It was elegant!"
"It was humiliating."
Upon reaching the kitchen, they both stopped in their tracks. The place, usually vibrant with smells and sounds, was unusually empty. No sign of Glinda's father absently reading the newspaper, nor of her mother ordering the staff around in her melodious, authoritative tone. Nothing. Just the vastness of marble and polished countertops and the faint hum of the refrigerator.
"This is weird..." Glinda murmured, looking in every direction.
"Perfect," Elphaba replied, heading straight for the refrigerator. "This way we can eat something without having to pretend to be refined girls."
"Elphaba!" Glinda tried to stop her, but Elphaba was already scrutinizing it brazenly.
"Come on, don't be dramatic. It's just food. No one's going to die if Mrs. Clutch doesn't show up to make us a truffle omelet."
Glinda snorted, pulling out her cell phone.
"I'll call her. I'm sure she's in the service wing."
"Why?" Elphaba pulled out a fruit platter and placed it decisively on the center island. "We have hands. We can whip up something simple. Toast, eggs. Maybe not as tasty as your army of cooks would make, but it'll do."
"You have no idea how a kitchen like this works," Glinda protested, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of cooking like a commoner.
"Do you?" Elphaba asked with a sly smile.
"Of course I do!" Glinda retorted, crossing her arms indignantly. Then, after a pause, she added with less conviction. "I just... have more refined tastes."
"Refined isn't the same as useless," Elphaba mocked as she began gathering ingredients, pulling out the bread, oil, and eggs with movements that were surprisingly efficient. "Come on, Princess. Today you're having breakfast like normal people."
"This is a culinary crime," Glinda murmured, resigning herself to putting on an apron, though not before making sure it didn't have any embarrassing patterns.
Elphaba smiled to herself, satisfied. For once, the chaos was working in her favor. As she cracked eggs with ease, Glinda at her side tried not to stain her freshly polished nails, struggling between her pride and her need for everything to feel normal again. Although, of course, with Elphaba in her kitchen, dressed like an anti-fairy godmother, that seemed like a losing battle.
Leisurely, Elphaba continued her exploration of the Upland kitchen as if she were an archaeologist confronting sacred and ridiculously polished ruins. She opened the cupboard drawers with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism, extracting jars and containers that seemed more decorative than functional. There were shimmering lavender powders, oils with golden flakes, and even a metal box engraved with letters in a language even she didn't fully recognize.
"Is this food or makeup from Europe?" she murmured, holding a jar of a turquoise paste that smelled vaguely of flowers and poison.
Glinda, meanwhile, was kneeling in front of the twelve-burner oven, reading the instructions on the digital panel as if they were hieroglyphics.
"Why would anyone need twelve burners? Twelve?! What kind of medieval banquet do they throw here every week?" she grumbled as she randomly pressed buttons.
A mechanical whirring sound erupted from the oven, followed by a spark and an insistent beep. Glinda yelped, jumped back, and hit her head on the edge of the counter. Elphaba let out a laugh so loud she almost dropped the container she was holding.
"Are you all right, gourmet princess?" she asked mockingly.
"Perfectly!" "I'm just trying not to burn this mansion to the ground," Glinda said with dignity, rubbing her head and muttering something about the cruelty of modern appliances.
They both laughed then, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, united by the chaos and the absurd intimacy of sharing a space that wasn't entirely theirs. Elphaba walked to the refrigerator, opened it lazily, and a cold, perfumed sigh escaped from within. Her gaze fell on an oval white porcelain container, sealed with a clear lid, containing a yellow mass flecked with orange and disturbing bubbles.
"What... in the name of all the witches in Salem... is this?" she asked with a mixture of horror and fascination.
Glinda approached cautiously, squinting.
"Oh, no... It can't be..." she whispered apocalyptically. "It's the cheese fondue my mother made two days ago. Probably the first thing she's ever cooked. She said it was 'her humble contribution to traditional cooking.'"
Elphaba raised a green eyebrow as she removed the lid. The moment she opened it, a cloud of fetid steam emerged like a spirit trapped too long in the underworld. They both recoiled, coughing and laughing at the same time, as if they'd released an ancient curse.
"By the Old Gods, shut it, shut it!" Glinda shrieked, thrashing as if she could disperse the smell with her hands.
"This smells like the revenge of a resentful cow," Elphaba said, gagging. "What's it made of? Rotten unicorn cheese and an amateur cook's tears?"
"I don't know! But if my mother finds out we touched it, she'll crucify us in the main square. Don't touch it!"
But of course, Elphaba smiled lopsidedly, that mischievous smile she used when she decided to do exactly the wrong thing. She looked at Glinda with a mischievous spark in her eyes, and before Glinda could stop her, she dipped a finger into the gooey mixture and brought it to her mouth.
"Elphaba, no! You're going to die! Or worse, you're going to get sick, and my mother is going to blame us for desecrating her 'culinary masterpiece'!" Glinda whimpered desperately.
Elphaba closed her eyes for a moment, savoring. Then she opened them, surprised.
"It's... odd. But not lethal. A little spicy. Maybe something fermented. Maybe living," she laughed. "Still, it's not bad. It has personality."
"You're crazy," Glinda muttered, but she couldn't help but smile. "What if you mutate? What if you grow a third eye?"
"At least I'll get to see your dramatic expressions from more angles," Elphaba replied mockingly.
Before Glinda could protest further, Elphaba plunged her hand into the fondue, scooped a generous portion between her fingers, and, in an unexpected and deliciously irreverent move, theatrically squished the mixture into Glinda's mouth.
Glinda froze, mouth agape and covered in cheese, like a shocked statue in the middle of a battle painting.
"I hate you!" she managed, though her voice was muffled by the impact of the mixture.
"Not as much as you hate admitting it's good," Elphaba mocked, wiping her fingers on a linen napkin.
Glinda blinked, tasted a little. Her face went from bewilderment to a kind of culinary revelation, though she was reluctant to admit it.
"Gods... I don't understand. It's better than it should be. What kind of alchemy did my mother perform without knowing it?" "The lucky accident of someone who probably thought cheese melted gracefully on its own," Elphaba commented as she poured some more onto a piece of toast.
And so, laughing, they spread the mysterious fondue on crusty bread, improvised a salad of select ingredients that Elphaba recognized better than Glinda, and for a moment, they seemed like two young people simply escaping the world, their obligations, their families, taking refuge in a kitchen full of secrets and spices.
Neither of them noticed at first. But from the crack in the half-open door, someone was watching silently. Not with judgment or alarm, but with an unexpected tenderness, like someone watching something delicate and rare blossom in a place where no one had believed it could grow.
A soft smile formed on her lips before she disappeared from the threshold, leaving the two young women to continue sharing that secret, free, and chaotic moment that would be theirs alone.
Elphaba and Glinda continued to enjoy their clandestine feast, seated on the marble breakfast bar as if it were a throne of rebellion. Half-eaten toast, crumpled napkins, cheese spread in unthinkable places, and constant laughter filled the kitchen. Elphaba, her fingers covered in butter, provocatively ran them over Glinda's mouth, who giggled as she tried to speak with her mouth full.
"Stop! I'm going to choke, witch!" Glinda giggled, shoving Elphaba with her shoulder.
"That would be a dignified death: suffocated by Upland butter," Elphaba responded mockingly, raising an eyebrow.
It was at that precise moment that the door opened with a slow, almost theatrical creak, and Mrs. Clutch appeared. The elderly maid, her hair tied back with military precision and eyes like silver blades, stopped in her tracks at the sight: crumbs on the floor, the fondue set open like a desecrated relic, the oven still beeping intermittently… and, of course, the two girls sitting like queens of chaos. Glinda, with the butter still on her lips. Elphaba, with a guilty smile.
A thick silence fell for a second, followed by a shrill scream that nearly shattered the windows.
"GALINDA ARDUENNA UPLAND! THIS IS WORSE THAN THAT DAMN ENCHANTED BREAD ROLLS INCIDENT WHEN YOU WERE TEN!"
Glinda paled as if she'd been turned to marble.
"It wasn't that bad... They only exploded a little!" she tried to defend herself.
"THEY EXPLODED THE WHOLE WEST WING OF THE HOUSE!" Mrs. Clutch shrieked, fanning herself with her apron. "AND NOW THIS! THIS KITCHEN LOOKS LIKE A BATTLEFIELD BETWEEN PEPPERMOUTH WITH GASTRITIS!"
Elphaba tried to get down from the breakfast bar without laughing, but a small burp from the fondue jar gave her away. Mrs. Clutch glared at her. “We were just... exploring local culinary cultures,” Elphaba said with a lopsided smile.
“Get out! Both of you! And saints help me if you leave another crumb behind!”
Like two scolded children, Glinda and Elphaba gathered what they could and left, giggling, while Mrs. Clutch snorted and began cleaning as if the stability of the world depended on it.
But just as they were about to turn down the hall, Clutch’s sharp voice reached them once more.
“Miss Glinda,” she said, more serious, lowering her tone. “Your father is waiting for you in the back garden. He says it’s important.”
Glinda’s smile vanished as if someone had blown out a candle. She stood still for a second, as if the air had become thicker. Elphaba noticed the change immediately.
“Are you all right?” she asked softly. "Yes..." Glinda replied softly, forcing a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "It's just... you know how it is."
Elphaba didn't insist. She just nodded, and before Glinda left, she gently took her wrist.
"Don't let it melt you," she said firmly.
Glinda looked at her for a second, nodded silently, and taking a deep breath, headed for the backyard. Her steps were firm, but her back was tense. Elphaba stood in the hallway, watching Glinda's figure disappear through the door into the sunlight, knowing that, in this house, not all battles were fought with shouts or sarcasm. Some were much quieter...
Feeling the weight of the world—her world, that world of imposed perfection and expectations she never chose—on her shoulders, Glinda stepped out into the backyard. The morning light filtered through the perfectly pruned branches, making the dewdrops sparkle like diamonds scattered on the ground. The large glass door was ajar, and from there she could see her father, Highmuster Upland, leaning calmly over one of the rose bushes. He was dressed in a white shirt and gray waistcoat, as if part of an antique portrait, his sleeves rolled up, his hands caked with dirt. Despite his age, there was a quiet elegance and serenity about him that felt almost unreal.
Glinda moved forward cautiously, unsure of what she would find. Normally, she would run up to him, affectionately calling him "Popsicle," throwing herself into his arms without reservation. But after the previous evening, her body was tense, her steps more measured, as if she were approaching a glass statue about to break.
Highmuster saw her and gave a small smile. He said nothing at first, just carried on with what he was doing, as if wanting to give her time to catch up. When he spoke, it was as he always did in difficult times: telling a silly story about himself. "Did I ever tell you," he said in a relaxed tone, "that I once mistook compost for bath salts? Your mother almost locked me in the greenhouse for a week."
Glinda couldn't help but laugh, though it was a suppressed, nervous sound, as if her chest wasn't sure whether to allow her that moment of tenderness.
"No... but it sounds like something you would do," she said softly.
Her father wiped his hands on an embroidered handkerchief, then turned fully toward her.
"Did you sleep well last night, doll?" he asked, in that affectionate, sincere tone he always dedicated only to her. "And Elphaba... too?"
Glinda nodded, looking at the floor. She didn't dare meet his gaze yet.
"Yes. We both... slept well."
Highmuster nodded, as if that were a greater relief than he had expected.
There was a brief silence before he spoke again, this time in a softer voice, almost as if the memory had enveloped him.
"Do you remember your first society meeting? You were nine years old, and your mother had spent weeks choosing your dress. All that fuss over a pair of ribbons. I didn't understand half the protocol, but she... well, she did."
Glinda smiled tenderly.
"I remember," she whispered.
"Halfway through the event," he continued, "they were going to introduce the girls to the young men for the first dance. Your mother was excited. I was… less so. But then you made a scene because you didn't want to dance with some 'silly, sticky-handed boy.'"
Glinda giggled, but it quickly died away.
"I said I didn't need anyone to spin me if I could already fly."
"And you meant it," Highmuster laughed. "You probably would have screamed all night if it hadn't been for that other girl… what was her name?"
"Lucy… I think," Glinda replied after a second's thought.
"That's right. She was alone too. She offered to dance with you. And you accepted. And you did it… as if you were the only two people in that room. It was beautiful. For me… it was perfect."
There was a pause. Then her face clouded slightly.
“Of course, your mother didn’t find it so charming. She spent the rest of the evening murmuring conjectures and worries. I told her it was nothing. That it was just a girl thing. That there was no reason to force you to be anything else. You were… free. Radiant. And so it should be.”
Glinda swallowed. Her eyes began to fill, but she said nothing. Her father continued.
“But when you turned twelve… your mother decided it was time to ‘train’ you, as she called it. Teach you how to be a society lady.” I… didn’t say anything. I assumed she understood these things better. I didn’t want to interfere. I didn’t want to ruin it. But the years passed, and although you continued to shine, Glinda, I began to notice that the glow was becoming more and more subdued. As if it had been locked in a little box… to be revealed only when appropriate.”
Finally, he looked her straight in the eyes.
“And I allowed it. I remained silent. Out of comfort… or for fear of losing harmony.” But seeing how you pretended in front of everyone, how you hid parts of yourself just to be accepted… Glinda, that really hurt me. Because you… you are more than that. You always have been.
Glinda, her voice breaking, barely managed to say,
"Why are you telling me this now?"
Highmuster took a step toward her, took her hand gently, as if she were still that nine-year-old girl.
"Because last night I realized I was losing you. Because your mother looks at you and sees a reflection of what she wants you to be. But I see you… and I see all of you. Even the parts I don't understand. Even the ones that scare your mother. Even… Elphaba."
Highmuster continued speaking, his voice like a whisper carried on the morning breeze.
"Do you know… When I married your mother, I changed many things about myself. I left behind certain habits, certain dreams… even some friendships." And I don't regret any of it. I loved her. And I still do. But there's something I learned over time…" He raised his gaze to the sky, as if searching for the words. "One shouldn't change to please another. One shouldn't transform into something different for fear of disappointing. No… one should change because the other inspires it. Because it pushes you to be a more honest, more authentic version of yourself. Not someone new, but someone truer."
His eyes fell on Glinda again.
"And that's what I see when I look at Elphaba. I don't know her as well as you do, of course. But a while ago I saw you in the kitchen and… I saw something. I saw how she looked at you. How she listened to you. I saw how you laughed with her. I couldn't remember the last time I saw you laugh like that… much less with someone else. It was as if you finally allowed yourself to exist without a script. Without filters."
Silence returned for a moment. The birdsong sounded almost shy, as if they didn't want to interrupt either.
“There are still things I don’t fully understand,” Highmuster admitted honestly. “And just thinking that you had to pretend to support that damned senator’s initiative—knowing how it made you feel—breaks me. That you had to carry that alone, hide it, keep it quiet, just to… to avoid disappointing us. To avoid causing another scandal. I should have been there for you. But…” He paused, then added with conviction. “But if Elphaba is part of your life, if she’s the one who inspires you to be yourself, the one who makes you laugh with an open heart… then that’s enough for me. That’s enough.”
Glinda felt something gently break inside her. Not painfully, not like a wound… but like a dam finally giving way to the pressure it had held for years.
"Popsicle…" she said in a small voice, swallowing the lump in her throat. "I'm so sorry… for not telling you. For hiding it. For thinking… that you couldn't accept it."
He slowly shook his head.
"No, my child…" she said tenderly. "It's I who must ask for your forgiveness. For making you believe, even for a second, that there was something about you that wasn't worthy of pride. That there was something about you you had to hide for me to love you. All that matters to me is that you're happy. It doesn't matter where that happiness comes from… or who you share it with. As long as you feel it, as long as you shine… it will be enough. Because you will always shine, Glinda. Always. In your own way."
She couldn't hold back her tears any longer. She ran to him, and Highmuster welcomed her into his arms, like so many times before, like when she was a little girl who fell off the swing or had nightmares at night. But this time, the embrace was different. It was a reunion. A liberation.
They hugged in silence, father and daughter, amidst the roses and memories, letting the sun and the morning heal some of the unspoken wounds.
As father and daughter hugged like they hadn't in a long time, Elphaba watched them from the kitchen window. A small smile appeared on her lips, shy but genuine. Seeing that warmth between them, that connection intact despite the time and the silences, filled her with tenderness. Knowing that Glinda still had that... that refuge, that unconditional love... warmed her heart.
But, like an unexpected whiplash, a pang of regret pierced her chest. It was swift, like a shadow crossing a sunlit room. Barely a breath. But enough.
Because Elphaba knew she would never have that with her own father. With that man who never looked beyond the disappointment she represented. Who never understood her, and worse, never tried.
She pressed her lips together, as if she could swallow that feeling. This wasn't the time. Not today.
But her fleeting introspection was abruptly interrupted by the sound of firm footsteps. Mrs. Clutch appeared at her side, her posture rigid and her face as unchanging as ever, though her eyes seemed to conceal a certain warning.
"Mrs. Upland wishes to see you in her office. Now."
Elphaba felt her blood run cold. The air seemed to suddenly thicken. She clenched her hands at her sides, as if preparing for an impending storm.
She nodded wordlessly.
Elphaba was led down a long hallway covered with a deep blue velvet carpet. The walls were adorned with old family portraits: generations of Uplands posed in parlors, gardens, or libraries, all with the same proud, distant expression. In the center of one of the paintings, Glinda, as a child, wearing a peach dress and a mischievous smile, holding her mother's hand. An image frozen in time… before the silences began to weigh so heavily.
Finally, they reached the carved wooden double doors. Mrs. Clutch knocked twice, then stepped aside to let her in.
Elphaba crossed the threshold.
The office was sober but elegant, a balance between understated opulence and meticulous order. A large mahogany bookcase, a desk polished with surgical precision, and behind it, sitting upright and perfectly composed: Larena Upland.
The woman was studying a small photograph. Glinda, still a baby, with large eyes and rosy cheeks, smiled in her mother's arms.
But as soon as she noticed Elphaba's presence, Larena looked up, and her expression changed as if an automatic mechanism had been activated. All tenderness vanished. Her lips formed a smile that didn't reach her eyes. A courtesy as cold as marble.
"Miss Thropp," she said in a perfectly measured voice. "Thank you for coming."
Elphaba took a deep breath, keeping her gaze steady.
"I figured I would eventually."
Larena nodded slightly, as if that had seemed an expected response. Then, slowly, she laid the photograph face down on the desk.
The atmosphere was charged. As if the air itself was waiting to see which of them would take the first step onto the carefully decorated battlefield.
Larena began to speak with a calmness that, rather than easing the tension, made it sharper. Each word was carefully measured, as if she were giving a lecture on how to disguise warnings as reasonable truths.
"You said you're a teacher, Elphaba. Do you understand all your students?"
Elphaba tilted her head slightly, wary of the direction of the question. It took her a moment to answer.
"Not all of them," she admitted with a small, wry smile. "But I try to."
Larena nodded with an almost mechanical elegance.
"Exactly. You don't understand everyone, but that doesn't stop you from wanting the best for them." Being a mother...' She paused briefly, almost dramatically, 'is that multiplied by a thousand.'
Elphaba said nothing. She couldn't argue with it. She didn't want to.
'Ever since Glinda was born,' Larena continued, her gaze drifting momentarily into space, as if reliving a memory, 'I've only wanted a bright future for her. Although, honestly, I rarely understand what goes on in her head...' An almost nostalgic grimace crossed her face before hardening again, 'that desire to see her happy and safe hasn't changed for a single second.'
The silence between them grew denser.
'I've worked every day of her life to build that future. Every decision, every sacrifice, every step. And now... now I feel she wants to leave it all behind. To forge a new one. One I don't understand, that I don't control. One in which... you are at the center.'
The tension in Elphaba's shoulders grew, but she remained steadfast. This wasn't the first time she'd faced judgment disguised as concern.
“The problem, Elphaba,” Larena continued, her tone lowering slightly, “is that you’re going to hurt her. Maybe not intentionally. Maybe you even think you can prevent it. But you will. This world…” she gestured vaguely around the office, as if it encompassed more than just the room, “this world that probably seems frivolous, false, unnecessary to you… Maybe you’re right. But it’s safe. It’s what any parent wants for their daughter: stability, respect, a secure place in a society that isn’t always fair, but it is clear.”
Larena's gaze sharpened.
"And you don't belong in that world."
Elphaba opened her mouth to reply, but Larena cut her off with a raised hand.
"I did some research on you." She said it without shame, as if it were a logical step in maternal protection. "Your career is impressive. Your academic achievements, your work, your reputation at the university... for someone of your origins, it's remarkable. Admirable, even."
Elphaba tensed. She knew what was coming.
"Your mother... died young, I know. Your sister, Nessarose. I've read about her as well. But it was your father who caught my attention the most. Flex Thropp. The minister. A man with ideas... even more archaic than mine, I daresay. Conservative, inflexible, authoritarian. No wonder you've cut ties."
Elphaba clenched her fists. Her father's name was a still-open wound, and Larena had plucked it out with tweezers as if it were just another piece of information in a file.
"A young woman who loves the way you love," Larena said softly, but sharply, "with ideals so uncomfortable for the world, and coming from a family marked by such deep contradictions... you are walking a dangerous path, Elphaba. And you know it."
She leaned forward, not raising her voice, but leaving each syllable planted.
"I don't want my daughter caught in that crossfire."
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. The fire burning in her chest roared, desperate to break its silence. But she also knew that nothing she said would change anything. That woman had already decided. She had already labeled her. As a threat. As an intruder. As a mistake.
And even more painful... she had rejected, without saying so openly, what Glinda truly was. Not just her love for Elphaba... but her authenticity. Her independence. Her truth.
Elphaba took a deep breath, swallowing the words that wanted to come out like knives. But a certainty grew inside her, even stronger than her rage: if this woman thought she could protect Glinda by denying who she was… then no matter how much love she thought she felt for her daughter, she wasn't truly seeing her.
And that… that hurt.
Elphaba felt something begin to close in her chest. A dry, thick knot that climbed from her stomach to her neck, nothing less than the perfect mix of rage and sadness. Larena's words continued to float in the air like shards of broken glass, each one embedded with an ancient, poisonous, and familiar certainty. The kind of certainty that isn't spoken to understand, but to reduce. To crush. And as Larena spoke with that polished, restrained, typically social composure, something in Elphaba broke.
It wasn't the first time. It wouldn't be the last.
She'd lived this scene so many times that she could almost anticipate every gesture. Every condescending tone, every argument disguised as concern. Different faces, different names, but the same script: you don't belong here. Don't dream of having what others have. Don't touch what isn't meant for you. That happiness isn't yours. It never will be.
The first time, it had been her father. Frex Thropp, with his voice of icy fire, with his speech of sacred duties and moral obedience. She remembered every sermon, every look laden with disappointment every time she asked why, every time she wanted something more, something different. She remembered the weight of that constant exclusion, that message that haunted her even in the moments when she thought she was safe: you don't deserve what you desire.
And for a second, just a second, as Larena spoke, the figure of the woman in front of her blurred. She was no longer the lady with the perfect hairstyles and immaculate suits. No. It was Frex. The same face hardened by dogma. The same judgment that needed no proof. The same love that demanded submission in return.
Elphaba blinked. Her throat burned. Tears threatened to break the dam. But they didn't come. Instead, something else rose up inside her. Something ancient, deep, fierce. Not just for her. This time it wasn't for her.
It was for Glinda.
Because no matter how much Larena claimed to act out of love, what she was about to do—what she had already begun to do—was the same thing Frex had done to her: mutilate her daughter's soul in the name of duty, order, security. Smother her authenticity under the rug of an imposed, prefabricated, convenient life.
And Elphaba couldn't, wouldn't allow it.
She took a deep breath, as if with that breath she would swallow every old wound, every invisible scar, every phrase that had marked her for years. When she looked up, her eyes still shone with moisture, but they were no longer vulnerable. They were clear. Steady. Ablaze with a certainty that wasn't afraid to burn.
"With all due respect, Mrs. Upland," he said, his voice soft but taut like a violin string about to snap, "this decision is not yours. Not yours... not mine."
Larena narrowed her eyes, as if she didn't quite understand.
"Pardon?"
"Glinda." Elphaba met her gaze without flinching. "Only she can decide how she wants to live her life. Only she can decide what future she wants, and with whom she wants to build it. You say you want the best for her, and I believe you. But then you have to trust. You have to let go. Because if you truly want a perfect future for Glinda, that future has to be hers. Forged by her own hands. Not imposed by yours."
Larena said nothing at first. Something in her face changed. It was only a second, barely perceptible: a hesitation, a flash in her eyes, a grimace that never came to life. As if a very small part of her—one long buried—had heard something. A crack of doubt. A hint of guilt.
But it was only a second.
The next thing was the sound of her teeth clenching. The tiny tremble at the corner of her lips. Larena sat up straighter in her chair, her back straightening with an almost unnatural rigidity. Her expression hardened. Her tone changed.
“Do you know what’s truly insulting, Elphaba?” she said with a coldness that this time made no secret of it. “That you come to my house, sit in this office, and talk to me about what’s best for my daughter. My daughter. As if you know anything about raising her. About protecting her. As if you’ve been there in her nightmares. In her crises. In her disappointments.”
Elphaba didn’t move. She just breathed, never looking away.
“You have no idea what it takes to care for someone from the moment they’re born until the day they decide to leave you behind. You have no idea the fear that consumes you every night, thinking about everything that could hurt them. Everything that could lead them astray. You…” Larena’s voice cracked for a moment, but she recovered instantly, even stronger, “you are not a safe option. You are not part of this world. And I don’t say this with hatred, Elphaba, I say it with absolute clarity: you do not belong with my daughter.” The silence was brutal. Heavy. So thick it seemed to fill the room like a cold fog. Elphaba lowered her gaze for a moment, not out of submission, but to contain the internal explosion that threatened to shatter her chest.
And when she raised her head, there was no longer a trace of supplication on her face. Only dignity. And an immense sadness, unfathomable, like the ocean.
The silence that followed Elphaba's words didn't last long. Larena, her face turned toward the window as if the landscape might offer her a more merciful answer, took only a few seconds to compose herself. But when she spoke again, her voice no longer held the harshness of judgment, but the resigned certainty of an inevitable doom.
"Do you know what the real tragedy is here?" she said without looking at her, as if speaking directly to her was too intimate, too human. "That you don't need to want to hurt Glinda to do so. It's enough to exist in her life."
Elphaba felt the blow before the words were even out. She stumbled inside, as if the ground beneath her feet had lost its firmness. She swallowed, but it was like swallowing glass.
"You've already hurt her," Larena added then, turning with chilling slowness, her eyes wet, dark, implacable. "Even if you don't want to admit it now. Even if she herself says it wasn't like that. And the cruelest thing is that she loves you for that very reason... because she believes pain is a fair price to pay for loving you. Because she has sacrificed things for you that you can't even imagine."
Elphaba wanted to protest, wanted to deny it, wanted to find the right words to dismantle that statement... but she couldn't. Because a part of her—a part too intimate, too hidden—was telling herself this even on the quietest nights: what if she's right? What if being with you only drags her toward the darkness you haven't been able to leave behind?
"She thinks she can change the world for you," Larena continued, each word slower, sharper. Who can love stronger than fear, stronger than rules, stronger than pain. But that's not love. It's a fantasy. A dream. And dreams like his and yours, Elphaba... aren't meant to survive. It's only a matter of time before they turn into nightmares.
Tears were already gathering at the corners of Elphaba's eyes, but they still wouldn't fall. Her face was motionless, petrified, as if it had been carved from ash. She could barely breathe. She could barely hold her own gaze against the whirlwind of half-truths, poisonous doubts, certainties so painful they seemed to come from her very soul.
Larena, exhausted, sat back in her chair as if the effort of that confession had sapped her of her strength. She placed her hands firmly on her knees, interlaced her fingers with suppressed rage, and, in the lowest, firmest voice she had used yet, delivered the final blow:
"How much money do you want?"
Elphaba looked up, confused.
"What...?"
"How much money do you want," Larena repeated coldly, as if speaking of a trivial transaction, "to take my daughter away from you?"
Elphaba's eyes widened, as if she hadn't heard correctly. But she had. And the impact was so brutal that she didn't even know how to react. Her body trembled subtly, like a leaf in the wind. She didn't know whether to scream, cry, laugh, or simply disappear. The humiliation was so absolute, so shameless, that she had no way to respond. Her body trembled, but not from anger. It was a tremor of disbelief. Of profound helplessness.
"You think this is about money?" she whispered, her voice breaking.
But Larena wasn't listening. She began to speak quickly, almost breathlessly, as if the words were escaping her soul.
"Give me a number. I can get you whatever you need. A place far from here. A new beginning. You won't want for anything. Just... just disappear. I'm begging you." Larena's voice finally broke. "Just... Please... Please, Elphaba, let her go."
The tears finally fell. From Elphaba. From Larena. The air grew thick, heavy with the weight of too many words and too many wounds.
And then, like a bolt of lightning breaking the silence… the door burst open.
Glinda stormed in, her face flushed, her breath ragged, her gaze the fiercest anyone had ever seen on her. No trace of the sweet tone, no trained composure. It was pure rage. Pure urgency.
"What are you doing?!" she shouted, unconcerned with decorum. "Are you really having this conversation without me?"
Elphaba whipped around immediately, her eyes wide in surprise, still watering. Larena tried to sit up, to regain control, but Glinda wouldn't let her.
"Glinda, darling, it's not what you think—"
"It's not what I think?!" Glinda interrupted, her eyes brimming with tears that stinged but wouldn't fall. "Did you bribe her to let me go?!" Did you think you could buy my freedom with money?! Did you think you could buy HER?!
"I'm just protecting you, child. You don't know what you're doing. You don't know..."
"Of course I know!" she cried, stifling a sob. "I know exactly what I'm doing. And you know it too, but you can't stand it. You can't stand that there's someone you can't control. Not me. Not her."
“Glinda, please understand that this is for your own good. You can’t build your life on—”
“Don’t tell me what I can or can’t build my life on!” she cried, her voice cracking. “I’m not a child anymore, Mother! And you have no right to use my love as emotional blackmail to destroy what makes me happy!”
Larena took a step toward her, defeated, trembling.
“You’re going to regret this, Glinda… Elphaba can’t give you what you need. You already know that. You feel it. She…”
“Shut up!” Glinda clenched her fists, her entire body trembling. “You have no idea what I need. You don’t know how much Elphaba has given me without asking for anything in return. You have no idea what we are.”
She turned to Elphaba, took her hand with devastating gentleness, and held it as if the balance of the world depended on it.
“We’re leaving. Now.”
Elphaba didn't move. For a second, she hesitated. She still heard Larena's echoes in her mind, like dull knives tearing at her insides. But Glinda looked at her with those eyes that always spoke the truth. And there, there was no judgment. No fear. Only love. Only will.
She nodded.
As Glinda dragged Elphaba out of the office, they walked past Highmuster. He didn't say a word. He just offered Elphaba a faint smile tinged with sadness and nodded. He couldn't give them more... but at that moment, it was all they needed.
Highmuster shifted his gaze toward the office, where Larena sat, devastated, holding back tears. Seeing the expression on her face, filled with silent disappointment, Larena exploded with fury:
"What did you expect me to do? How do you expect me to accept... this?!"
Highmuster shook his head slowly, his face tired.
"I don't know..." he answered honestly. But what I do know is that if that little girl leaves and never comes back... you'll never forgive yourself.
In the entryway, Glinda strode forward, her hand still clutched in Elphaba's, her eyes brimming with tears of suppressed rage. Elphaba could barely keep up, struggling to process everything that had just happened. But Glinda wouldn't stop... until she did.
She stood motionless in front of a shelf full of framed photographs. Neat, perfect images. Glinda at her senior prom, with a smiling date. At her first society party, with another gentleman at her side. And another, and another... always with a different man, always with a rehearsed smile.
Elphaba tried to say something, a whisper of comfort that never quite took shape.
Then Glinda broke down.
With a scream stifled by years of repression, she grabbed one of the photos and threw it against the wall. The frame shattered. Then another. And another. Every image that captured a carefully woven lie shattered. Until none remained.
Panting, trembling, her hands empty and her heart open, Glinda closed her eyes. In a barely audible voice, more a lament than a declaration, she said the only thing she had left:
"Please... Mistress Elphaba... take me out of here."
Elphaba didn't respond. She only tightened her grip on her hand and took a step toward the exit.
Together, they crossed the threshold.
Meanwhile, in the throbbing heart of the city, where the avenues were still slumbering in the slanted midday light and the traffic had yet to fully awaken, a car with smooth, elegant lines pulled up in front of Ozdust, the legendary nightclub that had once been the epicenter of the gilded excesses of a generation that no longer existed. Still closed to the public, the place seemed to murmur secrets beneath the tarps, amid dimmed lights and half-open doors. But inside, the movement was constant, like a heart that hasn't stopped beating.
The vehicle's door opened with a soft click, and a dapper young man with perfectly combed red hair and sunglasses that hid, perhaps, more than the light of day, got out. Boq paused for a moment in front of the club, gazing with a mixture of nostalgia and curiosity at the sign with its lights still off. His lips curved into a melancholy smile, as if reliving a memory buried beneath layers of time and obligations. Then, he took a deep breath and crossed the threshold.
Inside, Ozdust bustled with activity despite the hour. Waiters and technicians moved between raised tables, curtains rustling, crates of drinks being dragged along to the rhythm of whispered orders. Some shouted instructions, others tested the speakers, which weren't yet roaring with music, but with brief flashes of static and wavering bass. The air smelled of disinfectant, hot wires, and possibilities.
Boq moved through the main hall with the practiced gait of someone who has spent many nights within these walls, but this time without the certainty of fully belonging. He moved carefully, careful not to interrupt the functional dance of the place, like a friendly ghost who only came to look. Then he stopped right in the center of the hall, that exact spot where the lights used to meet and the floor creaked faintly from the number of footsteps that had marked it. For a moment, he closed his eyes. Ozdust was the same... but it was also different. Yet its essence lingered. The memory of a few months ago, of easy laughter and endless dancing, still floated between the rafters.
A voice, full of humor and charisma, drifted toward him from the bar like a familiar melody.
"But it's my little Boquie Boquie!" intoned The Whiz, queen of the stage and of lost hearts, gracefully swirling a cocktail shaker in her gloved hands. "I thought you'd become a politician or a monk, you've been so absent!"
Boq turned to her with a genuine smile, removing his sunglasses.
"Hey, Whiz..." he said warmly, approaching the end of the bar. "Sorry I didn't come sooner. You know, life..."
"Life?" she interrupted, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow as she poured a martini with theatrical precision. "Honey, this is life. Everything else is just a tax break." —Then he winked at her as he sipped his drink. —But hey, you're here. That can be forgiven… for now.
Boq let out a soft laugh, but his gaze lowered, a flicker of shadow appearing in his eyes.
"Yeah. It feels good to be back... even if it's just for a while." His fingers tapped lightly on the varnished wood of the bar.
Wiz watched him closely, with that sixth sense honed by years of late-night confidences. He quietly lowered his drink.
"You're here for Fiyero, aren't you?"
Boq didn't respond immediately. He just nodded, with that kind of gesture that doesn't want to be confirmed, but can't be denied either.
"He's on center court," she said finally, without judgment, only with a hint of tenderness. She nodded toward the area where light filtered in from a large, dusty skylight. "Playing boss with his notebook. He's taken to redesigning even the damn cup holders. Says he wants everything to 'tell a story.'"
Boq turned toward the court. There, amid the semidarkness and the dust suspended in the light, Fiyero stood like a figure of calm authority. He wore a rolled-up white shirt and dark trousers, holding a notebook full of scribbles, measurements, and notes. He was talking to two foremen while pointing out areas of the floor, choosing colors, light positions, the rhythm he wanted the night to have—even though the night hadn't yet begun. His expression was serene, his focus absolute.
Boq watched him for a long moment, without moving. The sight of Fiyero there, so steady and confident, had something disarming about him—and, at the same time, something deeply familiar. As if, despite everything, he had never changed.
He took a breath. He repositioned himself. And with a small smile he couldn't suppress, he took the first step toward him.
Fiyero flipped through his notebook with the meticulousness of an obsessive architect, oblivious to the gentle din of the place slowly waking up. He murmured something to the lighting technician, jotted corrections in a column in the margin, and glanced up every so often to imagine how each corner would look once night fell and everything shone as it should. It was then, amidst this symphony of details, that he noticed a familiar presence at his side.
Without fully looking up, Fiyero smiled with his trademark expression, a mix of overflowing confidence and the carefree charisma of someone who never seems entirely surprised.
"Wow, look what the tide washed away," he said, finally turning to face him. "If there's still a tide left in this devastated city."
He extended a firm hand toward Boq, who accepted it with a gesture that contained affection, complicity, and an inevitable hint of longing. The handshake was strong, sincere, like those that aren't given out of obligation, but because the body still remembers what it was like to trust without reservation.
"You're still the same," Boq commented, with a small smile as he looked him up and down. The club, you... Although it seems you have more ideas than ever.
"Ideas?" Fiyero raised an eyebrow, as if he couldn't avoid the mocking tone. "Ideas have me, old friend. They haven't let me sleep for days."
They both laughed, though with a slight, unspoken tension hanging in the air like electricity before a storm.
"I'm glad you're here, really," Fiyero added, more serious now, still watching him. "Although... I suppose you didn't just come to say hello."
Boq lowered his gaze, and for a moment seemed to want to postpone the inevitable. But he couldn't anymore.
"Fiyero," he began, his tone careful, "why are you doing all this?" He raised his gaze, boring into his old friend's eyes. "Do you really think you can save Ozdust? You know as well as I do that the club's days are numbered..."
Fiyero didn't reply immediately. He closed the notebook, took a deep breath, and when he spoke, his voice held a weight Boq hadn't felt in a long time.
"I don't care about the damn reforms, Boq." His gaze hardened, but it wasn't anger, it was conviction. "This place... this place is my history. It's the history of many. I'm not going to let them erase it just because someone in a tie wants to redraw the map from his office. Not without a fight."
Boq sighed. He'd guessed as much, but it didn't make it any less painful to hear. He took a step closer.
"Fiyero, this isn't just politics. It's not just 'reform.'" His voice was low, but firm. "They've already started. Ahead of schedule. They're not cleaning up the city... they're razing it. Anyone who gets in the way is a target."
"Send them in," Fiyero replied without hesitation. "I'm not alone in this. I spoke to Elphaba... and Glinda." We're going to fight together. What we built here, the people we touched, the nights that changed lives... they won't go down without a fight.
Boq swallowed. He had feared it. He had come for precisely that reason. And yet, saying it out loud was like throwing a stone at a mirror.
"That's what the senator wants," he said finally, a silent pain on his face. "For them to fight. For you to unite them. For everything to explode."
Fiyero stood still. His expression didn't change immediately, but something in his posture tensed, as if time had stopped flowing for a second. Boq looked at him, feeling the atmosphere thicken, as if every word spoken was charged with dynamite.
"When Elphaba and Glinda fight," Boq continued, his voice lower, more bitter, "he'll be ready. Waiting for just the right moment to destroy them both. So that when everything burns, he will be the savior... and they will be destroyed...”
Notes:
Just in time!!!! I was going to post the new chapter yesterday, but I decided to postpone it for a day to coincide with the release of the Wicked: For Good trailer, which I'm sure we've all been eagerly awaiting. So, as a bonus, in addition to the trailer, today I'm posting the new chapter of the story, which is one of my favorites so far. As always, I welcome your comments and opinions on each chapter. Thanks for commenting!
Chapter 16: NO ACT OF CHARITY GOES UNRESENTED
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“In a tower of mirrors, gold-laced and high,
Where roses bloomed only to wilt and sigh,
There lived a maiden, with hair like the dawn,
Wrapped in silks, but her freedom long gone.
She danced through the halls, she smiled on demand,
With grace in her voice and chains on her hand.
The world called her perfect, a star carved in glass—
But stars do not weep when the curtains pass.
And then she came—like midnight flame,
A witch without name, with no need for fame.
Her eyes held tempests, her voice held storms,
She spoke not of love, but shattered norms.
They clashed like thunder, they burned like sin,
One masked in light, one dark within.
Yet when the tower walls turned thin,
Their breath became the violin.
No vows were made, no roses thrown,
But two hearts broke the curse alone.
The witch removed her cloak of fear,
The maiden shed her silent tear.
And for a night—no prince, no crowd—
They lived not quiet, but fierce and loud.
They kissed with the hunger of those who flee,
And found, in ruin, a way to be free.
The city slept, its gears still spun,
But in that room, the war was won.
For love, when born from ash and flame,
Needs neither crown, nor claim, nor name.”
Glinda slowly lowered her quill, letting the ink dry with the gravity one reserves for the oldest confessions. The notebook was old, with a hard cover lined with a pearly rainbow color that had already lost its luster. She had found that forgotten locket among other relics from her adolescence when, visiting the family home, she had walked through her room as if it were a mausoleum.
In her youth, she had written stories where love always arrived with white horses, perfect moons, and immaculate endings. What she had just written, however, was not a fantasy. It was her way of understanding what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. The previous night had not been a fairy tale scene. There had been no background music, no petals falling from the ceiling, not even sweet words. But there was truth. There was surrender. There was fear. And then… there was peace.
She sighed and gently closed the notebook, as if sealing a confession to the universe. She slipped it into the drawer of the nightstand, as if she were hiding a part of herself she no longer needed to hide… but wasn't yet ready to reveal.
Beside her, Elphaba slept, partially wrapped in the rumpled linen sheets, one arm outstretched as if she still searched for her even in her dreams. Her breathing was deep, calm, almost childlike, and for a moment Glinda remained motionless, watching her. Elphaba's profile, outlined by the pale moonlight filtering through the curtains, was a mixture of hardness and tenderness, of battle and rest. Her eyelids trembled slightly, as if she were dreaming of something she dared not speak.
Glinda reached out and with her fingertips brushed a strand of her dark hair, brushed it away from her forehead, and then, with a minimal movement, stroked the curve of her shoulder.
Elphaba stirred slightly, but did not wake. She murmured something inaudible, perhaps a name, perhaps a spell, perhaps a promise.
Glinda allowed herself to smile. Not a wide or radiant smile, but a small curve of her lips that held gratitude and weariness, fear and desire.
"You're not the monster you thought you were," she whispered, barely audible, as if afraid of shattering the crystal of that moment. "And I... I'm not as perfect as I pretended. But for some reason, in this mess, you make me feel real."
She didn't expect a reply. She just leaned down, placed a soft kiss on Elphaba's bare shoulder, and lay down beside her, this time allowing herself not to think about tomorrow.
And while the moon watched from above, two women who had spent their entire lives pretending to be what the world expected... simply slept.
CHAPTER 16: No act of charity goes unresented
The alarm clock rang with the thunder of an inevitable sentence. A relentless hum that cut through the fog of sleep in the dark room. Elphaba, still tangled in her blankets, reached out with an ancestral groan and snapped it off, as if punishing the poor device for fulfilling its sole purpose. She blinked once, twice, and let out a long, deep sigh as she sat on the edge of the bed with the laziness characteristic of a soul who will never get used to waking up early, no matter how many academic degrees she has hanging on the walls.
Still in her robe, with her hair disheveled and her feet dragging, she crossed the threshold into the living room… and stopped.
The sun streamed through the windows with an almost cinematic warmth, and there, in the middle of her penthouse, which normally oscillated between creative chaos and functional disorder, everything… was perfectly organized. Brilliant. Impeccable.
The kitchen smelled of freshly brewed coffee, golden toast, and a hint of cinnamon. Soft music played in the background—was that… Doris Day?—and every surface gleamed as if it had been painstakingly polished. And at the center of this utterly absurd vision, hurrying back and forth with unnerving efficiency, was Glinda.
Perfectly groomed. A pastel pink dress, impeccably applied lipstick, a matching frilly apron. Her hair, as elaborate as if it had stepped straight off a 1954 magazine cover, didn't have a single hair out of place. She held a spatula in one hand and a coffee mug in the other.
"Good morning, my love!" she crooned with a wide smile, handing him the mug as if it were part of a rehearsed choreography. "Black coffee, two teaspoons of sugar, just the way you like it. Did you sleep well?" Elphaba stood still, holding her coffee motionless, staring at Glinda as if she'd woken up in an alternate universe or, worse, a retro network sitcom.
"What... is going on?" she finally murmured.
Glinda spun around on her heels with ease, as if she were starring in an appliance commercial. She walked quickly over, pulled an impeccably ironed shirt from the back of the chair, and tossed it in the air before hanging it on the bedroom doorframe.
"I laid out your school clothes. And I already packed your bag. I checked the class schedule—by the way, you have a second-grade class starting half an hour late today. Oh! And I put an apple in your bag. Because, you know, you're a teacher. I don't know if they actually do that, but I thought it was cute."
"Glinda…" Elphaba rubbed her eyes, then her temple. I know when we got back from your parents' house you said not to worry, and it's been a few days, but... Are you okay?
"Of course!" she replied, with an even wider smile, clearly forced though well disguised beneath her compulsive enthusiasm. "I feel fabulous. I mean, what more could I ask for? I'm home, with my incredibly hot witch girlfriend, without the pressure of the office for another week... And I have free time to organize! Isn't that great?"
"Organize... what exactly? My whole life?"
Glinda let out a giggle that seemed rehearsed for a midday comedy.
"Just the basics. Clothes, breakfast, schedules, your box of whips, the washing machine. I made a list. I also organized your books by color."
Elphaba looked at her. She blinked. Then she slowly turned back to the study bookshelf and saw that, indeed, her books on political theory, radical philosophy, queer literature, and BDSM were now arranged as if they were part of an Instagram showcase.
"Oh my God," Elphaba muttered, taking a resigned sip of coffee. "You're having a domestic crisis."
Glinda stared at her, her smile faltering for a split second. Then she hurried to pick up a notebook and a feather duster from the counter.
"Of course not! I'm just taking advantage of my time to contribute to this household. And you seem more relaxed, see? This is doing you good."
"I'm too confused to be stressed," Elphaba said tersely, placing her mug on the kitchen counter. "Just tell me... Does this have to do with your mother?"
Glinda paused, the feather duster still in her hand, as if someone had pressed "pause" on her program.
"I don't know," she said finally, lowering her voice. "Maybe. I don't want to talk about it right now. I want to... make this work. Make something work. And this is something I can control."
Elphaba crossed her arms. She looked at her silently for several seconds. Finally, she reached over, took her hand, and took the feather duster from her.
"Come here, Stepford Barbie," she said gently, holding her against her chest.
Glinda let herself be hugged, still stiff for a second, but then she leaned her head against Elphaba's, letting out a long breath.
"Just... don't let me fall apart yet, okay?"
"Okay," Elphaba murmured, kissing her forehead. "But if I wake up tomorrow and you're baking whiplash cookies, we're going to have to have a serious talk."
Glinda laughed. And for the first time in days, her laughter sounded real.
Elphaba held the hug for a moment longer, breathing in the sweet scent of Glinda's perfume, the one that smelled vaguely of expensive vanilla and floral secrets. There was something comforting and yet unsettling about that touch: the feeling that Glinda was holding herself up through a carefully constructed illusion. A cage of lace and cakes, but a cage nonetheless.
When they separated, Elphaba slid her fingers down the blonde's arms, taking her hands.
"Okay," she said calmly. "I'll let you stay on this episode of 'Magical Housewives'... for a little while longer. But only if you promise me that today you'll do more than just make my lunch like we're part of a 1950s commercial."
Glinda tilted her head, blinking with a somewhat fake sweetness.
"Something like what?"
"Like talking to the Emerald Post. Remember you agreed to contact the editor to talk about Ozdust and what will happen when the senator's project enters phase two?" Elphaba raised an eyebrow, sarcasm shining in her voice. "Or are you planning to solve Emerald City's housing crisis with raspberry muffins?"
Glinda rolled her eyes, but her smile remained firm.
"Damn, you got me." I was planning to win over the reform council with an inclusive brunch and scones with protest messages baked inside.
"I'm sure they tried that in Munchkinland. It ended in frosting riots," Elphaba murmured, gently pulling her toward the armchair.
They both sat down. Glinda tucked in the hem of her dress and elegantly crossed her legs, as if she were still on the set of a soap opera. Elphaba settled with her elbows on her knees, looking down at her, her tousled hair falling into her eyes.
"Besides," she continued, "Fiyero is expecting us to meet this week. We need to continue evaluating how to proceed with the club. We can't let it get shut down just because the hypocrites on the committee are scared to see people happy being who they are."
Glinda nodded slowly, her expression becoming a little more serious.
"You're right. I know. I promise to call the Post after lunch." And this afternoon we can go see Fiyero. I just...' She lowered her gaze, 'I just needed... a break.'
'A break or a fantasy?' Elphaba asked, with an arched eyebrow and a smile that barely concealed her dry humor.
Glinda pressed her lips together, trying to resist, but she couldn't help it. A nervous giggle escaped her.
'Okay, I'll admit it. Maybe a tiny part of me...' She raised her fingers and clasped them together, as if pinching the air, 'very tiny,' wanted to fulfill an old teenage fantasy of... playing house... the lesbian-in-love version.
"Lesbian version?" Elphaba questioned, her tone serious and parodying.
"I SAID SO!" Glinda repeated proudly, grinning from ear to ear.
Elphaba burst out laughing, throwing her head back.
"By the witches of the north, you're impossible."
"But adorable?" Glinda asked, leaning down to place a quick kiss on her witch's lips.
"Unbearably so," Elphaba said, before adding, resignedly, "Fine, you're allowed to continue playing Betty Glindaford until I leave for work. But if you iron another shirt for me, I'll start charging you rent."
"Accepted!" Glinda squealed, jumping on the sofa with her arms raised as if she'd just won a pitched battle. "Yay! The lesbian cottage survives another morning!"
Elphaba just shook her head, smiling as she finished her coffee.
It was absurd, disproportionate, theatrical... but it was also her. And if there was one thing she loved about Glinda, it was precisely that: her endless ability to transform emotional chaos into a musical with improvised choreography. Even when she was bleeding inside.
And for now, that was enough.
Minutes later, Elphaba emerged from the bedroom dressed in the impeccable suit Glinda had prepared for her with meticulous devotion. Every crease was perfectly ironed, the shirt immaculately white, the trousers fitted just where they should be, and, of course, the tie—tightened with almost military efficiency—made the imposing woman in green look like she stepped out of a fashion magazine for executives with secrets. She walked toward the dining room with heavy steps, grumbling under her breath as she loosened the collar of her outfit with the subtle desperation of someone who fears she'll suffocate to death from forced elegance.
"Is this part of the punishment or the game?" "She asked ironically, watching Glinda dart around like a blond whirlwind in low heels, placing fresh flowers in the vase, pouring coffee into the cup with her embroidered initial, and placing a perfectly symmetrical stack of pancakes on a white plate with gold trim.
"Shhh, don't break the magic," Glinda said without turning around, her tone light and cheerful. "Today you are an important businesswoman, and I am your loving housewife who makes everything work as if by domestic charm."
Elphaba sat down, with the stiffness of someone afraid of wrinkling the suit she didn't ask for. She held a knife and fork as if they were weapons, and cut the first pancake with ritual solemnity. She brought it to her mouth, chewed, and raised an eyebrow.
"Damn," she said, "this tastes like a happy childhood. How did you make it taste like that?" "A touch of cinnamon, and a pinch of homegrown love, my dear executive," Glinda replied, pouring more maple syrup while straightening the collar of his suit with a smile that was pure fire disguised as cotton candy.
They both tried to sustain their roles for a few more minutes, as if they were in an absurd play that only they understood. But the tension—the real one, the one burning beneath their skin—was too strong to bear. Elphaba put down her fork halfway and, without warning, took Glinda by the waist and pulled her towards her, sitting her on her lap with a firm movement that made her giggle in surprise.
"Mrs. Thropp!" Glinda said dramatically. "This is absolutely inappropriate!"
"Not if you signed the consent form..." Elphaba retorted before kissing her with a heady mix of tenderness and hunger.
The kiss was slow at first, almost reverent. But soon it transformed into something else: deeper, more urgent. Their hands began to explore with a trust born of years and hurts, of reconciliations and shared silences. Glinda clutched the lapel of his suit, undoing it with theatrical slowness, while Elphaba caressed the line of his back with almost religious devotion.
"You know what?" Glinda murmured between kisses. "This uniform looks incredibly good on you... but I like it better when it starts to disappear."
"I was thinking the same thing," Elphaba whispered against her neck. "Who cares about punctuality when you have pancakes and soft legs in your lap?"
They were just on the point of freeing each other from their cotton and cloth charms, sighs and laughter intertwined like petals falling onto the carpet, when the sharp, insistent ringing of the telephone cut through the air like a whip.
"No..." they both said in unison, dropping their heads onto each other's shoulders, defeated by the harsh reality.
"It's my job..." Elphaba said in a deep voice, a grimace that mixed frustration and resignation.
"Are you sure it's not just the universe being cruel?" Glinda complained, adjusting her dress as she regained composure with the grace of an interrupted diva.
They both made themselves as tidy as they could. Glinda lovingly smoothed Elphaba's jacket, giving her tie one last theatrical shake, while Elphaba snorted as if this was the worst thing that had happened to her all week.
"I have to change," the witch said, turning toward the bedroom.
But Glinda got there first, crossing her arms in front of the door with her most irresistible expression, the one that combined childlike pleading with dangerous coquetry.
"And ruin my fantasy of the perfect wife with breakfast and a fitted suit?" After all the work I did this morning?
Elphaba glanced at her, knowing she was lost before she even opened her mouth.
"This is emotional blackmail."
"And it works," Glinda replied, winking at her.
"Very well, but if this keeps up, I swear tonight you're going to be the one wearing the tie. And it won't be around your neck."
Glinda laughed with a mixture of surprise and mischief.
"Promises, promises!"
They both reached the door. Elphaba picked up her purse, Glinda adjusted the collar of her suit one last time. They looked at each other for a second that seemed to stretch like warm caramel. Then, a kiss. Not a chaste one, not a hurried one. One with meaning. With purpose.
"Come back soon," Glinda said.
"Don't cook anymore until I get back," Elphaba replied.
"Why?"
"Because I have better ideas for what we'll do in the kitchen tonight."
And with a sly smile and a tip of her nonexistent hat, Elphaba left for work, leaving her alone in the penthouse... where Glinda was already preparing for the second part of her day.
Elphaba walked down the penthouse's carpeted hallway to the elevator as if wearing an alien, enchanted disguise, one she didn't yet know whether to preserve or destroy with fire. The elegant suit hugged her figure with a restraint that bordered on provocation, as if the outfit knew that its true power lay in its restraint. The tie bothered her—a ridiculous constriction—but there was something about the way his shoes clicked against the building's marble that made her feel, perhaps for the first time in weeks, exactly where she belonged.
When the chrome elevator doors opened, she found him there: Crope. Upon seeing her, the first thing he did was frown, tilting his head like someone contemplating an abstract painting, unsure whether he loved it or hated it. "Don't say a word," Elphaba snapped before he could even swallow his first sip.
Crope raised his hands in a sign of peace, though his sly smile betrayed him.
"I swear on my succulents," he said, entering the elevator with her. "But if the suit starts talking for itself, I'm not responsible."
Elphaba rolled her eyes, but couldn't stop a small laugh from escaping her chest as they descended.
Thirty minutes later, she was walking through the halls of Nevermore Academy, her heels echoing on the ancient marble and the dim morning light that filtered through the Gothic stained-glass windows. This time, however, she wasn't the intimidating witch, the mysterious teacher with the unfriendly face and the reputation of being untouchable. No. Today, her bearing was different, and everyone noticed. Her straight back, her firm gait, her gaze shining like a beacon in the fog: there was something about her that seemed to have awakened from a long slumber. As if wearing Glinda's armor for a couple of hours had restored the clarity of the fire that burned beneath her green skin.
The students stood back with the same mixture of respect and fear as always, but their eyes were different. More curious. More vigilant. Some murmured absurd theories, others simply watched her with a disturbing silence. Elphaba paid no attention to them. It wasn't for them that she had put on that costume. It was, in part, for her. And in part... for an unbearable blonde who knew how to destroy her with love and rebuild her with hot coffee.
She entered her classroom and let the murmur cease with the mere opening of the door. Elphaba didn't need to raise her voice to impose order. Her presence was enough, with that way she had of looking at each student as if she already knew everything about them—their truths, their fears, their masks. This morning, in her suit, that gaze was even more precise, more dangerous.
She began her social studies class in her usual tone: slow, sharp, with that hint of academic sarcasm that made it clear that ignorance would not be tolerated, but would be dismantled.
"Today we're going to talk about urban revolutions," she began, writing on the board in her elegant, severe handwriting. "Not the ones that appear in textbooks with exact dates and statues in squares, but the real ones. The ones that are born on the margins, in discomfort, in systematized injustice."
While she spoke, her students took notes, some more attentively than others. But it was Clarisse who, as always, decided to intervene. Dressed all in white, with her manicure perfect and her voice trained to sound like a cross between an influencer and a spring queen, she raised her hand without waiting for royal permission.
"Miss Thropp," she said in her nasal, modulated voice, "I don't want to interrupt the lesson, but I think we should also talk about the senator and Shiz.Corp's renovation project. My dad says the city is finally going to be cleansed of all the ugly and dangerous things. It'll be like... a social facelift. Isn't that also a revolution?"
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She just stared at her, letting the silence grow like a thick fog in the room. Clarisse, oblivious to the change in atmosphere, continued.
"They're going to relocate all those destitute people and put in art centers, themed cafes, maker spaces... It'll be much safer, more aesthetically pleasing. The city deserves to move forward, doesn't it?"
Elphaba slowly rested the chalk against the blackboard, with surgical precision. Then she walked to the desk, hands clasped behind her back, as if assessing a recent crime scene.
"Clarisse," she began, "I'm glad you brought that up. Because what you're describing isn't a revolution. It's cosmetic surgery. A pretty mask over a wound they don't want to heal but rather hide. Do you know what happens when you hide a wound without treating it?"
Clarisse blinked, uncomfortable.
"It festers," Elphaba continued, her voice low but clear. "And eventually it poisons the entire body."
She turned to the rest of the class.
"The project Clarisse is talking about is an example of economic displacement disguised as progress. A power structure that decides, from on high, which parts of the city are worth living in… and which ones should disappear so as not to cause discomfort. Does that sound like justice to you? Or urban eugenics?"
No one dared to answer. Elphaba walked back to the board, forcefully underlining the term "gentrification."
“This is the revolution we’re seeing today: one where the powerful redefine the landscape for their own comfort, and then call it ‘renovation’ so they can sleep soundly. It’s everyone’s duty—yes, even you, young men and women with influential fathers—to look beyond the pretty words. Because monsters also know how to use perfumes and designer suits.”
Her gaze fell back on Clarisse, who was now looking down at her notebook, unsure how to make up for lost ground.
“Class,” Elphaba concluded, “take note: every true revolution is born from discomfort. Not from interior design.”
Elphaba leaned against the desk with both hands, looking at her class like someone trying to sow a seed in land that may have already been sold. Her voice was firm, passionate, but not imposing.
“The city doesn’t need to be painted new colors,” she said. “It needs to be heard. And you, believe it or not, can and should speak up.” Before there's no one left to listen to.
There was a tense silence. One Elphaba knew well: the silence between unease and indifference. The moment when a generation decides whether to open their eyes or continue swiping on autopilot.
But then, a hand rose from the back of the room. It was Declan, a student with an intelligent gaze and a perpetually skeptical tone.
"What if it's already late, Professor?"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
Declan stood up, phone in hand, and without waiting for a reply, walked over to her desk. He turned the device to show her the screen. A headline in capital letters glowed with the urgency that only digital journalism can feign:
"Senate Approves Advance Phase 3 of Emerald Renewal Project. Implementation Begins This Week."
Elphaba froze.
She read and reread the headline, then lowered her gaze to scan the body of the text. Her face, for a moment, turned stony. Not out of surprise, but from the intensity of the internal calculation she was beginning to make. The dates, the marked areas, the neighborhoods that would be "renovated" first. They weren't just names. They were people. They were places she knew. Stories she'd heard. Children she'd taught during her volunteer work, adults who greeted her by name at the bakery in the southern district.
"This week...?" she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.
A murmur rippled through the classroom. Some began checking their own phones. Even Clarisse looked visibly confused, as if the news didn't match the version she'd been sold at home.
Elphaba looked back at Declan.
"Where did you find this?"
"Emerald Post. It was posted half an hour ago." It's already going viral.
Elphaba pressed her lips together. Suddenly, everything clicked in the worst possible way. The delay in public consultations, the senator's carefully ambiguous language, the way the media had embellished every step of the project... It was a smokescreen. It always had been.
She closed her eyes for a moment, forcing herself to breathe. Then she straightened and looked at the class with renewed hardness.
"So we're not talking about prevention. We're talking about resistance."
She walked over to the board and swiped away everything she'd written before. Instead, she began to draw a new outline in large letters:
"WHEN THE SYSTEM HAS DECIDED—NOW WHAT?"
"New assignment," she said, her tone like a bell signaling the start of a battle. "I want you to research historical cases of communities that were displaced by similar projects. What did they do? How did they resist? What did they achieve? And more importantly: What can we learn from them today?"
The students looked at each other, still surprised. Some were already taking notes. Others, silent, were beginning to wake up.
Elphaba didn't look at Declan's phone again. She didn't need it anymore. Reality had entered through the front door. And this time, he wasn't going to let her out without a fight.
Meanwhile, in another part of the city...
The scent of vanilla, brown sugar, and stress wafted like a perfumed mist through the elegant penthouse. Sunlight filtered through the linen curtains, illuminating a scene of utter and glorious contradiction. Glinda, impeccably dressed in a pastel pink apron embroidered with her name—a gift from an old-fashioned aunt she'd sworn never to wear and now refused to take off—found herself in a frantic dance between civic duty and crisis baking.
With her hands covered in sticky dough, she held her cell phone between her shoulder and cheek in a kind of home office acrobatic feat.
“No, no, listen carefully, Mr. Maguire,” Glinda said, holding the phone between her cheek and shoulder as both hands vigorously kneaded a thick, sticky mixture. “This isn’t just Ozdust as a building—it’s a symbol! A cultural meeting place, a place of expression, of queer urban history. If they destroy that, what’s next? Are they going to cover the Green River with concrete?”
As she spoke, she stirred the mixture with heroic vigor. Flour in the air. A pinch of cinnamon on her nose. The oven began to beep anxiously, as if sharing her indignation.
"Yes, I have the files with the owners' statements, the photos from the municipal archives, and Mrs. Whiz's testimony. Of course it's valid. The woman has been there since Glindalynn was a drag name instead of mine!"
In the middle of her impassioned plea, her right hand—her free, but unfortunately clumsy one—tripped on the bowl of frosting, which fell to the floor with a tragic flop. Glinda screamed, ducked, and without hanging up, stretched out her leg like a defeated ballerina to reach the dishcloth.
"Wait a second, please... no, don't hang up!" she snarled, cleaning up the mess as if signing a peace treaty with the floor.
With a half-molded cookie in one hand, her flour-soaked cell phone in the other, and her note-taking list precariously tucked between her teeth, Glinda turned to the counter. Her planning notebook was open, already four fresh pages filled with notes, contacts, potential community meeting times, and a draft of a letter to the senator, written in hurried but absolutely furious cursive.
The editor on the other end cleared his throat.
"Miss Upland, this is admirable, really. Could you forward all of that to me by email? We'd also need a specific quote from you to head the story..."
"Of course! Something like: 'You can't call progress what begins with the eviction of those with the least voice.' The server?"
"Perfect."
"Perfect," Glinda repeated, as her toaster spat out two burnt slices and her oven beeped again in an emergency tone.
Finally, she hung up, put her cell phone on the table, looked around, and let out a sigh so dramatic it would have made a classical actress cry. The apron, the flour, the chaos… She was silent for a few seconds.
“At what point…” she muttered, her voice barely audible as she picked up a spoon from the floor, “…did I go from living out my sexy lesbian fantasy… to becoming an overburdened housewife with two jobs and an ever-growing contact list?”
She looked at herself in the reflection of the oven. She'd sweated through makeup. Her hair was one step away from collapse. And yet, her eyes shone. With indignation, yes. With exhaustion, a lot. But also with meaning. Because somewhere in the back of her mind, Glinda knew that for the first time, she was using her voice not to please… but to transform.
While the oven continued to make suspicious noises that weren't part of any recipe approved by the National Association of Nervous Baking, and the apron looked like it had survived a war. Glinda let out a sigh that had been brewing for hours and, without deigning to look back, left the kitchen to its fate, with the vague hope that some of those cookies, if they had a soul, would have the decency not to escape from the oven of their own volition.
She walked to the living room table and sank into one of the chairs like someone leaving a trench. In front of her were dozens of papers, badly folded documents, napkins with notes, urban planning maps, and sheets of paper with violent red and black underlining. All of this belonged to the two women's joint plan of resistance.
With a resignation disguised as affection, Glinda took her glasses—the ones for serious work, not the ones for "looking at fashion magazines"—and put them on. And so, transformed into an exhausted but determined secretary, she began to organize her partner's documents. She separated them by topic, classified them by urgency, looked for key notes in the margins. At her side was a to-do list she'd put together with Elphaba during one of their "moments of strategic organization with wine and sarcasm."
She reviewed each point carefully until one caught her attention:
—Enlist the support of a renowned family.
Glinda was silent. For a few seconds, only her breathing filled the space. Then she slowly put her pen down on the table and took off her glasses.
That point. That damn point.
They'd tried. She'd tried. And her family—specifically, her mother—hadn't just closed the door… they'd locked it with insults and a speech about "keeping up appearances" that still burned in her soul.
Neither of them had mentioned that day since. It was a memory with sharp edges, sealed with fake smiles and unspoken words. But they knew—both of them knew—that wound remained raw, and that support, painful as it was, was still crucial.
The argument crept back into her mind without asking permission. Her mother's voice sounded perfect and poisonous. The reproach. The shame. The way Glinda had tried to talk, to reason, even to cry… to no avail.
"You're going to regret this, Glinda," her mother had said. "...Elphaba can't give you what you need. I already know that."
Glinda clenched her jaw. She closed her eyes.
And then, her phone rang.
Like someone being pulled back to the present by an invisible rope, she rushed to answer it.
"Elphaba?" she said, relieved, her voice soft and trembling with all that had gone unsaid.
The response on the other end of the line wasn't sweet or casual. It was tense, urgent.
"Glinda... you have to see this. Now. I've just received confirmation of the worst."
Glinda bolted upright, her body reacting before her mind.
"What happened? What did they confirm?"
Elphaba exhaled with suppressed rage.
"They brought forward the final phase of the project. The relocation begins in days. The western district... it's lost if we don't do something now."
Glinda felt the world spin a little faster. As if all the flour, the calls, the cookies, the papers, the memories, the family wounds... everything had been leading her exactly to this moment.
She stood up.
"Then let's do it," she said with a calmness that concealed fire. "I'm not going to let them destroy this."
Silence on the other end. And then, Elphaba's voice, this time with a hint of pride:
"I love you. But we need you to talk to Fiyero as soon as possible."
Glinda closed her eyes. She smiled. And murmured:
"And I'll do it now, I promise! For you, my love."
"Perfect, go talk to him. I promise I'll catch up with you as soon as I can."
Elphaba turned off her phone. She slipped it into her jacket pocket with a clumsiness that wasn't usual for her. She was leaning against one of the walls of the academy hallway, right between two empty classrooms, with the distant echo of a bell announcing the next class. But she didn't care.
Her mind was in swarm. Elphaba didn't usually allow herself the luxury of stopping to think too deeply about her emotions—but this time, she couldn't dodge the blow.
How did I survive so many months in this place without Glinda by my side?
The answer came wrapped in laughter. A familiar laugh. Ironic. Masculine.
Isaac Norman.
Elphaba closed her eyes for a second. Great, she thought. Part of her wanted to simply turn and disappear down the hallway like a shadow. But another woman… the one who had evolved thanks to Glinda, the one who now dared to speak even if it hurt… knew something remained unresolved.
So she straightened, adjusted her tie with a grimace (damn Glinda for convincing her to wear that), and approached.
Isaac was coming out of the bathroom, still drying his hands with a paper towel. He saw her and his body instantly tensed, as if expecting a sharp comment or a venomous rebuke.
"Don't make that face," Elphaba said, crossing her arms with a half-smile. "I'm not here to bite you. At least not today."
Isaac froze, confused, as if he didn't know whether to laugh or run.
"So?"
"I came to tell you something I'm not good at saying," she said, lowering her voice a little. "I've been thinking about it. And I know… I wasn't fair to you."
He looked at her, uncomprehending.
"I... used you." The word weighed on her tongue. "Like a distraction. Like a desperate attempt not to feel alone. It wasn't right. And even less so to expect you to share things with me that even you didn't want to share."
Isaac opened his mouth, but said nothing.
Elphaba continued before the silence could become awkward:
"That doesn't mean I'm not still upset about some things. Because yes, you were a coward about certain things, and on more than one occasion you hid behind that false image of a 'deep, uninvolved man,' when in reality you were just afraid. But I was afraid too. And that's why... I reacted the way I did. I wanted you to be something you weren't. Or at least couldn't be for me."
Isaac looked at her with a mixture of surprise and... admiration? Maybe he hadn't expected it. Maybe no one expected an honest apology from Elphaba Thropp.
"I don't know what to say," she finally murmured.
"You don't have to say anything," she replied with a slight shrug. "I just wanted you to know. I don't owe you anything anymore, and you don't owe me. But for what it's worth... I hope you find someone who's really looking for what you can give. Because deep down, you're not a bad guy. Just a bit of an idiot."
Isaac laughed. A genuine, if slightly hurt, laugh.
"Thank you... I think."
Isaac and Elphaba shared a smile—small, strange, but for the first time real. It seemed like, finally, something was at peace between them.
And then, as if the universe couldn't resist ruining it... the bathroom door opened.
A woman emerged—another professor, a recent addition to the faculty—fumbling her blouse with disorder, her hair disheveled, her expression still somewhat dazed. Her cloying perfume filled the hallway like an alarm.
Elphaba frowned. The woman soon noticed them, and with an ill-contained laugh and the tone of someone who thinks she's in control, she approached Isaac, running a finger down his chest.
"Wow, Professor Norman... last night was crazy, but just in the bathroom... that's a real energized start to the day," she said with a ridiculously affected laugh.
Isaac paled. Elphaba gaped, her face frozen between disbelief and disgust.
The teacher then looked at Elphaba and seemed to recognize her. She narrowed her eyes mockingly.
"Oh... you're her, aren't you? The 'intense' one, the one who wanted to play boss. The one they told me was some kind of... what did you say, Isaac? Frustrated dominatrix?"
Isaac tensed. He tried to speak, but only managed a nervous laugh.
"Look, Elphaba, I... It's not what you think. I mean... it's just that you were always very intense. Very... dominant, you know? You made me feel... out of place. Like I wasn't supposed to be in control, you know?" She shrugged casually. "And that can be... sexy for a while. But it's not serious. Not for me."
"Exactly," the other woman chimed in. "Who wants to end up being a bossy teacher's bitch?"
They both laughed.
Silence.
Exit. "And that look... please. What's that? The gothic version of Ellen DeGeneres?" the other teacher cackled. "I see. Since no man can stand her, she's become the stereotypical lesbian."
Elphaba didn't even flinch. Then, without a word, she did it.
BOOM!
A knee straight to the groin. Isaac let out a stifled groan and fell like a log, while the other teacher gasped, her hand going to her mouth.
Elphaba looked at him with disdain. Then she slowly turned her head toward the woman, who suddenly didn't seem so brave.
She leaned closer, fixing her green eyes on her, grinning sideways.
And she said softly, "Bo."
The woman gave a small yelp and took a step back, startled.
Elphaba leaned slightly toward Isaac, and with a smile as elegant as it was cruel, said:
"I'm glad you finally spoke your mind. Because now I can speak my mind too: I'm in a relationship with someone incredible. Someone who isn't afraid of my strength, my character, or who I am. And I'll tell you a secret, Isaac..."
She leaned a little closer.
"She's a woman... and yet she has more balls than you."
Elphaba turned elegantly, straightened the much-criticized tie, and walked down the hallway like an empress on parade.
Meanwhile, Isaac writhed on the floor. The other teacher tried to help him, with a mixture of awkwardness and confusion.
And from the classroom doors, several students had witnessed the entire scene. Some had recorded it with their cell phones, others simply clapped or laughed.
"That teacher is my idol!" one shouted.
"Social justice AND poetic justice in one class!" another added. And Elphaba, without looking back, just murmured to herself:
"Goddess, witch, and bisexual. Write that down in your poetry book, Norman."
She left the building straight for her next mission. With more fire in her heart than ever.
Meanwhile, the Ozdust bar seemed suspended in an interminable pause, as if the whole world had moved on except for that hidden, weary corner of the city. The neon sign above the entrance crackled stubbornly, casting emerald flashes against the peeling facade. Inside, the air smelled of old wood, stale alcohol, and smoke from a time no longer permitted. The empty tables still bore the imprint of customers who hadn't returned in weeks, and the mirrors behind the bar reflected a distorted image of the place's sole occupant: Fiyero Tigelaar, his shirt still half-buttoned, his loose tie hanging like a defeated ornament, his eyes fixed on a stack of papers he'd been leafing through for hours without really reading.
To one side, an aging television broadcast the local news in a monotone. The images showed the closure of a community center in the western part of Emerald City. “Public funds will be redirected to strategic investments,” the anchorwoman said with a smile that seemed drawn with a scalpel. Fiyero let out a bitter laugh and raised his glass without looking.
“What a beautiful end to the cycle,” he murmured sarcastically, turning slightly toward the screen. “My parents cut the ribbon when they inaugurated it. They smiled for the cameras, posed with the neighborhood children... and now they're probably toasting the closure at some exclusive cocktail party.” He took a long drink, letting the ice tap against the glass as he tilted it. “Everything stays the same. Only the toasts change.”
“The only thing that changes is the lie,” The Whiz commented from behind the bar, refilling his glass without waiting for permission. His deep, elegant voice drew each word as if coated with irony. Dressed in a sequined gold dress that had seen better days but still retained some of its former glory, Whiz was an almost mythological figure in Ozdust: wise, sharp, and with the patience of someone who'd seen it all. "First they pretend they care. Then they screw it over. And you know what the worst part is? They don't even do it in secret. They do it during prime time."
Fiyero glanced down at his cell phone when it vibrated on the sticky marble counter. The screen displayed a name as familiar as it was uncomfortable: "MOM 💎." His finger trembled slightly on the call button, but he ended up blocking it and turning the device upside down.
"I'm not in the mood," he said, more to himself than to her.
"Since when are you in the mood for anything, fallen prince?" Whiz replied, gracefully adjusting a wig that had barely shifted. "You're going to have to talk to her someday. Even if it's just to tell her you hate her." Constant silence is also a form of submission.
"It's not about hatred," Fiyero replied, taking another drink. "It's about tiredness. Exhaustion. Every time I talk to her, I feel like I have to justify who I am. That I have to explain why I no longer want to be part of that family masquerade... And I'm not sure it's worth explaining further."
Whiz was about to respond, but a commotion at the entrance interrupted the conversation. Raised voices, soft knocks on the door, a burst of female indignation with overtones of wounded aristocracy. Fiyero frowned, sat up slightly, and looked toward the entrance.
"What's going on now?"
The bouncer appeared with a stoic expression, his arms crossed like a tattooed mountain, with the composure of someone who has had to deal with all kinds of scandals.
"Sorry, boss, but you were very clear." No letting in people who look too well-dressed to be regulars... And there's a crazy blonde standing outside yelling like she owns the bar. She's got a folder under her arm, a coat that's probably worth more than my car, and a pair of sunglasses that could double as knives. She says she knows him, that she's going to sue us, and that her coat was stolen through the door.
Fiyero didn't need more. He closed his eyes, snorted, and ran a hand over his face. The image was too specific, too Glinda-like.
"Let her in."
Whiz chuckled, tilting his head with a look of pure theatrical satisfaction.
"Oh, baby... this is going to be delicious."
The door swung open with a dramatic force measured to the millimeter. A gust of floral perfume and bourgeois discontent invaded the place. Glinda entered like a wounded diva: the cream-colored coat, the dark glasses, her heels clicking against the worn floor as if she were at a haute couture show, the folder clutched to her chest like a declaration of war. Everything about her screamed restrained chaos, drama, and style. The only thing out of place was a small flour stain on her sleeve, evidence of a life that didn't quite belong to her.
"Fiyero Tigelaar!" she exclaimed, addressing him as if calling him to the bench in a public trial. "What kind of place is this where people are discriminated against for dressing well?"
Fiyero swiveled on his stool, leaned an elbow on the bar, and gave a half-smile that was neither cynical nor friendly. He was just tired.
"The kind of place where revolution has no dress code."
Glinda took off her glasses with an elegant, withering gesture.
"Perfect. So I came dressed to cause a riot."
The Whiz couldn't help but burst out laughing, gently clapping his perfectly painted nails.
"I'll stay and watch this all burn."
Glinda didn't waste a second. She masterfully ignored Fiyero's sardonic gesture and Whiz's comments, removed her coat with surgical precision—folding it neatly over the back of the chair—and sat across from him as if she were in a boardroom instead of a decrepit, shuttered bar filled with emotional dust. She placed the folder on the bar, opened it with a sharp click, and unfolded her arsenal of papers with a determination that contrasted with the glamorous sheen of her perfectly polished manicure.
"Do you want something, Queen?" Whiz asked, not hiding her curiosity as she leaned over the bar.
"The strongest you have," Glinda replied without looking at her, her voice tense and clear, as if she were sorting ammunition for a war that had already begun.
The sound of papers being passed around echoed over the hum of the television. Glinda began to speak with a rapid but precise rhythm, like someone who had rehearsed every word in front of a mirror a thousand times.
"This," she said, pointing to a stack of documents, "is the historical record of the Ozdust Club as an unofficial cultural heritage site. Photographs, artists' testimonies, newspaper clippings from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Elphaba got access to the university archives, and I... well, I used my connections with the Historic Preservation Society." She paused for breath as she unfolded a second stack of papers. "Here we have a report on the forced revaluation of properties in the West District over the past six years. Did you know that in that time, rents rose 215% and that 48% of the original locations were displaced? And that most of those locations were owned by minorities?"
Fiyero nodded silently, turning the glass in his hand.
"Yes. I knew that. Some of it is in the reports I gave Elphaba a few weeks ago." They had the tax information and the zoning board records.
"Perfect. Then we're doing well," Glinda continued, still moving forward. "I've already spoken with the Emerald Post. They're interested in covering the story. Not out of altruism, of course... but they love a good narrative of institutional scandal and local resistance. If we can get this going in the media, even before it reaches the senator's office, we could generate enough public pressure to get them to back down without a trial."
Whiz, who had just poured her a dark amber drink in a thick glass, regarded her with an arched eyebrow.
"Are you always this brilliant, or only when you're about to overthrow governments?"
Glinda took the glass, took a sip, and exhaled sharply.
"Only when I'm taken out of my comfort zone. And this place," she said, looking around with a certain tenderness disguised as disdain, "is definitely not my zone."
Fiyero gave a crooked smile, the kind he reserved for moments when something felt uncomfortably admirable.
"I didn't know you were going to get so deeply involved."
"And what did you expect? That I'd stay home, sipping tea and watching them raze everything that still has a soul?" He stared at him, with an unexpected intensity. "This is bigger than you or me. Bigger than my comfort zone. The people of this neighborhood... your friends, your neighbors, the living history of this place... deserve us to fight for them. And I'm not talking about charity. I'm talking about justice."
Fiyero lowered his gaze, swallowed, and for the first time that night his posture relaxed, as if he'd taken the weight of the world off his shoulders for a few moments.
"I'm with you. With you," he said finally. "It's just that time is running out. The formal renovations to this area will begin in a few days." And the private buyers are already negotiating with the bank that foreclosed half a block south. Everything is moving too fast. We might not make it.
Glinda held her glass in both hands, thoughtful. For a long moment, the ambient noise of the bar—the electric hums, the creaking of wood, Whiz's breathing across the bar—filled the silence like a thick blanket.
"Then we're going to have to skip steps," she said, almost in a whisper. "Force the moves. Show them our teeth before they eat us alive." She barely sat up. "If we get a public hearing with the senator before the land reform goes ahead, and if we confront him with cameras, with the press, with crying neighbors and artists talking about collective memory... maybe he won't want to expose himself to scandal."
"What if I do?" Fiyero asked.
"Then we'll go to trial," Glinda replied without hesitation. "But first, we'll make sure every citizen of Emerald City knows exactly who's destroying their city to build a more profitable one."
Whiz clapped his hands softly, his gesture theatrically and proudly.
"Oh, baby, if you ever get into politics, let me know. I'd love to be your press officer."
Glinda smiled with a mixture of tiredness and pride as she finished her drink in one swift motion.
"If I get into politics, I'll do it with heels and a sword."
Fiyero glanced at her, nodding with a hint of respect that required no words. For the first time in a long time, he felt like there was someone at his side who wasn't just talking about changing things... but was actually willing to do it.
As Glinda continued to unfold her papers like pieces on a chessboard, detailing point by point the strategy to force the senator to back down, Fiyero held his glass in his hand, swirling the ice as if he could read the future in the shattering fragments. The passion in Glinda's voice was undeniable, her commitment palpable... but he knew better than anyone that good intentions, in that world, weren't enough.
"That's all very well," he said suddenly, interrupting her flow with a voice calm but sharp as a needle. "The protests, the media coverage, the testimonies, the historical records. But if you want to shake the dome... if you want someone close to the senator to truly listen, you need more than passion and facts. You need a last name."
Glinda stopped dead in her tracks. She looked at him with a slight frown, not out of disagreement, but because she knew he was right. Fiyero shrugged wryly, looking at his own reflection in the bottom of the glass. "Social awareness is useful for those already on the right side. But the bigwigs... they only listen to their own. If you want this to become a problem for them, someone in their circle has to speak up. Someone with clout." He raised an eyebrow, not needing to say it out loud. "And no, before you suggest it... you know my family won't lift a finger about this. To them, Ozdust is a stain on the map that should have been cleaned up years ago."
Glinda held eye contact for a few more seconds, then looked down, reorganizing some papers with a curt gesture. She didn't answer right away. But she didn't need to.
Fiyero tilted his head, curious.
"And you?" he asked, as if testing the waters. "Did you try it with your family?"
Glinda looked up again, but this time there were no words. Just a bitter spark in her eyes, as clear as a scream. Fiyero understood instantly. It was a heavy silence, filled with unspoken things and wounds still unhealed.
"It went badly... didn't it?" he said gently.
Glinda nodded slowly.
"Worse than you think," he murmured.
Fiyero looked at her with genuine compassion. That look without mockery, without irony, so rare in him that for a moment he seemed like a different person. He was about to say something, but Glinda interrupted him, shaking her head.
"It doesn't matter. I don't need their support. I don't want it." She gathered her papers, like a soldier adjusting his armor. "We'll find another way."
Fiyero sighed, as if he knew that determination was both a strength and a burden.
"Then we're going to have to get creative. Because if we don't get enough pressure from outside... we're going to have to consider a more direct alternative."
Glinda turned to him, her eyes as wide as the enormous metaphorical lightbulb that had formed in her head.
"What do you think...? A formal complaint?" A public lawsuit. Something that forces the system to respond, even if it doesn't want to. Even if it's for publicity's sake.
"A complaint...?" Fiyero repeated thoughtfully, as if he were beginning to savor the idea.
It was then that Whiz, who had been listening with one ear while polishing some empty glasses, let out a dry laugh.
"Oh, my love... what kind of lawyer is crazy enough to take on a case like that? Against the senator? Against the real estate interests that are paying for ten-course dinners at the country club every Friday? You need someone with more guts than sense. And with time on their hands to burn a career."
Glinda remained silent for a moment. She bit her lower lip. The comment wasn't wrong... but it wasn't so simple that it could be dismissed. Her mind, sharp and trained for debate, began to evaluate the idea, as if it were an unexpected chess move. She became thoughtful. Very thoughtful.
Until her eyes lit up, as if a spark crossed her gaze.
"Wait..." she muttered, opening her purse and pulling out her cell phone with quick, decisive movements.
Fiyero frowned.
"What are you thinking?"
But Glinda didn't answer. She was already dialing.
The phone rang twice. On the third, the line opened.
"Elphaba?" she said, his voice firm, although his jaw was tense. “I need to talk to you. I have an idea.”
There was a pause.
—No... you won't like it.
The next morning, the courthouse doors swung open with an imposing creak that echoed throughout the marble lobby. The sudden entrance drew the gaze of dark-suited lawyers, clerks with folders under their arms, and casual onlookers wandering the halls of the judiciary. Without pausing for a second, a group strode forward, led by an eccentric man with round green-tinted glasses, a disproportionately long scarf flapping as he walked, and a briefcase full of jumbled papers under his arm. He walked as if the carpet had been made for him. Yes… Tibbett was the lawyer on the case.
"Glinda, I need the cultural impact report, the old maps of the Western District, and the names of the key witnesses in that order! Come on, darling, if we fall into the river of bureaucracy, it's because someone couldn't swim with style!" Glinda, walking beside him with impeccable poise, was pulling the documents out one by one from her bag, like an executive assistant of the revolution.
"Here's the report, the plans, and I already confirmed the witness list with Elphaba last night. Tibbett, everything's in order."
"Perfect," he said without looking at her, already furiously flipping through a file. "Did you know that one poorly placed signature can bring down an entire case? That's why I write with emerald ink! All that glitters is true."
Behind them, Fiyero walked as if he'd just woken up in the middle of an unrehearsed play.
"Will someone explain to me why Elphaba's hysterical neighbor is leading this legal operation?"
Elphaba, walking beside him with her hands in her pockets and a tired but determined look, sighed.
"Tibbett is a lawyer. A graduate." He graduated with honors, even though he nearly burned down the school on graduation day because he called diplomas “acts of institutional repression.”
“And you brought him?”
“He’s the only one who agreed. Or rather, the only one crazy enough to think this could work.”
At that moment, a familiar, sharp voice sounded behind them.
“And because he hasn’t lost a case since 2009,” commented Crope, who was following a few steps behind them, elegant in a long velvet coat and dark glasses, his expression perpetually sardonic. “Though it rarely goes to trial. Most of his opponents give up before then. It’s exhausting to argue with someone who can turn a form into a manifesto and an objection into a musical.”
Tibbett, without pausing, raised a finger in the air.
“Because law is not defended in silence, Crope, it proclaims itself with the fury of a cursed opera!”
The four of them finally reached the double doors of the main hall. On the other side was the arena where one of the most daring moves of their lives would be played out: a formal complaint against the government for corruption, forced displacement, and urban manipulation within the framework of the so-called "renewal" of the western district. A kamikaze move. Or a historic feat.
Tibbett stopped dead in his tracks, extending both arms like an orchestra conductor before the big concert.
"Stop! Last check. Glinda, the documentation?" he said without turning around.
"Complete and categorized by topic."
"Fiyero, your statements?"
"My what?"
"Your sworn statements! Your testimony! Your words laden with truth and class shame! Do you have them in mind?"
Fiyero raised his hands.
"I suppose so. I'm just going to tell the truth."
"Perfect, how dramatic. I like it." Tibbett nodded enthusiastically. "Elphaba... you don't talk." Just give me that witch of justice look when the prosecutor is talking nonsense.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"That's my specialty."
Glinda, standing next to Fiyero, tried to keep her spirits up. She took a breath and straightened her back.
"We're ready. It's crazy, I know, but... if we can get this on the public agenda, if we can get the judge to hear it, if we can get the media to report it, then we'll have a chance."
Fiyero ran a hand through his hair, with the expression of someone who'd just ridden a roller coaster without a harness.
"A chance to be ridiculed on national television, yes..."
"Don't be a coward, Prince," Crope said, flashing a smile. "Sometimes you have to set the stage on fire so everyone will watch."
Elphaba said nothing. She'd stopped thinking about what was a good idea days ago. Now all that was left was to move forward. Because there was one thing worse than making a fool of yourself, and that was staying silent while others suffered.
Tibbett spun around and looked at everyone with sparkling eyes.
"My brave ones, my legal martyrs, my enlightened disobedients... it's time to dance with justice!"
And without further ado, she pushed the courtroom doors open with both hands, making them swung open with a theatrical crash that made everyone in the room turn toward them.
But as the jury room doors slammed shut behind Tibbett, Fiyero, and Crope, and the sound of the lawyer's eccentric heels began to echo through the majestic acoustics of the hall, Elphaba stopped. She took Glinda's hand gently but firmly, as if her touch could stop time. Glinda was about to continue walking, not noticing the tension in the air, but she allowed herself to be guided, confused, when Elphaba pulled her to the side, behind one of the enormous emerald marble columns that adorned the lobby as silent witnesses to all the truths and farces that had passed through those halls.
Elphaba looked into her eyes. Hers were like a sunset laden with black clouds: beautiful, intense, and dangerous if ignored. "Before we go in..." she said, in a low voice, so low that the echoes of the courtroom didn't dare repeat it, "are you sure about this?"
Glinda frowned, as if disconcerted by the question.
"What do you mean?"
"All of this. What you're about to do. Once we get in there... there'll be no turning back." Elphaba lowered her gaze for a second, as if reconsidering her words, but then raised it with that stark honesty only she could sustain. "People are going to know who you really are. They're going to see that the Glinda who supported the senator, who smilingly extended her hand to him at galas and conferences, was a mask. They're going to see the real Glinda. And they're going to judge her. Are you ready for that?" For a moment, all that could be heard was the distant whir of the antique fan turning on the ceiling, and the distant echoes of Tibbett's first shouts as he began his improvised speech with a theatricality that already had the council members reaching under the table for antidepressants.
Glinda swallowed. She looked at the floor and then at her own hand, entwined with Elphaba's. She took a deep breath.
"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe I'm not ready... But I know this is what I have to do. For all those who live there, for those who will lose their homes, their stories, their community. And..." she looked up, searching the green eyes before her, "for you too."
Elphaba looked away as if those words were too much to bear.
"You don't have to do this for me," she whispered. "You have nothing to prove to me, Glinda. Not to me, not to anyone else. You've done more than enough."
But Glinda gently shook her head, with a half-smile that wasn't one of joy, but of certainty.
"Maybe it's not because of you, not entirely. Maybe... what I really need is to prove it to myself. To know that I can do the right thing even when everything I was taught says not to. That it's not too late to be... who I truly am. And if I can do it with your hand in mine... then it's worth it."
Elphaba looked up and held hers. Her face softened. For a moment, the anger, the exhaustion, the sadness that had so defined her melted away like mist in the sun.
"You're ridiculously brave, you know that?"
Glinda smiled, trembling slightly.
"No. I'm just learning from you."
No more words were needed. The silence that followed was filled with the unsaid, the felt, everything they had both gone through to get to this place. And then, in the dim light the column afforded them, protected from the eyes of the world for a few more seconds, they shared a kiss. It wasn't impulsive or rash. It was tender, filled with gratitude and determination. An anchor. A silent pact.
When they separated, Glinda rested her forehead against Elphaba's for a moment, closing her eyes as if she wanted to engrave that moment in her memory before the trial began, before everything changed.
And together, hand in hand, they took the first step toward the threshold of the destiny they had chosen.
From inside the courtroom, Tibbett could already be heard raising her voice, dramatically pointing at the documents she was waving as if they were sacred weapons.
"And then, gentlemen of the council, tell me! Where in the "urban renewal" plan is the word justice mentioned? Because I couldn't find it even with a magnifying glass, and I have a quadruple magnification one!" Crope, reclining in the front row with an expression of mock agony, had already taken off his glasses to clean them for the third time in ten seconds.
Fiyero, meanwhile, turned in his seat as he saw the two women enter hand in hand. He looked at them with a mixture of surprise and respect, as if he understood at that moment that the approaching trial was much bigger than a complaint... it was an act of redemption. And of love.
Tibbett, in the center of the improvised podium, continued to rant with an energy that seemed to feed off the councilors' own denials. He waved documents, printed maps, and even an enlarged copy of the renovation master plan, with red circles and arrows that looked more like something from a wall of conspiracy theories than a formal complaint.
"And what about the so-called 'cultural green zone'?!" he shouted, his trembling finger pointing at the map. "It even has an abandoned pesticide factory in the middle of it!" Does that seem like urban heritage to you? A joke, perhaps?
The council president, a man with more gray hair than dignity, cleared his throat disdainfully.
"Mr. Tibbett... your observations are, shall we say, creative. But I remind you that this project was approved by more than twelve technical committees, reviewed by three independent auditors, and ratified by the Senate itself in extraordinary session. Do you expect us to believe that a small group of activists has discovered something that dozens of experts overlooked?"
There was a murmur of suppressed laughter from the audience. Crope, sitting in the front row, turned with an expression of disbelief to Elphaba, who stood, arms crossed and jaw tense, like a bomb about to explode.
Fiyero snorted under his breath.
"This is a farce."
And then it happened.
A voice, clear and serene like the first ringing of a bell in a sleeping valley, rose above them all.
"I also think it should be reviewed."
Everyone's faces turned, confused.
Glinda had stood up. She was no longer at the back of the room, no longer a figurehead in an inconspicuous seat. She walked to the center, next to Tibbett, without hesitation, her heels clicking on the marble floor like small, meaningful detonations.
"Pardon?" one of the councilors said, half bewildered and half amused. "Miss Upland... you are the face of this project. Your image appears in every advertising campaign, even on the cover of the dossier we used to approve it. Are you... contradicting your own endorsement?"
Glinda nodded, with a calm that only someone who had waited a long time to speak honestly could maintain.
"Yes. I am."
A thick silence fell over the room. Tibbett even fell silent for a second, surprised.
"I supported this project from the beginning," Glinda continued. I was invited to lend my image, to embody "the promise of progress." I was told it was for the good of the city, that it would benefit marginalized neighborhoods and bring equality. And I believed it. I wanted to believe it. Because like many here, I preferred the pretty version to the uncomfortable truth.
Elphaba watched her from the background with a mixture of admiration and fear. She had seen Glinda shine many times, but never with such force. Never with such truth.
"But the reality," Glinda continued, now more strongly, "is that this plan hides a mass eviction of the communities that most need support. Places like Ozdust, with cultural, historical, and human value, are being marked as 'expendable.' And when we wanted to talk, when we looked for the full copies of the technical reports, we discovered... they were gone. That the maps had been altered. That the signatures were forged. That all of this"—she looked around—"is a facade."
The council members shifted in their seats as if they'd just been hit by an ice storm. Some began to murmur among themselves, one raised her hand in objection.
"That is a very serious accusation..."
"Yes, it is," Glinda replied before she finished. "That's why I'm here." So that it stops being a whispered accusation and becomes a public matter. I demand an official hearing to review the irregularities, and that all activity related to the plan be suspended until then.
"And what authority do you have to demand something like that?"
"Me?" Glinda smiled, but it wasn't a sweet or naive smile. It was the smile of someone who no longer had anything to lose. "The same one you gave me when you put me on every poster, on every screen, in every official presentation. You used me as the spokesperson for this lie. Now I'm going to be the voice that dismantles it."
Another silence. This time longer. Heavier.
The councilors looked at each other, searching for a unified response. They didn't find one. Because nothing they had anticipated included their "blonde puppet" cutting her strings in the middle of the room.
Tibbett, still stunned, blinked and muttered:
"Damn... this is a real allegation."
Fiyero exhaled, like someone holding their breath for too long.
And Elphaba, from the back, unseen by anyone else, smiled.
Glinda hadn't just spoken.
She'd broken the script.
And the entire stage trembled beneath her feet.
A deathly silence fell over the council chamber, as if the air itself refused to budge from what had just happened. The council members murmured to each other with tense faces, making visible efforts to maintain their composure. Some frantically flipped through documents, others looked at their watches, as if time might offer them an escape.
In the midst of that void of sound, Glinda remained standing. Although her posture was firm, her fingers trembled slightly. The courage that had driven her to speak now receded like the tide after a storm. She turned slightly, searching for a sign, and her eyes met Elphaba's, who, from the back of the room, was giving her a serene, honest, proud smile. That gesture was an anchor. For the first time in a long time, Glinda didn't just feel pride in others. She felt it within herself.
But the illusion didn't last.
One of the councilors—the same one who had previously treated her like a pretty face—cleared his throat and stood up, followed by the rest of the committee, who arranged themselves as if they were about to announce a verdict.
"Miss Upland. Mr. Tibbett. Ladies..." he said, sweeping the group with a look that didn't conceal condescension. "After a brief deliberation, the council wishes to express its understanding of your concerns. However, the Emerald City renewal project has already made considerable progress. In fact, it is about to begin its third phase, which involves signed contracts, mobilized companies, and already committed state funds." To interrupt him now would be, frankly, irresponsible.
Fiyero took a step forward, but Glinda raised a hand, still determined to remain diplomatic.
"So... you're refusing to even review the evidence? To listen to the communities that will be displaced?"
"No one has said that," another councilor retorted, this time a woman with a dry smile. "We can schedule another meeting to reconsider your proposal. In... let's say, three months."
Glinda's expression changed. Diplomacy evaporated, giving way to deep, almost desperate indignation.
"Three months?!" she exclaimed, her voice breaking. "In three months, those houses will be gone! In three months, those people will be on the streets!"
Elphaba frowned, and Tibbett was already beginning to pull another map from her bag when suddenly... the room froze.
A soft voice, deep and sharp as a sheet of paper, interrupted the discussion without needing to raise its tone.
"Three months?" Oh, no... that won't be necessary.
Everyone present turned their heads in unison. The front door opened as if they knew it, and Senator Oscar Zoroaster Diggs walked through. A dark suit. Smile intact. Overwhelming presence. He walked with the calm of someone who knows no one can stop him, the light reflecting off his gold cufflinks bearing the symbol of Oz.
"How could I be left out of such an... inspiring moment?" he asked, his voice a venomous chant disguised as flattery. "I've been listening. And I must say... what a wonderful surprise Miss Upland has been."
Glinda froze. Her body taut as a string. She knew him. She knew what that smile meant.
The senator took the podium without asking permission. No one denied him.
"This is exactly what we hoped for when we made her the face of our project. Intelligent, courageous, with her heart for the people. She's capable of detecting flaws before any technical committee." "That's why I trust your judgment," he said, looking at her like a proud father, although his eyes spoke otherwise. "That's why, as senator and prime mover of the renovation initiative, I'm going to authorize an emergency hearing. In a matter of days. Not months. Days."
Tibbett frowned. Fiyero looked at him, then at Glinda. Elphaba slowly dropped her arms.
The senator turned back to Glinda, closer now.
"And during that hearing, Miss Upland, you will be able to present your case before the entire city. You will be able to say everything you consider important, show your documents, defend your arguments... under oath. In the presence of all the media. And all the committees that helped build this project."
He stopped right in front of her and lowered his voice slightly. Just enough so that only Glinda, Tibbett, and Elphaba could hear him.
"After all... who better to refute your own testimony than yourself?" The smile never left her face.
Glinda felt her world crumble for a second. And Elphaba knew it instantly. The senator wasn't defeating them. He was caging them. He was leading them to the stage he himself had built, under his rules, in front of his judges, with his consequences.
And now they were trapped.
Right where he wanted them.
Glinda stormed out of the courthouse as if the air inside had been suffocating her. She barely stepped through the doors when she slumped against one of the marble columns, digging her nails into the stone as she tried to breathe. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly, her eyes wide with panic, guilt, and vertigo.
"Glinda!" Elphaba caught up with her seconds later, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Breathe, do you hear me? Breathe with me."
Tibbett darted after them, arms flailing, his voice high with pure panic:
"They set a trap!" This was a planned execution, disguised as an opportunity! They're going to destroy us! They're going to use Glinda's every word against her! I knew it, I knew it, I kno—!
"Tibbett, for the gods' sake, shut up!" Crope shouted as he hugged him from behind, pinning him down like a hysterical child. "You're not helping matters!"
Fiyero ran both hands over his face, pacing in circles as if searching for an invisible way out of all this madness.
"What the hell just happened in there...?" he muttered, more to himself than to the others.
But Glinda... Glinda wasn't speaking. She could barely hear them. Her legs were shaking, her stomach was as tight as a rock, and a pressure in her chest that wouldn't let up. She brought a hand to her mouth, fighting back nausea.
"I... this isn't..." she stammered, her eyes filling with tears. "What have I done? Elphie, what have I done?"
Elphaba held her tightly, forcing her to look at her.
"The right thing to do, Glinda. What no one else dared to do."
"No!" she moaned, shaking her head. "The right thing to do would have been to never have participated in that damned campaign. The right thing to do would have been to never have let myself be manipulated. Now... now they're going to destroy me. They're going to expose me as a traitor! They're going to ridicule me in front of the entire city! I dug my own grave... with a smile!"
Elphaba swallowed, feeling helpless. She wanted to hug her, take her away, scream to the world to leave her alone. But instead, she squeezed her hand.
"You're not alone."
Glinda didn't respond. She closed her eyes. Her body was shaking.
And then Elphaba saw him.
On the opposite steps, as if watching the fall of his favorite play, Senator Oscar Zoroaster Diggs stood with his hands clasped behind his back. His expression was serene. One might even say... satisfied. As if everything had gone exactly as he'd planned.
And then Elphaba felt it. The anger, thick and burning, rising inside her. She couldn't take it anymore.
"Keep her," she said softly, leaving Glinda with Tibbett and Crope. Before they could stop her, she was walking purposefully toward him.
The senator didn't move. He smiled, as if he'd been waiting for her.
"Elphaba Thropp. Always a pleasure."
"Yes? Because standing in front of you always makes me want to throw up."
He gave a small, nasal laugh, almost with feigned affection.
"Always so dramatic."
"No," she replied, crossing her arms. "What's dramatic is using a girl to sell your damn ethnic cleansing disguised as progress. What's dramatic is manipulating every committee, buying off every media outlet, stifling every protest... and then pretending it was all the people's idea. You're not a leader. You're a carnival puppeteer with godlike ambitions."
The senator tilted his head, still smiling.
"And you're an activist with no realistic plan, no political clout... and an emotionally unstable partner. Did you really think you were going to win this game on the same board I created?"
Elphaba didn't blink. Her voice grew lower, more dangerous.
“Oh, no. I’m not going to win this game on your board. I’m going to win it when I force you off yours and drag you through the mud where you made your foundations. Because, listen to me carefully… Glinda is not alone. And I’m not going to let you win again.”
Elphaba stood before him, her eyes like glowing embers. But the senator didn’t flinch. On the contrary, he seemed amused.
“Winning? Do you know what’s most fascinating about you, Elphaba?” he said in that soft, poisonous voice like poisoned candy. “That you still believe this has something to do with ideals. With justice. With what’s right.”
The smile on his face widened with a dangerous satisfaction.
“No. This is about power. And you, my dear, are too valuable a piece to be left loose on the board. Ever since you rejected my offer at that lovely Christmas party, I knew I couldn’t take my eyes off you.” Not on a whim... but because someone like you can only exist in two ways: either under my control... or outside the game.
Elphaba clenched her fists, but didn't back down an inch.
"I already told you, I'm not interested in playing your game."
"Oh, but you're already playing," he replied with feigned pity. "And the worst part is, you dragged Glinda down with you. That was a brilliant move. Turning the establishment's publicity puppet into a martyr for the people... I'll give you credit for that. But tell me, do you think she'll survive what's coming?"
Elphaba didn't respond. She just glared at him.
"When this is all over," he continued, his whisper hurt more than a scream, "when she's publicly trashed, when she's ridiculed on every channel and in every corner of the internet, when her followers, her fans, her family abandon her... do you think she's going to continue seeing you as her savior?"
He leaned slightly closer, approaching her ear as if whispering an intimate confession:
"The one person who's going to hate Glinda more than the rest of the world... is going to be Glinda herself. And right after her... is going to be you."
Those words pierced Elphaba. For an instant, she saw the face of Glinda's mother, her cruel accusation:
"You've already hurt her... the cruelest thing is that she loves you for that very reason..."
Elphaba felt the air thicken, colder. The blow was internal, straight to the stomach, to the doubt. But it didn't last.
Because deep in his gaze, something burned brighter. Greater than fear. More real than guilt.
"Are you done?" she asked, her voice low but firm, a controlled fury like the prelude to a fire.
The senator tilted his head, curious. Silent.
"I don't care if you're coming for me," Elphaba continued. "I never have. I'm used to being threatened, slandered, and silenced. But Glinda? She just wanted to do the right thing. She trusted. She dared. And you made her bait."
She took another step, unafraid.
"If she hates me at the end of this... so be it. I'll endure it. But I also assure you of one thing, Senator..."
She looked him straight in the eye.
"If Glinda falls, you fall with her. Not because she asked for it. Not because anyone ordered me to. But because if you touch one more hair of hers with your filthy hands... I. Will. Tear. You. To. Shreds."
There was a heavy silence. The senator watched her for a second longer, the smile slowly fading from his face, leaving only a cold, calculating stare.
"I wish you luck then," he said finally. "Because you're going to need it."
Elphaba took a threatening step toward him, but the senator raised his hands in a mock gesture of peace.
"I'd love to continue chatting," she said with false sweetness, "but I must issue an official statement. You know, democracy doesn't sell itself."
And with one last smug look, he turned gracefully and disappeared into the building's corridors, followed by his team of shadows and sycophants.
Elphaba watched him walk away, his upright, arrogant figure slowly disappearing down the courtroom stairs like an announcer leaving the stage after a performance he himself had written.
She took a deep breath, swallowing her fury, her fear, her despair. She felt her heart pounding in her chest as if it wanted to escape too. But it wouldn't. Not now.
She walked back, her steps heavy and purposeful. And there she was.
Glinda was still on the stairs, her back against the pillar, still trembling slightly, her eyes lost in the void as if the air itself had betrayed her. Fiyero, Crope, and Tibbett surrounded her, but no one knew what to say to her. No one could.
Elphaba pushed her way through without a word, her hands still clenched from what she had just heard. He crouched down in front of Glinda carefully, as if afraid of breaking her further.
"Glinda," he said softly.
She looked up at her, her eyes misty. She smiled bitterly.
"What have we done, Elphie...? What did I do?"
He sat down beside her, pressing his shoulder to hers.
"The right thing," he answered simply. "What no one else had the courage to do."
Glinda gave a shaky laugh.
"Then why do I feel like I can't breathe?"
"Because you're facing a monster," Elphaba said. "And you're doing it with your eyes open."
Glinda lowered her gaze. Elphaba hesitated for a second, but then took her hand.
"Listen carefully," she added, more firmly this time. "He thinks he's already won. That he can write the end of this story before it even begins... But he doesn't know everything. He doesn't know who you are. Or how much you've changed. And he doesn't know... how much I love you for that."
Glinda blinked, surprised. Elphaba didn't look away. For the first time, she said it without fear.
"Maybe they hate us. Maybe they mock us. Maybe they want to destroy us. But if we're going to fall... let it be fighting. Let it be together."
Glinda took a deep breath. She felt a strange warmth run through her chest. As if, among the ruins of her courage, a spark had begun to ignite.
"Are you going with me?" she whispered.
"Until the last second," Elphaba replied, squeezing her hand.
Glinda trembled for a moment. And then, with a barely perceptible gentleness, she leaned toward her and rested her forehead against Elphaba's. They just breathed together. In silence. A moment of truth amidst the chaos.
Fiyero was the first to break the moment.
"We have to go," he said softly. "The campaign is starting now. They're broadcasting it on the screens in the plaza." Crope nodded gravely.
"They're going all out. If we're going to fight... it has to be now."
Elphaba stood and offered a hand to Glinda. Glinda looked at it for a second... and took it.
"Then," Glinda said, her voice weak but determined, "let's get ready. Because if this is going to be my public trial... I want to have a say."
And so, amid the echoes of the city, which were already beginning to fill with propaganda and manipulation, the group descended the courthouse steps. Like fugitives. Like warriors. Like madmen.
But also... like the only ones who still dared to speak the truth.
Notes:
We're getting close to the final act of this season, and I have a surprise for you... the next episode will be a musical special! Yes, I know it sounds weird putting a Elphaba and Glinda in a musical, but I promise it'll be crazy and lead us to the big climax of the story. Look out for it soon.
Chapter 17: DANCING THROUGH LIFE ACT 1
Notes:
WARNING: There will be songs
Chapter Text
The signal on all the city's channels was interrupted by an institutional curtain, a grandiloquent symphony accompanied by manipulated images of clean streets, smiling faces, and a flag waving with feigned enthusiasm. The anchor's voice announced with affected gravity: "Special broadcast from the office of Senator Oscar Zoroaster Diggs. Live."
On screen, the senator appeared between white marble columns and a large window that conveniently displayed the Emerald City's brightest and cleanest skyline. He wore a perfectly tailored midnight blue suit, an impeccable emerald tie, and that wide, calculated smile his voters knew so well. His posture was that of a magnanimous and satisfied father, and his voice—oiled, theatrical, hypnotic—enveloped each word with the false warmth of a fireplace lit with bills.
"Dear citizens," he began, his fingers interlaced and his serene gaze fixed on the camera, "Today marks the beginning of a new era." After months of planning, sacrifice, and tireless work, I am pleased to announce that the Total Renewal Plan is entering its final phase. We are no longer talking about promises, but about tangible progress. Real change. And not just any change… a change for the common good.
But as the senator spoke proudly, every corner of the city showed another face of progress. In the industrial zone, cranes demolished rent-controlled buildings that were still inhabited. Families took to the streets with what little they could carry, amid the dust, tears, and sirens. In the old neighborhood, patrol cars with freshly painted logos marked territory, arresting young people for simply being on the wrong street at the wrong time. In the arts district, galleries and cafes closed their doors, obscured by scaffolding that promised “private innovation centers.”
“We know that every transformation generates doubts,” the senator continued, now with a solemn tone. “But these doubts only reflect how much we have grown accustomed to mediocrity. To threat. To shadows.” This plan... is light. Safety. Efficiency. Order. And we will not rest until every corner of this city is aligned with its true potential.
The sun beat down on the skyscrapers as if even light itself retreated, indifferent.
Along the central avenues, a luxurious white car—sober, unmarked—moved through the traffic jams and streets half-blocked by construction. Elphaba was at the wheel, both hands firm, her face carved with concentration. Her sunglasses hid the accumulated fatigue in her eyes, but not the hardness in her jawline. Beside her, Glinda lay reclined in the passenger seat, wrapped in a light wool coat she hadn't had the energy to remove. Her face, usually so composed, was now a blank canvas, exhausted, her eyes half-open, fixed on nothing, lost somewhere within her.
The senator's voice continued to flow from the car radio like a silky poison.
"We have tolerated too much of those who oppose progress. Those who profit from dissent, who sabotage well-being with their emotional speeches, who divide instead of build. But this city no longer has room for them. There is only room for the future."
Glinda didn't blink. She barely turned her head, murmuring in a hoarse, cracked voice that seemed centuries old, "It's already begun."
Elphaba didn't respond, but a muscle in her cheek tensed.
The car veered onto a side road, away from the chaos of the center, entering a higher, quieter area. After a couple of calculated turns, the vehicle stopped in front of the sober-fronted building where Elphaba lived. A doorman acknowledged them without needing a word, and the penthouse door was opened without question.
They got in in silence. The elevator reflected their faces: a pale statue of broken porcelain and a green shadow of steely eyes. When they arrived, the view from the living room's panoramic window seemed to stretch out over a battlefield I didn't yet know was one.
"...And if you ever feel afraid, remember: there is nothing to fear when you are on the right side of history."
The sound of the automatic door closing echoed distantly in the marble of the penthouse. Glinda took only a few steps forward, staggering, as if the air itself had become heavy, thick, unbreathable. Around her, the vast room seemed to distort, the edges of the furniture blurred, the natural light from the window throbbing like a heart about to collapse. Her breathing was rapid, uneven, as if she had just run a marathon without getting out of her car. Elphaba had barely put her keys on the table when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw her collapse.
"Glinda!" "She screamed, her voice breaking the stillness with the urgency of a siren.
She ran toward her and caught her just before her body hit the ground hard. Glinda was burning. Elphaba could feel it as soon as she touched her, as if her skin was burning from within, drenched in sweat, her breathing ragged, and her lips murmuring words that couldn't be formed. Her golden hair plastered to her forehead, her mascara smeared, and her eyes, usually so bright, were now half-closed, like those of an abandoned doll. The argument with her mother, the secrets kept for months suddenly exploding, having to reveal her true self to her parents, the confrontation with the senator and the impending public hearing... it had all been too much, and now her body and mind were paying the price.
"No, no... we're... we're almost there..." Glinda stammered, her voice barely audible, trying to sit up in vain.
"Shhh... enough." "You're not going anywhere," Elphaba said firmly, but with a strange sweetness, one she rarely allowed to emerge in public.
Without hesitation, she picked her up. It wasn't the first time she'd done it. But it was the first time Glinda hadn't protested, hadn't tried to maintain her composure. In that absolute vulnerability, Elphaba carried her to her bedroom, crossing the silent hallway. She entered the chamber and gently placed her on the bed, sliding her between the cool sheets. She removed her coat, then her blouse, soaked, clinging to her skin like a painful second layer. She arranged her carefully, covering her with a light blanket, her movements agile and sure, but full of tenderness.
"Everything's gonna be okay, Glinda. I've got you."
But Glinda barely heard her. Her mind was no longer in the present. She murmured disjointed words, fragments of scenes only she could see:
"Mr. Thistlewaite... don't ride off to the moor... it's raining, and your heart belongs to Penelope now...
Elphaba sat beside her, not knowing whether to laugh or cry at the literary fantasies that sprang from Glinda's fever. She got up only to go to the bathroom, took a clean handkerchief, wet it with cold water, returned, and placed it on Glinda's forehead, caressing it with trembling fingers. Elphaba wasn't trembling out of fear. Not out of weakness. She trembled because something inside her, something she wouldn't allow herself to name, shook her at seeing her like this. So fragile. So human.
"You and your stories..." she whispered, half to herself, half to Glinda. "Full of ballrooms and heartbreak... of dukes in disguise and letters never sent..."
She leaned down, brushing her forehead against Glinda's, closing her eyes.
And then, as if the real world had dissolved for an instant, Elphaba no longer spoke.
She sang.
A soft, melancholy melody, born from a very hidden corner of her being. It wasn't a technical or trained voice. It was raw, sincere, like a whisper turned into a breeze. Glinda, in her delirium, heard the music before the words, and felt as if everything that ached inside her began to float away.
"Close your eyes, don't fight the night,
Let your dreams rewrite the pain..."
"Though the world may tear and fray,
In this hush, you're whole again."
"Let the rain stay far away,
Let the masks just fade and fall..."
"You're not lost, not weak, not small—
You're my heart... you're my all..."
Elphaba sang with her eyes closed, unaware of how the space around her began to transform into Glinda's feverish perception. The walls blurred, becoming white velvet curtains. The bed was now an antique divan, adorned with lace. And Elphaba… Elphaba was no longer the harsh, stern-faced woman.
She was a 19th-century lady, wrapped in an ivory-green muslin gown, her dark curls gathered with satin ribbons. Sitting on the edge of the couch, she cradled Glinda as if she were a fainting princess in a romance novel, their skin illuminated by the soft light of an impossible chandelier.
Glinda, in her vision, managed to open her eyes. And she saw. She saw Elphaba smile at her as she had never smiled before. The music didn't come from outside. It came from within. From some corner of her mind that had longed for this moment forever but had never dared to imagine it.
"Let the world be cruel and loud,
Let the storm break every vow..."
"But in here, in this small vow,
You are safe... you are mine... for now."
A tear slid down Glinda's cheek. I didn't know if it was part of delirium, or memory, or something new that was beginning to emerge. And the show was just beginning.
CHAPTER 17: Dancing Through Life Act 1
Glinda opened her eyes to absolute darkness. It wasn't an oppressive darkness, but an elegant, almost theatrical emptiness, as if the entire universe had held its breath. She stood barefoot on a varnished hardwood floor that seemed to have no end, no edges, no echo. She was wearing a simple, flowing white silk dress, the kind that only exists in dreams or Victorian fantasies. The hem barely touched her ankles. When she looked up, before her rose an enormous crimson red curtain of heavy velvet. Imposing. Motionless.
And then, a voice.
Familiar, yet distant. Deep, yet feminine. Warm... and deeply melancholic.
"Glinda... the show must go on."
Glinda's heart stopped for a second.
The curtain began to move.
The creak of the pulleys. The soft squeak of the ropes sliding. The opening of a world. A white, incandescent light erupted from the other side and bathed her completely. She couldn't see anything. She couldn't move. Her entire being trembled like an autumn leaf, and just as she felt that the light was going to consume her completely...
...she woke up.
With a start, gasping as if she'd fallen from a great height, Glinda opened her eyes and found herself back in the real world. The air had a faint smell of medicine, damp cloth, and old perfume. She was lying in an unfamiliar but warm bed. The sheets still held some of her fever, and every part of her body ached as if she'd been in a war. She tried to sit up, but it was difficult.
Beside her, on the nightstand, was a scene of quiet devotion: a half-finished glass of water, a pile of used, damp tissues, a discreet bucket in case her stomach decided to betray her again, the thermometer hanging from the edge, and a couple of forgotten pills. Elphaba had thought of everything.
And there she was.
Sitting a few steps from the bed, in a small and obviously uncomfortable armchair, Elphaba slept. Covered only by a thin blanket, her posture was that of someone who had endured until her body had had enough. Her face, relaxed in sleep, looked younger, more human. Without the usual shadows, without the constant defense. The dark circles under her eyes were deep. Her hair fell loose, unruly. Her arms were crossed over her chest like a soldier who had fallen asleep on guard.
Glinda watched her silently. She had never seen her like this before. Not just vulnerable. Dedicated. Tireless.
An unexpected tenderness passed through her like a sigh. And for a moment, she thought she was still in her fever. Because it couldn't be real. Not like this. Not Elphaba.
Then, without warning, Elphaba opened her eyes.
She blinked a few times, as if the world needed to focus. Seeing that Glinda was awake, she sat up immediately, alert, pushing the blanket down.
"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice hoarse from lack of sleep, but filled with relief.
Glinda barely managed a weak nod.
"You look like a train that's been hit by another train," Elphaba added, in a clumsy attempt at humor.
"I feel like I swallowed a corset and then got thrown down the stairs at a ball..." Glinda murmured in a raspy, dry voice.
They both laughed softly. It was a strange moment of calm. Of unspoken affection. Elphaba offered her the glass of water, which Glinda sipped in small sips.
"Thank you... for looking after me."
Elphaba looked down and shrugged.
"It's nothing. You've put up with me all these days... it was only fair."
The silence became comfortable. There was a long look between them. One of those that speaks louder than a thousand words. Until...
The phone vibrated.
The sound broke the magic like shattering glass.
They both looked at the side table. Elphaba moved first, out of reflex, but Glinda was quicker. She picked it up with trembling hands. She turned on the screen.
The notifications were numerous. Too many. News. Messages. Forwarded videos.
The silence between them snapped like a dry twig when Glinda swiped with her thumb on one of the news items: “Demolitions Begin at Unregulated Cultural Centers – Official Statements Underway.”
The news hit Glinda like a punch to the gut. Her eyes scanned her phone screen, where red headlines announced the start of demolitions in several historic centers in the Old Town. The images were brutal: buildings covered in scaffolding, bulldozers tearing away facades like paper, and government signs hanging proudly where history had once been. Glinda felt her world crumble.
“No, no, no!” she murmured, bolting upright, the blanket falling to one side as her body shook with the effort. Cold sweat trickled down her back, but she ignored the dizziness. She tried to put a foot out of bed, but her legs protested fiercely, refusing to support her.
Elphaba turned immediately. She had seen her wake up silently, but she hadn't imagined she would try to stand. In a second, she was at her side, holding her firmly before she collapsed.
"Glinda, please! What do you think you're doing?"
"Elphie, we have to do something!" Glinda exclaimed, her voice on the verge of tears. "They're demolishing the old centers! They're going after Ozdust! They can't...! They can't do that to Fiyero... to anyone!"
Elphaba frowned, her heart clenching at the panic in her friend's voice. She helped Glinda sit back down, holding her gently, as if she were made of glass.
"Listen to me," she said firmly. "You have a fever. You can barely stand." If you go out like this, you're not going to stop a demolition. You're going to end up on a stretcher.
"I can't stay here while they destroy everything!" Glinda insisted, her face red with frustration and fever. "It's just a matter of time before they go after Ozdust, Elphaba! Someone has to warn them, buy them time... do something!"
Elphaba held her shoulders, looking into her eyes.
"And we will. I will. I'll go talk to Fiyero," she said, her voice calm but determined. "I'm going to go right now and see what can be done. But you, Glinda... you have to stay here and recover. Because if you don't stand up strong at that hearing, then all of this will have been for nothing. Do you hear me?"
Glinda pressed her lips together, uncertain. Elphaba knew that expression: the spoiled child and the strong woman fighting to have the last word. But the fever had robbed her of her advantage. Finally, with a childish pout, Glinda nodded reluctantly.
"Fine," she mumbled, crossing her arms as if that might restore some dignity. "But only if you call me as soon as you speak to him. And if you keep me updated on everything."
"Promised," Elphaba replied, standing up with a sigh. "But you promise me you'll stay in bed, drink water, and if anything happens, you'll call me. Immediately."
"Yes, Mom," Glinda snorted, rolling her eyes dramatically.
Elphaba began gathering her things, stuffing the thermometer, the medicine bottle, and some clean tissues into a small makeshift bag. She headed toward the bathroom to take a quick shower before leaving, but just as she crossed the threshold, Glinda raised her voice, a playful smile barely visible:
"Hey, Elphie... I just want to state for the record that... when I imagined us playing nurse sometime... this was a lot less sexy in my head."
Elphaba stopped in her tracks, gave a short laugh, and shot her a look over her shoulder.
"Next time I'll let you choose the uniform," she said wryly. "Although I doubt it includes that much fever or runny nose."
They both smiled. It was a fleeting moment of levity amidst the chaos. Glinda watched her disappear behind the bathroom door, listening to the sound of the water starting to run. Her expression changed immediately. Like a shadow between the sheets, she stretched out to the edge of the bed and reached for her cell phone. Her fingers were trembling, but not from the fever this time.
She dialed without thinking twice.
One, two, three rings... and then the familiar voice answered on the other end.
"Glinda? Are you alive? What the hell happened? I got five different versions, one saying you ran off with a punk band, and another saying you poisoned your mother."
"Boq, listen," she interrupted urgently, lowering her voice to a minimum. "I need a favor. Urgent."
"Oh no. I hate it when you use that tone."
"I need you to get the address of where Madame Morrible will be today."
The city thrummed with tension that seeped through every crack, like a storm about to break. The streets were covered with torn-off flyers and trampled newspapers, each with headlines more alarming than the last. "REBUILDING OR DESTRUCTION: WHAT DOES THE SENATOR'S NEW PLAN MEAN?" one read. "DEMOLITIONS ACCELERATED, COMMUNITIES DISPLACED," she shouted another, accompanied by a blurry photograph of an excavator in front of a century-old theater. People ran, argued, protested, or simply watched silently, with the blank stare of those who have already been defeated.
Elphaba crossed that landscape with the furious roar of her motorcycle as her only companion. The wind hit her face, sharp as needles, but she didn't slow down. Her eyes remained fixed on the road, and if her heart was pounding, it wasn't from the cold. Not this time. Every stoplight ignored, every horn left behind, was a second gained. She knew she didn't have time. And yet, every meter she advanced westward weighed more.
When she arrived at the area, the chaos was already palpable. Unlike the city center, where fear still disguised itself as order, here everything was raw. People outside, screaming, some crying, others setting up makeshift barricades with tables, containers, whatever they could find. Some held signs, others were simply looking for someone who would listen. The patrol cars hadn't arrived yet, but she felt they wouldn't be long.
When Elphaba pulled up in front of the Ozdust club, her heart sank. The iconic marquee that once flickered with emerald lights was now dark, its letters misaligned and a makeshift “TEMPORARILY CLOSED” sign hanging from a rope. The street in front of the club was filled with neighborhood residents, who, upon seeing her arrive—tall, dressed in black, riding a motorcycle, and with a face as hard as stone—recognized her immediately. She was Glinda's friend. The one who had publicly confronted the senator. The witch, some said, with hope or fear. Everyone surrounded her instantly, with pleading looks, hands reaching out for her, and stumbling words.
“You!” a woman with a haggard face shouted. “You come from downtown! Do you know what's going on? Tell us what's going on!”
“Are they going to close everything? Are they going to destroy the market too?”
“My daughter works at the neighborhood shelter! Tell them not to touch it!”
“Do something! Someone do something!” Elphaba had barely managed to get off the motorcycle. She found herself surrounded by at least a dozen people, their faces sweaty, anguished, twisted with uncertainty and rage. Hands raised, some trembling, others accusing. Desperate eyes searching for comfort, promises, miracles.
But Elphaba had no answers. Not yet.
She opened her mouth to try to speak, to calm the mood, when suddenly…
BOOM.
A shot. Loud, sharp, definitive. The crowd dispersed like a swarm, screaming and taking cover. Elphaba immediately turned, her body on alert. Standing at the entrance of Ozdust, like a queen in exile, was The Whiz.
The drag queen, who had once sported bright feathers and impossible platforms, today wore a threadbare bathrobe and combat boots. Her makeup was half-erased, and the cigar dangling from her lips seemed more of a warning than a habit. She held the shotgun as if she had been born with it.
"Well, well, well!" he exclaimed in his deep, melodious voice. "What do we have here? A tight-lipped, soul-on-fire biker?"
The Whiz lowered his weapon with forced grace and approached, regarding Elphaba with a mixture of disdain and respect.
"You're Elphaba, aren't you?" he said, and without waiting for a reply, added, "You're taller than I imagined. Although less green. Come in, darling. Fiyero's waiting for you. But if you stay there one second longer, they'll make you the neighborhood martyr saint."
Elphaba nodded silently and crossed the entrance, closing the door behind her. The interior of Ozdust was subdued, but not dead. It felt like a heart beating beneath the skin before a storm. The curtains were drawn, the chairs stacked, and the neon lights were off. But it still smelled of history, of sweat, of songs, of secrets.
At one of the central tables, illuminated by a half-lit desk lamp taped shut, were Fiyero, Tibbett, and Crope. Papers were everywhere: contracts, minutes, district maps, municipal bylaws with desperate notes in the margins. All three looked exhausted. Fiyero had his shirtsleeves rolled up and his hair disheveled, and when he looked up and saw Elphaba, his expression softened slightly.
"Elphaba," he said with a sigh that held more exhaustion than surprise. "I'm glad you came."
"We've tried everything," Crope added, without looking up from a document. "Historical heritage claims, appeals for irregularities in the decree, appeals to the local council... Nothing works. They've done everything to make it legal... even though it isn't."
"It's like fighting a mirage," Tibbett murmured. Every time we think we've found a breach, it's already been patched with another order signed in the middle of the night.
Elphaba approached slowly, placed a hand on the table, and studied the three of them. Exhausted men, yes, but not defeated. The fire was still there. Just like her.
"Glinda is sick," she said finally. "She can't move. But she sent me because she knew the Ozdust would be one of the first on the list."
Fiyero nodded, his expression hardening.
"The senator already sent a notification. They say they want to 'transform the place in a civic cultural center'. Which means an office tower with a pretentious cafe and a seedy souvenir shop.”
"How long do we have?" Elphaba asked.
"Hours. At most, a couple of days if we manage to file another appeal," Tibbett replied. "But someone would have to hand-deliver it to the council headquarters and apply all their might."
Elphaba pressed her lips together, her eyes shining with determination.
"Then we'll do that. But in the meantime..." she looked at Fiyero. "We need you to hold on. To hold on. To prepare the place as if there were going to be a performance here tonight. Because the show... isn't over yet."
As Elphaba plunged into the churning darkness of Ozdust, determined to contain the chaos with sheer will, in another part of the city, a thin figure awkwardly climbed out of a yellowish taxi. The engine hadn't yet completely stopped when the door opened with an urgent but elegant movement. From the shadows Glinda emerged, wrapped in a cream-colored designer coat, double-breasted in the front with a gold buckle and impeccable cut. A pink silk scarf, tied with a delicate bow, covered her head and part of her neck, hiding the traces of fever that still stained her skin. She wore large, dark glasses, the kind that promise glamour but today concealed more fear than style.
With every step she took, her knees protested, as if her own body was trying to convince her this was a terrible idea. And it was. But Glinda wasn't exactly known for listening to reason when her instincts screamed otherwise.
The air in that area was thick with dust, machinery, and the shouts of workers. A crane rotated in the distance, lifting the remains of what had been a cultural center for the magical community. The building in front of Glinda was still standing, though its walls seemed to breathe fear. The perimeter was surrounded by chain-link fences and signs that read "Restricted Access" and "Demolition Zone." There were no press reports, no protests. Just the constant movement of workers who came and went without looking up, as if they knew asking too many questions could cost them their jobs. Or worse.
Among them, by the main entrance, was Boq.
Small, nervous, waving his arms as if the sleeves of his jacket were itching. He was carrying a folder under his arm, a radio in his hand, and an expression so anxious he seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. When he saw Glinda, his eyes widened. She gave a quick, barely twitching sign, elegant and firm, as if she were a queen undercover on a secret mission. Boq hurried toward her clumsily.
"What are you doing here?" she asked immediately in a hurried whisper. "You look terrible! And this place isn't safe! What if they recognize you... what if Morrible finds out... what if—"
"Boq," Glinda interrupted, her voice low but as sharp as a scalpel. "You're going to lower your voice and tell me what I need to know. Now."
Boq blinked several times, swallowed, and nodded, as if he'd just received a direct order from high command.
"Madame Morrible arrived about twenty minutes ago," he said quickly. "She's overseeing the 'modifications' to the demolition plans." She doesn't like technical details, so she only goes in when she wants to send someone to hell. Or the hospital.
Glinda nodded, just once, and without waiting any longer, she started walking toward the entrance.
"Are you crazy?" Boq tried to stop her, barely touching her arm. "You can't face her like this, you're not okay, you're—"
"I don't have time to be okay, Boq," Glinda said, without pausing. "No one has time anymore."
The little boy didn't know what to say. He just watched her advance, her steps slow but firm, as if the floor were made of glass and pride. Every breath was an effort, but there was no room for weakness on her face. Only a stubborn, almost desperate determination.
Glinda knew she was doing something crazy. Every step was a reminder. Her stomach churned, her legs trembled, and a constant buzzing pierced her temples. But inside that building was a woman who knew too much, who had manipulated the system from the shadows for years. A woman who had bent the rules to fuel her ambition. And that woman, now, was the invisible axis of the storm that threatened to engulf the city.
Glinda stopped in front of the entrance, took a deep breath, and slowly removed her glasses. Her eyes, still blurred by fever, shone with something that wasn't health, but fire. She adjusted her handkerchief, lifted her chin, and crossed the threshold without asking permission.
If Madame Morrible thought she could hide behind the rubble, today she would discover that even a wounded queen can roar.
Madame Morrible's voice rose above the metallic rumble of the machines and the nervous murmur of the workers. She wore a dark gray tailored suit with blood-red piping, perfectly fitted to her figure, as if power suited her naturally. In one hand she held a roll of plans that she waved like a scepter, and in the other she pointed with a gold pencil while issuing orders with the cadence of a psychotic orchestra conductor.
"That wall goes three centimeters further north! I don't care what the original plan says! If you give me one more 'but,' I swear I'll bring a bulldozer and do it myself!"
The workers rushed to fulfill her every word without looking her in the eye. The air around her seemed charged with electricity, not the kind that lights lamps, but the kind that burns bridges.
That's when she felt it.
That presence. That scent of expensive perfume mixed with fever, that silence that was louder than any scream.
She turned slowly.
And there she was.
Glinda.
Standing on the edge of chaos, as if she'd stepped out of a fate-directed noir novel and dressed by a drama-obsessed designer. Her coat billowed in an invisible breeze, the pink scarf tied tightly under her chin, and though her cheeks still held the fake flush of a recent fever, her posture was as straight as a blade.
Madame Morrible's smile was drawn as smoothly as a knife gliding through silk.
"Well, well... if it isn't the fallen star of the Emerald City," she said with a sweetness so false it could rot teeth. "What are you doing here, darling? Did you get lost on the way to the hospital?"
"I just got lost on the way to the truth," Glinda replied firmly, her voice barely trembling. But I think I've just found one of her biggest obstacles.
Morrible narrowed her eyes with pleasure. Her hand gestured briefly and elegantly toward one of the makeshift offices amid the wreckage of the building. A rusty door, a flickering neon pendant light.
"Come on, my dear. You don't want to argue in this... unflattering sun."
Glinda walked behind her without hesitation, though each step was a silent plea from her bones for her to stop. The interior of the office smelled of damp, old concrete, and reheated coffee. A makeshift desk with boxes, a couple of metal chairs, and more blueprints scattered like the remains of a bureaucratic war.
Morrible sat down first, of course. She settled herself like a queen tired of dealing with commoners, while Glinda remained standing.
"So... what brings you here? An attack of conscience? Or did you just want to watch your dreams dismantle in real time?" "I want you to stop the demolitions," Glinda said bluntly.
Morrible let out a laugh as elegant as it was venomous.
"Oh, really? And you're going to stop them with what? With your false eyelashes? With another theatrical act at court? If... I already heard about your 'act of rebellion,' and believe me, if I'd known you were going to self-destruct with such style, I would have brought myself some popcorn."
Glinda sat down slowly, without asking permission. She knew that showing weakness wasn't an option, even though her muscles screamed for a break.
"I'm not interested in your opinion. I know you're personally overseeing these changes because you're too excited to see me fall. I understand. It always bothered you that the senator was more interested in my image than your loyalty."
Morrible leaned forward, like a cat playing with its prey.
"And who do you think put that idea in his head, my dear?" "That you were nothing more than a decorative doll with good intentions and no brains?" she whispered, savoring every word. "Do you think he deduced that on his own? I built that idea. Brick by brick. And you... you just inhabited it."
Glinda clenched her fists on her knees.
"I'm not going to argue with you about what you think of me. Not even about what you think I am. All I care about right now is that you stop what you're doing. Slow it down, change the shots, say what you have to say to postpone it until the hearing."
Morrible leaned back in his chair and watched her as if he were looking at a rare creature, one he hadn't yet decided whether to kill or frame.
"And why would I do something like this? Out of nostalgia? Because of your failing health? Or are you coming with a threat? Because if so... honey, you're in no position to intimidate anyone."
Glinda took a deep breath. She leaned forward, very slowly.
"Because if you don't, I'll make sure all of Emerald City knows who you really are. What you did at Shiz.Corp, what you signed without reading, what you hid under your fancy networking mat." I know things, Morrible. And I may be sick, I may be weak... but I still know how to use my words. And believe me, when I speak at that hearing, I'm not going to leave a stone unturned.
For an instant, something changed in Morrible's face. A faint flicker. A crack.
"You can't prove anything," he muttered.
"Maybe not. But I can make it sound damned convincing. And if the senator has to choose between losing a broken tool or a public face, I know who he'll cut first."
The argument between Glinda and Morrible had reached a stalemate. Glinda, her face flushed not just with fever but with rage, refused to back down. Morrible, on the other hand, seemed calmer than ever, almost... amused. But what Glinda didn't understand was that she had already crossed an invisible line, a zone where reality began to dissolve and the laws of the world stopped obeying logic.
The air inside the office thickened, as if the oxygen had turned to steam. A cold sweat trickled down Glinda's temple, but she didn't notice it immediately. What she did notice was that every small sound in the room was beginning to set a rhythm. The hum of neon lights, the distant dripping of a pipe, even the creaking of rolled-up blueprints on the desk—everything was aligning like instruments tuning for a grotesque symphony.
"Are you all right, my dear?" Morrible asked, his syrupy tone taking on a strangely musical cadence.
Glinda wanted to retort, but something in her mind went awry. Her vision blurred, the edges of the world seemed to melt like candy in the sun, and when she tried to step back, Morrible was already in front of her, gently touching her forehead with a gloved finger.
"Shh... don't struggle. Just listen."
With a graceful, precise shove, Morrible sent her sprawling into an old swivel office chair. She nudged her with a single finger, and Glinda began to spin slowly, the lights in the room flickering like spotlights.
“Oh Glinda, Glinda...
The smile, the dress, the charm, the bow...
But tell me, do you even know
Who’s pulling your strings in this little show?”
Then the walls parted, sliding like stage panels. Behind them was a nightmarish spectacle: gigantic portraits of Glinda, all publicity-worthy, all grotesquely exaggerated. In one, she smiled falsely with children in her arms; in another, she posed at a charity event; in yet another, she resembled a wax figure, dressed in a pastel pink dress, waving mechanically. Her smile was the same on all of them: wide, empty, perfectly sculpted. A doll.
Morrible raised her arms, and the room transformed into a small theater of the mind. The workers disappeared, or perhaps they were never there. In their place, dancers wearing plastic masks—all bearing Glinda’s face—emerged from the shadows, moving like automatons. Some wore ball gowns, others nanny uniforms, and still others dressed like television presenters. They all repeated Glinda's iconic gestures: the smile, the hand on the chest, the raised wrist salute.
"You've danced the waltz of the perfect girl,
With painted cheeks and golden curls.
They dressed you up, they taught you well,
A plastic queen with a sugar shell."
The music began with an invisible string quartet, subtle and raspy, like a suppressed laugh. Then a decadent piano joined in, out of tune like the memory of a sad childhood.
"Say please and thank you, tilt your head,"
"Speak sweet and never raise the dead,"
"Be soft, be small, be always sweet..."
"(Whispers) And vanish if you dare compete."
Morrible, now at the center of the makeshift stage, removed her jacket, revealing a long black velvet dress with gold details. She moved with macabre grace, like a Victorian diva just emerging from her crypt. She took center stage as Glinda slowly twirled, trapped on her throne of madness.
The lights focused on Morrible. Everything else went dark. She smiled and began to sing with more intensity than ever.
“You're a pretty little puppet on a velvet stage,
Smiling wide in your pink birdcage.
Wave your hand, obey the script,
Wear your crown and tighten your grip.
They pulled your strings with pearls and praise,
Shaped your world in glass displays.
But behind the gloss, behind the fame…
You're just a doll with a borrowed name.”
With each verse, Glinda's portraits came to life, mocking her. One blinked exaggeratedly, another moved its lips to repeat phrases from past campaigns: “More light for all!” “Beauty is power!” “With Glinda, your voice is sweet and heard!”
The dancers surrounded Glinda, who continued to spin uncontrollably. The masks were beginning to crack, revealing gaunt faces underneath, all identical: a sad, haggard, exhausted Glinda.
Morrible walked theatrically across the stage, passing a feather over the faces of her "creations," stroking their foreheads as if they were artificial daughters.
Suddenly, a curtain fell from the ceiling, revealing a rotating structure: a giant dollhouse. Inside were rooms decorated with Glinda's most intimate moments: her childhood, her training, her coming-of-age—all packaged as if on a television set. The actors inside played out her life like a cheap comedy. Her mother, wearing a giant wig, shouts, "Smile, darling, rich people don't cry!" The senator, with a grotesque, cartoonish head, tells her, "Be charming! No ideas!"
“Your mother taught you how to kneel,
And say “yes ma’am” with practiced zeal.
The Senator gave you your smile so wide,
“Be the sunshine—stay on his side!”
As Morrible sings, the house spins, showing scene after scene of how Glinda was molded, domesticated, cut, and beautified to suit her needs. And Glinda, trapped in the chair, begins to see not only her insecurities, but her most hidden realities.
“Every inch of your dainty grace
Was carved to fit in a gilded place.
But now, my dear, the mask is thin…
Let’s see what’s crawling underneath the skin.”
Finally, as the music reaches its climax, the chair comes to a sudden stop.
Glinda stands before a huge mirror, lit by bright bulbs. In it, she doesn’t see herself: she sees all the versions of Glinda she has played in her life, fighting among themselves for control of her reflection. Morrible approached from behind, whispering,
“Do you know what I see when I look at you?
A frightened girl who never grew up.
Too scared to fall, too sweet to bite…
But sweetness rots when kept from the light.”
But suddenly, the reflection froze… and only a figure remained: a Victorian porcelain doll, motionless, with rosy cheeks, a hollow hand-painted smile, and a corset that looked more like a cage.
Before Glinda could process it, the masked dancers surrounded her with swift, theatrical movements. The swivel chair transformed as if it were on a revolving Broadway stage. The lights burst into a strobe of red and violet.
“Time for the big makeover!” Morrible intoned excitedly, like a stepmother enchanted by her new toy.
The dancers began carefully undressing Glinda, with precise choreography like that of a cursed sewing room. They removed her fashionable jacket, her scarf, her heels... Each garment was removed with a flowery, almost reverential gesture, while new pieces were brought out on velvet trays as if they were sacred offerings.
A pale pink corset, tightly fitted. A puffy skirt with crinoline, lace, and bows. Puffed sleeves. Lace gloves. A huge bow in the back.
Glinda, stunned, didn't struggle. Her arms dangled like a marionette's as they dressed her. While the choir in the background sang...
"She's a pretty little puppet, polished and proud!
Clapping and curtsying for every crowd.
But when the final curtain's drawn...
The puppet's smile... will be gone."
One of the dancers—with their faces made up like a mime—applied white powder to her face, exaggerating her rosy cheeks and her heart-shaped red lips. Another placed a yellow-blond wig on her, with perfect curls and a lace ribbon draped over her forehead. Finally, a small toy turntable was screwed into the back of her back: a cruel mockery of her perfect, willless public image.
Morrible descended a small staircase as Glinda was positioned center stage, illuminated by a single gold spotlight. In a loving, almost maternal tone, she began to instruct her:
"Come on, Glinda. Move. Like you used to... Smile! Bow your head. Curtsy. Wave to the audience."
And Glinda… obeyed.
A music box tune began to play. Delicate, haunting. Morrible, like an accomplished puppeteer, marked the steps with a conductor's staff. Glinda raised her arms slowly, twirled stiffly around. Her face, made up like porcelain, could not express emotion, but her eyes—beneath the false eyelashes—screamed.
“That’s… beautiful,” Morrible said, circling her. “The perfect doll. Made in everyone’s image… except yourself.”
The drum music dissolved, replaced by a dark waltz, with dramatic strings and clockwork percussion. Morrible approached Glinda and held out her hand.
Glinda, caught between delirium and control, took her hand.
The dance floor opened. A hall of mirrors magically surrounded them, as if the universe conspired with Morrible. The two began to dance a flawless waltz, their steps exact, synchronized, but joyless. Morrible led, Glinda followed. Each turn was graceful, but each step drove her deeper into the thought that her freedom was being stripped away piece by piece.
“So dance, my darling, spin and gleam!
Choke on cotton candy dreams.
Let the world adore your glow—
While I pull strings down below.”
With each turn, the mirrors revealed different versions of Glinda: a frightened child, an ignored teenager, a ridiculed young woman, a used woman. They all watched in silence. The music grew in intensity, as if the instruments were mocking her too.
“Faster!” Morrible shouted, and the lights began to spin with them.
The waltz turned hellish. The music rose in pitch, the scenery crumbled like wallpaper. Glinda’s makeup began to run, her wig askew, her painted smile trembling with every step.
“Smile for the spotlight, darling...
It’s the only thing that’s truly... yours.”
Finally, Morrible let go of Glinda and with one last shrill note, let her fall… And then the real world returned with a rush, but not clearly or cleanly. It was like emerging from a dream swamp: damp, sticky, heavy. The fever still burned on Glinda's skin as if she were wearing a cloak of invisible fire. Her cheeks were flushed, her breathing shallow, and her gaze—fixed on a dead spot on the wall—seemed to pierce through layers and layers of time and thought. She was still sitting in that rickety chair, the same one where, minutes before, her mind had forced her to spin like a porcelain doll controlled by invisible strings.
Across from her, Madame Morrible, who until recently had carried herself with the haughtiness of an operetta empress, now regarded her with a very unusual expression of bewilderment. She tilted her head, squinting, as if examining a damaged artifact that was no longer of use to her.
"Well," she murmured in that tone of hers drenched in false politeness. "Looks like someone needs a good nap."
She put away her plans with the precision of someone who knows how to close a trap and headed for the door. Before leaving, she turned just enough to deliver one last stab disguised as sympathy.
"Anyway, my dear, the reporters have arrived. And as you understand, someone has to tell the truth."
She gave her a smile that was more like a statement than a kindness, and left, clicking her heels with renewed confidence.
A few seconds passed. Or maybe it was minutes. Time was broken in Glinda's mind. But then something clicked. A spark of sharp pain, a distant echo of humiliation, a memory she didn't want to recall... and it was as if the air suddenly returned to her lungs.
She blinked.
She looked at her hands, then at the surroundings, then at the door through which Morrible had disappeared.
And she understood.
Not completely. She still felt dizzy, there were still remnants of delirious music in the corners of her consciousness. But something had reassembled inside her. Something that didn't break easily, no matter how sick, manipulated, or terrified she was. What she'd seen—what she'd felt—she couldn't forget. That grotesque image of herself, twisting and grinning like a hollow figure constructed by others… That wasn't her. Or at least, she didn't want it to be that anymore.
She stood up abruptly, stumbling at first. She leaned against the wall, took a deep breath—once, twice—and then headed for the exit. Her steps were erratic at first, like those of someone still walking among the ruins of a dream, but little by little they became firm, determined, and determined.
In front of the building, on one of the sidewalks enclosed by construction fences and security tape, a small swarm of journalists surrounded Morrible, who was in her element. Dressed in a mauve suit that seemed tailor-made for the spotlight, she smiled as if the world belonged to her and gestured with the practiced restraint of someone who has spent years feigning sincerity.
"...of course, all these adjustments have been made with the highest level of transparency," she said in an affectionate voice. "The last thing we want is for our community to be affected by misinformation or unfounded rumors."
Flashes illuminated her face. Several cameras were recording. The microphones crowded in front of her. Morrible knew exactly how to modulate her tone, when to sound maternal, when to sound firm, when to feign mild offense at insinuations she'd, in reality, been looking forward to.
"And about Mistress Glinda..." she added, just as the dramatic crescendo reached its peak. "It pains me to say it, but her recent behavior has been... unstable. Understandable, perhaps, given the stress we've all been under, but not excusable. Decisions should be made with a cool head, not with delusions of grandeur."
Some pens were already beginning to mark notebooks. Opinion was leaning in her favor. Morrible smiled, triumphant.
Until a voice interrupted her mise-en-scène.
"Delusions of grandeur? How curious, Madame. I always thought that was your specialty."
All heads turned. The nearest camera focused. Morrible, at first, didn't believe it. But there she was.
Glinda.
She advanced from the door of the building like an unexpected apparition. Her coat was still open, her hair slightly disheveled, her cheeks flushed, her eyes lit by a fever that was now pure fire of will. She walked firmly, without trembling. Without a fake smile. There was something new about her. Or perhaps something that had always been there, hidden beneath layers of protocol.
"Miss Upland," said one of the reporters, handing her a microphone. "Do you wish to respond to Ms. Morrible's comments?"
She nodded, without taking her eyes off her adversary.
"Yes. Of course I want to. In fact, I've been wanting to for weeks."
Murmurs began to grow among the reporters, eager for conflict. Morrible sneered elegantly, but Glinda didn't give her time to speak.
"I'm here," Glinda continued, raising her voice with the same precision with which she once handled a campaign speech, "because I'm tired of being the perfect image others use to sell their own lies. I'm tired of the truth being twisted beyond recognition, just because someone wants to keep their place in an already tottering pyramid."
She paused. Not out of weakness, but out of strategy.
"Madame Morrible can say what she wants about me. That I'm sick. That I'm fragile. That I'm no longer useful. But she can't erase what she's done. She can't hide the corruption under a bit of plaster and paint. I was there." I saw what she wants to hide. And I have proof. So if she wants us to play with the press… let's play. But this time, I'm not going to sit there like a decorative doll in her theater.
The reporters fired questions over the microphones, seeking clarification, more details. Morrible smiled, but it wasn't a confident smile anymore. It was tense. Tight. Dangerously like a mask that was beginning to crack.
Glinda held her gaze for a few more seconds.
She said nothing more.
She didn't have to.
The turn had changed.
And this time, the doll spoke for herself.
The murmur turned into shouting. A hail of voices and questions fell on Glinda as if a storm had broken out, not of water or wind, but of microphones, lenses, and words that wanted to extract more from her than she could give.
"So you admit that your role in the project was more decorative than decisive?" “Do you know how many jobs will be lost with this ‘renovation’?”
“Are you going to testify against Madame Morrible before the city council?”
“Do you have documented proof?”
“Where is the evidence, Ms. Glinda?”
Questions came from all sides, as if each journalist were a head of the same hydra, impatient, demanding, devouring. Glinda tried to remain firm. She raised her voice, raised her hands to calm the swarm.
“Please! Listen to me, just a moment…” Her voice was still clear, but the tremor behind her words was noticeable. “I don’t have all the answers yet. But what I do know is that something very serious is happening here. Something that has disguised itself as modernity, as progress, and that in reality… is stripping this city of its essence. Of its people!”
Some were recording with their cell phones. Others were already broadcasting live. Glinda felt she had to say it now or she would lose everything.
“I will have a hearing before the city council, which will be public. And that's where all the truths will come out. But I can't do it alone. I need the citizens to stand up. To share their stories, to speak out about what they're losing. I will speak out in defense of places like the Ozdust club or the Westside neighborhoods, but if you want this city to remain yours, you have to make it known. I promise I'll give everything I have to make sure the truth isn't buried under cement and empty speeches!”
There was a moment of silence, small but vibrant, like a taut string suspended in the air.
And then, another wave of questions. More insistent, more impersonal. A camera pushed against her shoulder, a microphone tapped her cheek. Everyone wanted more—more lines, more details, more meat.
Glinda took a step back. The world around her began to close in like a box starved of oxygen. Heat rose up her neck, the buzzing of her headache returning, sharp, like a broken bell inside her skull. Faces multiplied, flashbulbs exploded in her eyes, the asphalt seemed to vibrate.
And then, she saw her.
A figure, at first blurred, advancing through the tumult with an energy that didn't fit the artificial world of the event. The crowd parted as she passed, not out of politeness, but out of strength. A low, metallic roar preceded her arrival.
A horse...? Glinda thought, disoriented.
But no. As she got closer, she saw it clearly: it was a motorcycle, black, defiant, loud as thunder between gray buildings. And on it, like a wild shadow in the fog, was Elphaba.
Leather jacket, helmet completely dark. Her expression was the same as always: hardened by skepticism, sharp as a razor, but beneath it all, something else shone. Something like urgency... or maybe loyalty?
"Get on!" she shouted, extending a gloved hand.
Glinda didn't hesitate. She couldn't. The space around her compressed like a pit seeking to swallow her. The only way out was that hand, that motorcycle, that figure who had arrived like an atypical heroine from the chaos.
She took Elphaba's hand and in a second she was on the motorcycle, clinging to her waist as the engine roared furiously. The journalists tried to follow them with cameras and shouts, but it was useless.
With a sharp, agile turn, Elphaba spun around and shot off between the safety cones and the outraged shouts, leaving behind a cloud of dust, smoke, and confusion.
For a few minutes, there was only the sound of the wind, the engine vibrating beneath their bodies, the city receding like a curtain at the end of an event. Glinda clung tightly, her face pressed against the leather of Elphaba's jacket, as the fever and pressure seemed to disappear, replaced by a surge of adrenaline and relief.
When the motorcycle finally stopped in a secluded alley, Glinda got off, her legs still shaking.
"Do you always arrive like this?" she managed between gasps. "Dramatic and about to run over journalists?"
Elphaba slowly removed her glasses. Her gaze, direct and implacable, softened slightly.
"Only when the princess in distress looks like she's about to faint in the middle of the battlefield."
Glinda smiled. Not out of politeness. For the first time in a long time, she smiled because she truly wanted to.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet..."
The motorcycle stopped with a final roar, her body still vibrating beneath them as if she refused to accept that the ride was over. Elphaba dismounted first, without a word, and gently helped Glinda down, though her expression was already beginning to harden. They rode the building's private elevator to the top floor, passed through the reinforced steel door of Elphaba's penthouse, and once inside, the silence enveloped them like a warm, familiar veil.
Elphaba closed the door behind her, removed her leather jacket, and placed the keys with a dry clang on the metal table. Glinda, still dazed, sank down onto the dark, straight-lined sofa, just another piece of Elphaba's sober, functional world. She took a deep breath. Finally, for a moment, she could stop pretending to be strong.
Elphaba watched her as she stood. The look that had initially been one of concern turned sharp. The moment of tenderness was over.
"My love... I just want to know one thing... ARE YOU CRAZY OR WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!" Elphaba exploded, taking a step back and throwing her arms in the air. "Glinda, you could barely stand! You're delirious, red with fever, shaking, and your brilliant plan is to go confront Morrible alone in front of the entire damn press!"
"Don't scream!" Glinda crossed her arms, a blush rising to her face not only from the fever. "I'm not a child! I know exactly what I did and why I did it!" "Oh really?!" Elphaba paced back and forth like a caged beast. "Because from where I saw it, you looked like you were about to collapse on national television! Now your face is on every channel, your words are being manipulated, and Morrible must already be cooking up ten false versions to sink you even further!"
"And what did you want me to do?! Sit in a corner and wait for things to resolve themselves?" Glinda retorted, advancing on her. "Hide behind you and your secret meetings with Fiyero while they destroy what little remains?! We can't hide until the hearing!"
Elphaba turned sharply, her expression sharp.
"I'm not hiding. I'm trying to do this right, Glinda. With evidence. With strategy. Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? One false word and we could be wiped out!"
"We don't have time for delicate plans anymore, Elphaba!" she snapped, shaking her head. "Sometimes you have to make noise, you have to shout, even if it's uncomfortable! Or would you rather watch everything fall apart while you silently take notes?"
They both stared at each other, their breathing ragged, their faces flushed not only from the argument, but from everything that came behind those words: frustration, fear, pain, wounded pride… and something else neither of them dared to name.
"You always do this," Elphaba said, in a lower, more dangerous tone. "You jump into the void without looking down and then you expect me to catch you."
"And you?" Glinda replied, taking a step forward. "You're always convinced you have to carry everything alone. As if the world would fall apart if someone else helped you. As if letting me in was a weakness."
"Because every time I do it, you rush to a press conference or a charity party!" Elphaba roared.
"And every time something gets difficult, you flee on that damn motorcycle, believing the world will wait for you!"
“And what am I supposed to do when the person I care about most in this town is determined to be the next primetime martyr?!”
“At least being a martyr would actually help.”
Elphaba turned sharply, her brow furrowed, her hands balled into fists. Glinda snorted, crossing her arms so tightly her nails dug into the skin of her forearms. Neither of them said another word. Elphaba went to one end of the room, abruptly turning on the music player and positioning herself by the bay window, as if gazing at the city lights might quell the storm inside her. Glinda, meanwhile, sat at the other end, in one of the overstuffed armchairs next to a decorative bookshelf, pretending to flip through an old magazine on the coffee table.
But neither of them was actually doing anything. The two of them were trapped in a silent, awkward choreography, in which every movement was a calculated provocation, a passive-aggressive resistance more intense than any scream.
Elphaba crossed her arms, leaning an elbow on the windowsill, feigning disinterest, though every now and then she glanced quickly at Glinda. Glinda, still pretending to read, turned the pages without looking at them, only for the soft rustling of the paper to be a kind of auditory torture for Elphaba. The background music—some melancholic piano instrumental—became part of the tension, as if the room itself knew they were both about to explode.
Glinda faked an exaggerated cough and arranged her hair as dramatically as possible, as if with each movement she was saying: I'm perfectly fine. I don't need you to look at me, or take care of me, or talk to me.
Elphaba clicked her tongue. She turned up the volume a little. She pretended to check her phone. Then she threw it with a thud onto the sofa.
Glinda stretched theatrically, dropping the magazine to the floor with an exaggerated sigh. She leaned back in the chair like a queen overcome by her own dramatics, but out of the corner of her eye she watched her, looking for the slightest sign of weakness, the slightest gesture that said: I care about you more than I care to admit.
And yet, every passing second worsened. The tension in the room was like a rope about to snap. The silence weighed like lead, dense and almost physical. Glinda tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but the dizziness slowly returned, like an insistent tide. She felt her temples throbbing and heat rising up her neck. She knew her body was giving her clear signals: you need to rest, you need help, you need her, but her pride screamed otherwise.
Elphaba, meanwhile, watched her out of the corner of her eye with growing unease. She pretended to maintain her composure, but her jaw was tense, and every muscle in her body seemed ready to react if Glinda leaned even an inch too far. Because even though she was furious, and hurt, and tired of that stubbornness, she couldn't bear to see it break in front of her. Not again. Glinda, in a gesture as unnecessary as it was effective, took a nail file out of her bag, one of those small, shiny, golden ones. She began filing her nails with absolute calm, sliding the metal with surgical precision over her index fingernail. One, two, three strokes. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Elphaba slowly turned her head. Her narrowed eyes were daggers. The metallic sound of the file was to her what a constant drip on the temple is to a prisoner: psychological torture.
"Really?" she snarled, turning away. "Now you're going to file your nails as if we were in a beauty salon and not in the middle of a national crisis?"
"Oh, sorry," Glinda said in an exaggeratedly sweet tone, still filing. "I didn't know drama had to be done in complete silence."
"You don't understand anything!" Elphaba exploded, walking up to stand in front of her. "This isn't the time for games, Glinda! Not for posturing or your damn accessories!" “And you don’t understand that sometimes games are all we have left,” Glinda retorted, leaping to her feet. “Because you prefer to escape, to hide behind your secret plans, as if that were bravery!”
Elphaba stopped. Her eyes were fixed on Glinda’s. They sparkled. The air between them was thick, electric, dangerous.
“You drive me crazy!”
“And you drive me crazy too!”
Then, without warning, a musical note reverberated through the air like a ceremonial gong. A second later, the furniture began to disappear, fading into a dancing mist. The floor beneath their feet turned black and white, like a polished marble chessboard. Floating chandeliers descended from an impossible sky, and a theatrical haze crept in like a veil. The walls of the penthouse transformed into the columns of a ruined Gothic theater.
Both were now wearing period costumes: Glinda, in a fitted Victorian jacket, lace gloves, and tight white leather trousers; Elphaba, in a long cape, embroidered breastplate, and knee-high black boots. Both held ornate fencing swords in their hands, shiny and dangerous.
And without further ado, they launched themselves.
"What is this madness, what is this fire,
Tangled in reasons, buried in ire?
How did we fall from logic and pride,
To fencing words that we cannot hide?"
The first sword exchange was sharp, precise, a declaration. The second, fiercer, more pained. Each movement was an unspoken reproach, each thrust a line of dialogue buried in pride. They didn't attack each other to hurt each other. They attacked because they didn't know how to embrace.
Elphaba struck hard, directly, like someone who has been holding back for years. Glinda responded gracefully, with fluid turns, as if dancing on a silken rope. Every block, every turn, was a line in their shared history: desire, rage, fear, misspoken tenderness.
“You act like truth is yours to preach,
But rush into battles just out of reach!
You smile for crowds, play saint for applause—
But what have you done for the cause?”
Elphaba sang, crossing the room furiously, her sword drawing a bright line between them.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Miss “I-Know-Best,”
But some of us try while under duress!
You vanish in shadows, I stand in the light—
At least I have the nerve for the fight!”
Glinda responded, whirling in the air, her sword grazing Elphaba’s coat without wounding her.
They moved like the sun and the moon: opposite, yet always orbiting each other. The hall seemed to pulse with them. Columns snapped. Curtains lifted in the wind of their fury. It was an opera in motion.
“Why do we fight? Why can’t we speak?
This war is madness, cruel, and bleak!
Still, here we are, too proud to break...
Is it hate? Is it love? Or just heartbreak?”
The air crackled with tension, as if the walls of the universe itself couldn’t tell whether they were in a tragic opera or a fevered dream. Elphaba and Glinda flung themselves against each other like colliding stars, their swords flashing with the fury of unspoken secrets. The duel, which already seemed a cruel and precise work of art, took on an increasingly frenetic pace.
But then…
A different music emerged between the strains of the fight. More than an interruption, it was a transformation. The frenetic pace of the combat merged with a deep, dense, and sensual melody. Elphaba took a step back, Glinda a turn to the left. Without thinking, as if guided by a secret script written on their own bodies, their swords intertwined not like weapons… but like hands.
And they began to dance.
A tango. Dark. Eloquent. Dangerous.
“You drive me insane, your silence, your scorn,
You burn down bridges, then leave me torn.
Why can’t you trust, why must you flee?
Why won’t you see what you mean to me?”
Glinda sang, her body, which seconds ago was pushing against each other, now clinging desperately to her opponent. Elphaba held Glinda tightly around the waist, and Glinda clung to her shoulder as if her whole world hung on that gesture. Their feet moved with instinctive precision, skimming the ground, spinning, challenging the abyss between love and pride.
“Because I’ve watched you shine for show,
While I was hidden far below.
You charm, you lie, you get your way—
And never once are made to pay.”
Elphaba intoned through her teeth, as their faces touched in a tight twist, the heat of their cheeks melting.
The tango intensified, their torsos barely separated, their legs intertwined in violent, sensual steps. They looked like two flames dancing on the edge of a fire. And just as the music seemed to reach its peak… Glinda pushed Elphaba back and caught one of the swords from the floor.
They fought again.
This time with a new intensity, as if the dance had allowed them to touch parts of themselves that made them fight even more fiercely. But their gazes… were no longer cold. There was fire. There was desire. There were tears.
“You think I’m weak because I care—
That I’m just ribbons and perfect hair.
But I stood tall while you disappeared,
You only show when the coast is clear!”
Glinda’s sword grazed Elphaba’s shoulder, barely a scratch, enough to make them both freeze. Silence lasted for a heartbeat.
“You think I left? I was saving lives!
While you were waving and staging your lies!
You only fight when the cameras roll—
And call that love? You’ve sold your soul!”
Then, a sigh. A step. Elphaba turned around.
And the tango returned.
More desperate now. More surrendered. It was no longer a confrontation. It was a confession with every step. The twist of their waists, the touch of their knees, their clasped hands, their faces tilted toward each other as if there was no air outside that closeness. They danced not to seduce each other, but to avoid falling apart.
“Why do we care what the other believes?
Why does it hurt when the other leaves?
Why do we burn when we touch, when we speak…
Why does surrender feel anything but weak?”
And, as if the universe couldn’t withstand so much beauty… the music began to spin again.
The duel returned.
One last round. A sword dance that was almost a sacred choreography. Leaps. Spins. Barely dodged slashes. Every touch was a word, every parry, an unspoken apology. Until… in a final twist, both stood with their swords crossed inches from each other's faces.
“You never say it, but you want me near.
Yet every time I come close—you disappear!”
“Because I feel too much when you look that way,
And I can’t afford to lose… or stay.”
The music exploded on a final chord.
Elphaba breathed raggedly. Glinda’s lips parted, trembling. The swords slid downward… slowly… like leaves overcome by the weight of dew.
And then it happened.
In the midst of a shared twist—a perfect spiral of fury and desire—both halted their weapons at the same time, each firmly grasping the other’s wrist. The swords, once extensions of their pride, trembled in their clasped hands. The blades gleamed as if fate itself were watching them.
The circle closed, and instead of separating, they spun together.
A dance. A steely embrace.
“You drive me crazy…”
“You make me angry…”
“You break me open…”
“And still I seek…
This clash, this flame, this spinning fate…
We fight, we fall… and still, we wait.”
Little by little, the steps became slower, more laden with something other than hatred. Glinda's body faltered. The weight of exhaustion, of the heat, of the fever that never quite left her brow, began to drag her toward surrender.
And with a sigh that seemed like a poem, she dropped the sword.
She fell backward, her golden curls floating like petals in the air.
But Elphaba was there.
She always was.
With a movement as swift as it was precise, Elphaba caught her with her right arm, catching her before she hit the ground. Her left hand, still firm, raised her own sword and held it pointed, barely grazing the center of Glinda's chest.
And for an immortal instant...
The universe watched them frozen in the perfect image:
the sword bearer, holding her adversary, her beloved, in the same pose that a thousand legends had described before: the duel that ends in surrender, and the love that emerges from the confrontation.
The music faded into a soft echo, like the touch of fingers on skin.
The walls of the penthouse returned, timid. The solid floor, the forgotten furniture. The nightlight returned, spilling through the windows like a silvery sigh.
Elphaba looked at Glinda with a mixture of rage, relief, and deep tenderness. Her chest rose and fell heavingly. Her heart, overflowing. And with the same mouth that had once argued with her, she leaned in...and kissed her.
A soft, trembling kiss, as if she feared breaking it. As if it were a sacred secret only for the two of them.
Glinda, weak but conscious, allowed herself to be held, her head falling gently against Elphaba's neck, her body weary, exhausted, but finally at peace. His fingers still grazed her arm, as if they knew this was the only safe place in all the world.
Without a word, Elphaba slid an arm under her legs and picked her up, walking with slow, solemn steps, as if each one carried the weight of a silent promise. She gently laid her on the bed, covering her with a blanket as if wrapping a memory. She watched her for a moment longer, her gaze caressing every curve of her weary face, every golden lock of hair that rested on the pillow.
And then, in a very low voice, so that Glinda couldn't hear it, she murmured, "If you only knew how much you hurt." Elphaba walked back to the living room with heavy steps, as if the duel had drained not only her physical energy, but also something deeper she couldn't yet name. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to silence the vortex swirling in her mind. The faint scent of ozone still hung in the air, a vestige of that shared fantasy that felt so real, so intimate, like a whisper whispered into her ear in the gloom.
But the silence had barely begun when his cell phone vibrated loudly in his back jacket pocket. He pulled it out in annoyance, without even looking at the ID, but his expression changed as soon as he saw the name on the screen.
Fiyero.
"What's up?" he answered immediately, his voice still cracking with emotion and exhaustion.
On the other end of the line, Fiyero was speaking quickly, almost tumbling over his own words.
"Everything! Since Glinda appeared on TV, the reporters have gone crazy, Elphaba. There are like 50 of them in front of the club! 50! And of course... they already found out I'm the owner. They're calling me from all over. They want interviews, statements, to know if we're involved with her, with you, with the "movement," or whatever it is they're putting together on social media. Some are excited, others keep asking questions about whether this is real or a marketing campaign. The Whiz is trying to do crowd control, and Brrr almost got into a fight with an influencer who tried to get in while recording a live show!
Elphaba put a hand to her face and squeezed her eyes shut. Of course. Everything was speeding up. And she had no one to blame but herself... and Glinda.
She took a deep breath, searching for a calm she couldn't find in her lungs or her thoughts.
"Listen to me," she said firmly, interrupting him. "Don't lose your mind yet. Meet at Brrr's apartment. It's safer than the club. I'm going there as soon as I can. We need to get organized, figure out how to turn this around. If people are listening, then we have to speak clearly to them. We're going to turn this into a wave. Do you hear me?"
On the other end, Fiyero responded with a nervous grunt, but nodded. "Okay. Hurry, okay?"
"I'm coming."
Elphaba hung up, and for a few seconds, she simply stood there, phone still in hand, feeling the world around her speed up again. Outside, everything was spinning out of control: the media, the rumors, the entire city waking up like an uneasy animal. But inside her… a part of her remained anchored in the next room.
She turned slowly on her heel and walked to the bedroom door. She opened it carefully, as if afraid of waking a spell.
There, beneath the dim light filtering in from the street, Glinda slept soundly, her golden curls spread like a halo across the pillow. Her breathing was calm, and her forehead no longer burned. She slept with her lips parted, as if she were still formulating the words of that last verse she hadn't managed to sing.
Elphaba approached, stopping at the edge of the bed. She watched her in silence, feeling an inexplicable pang in her chest. It hurt. Because behind the pride, the scoldings, the theatrical arguments, and the crossfire of emotions, there was this: the fear of losing her, the fear that Glinda would continue to push herself beyond her limits by wanting to fight a rotten system without considering the consequences.
Glinda slept soundly, immersed in a sleep that she didn't know if it was entirely sweet or simply the residue of the physical and emotional exhaustion that coursed through her. Yet, a whisper was enough. A single whisper of voice, as light as breath on her neck, and her eyes flew open. She bolted upright, her heart racing, her body still weak but her will burning.
"What's wrong? What time is it? What's going on?" she stammered, moving to get up.
But Elphaba was quicker. She approached with feline calm and stopped her before she could even step out of bed.
"No, no, no, calm down." She placed a firm hand on her shoulder. "Nothing urgent is happening... well, it is, but nothing I can't handle alone."
Glinda frowned, her curls still disheveled, her gown tilted over her shoulder, like a queen who had woken up mid-revolution.
"I can't stay here. Not now. Not when everything is burning."
"Yes, you can." And you're going to do it," Elphaba replied in a low but firm tone, the one she used when her patience was running out, and only her heart was speaking. "I need to go out for a few hours. Fiyero and the boys are in a mess over the media. I have to help them organize all this. But you..." she caressed his face briefly with the back of her hand, "... you need to sleep."
"Don't underestimate me. I'm better. I can think clearly now, I swear. I'm fine, Elphaba."
"No. You look beautiful, brilliant... and exhausted. You have less than twenty-four hours until the audience, Glinda. If you arrive like this, out of sorts, tense, and drained of energy, Morrible will devour you alive. You have to be her, do you understand? That Glinda. The one who dazzles with a smile and melts empires with a single sentence. And for that, you need to rest. Even if it hurts."
Elphaba then sharpened her aim. She leaned slightly closer to her ear and whispered in a raspy voice:
"If you behave... if you sleep, even for a couple of hours... when this is over, I'll take you to my playroom."
Glinda blinked, and for a moment, the tension on her face broke.
"The playroom?" she asked, though she already knew exactly what he meant.
"Mmm-hmm." Elphaba smiled, that feline smile she only used when she had the advantage. "Just like old times. The black cross. The velvet ropes. Your favorite heels. And you, completely mine."
The silence was filled with dangerous possibilities.
Glinda swallowed. Her cheeks flushed a faint pink, somewhere between exhaustion and the involuntary reaction Elphaba knew all too well.
"That's some pretty low-level emotional blackmail," she murmured.
"I know." Elphaba shrugged, unrepentant. "But it works."
Glinda dropped her head back onto the pillow with a soft groan. She bit her lower lip, fighting with herself… and finally gave in.
"One nap. Just one. But you'd better keep your promise, Thropp."
"I always keep my promises, Princess."
Elphaba leaned over and stole a fleeting kiss, like a scratch on her skin. She was just turning to leave when Glinda called after her, her voice softer:
"Elphie… wait."
The witch turned, questioning.
"You could contact someone… someone who could help you with the logistics. With handling the media chaos, leaking information, standing up for us without attracting too much attention."
"Who?"
"Boq." Glinda smiled, a little wickedly. "My assistant. Well… more like ex-assistant, after I escaped from the company. But she's good." Intelligent, loyal. And besides... he has a couple of shady scores with Morrible that I'm sure he'd be willing to collect.
Elphaba looked at her for a second in silence. Then she nodded.
"Perfect. I'll contact him. Thank you, Princess."
"Go on. And come back in one piece, okay?"
"Always."
And with that, Elphaba disappeared through the door like a determined shadow, while Glinda snuggled into the sheets, still uneasy, but with a faint smile on her lips.
The war wasn't over, but there was a promise in the air.
And Glinda always made good on her promises.
INTERLUDE...
Chapter 18: DANCING THROUGH LIFE ACT 2
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
CHAPTER 18: Dancing Through Life Act 2
The city stretched out before them, a sea of artificial lights that failed to disguise the tension inside the vehicle. Elphaba drove Glinda's car with almost robotic precision, her fingers firmly gripped on the wheel, her eyes fixed straight ahead as if any visual deviation could cause her to crash, not into a concrete wall, but into the palpable discomfort sitting to her right.
Sitting in the passenger seat, his seatbelt perfectly fastened and his body tense as a wire, was Boq. The same Boq who had once shared nervous laughter with her in the Shiz.Corp cafeteria, who understood the weight of the silent hallways, the judgmental stares, the endless meetings. The one who had first offered her a coffee and an unadorned "I understand." The same one who had also, at some point... disappeared.
Well, not exactly disappeared. Glinda passed.
And the rest is, as they say, a collection of poorly managed silences.
Now they shared a new one.
"This car is…" Boq began, as if that would break the tension, "too ostentatious. Even for Glinda."
"Uh-huh." Elphaba didn't even turn her face. Her flat tone cut the air like a dull scalpel.
Silence again.
Boq cleared his throat. He tried again.
"I'm surprised she trusts you to drive it. She wouldn't even let me open the door when we were working together."
"I took it without asking." A long pause. Then, wryly, "I guess emotional blackmail still works."
Boq smiled, though he didn't know whether to laugh or regret it.
"Yeah, well… she has a special way of making you want to jump off a bridge and smile as she fell."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow without looking at him.
"Yeah. Special."
It was the closest thing to a verbal truce they could afford.
In truth, neither of them knew for sure what the other's situation was regarding Glinda. But they suspected. Gods, how they suspected.
Glinda had complained about both of them with the dramatic intensity of someone who accidentally drops hints. Enough for Boq to understand that Elphaba owned Glinda's heart. Enough for Elphaba to deduce that Boq was still looking at her as if it pained him not to.
And there they were. In the same car. United by the same woman. Divided by the same silence.
"How is she?" Boq finally asked.
Elphaba hesitated. Then, without taking her eyes off the road, she replied:
"Obsessed. Exhausted. Stubborn as ever."
"She's still Glinda, then."
"She's still Glinda." A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, instantly breaking. "But not for long if we don't accomplish something."
Boq looked down at his own hands, nervous. Then she nodded decisively.
"Then count on me. For anything."
Elphaba didn't respond. But her fingers slightly loosened their grip on the steering wheel.
And so, in that dense, uncomfortable, uncomfortably human atmosphere, the car stopped in front of Brrr's apartment building. Outside, the city lights were beginning to take on softer tones, as if the night sensed something was about to happen.
Elphaba turned off the engine. She took a deep breath. Then she glanced at Boq.
"No drama. No tension. Just work."
"Just work," he repeated, almost with relief.
And together they got out of the car, their shoulders squared and their emotions carefully locked away.
At least for now.
Brrr's apartment was perched high atop a building in the bohemian neighborhood of Emerald City, with a partial river view and a balcony decorated with warm lights, overgrown plants, and a hanging chair that twirled lazily in the wind. Inside, the place was a carefully orchestrated chaos: walls covered in posters from past comedy shows, furniture that looked like it had been acquired at an abandoned theater auction, and a minibar that proudly served as the heart of the home. Every inch of the space exuded the owner's spirit: decadent yet charming, vulgar yet affectionate, like an aging comedian who doesn't know when to leave the stage.
Brrr, dressed in a wine-colored silk robe and plush lion slippers, welcomed them with open arms and a cocktail in each hand.
"They're finally here!" “Resistance never begins without a good round of drinks,” he announced, serving rosemary gin and tonic to the newcomers while Fiyero was already hunched over an open laptop, browsing files like they were hidden mines.
Tibbett, as soon as he crossed the threshold, was entranced. He walked slowly through the space, observing each object with a mixture of genuine fascination and a hint of performative wonder.
“This is... exquisitely grotesque,” he murmured, stopping in front of a lava lamp shaped like a giant microphone. “Is this an ashtray shaped like a crying Freud?”
“A signed replica!” Brrr replied, puffing out his chest with pride. “An ex-partner gave it to me. He never smoked, but he was very perceptive with metaphors.”
Crope, leaning against a shelf that held a collection of absurd sunglasses, exchanged a glance with Elphaba. They both knew exactly what they'd provoked by introducing Tibbett and Brrr in the same room: a clash of personalities so narcissistic and eccentric that they could implode space-time, or worse, fill the entire evening with coded jokes and unnecessarily theatrical anecdotes. The first bursts of laughter could already be heard at an anecdote about a drag nun and a hot tub.
But Elphaba wasn't in the mood for games. She firmly closed the door, took off her coat, and walked straight to the small center table where Fiyero was already displaying documents and interactive maps about the urban renewal initiative that Senator Oz and Shiz.Corp were promoting as the city's rebirth. A curtain of sustainable urbanism to hide a mural of corruption.
"What do we have?" he asked, lowering his voice but not the intensity.
"Still a lot to leak," Fiyero replied without looking up. "But if this becomes political, we need solid evidence. Something that proves there's a conflict of interest, manipulation of funds, that Glinda is being used as a scapegoat to divert attention."
"There's something fishy about the demolition permits," Crope chimed in, turning his laptop toward them. "Some properties were declared uninhabitable just days after being purchased by consortiums linked to Shiz.Corp. Time is running out."
"And the previous owners?" Tibbett asked, now sitting on the back of an armchair as if it were a throne.
"Missing or bought. In some cases, there are allegations of coercion," Fiyero added. "But none of that has been aired. We need a way to expose it without it looking like a conspiracy."
In a quieter corner of the apartment, Boq stood uncomfortably upright, a tablet in his hands, scrolling through files with tense fingers. He looked out of place, like an intern infiltrating a clandestine cell. But when Elphaba approached him, he lowered his device for just a second to look at her with a mixture of guilt and determination.
"I have access to the internal infrastructure folders. Plans, dates, agreements... I shouldn't show them to you. Legally, at least. But there are things that... just don't add up. This isn't urban development, it's territorial clearing," he confessed quietly, out of earshot of the rest.
Elphaba looked at him for a moment, assessing him. She knew Boq was walking a fine line. He was still an employee of Shiz.Corp, and if anyone found out what he was doing, he'd lose more than a job. But she also knew he meant business.
"Are you sure what you're doing?"
"No," he replied. But I'm sure of what I don't want to do anymore.
With that, he handed the tablet to Elphaba, who immediately began reviewing the documents with surgical care. In the background, Fiyero muttered something to Brrr, who hurriedly made more coffee in a noisy old coffeepot that seemed to cough before it worked.
"We need to prepare Glinda as if she were going to trial," Crope said, flipping through pages filled with notes. "Not just evidence. We need a narrative. Something she can say without sounding like a conspiracy theorist or a victim. She has to seem... convincing. She needs to know what questions she'll be asked before they're asked."
"And a solid image," Tibbett added. "Not that blonde princess performance she put on on TV. She needs to be someone the public can't stop watching. The kind of woman the news would love to hate, but the audience can't help but defend."
Elphaba nodded, her fingers still navigating the documents. There was a rhythm establishing itself. The almost imperceptible feeling that they were putting together something real. Something that could work.
And for the first time in weeks, he felt that, perhaps, not all was lost.
"We have less than 24 hours," he said finally. "If anyone has any ideas, bring them now. Because when Glinda steps in front of that microphone... either we sink them all, or they destroy her... And by the western skies, I'm not going to let that happen."
A silence spread through the room, charged with a fertile tension. No one argued. No one hesitated.
And as the coffeemaker emitted its final rumble and the city continued to throb beyond the windows, everyone knew they wouldn't sleep that night.
They had a plan to hatch. An empire to overthrow. And a woman to save.
The constant murmur of keys and papers was the afternoon's soundtrack. Low voices, the clicks of laptops, the occasional creak of a chair. Everyone was still immersed in their work as if their lives depended on it—and, in a way, they did—when Boq, shoulders slumped and eyes heavy with exhaustion, slipped into the breakfast nook that Brrr had converted, in his own style, into a kind of underground club bar. "You look like you're on the verge of an implosion, tadpole," Brrr said without looking at him, as he poured tequila into a cocktail shaker with the ease of someone who's done this so many times that he considers it an art.
Boq gave a short, dry laugh, more out of commitment than humor. He sat down on one of the high stools, folding his hands on the bar surface as if trying to hold onto something solid in the middle of an uncertain sea.
"I couldn't tell you if I'm okay, if I'm not okay... or if I just stopped feeling weeks ago," he murmured, staring at a fruit bowl that actually contained spare wigs.
Brrr studied him more closely this time. He finished the margarita with a pinch of salt misplaced on the rim and gently pushed it toward him.
"Then start with what you know. What's going on in that little head of yours?" Boq took a long, drawn-out sip, as if he needed the alcohol to push the words out of his throat.
"When I was assigned to be Glinda's assistant, I thought it was the beginning of everything I'd hoped for... prestige, respect, visibility. To be her right-hand woman. I thought... I thought I was finally at the big table."—he paused, pursing his lips—"now I feel like I inadvertently crossed a line. And that the only person who needed help... was her."
Brrr leaned against the bar, his face more serious than usual.
"And why didn't you?"
"Because it was easier not to look," Boq admitted, his voice cracking slightly. "Because I felt grateful, important. And as she smiled in that gilded cage, I thought maybe... maybe she'd chosen it too. But no. She was just trapped. And I did nothing."
At that moment, Fiyero appeared next to them, with his typical carefree energy, although more restrained than in his college days. He grabbed a glass without asking and took a sip before noticing the expression between them.
"What did I miss? Are we about to open our hearts or found a cult?" he joked, albeit with a sympathetic smile.
Boq gave a short, dry, but sincere laugh.
"No cults. Just old guilt and dangerous margaritas."
Fiyero leaned on the edge of the bar and looked at them both, allowing himself a brief nostalgia.
"Remember our first night at Ozdust? Boq was still moping about Glinda sending him flying, I was pretending not to care while drinking everything I could find, and you, Brrr, showed up wearing a hideous suit, quoting Oscar Wilde, and cracking offensive jokes at people you didn't even know."
"Bullshit." "Yes, I knew them," Brrr replied with a lopsided smile. "I just didn't care about them."
The three of them laughed. That laughter that only comes when your body still remembers who you were before you hardened. For a moment, they weren't in an apartment filled with compromising papers, nor on the brink of a political scandal, nor on the threshold of a hearing that could destroy or redeem someone. They were just three guys, a bar, and a shared memory.
Boq turned to Fiyero and lowered his voice.
"I'm sorry I didn't keep in touch. After everything changed with Glinda... I walked away. I walked away from everything."
Fiyero looked at him without judgment, without reservation.
"Don't worry. I hid too. In the last few months, everything became very clear to me. The club, the community, the people we failed while playing at being important. I just knew I needed to do something useful. Even if it was late."
Brrr, watching them both, raised his glass. "We're pathetic. But endearing. Like a Christmas special no one asked for."
"But at least we're here now," Boq added. "And maybe we can't undo everything we did wrong."
"But we can help two witches who still have something to say," Fiyero concluded, weaving the sentence together in an almost solemn tone.
The three of them raised their glasses. The toast was silent, as if echoes of the past crept in between them. The margarita tasted too strong, the night was too charged, but for once, they were in the same place, for the same reason.
In the center of the room, surrounded by scattered documents, crumpled plans, notes in red ink, and half-empty cups, Elphaba scribbled furiously, as if every word she poured onto the paper could contain some of the chaos that threatened to spill over inside her. The echo of the laptop keyboard mingled with the rustling of moving pages, a symphony of anxiety dressed in concentration. She was drafting a plan. Not just a legal argument for Glinda, but a defense laden with humanity, contradictions, and internal battles. She was writing it like someone throwing a rope into the dark, hoping someone would grab it on the other side.
Sitting in the armchair opposite her, Crope watched silently. His gaze focused not on the words on the papers, but on Elphaba's: the way she pursed her lips as she crossed out a sentence, the way she paused in thought before deciding whether to continue writing or tear the sheet in half. This was an Elphaba not everyone knew, but he did. And that Elphaba was on the verge of breaking down.
"And Glinda?" he asked suddenly, in a low voice, with a delicacy that bordered on the sisterly.
Elphaba took a few seconds to respond. Without looking up from her paper, she answered as best she could:
"She's... trying to sleep. I had to let her rest. Tomorrow she'll need every ounce of energy."
Crope nodded silently, but his expression didn't soften.
"And you two?" he asked, even more slowly. "How are... you?"
The question struck her with unexpected force. Elphaba lowered her pen and looked up, lost, as if she'd only just realized she was being watched. She hesitated. Once again, she tried her best to answer.
"I don't know. Everything is so... fragile now. Like we're walking on glass. Some things we said, others we never said..." She looked away, her voice lower. "Sometimes I don't know if I'm doing this for her, for me, or because I can't bear to watch her fall. And at the same time... I'm terrified of what it means not to be there for her if it all goes wrong."
Crope leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"And if it goes well?"
Elphaba didn't reply. She looked back down at the paper, but she didn't write anymore. The silence that followed wasn't awkward, but heavy. Heavy with everything that couldn't be said out loud.
Meanwhile, across town, in Elphaba's quiet penthouse, Glinda lay on the bed like a defeated body, rolling from side to side, tangled in the sheets as if trapped in a web woven by her own insomnia. The ceiling moved slowly above her—or perhaps it was her mind that kept spinning. Every attempt to close her eyes resulted in a flood of phrases, voices from the past, and open wounds that bled again just when she seemed to have forgotten them.
"You don't know what you've done. You've swept away our name, our reputation, everything we've built... on a whim."
Her mother's voice was the clearest. Crueler for being so familiar. Glinda squeezed her eyes shut, as if wanting to erase it from her consciousness, but another phrase slipped in without asking permission:
"You were nothing more than a decorative doll with good intentions and no brains."
Morrible. The weight of each word was a direct blow to the stomach. Glinda turned again, trying to find a position that would allow her to breathe normally, but her entire body was tense.
“I knew that deep down, this is what you want. To be mine. To be humiliated…”
Milla. The worst of all. Her voice seeped like poison through the folds of memories, and Glinda shuddered, hugging herself. She wanted to scream. She wanted to forget.
“Miss Glinda has demonstrated… Excessive vanity, chronic dependence on external validation, an inflated ego with dramatic tendencies…”
Elphaba. It wasn't a real accusation, but she'd said it. In a moment of reproach, perhaps. In one of her perverse power plays disguised as desire. But now it sounded like a sentence. Cold. Judicial. Final.
“For her? For just anyone?”
“I'll take you to my playroom.”
“You come here to me, seeking refuge, and you can't even be honest about that.”
Everything blended together. The memories of her mother, of Milla… of Elphaba. She didn't know which of those sentences hurt more. She didn't know which of those voices was more real. Was it guilt? Was it shame? Was it desire?
Glinda's eyes flew open. The ceiling seemed to be spinning like a silent whirlpool, and the entire room was shaking with an intensity only she could perceive. She was soaked. Sweat plastered her nightgown to her back and chest, her sheets a tangled, nightmarish tangle. She struggled to breathe.
She sat up abruptly in bed, staggering. Her skin trembled beneath the thin layer of fabric. Her heart pounded as if it were trying to leap out of her throat. Without thinking, almost blindly, she got up and staggered to the bathroom. She flicked on the light. The reflection in the mirror returned an image she didn't recognize: her pale face, her wild eyes, her hair disheveled, damp, and disheveled, as if she'd been through a storm inside.
She leaned over the sink, turned on the faucet, and poured cold water over herself again and again. As if trying to wake herself from something deeper than sleep. As if the water could strip the voices, the memories, the terror from her skin.
And then she saw it.
The bracelet.
Black. Thin. Impeccably fitted to her left wrist, as if it had always been there. But Glinda knew. She hadn't had it before.
And yet... she remembered it.
With chilling clarity.
The first time she and Elphaba had... "played" with strings, even though it had been accidental, that tiny loop had ignited the flame between them, which she now felt was consuming her.
Glinda recoiled back, horrified. She felt the bracelet tighten. As if it were digging into her skin. She tried desperately to pull it off. She tugged. She scratched. But it wouldn't budge. The more she struggled, the tighter it tightened, as if it wanted to merge with her, as if it wanted to claim her. "No, no, no!" she screamed at the mirror, panting.
And in her head, with the sick sweetness of a disguised threat, Milla's voice sounded. Clear. Cruel.
"I'm going to tell everyone who you are. What you are. What you like. What they made you do. What you said no to… but loved. What you cried for. What you pretended to hate. What you were with me. What you are with her."
"Shut up! Shut up! It's not true!" Glinda banged her fists on the edge of the sink, trembling. The mirror in front of her rattled. Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn't allow a single one to escape.
Suddenly, a soft click broke the silence of the bathroom.
The door behind her… had opened by itself.
A warm light filtered in from the hallway. Not the artificial light of the penthouse, but a dimmer, older light. Golden. Almost heavenly. Like the light of dusk filtering through stained-glass windows.
Confused, hypnotized, with the shuffling steps of someone searching for meaning in the midst of madness, Glinda crossed the threshold.
And she was no longer at home.
She walked now down a narrow, vaulted hallway of gray stone. The walls were covered with tall, narrow stained-glass windows that cast colorful shadows on the cold floor. Her footsteps echoed like distant sconces. On either side, Gothic candelabras lit up with blue flames. Everything was silent, solemn… sacred. As if she had entered an ancient cathedral abandoned to time and regret.
Only when she looked down did she realize.
She was wearing a robe. Not just any robe. A nun's robe. Black. Impeccable. Made of heavy fabric. Veil included. And around her neck... a rosary that seemed made of tiny golden pearls and translucent candies. As if penance and sin were one and the same.
Her first impulse was to remove the garment, to tear off the veil. But she couldn't. It was fixed. Glued. As if it were part of her.
In the distance, an organ began to play a funereal melody.
Glinda moved forward. Slowly. Hypnotically. She knew it wasn't real. But she also knew it was true.
Glinda remained motionless in the center of the cathedral, enveloped in a silence broken only by the slow echo of Gregorian chants that seemed to rise from the stones themselves. The filtered light from the stained-glass windows caressed the flagstones with sickly colors: purple, cobalt blue, blood red. The robe that covered her body, heavy and stiff like ancient penance, seemed to weigh more with each second. Cold sweat trickled down her back, and her hands trembled beneath her sleeves, as if they knew something her mind couldn't yet process.
Then, a muffled sound, like a sigh from hell, pierced the air. In front of her, on the main altar, an immense stained-glass window began to light up with supernatural intensity. It wasn't like the others. This one took up almost the entire wall, and it showed an image that paralyzed her.
It was her. In Elphaba's arms.
But it wasn't just any image. Elphaba held her with a mixture of tenderness and despair, like a Virgin carrying a defeated Magdalene. Glinda's body hung in her arms, half-naked, defeated, her hair loose and her eyes closed, like a martyr, a sinner, a fallen woman. The scene had the makeup of a biblical tragedy, with dark angels weeping from the corners of the stained-glass window and lightning bolts frozen in red glass. And Elphaba… Elphaba looked at no one. Only at her. As if nothing else existed in the world.
Glinda stood motionless in the center of the cathedral, enveloped in a silence broken only by the slow echo of Gregorian chants that seemed to rise from the stones themselves. The filtered light from the stained-glass windows caressed the flagstones with sickly colors: purple, cobalt blue, blood red. The robe that covered her body, heavy and stiff like ancient penance, seemed to weigh more with each second. Cold sweat trickled down her back, and her hands trembled beneath her sleeves, as if they knew something her mind couldn't yet process.
But then a voice broke the calm, which was growing like a crack in the sacred marble.
"Brothers and sisters! Lift up your eyes and see corruption disguised as purity!" —an invisible preacher shouted, his tone fiery and condemning.
Glinda stopped dead in her tracks. The echo echoed through the vault with the violence of the stage.
“Here walks falsehood with the face of an angel! Glinda the Benevolent! The saint of the crystal halls! But her soul is covered with scars, her virtue is lace, and her faith… her faith is chained to the filthiest pleasures of the body!”
The screams surrounded her. They didn’t come from just one place. They were everywhere, as if the church itself were speaking.
“Kneel, sinner! Your confession will not suffice! Your sins demand a spectacle!”
The stained-glass windows vibrated. Shadows danced around her like fingers ready to tear off her clothes. Glinda staggered forward, her breathing becoming erratic, and tears began to rise from the depths of her chest, like emotional vomit she couldn't contain.
And then, there, at the end of the aisle, on a raised pulpit of black stone, the preacher revealed himself.
It was Milla.
Her silhouette was bathed in red light from a broken stained-glass window. She wore an impossible costume: a tight-fitting cassock of dark leather, with gold embroidery imitating ecclesiastical symbols and chains dangling from her shoulders. The upper part of the outfit resembled a cardinal's ceremonial robes, with a crimson red cap floating over her head like an infernal crown. But beneath the cassock, a Gothic corset with aggressive lines cinched her waist, and her boots rose to her knees with dagger-like heels. An inverted crucifix hung around her neck, and in her hand she held a cane adorned with a rose of metallic thorns.
"Behold, absent faithful!" Milla cried, with a timbre that combined theatricality and punishment. "The woman who believed herself pure because of her smile! Who gave away charity to buy love! Who opened her legs only when no one could see her! But who was never, ever free!"
Glinda fell to her knees.
"No... it's not true..."
"No?" Milla said, descending the pulpit steps slowly, like a cruel goddess descending to touch the earth. "And who put that bracelet on your wrist? Who knelt voluntarily in the dark room, Glinda? Who sighed through her gag and shuddered at the sound of the whip?"
Milla's voice dropped to a whisper charged with electricity.
"Who said 'do it again,' with tears in their eyes?"
Glinda clenched her fists against the floor. Her breathing was a spasm, an emotional implosion.
"Shut up! This isn't real! This isn't me!"
Milla smiled with the calm of someone who had already won.
"Oh, my dear. This is you. It's the part you hide with teacup smiles. The part that only comes out when no one is looking... except when someone is. And that's what turns you on the most."
With a gentle gesture, Milla snapped her fingers. A gust of wind surged from the columns, lifting Glinda's habit with brutal slowness. She screamed, covering herself as best she could, but there was nothing left to hide.
The outfit had mutated.
The habit was now a parody of itself: it still had veils and lace, but they fused with leather, straps, clasps, and garters that marked her body like a slave to her own desire. She was a combination of penitent and sinner, virgin and voluntary martyr. The rosary hanging between her breasts ended in a key, as if her redemption were locked.
And Milla, descending from the pulpit, walked toward her, her cane in her hand around her as if blessing her shame.
"Welcome to your confession, Glinda. This is just beginning. And I will be your guide."
Glinda felt her knees buckle once more against the cold marble of the altar. The entire cathedral breathed around her, like an ancient monster solemnly devouring. The stained-glass windows flashed darkly, tinged with red and purple, and the Gregorian chants that floated in the air no longer sounded sacred, but like the profane echo of a blasphemous mass dedicated to desire and shame.
"Welcome back, my little saint,
All dressed in guilt and leather paint.
You kneel so well, you wear it fine,
The sinner's grace—completely mine."
Milla danced in circles around her. Her silhouette, dressed in black leather with details as fiery red as live embers, looked like Mephistopheles himself descended from hell. The leash she held with cruel grace bound her to Glinda as if she were her mistress, her jailer, and her most intimate temptation. Every step Milla took seemed to drag her closer to the abyss.
“They’ll all see what lies beneath—
The polished charm, the golden sheath.
Your prayers mean nothing when you crave...
The chain, the whip, the master's wave.”
“Do you feel it, Glinda?” she whispered with a mocking smile. “All your secrets… your hidden desires… I know them. There’s no going back.”
Glinda trembled, her face a mixture of terror and confusion. But the most disconcerting moment came when Milla, raising a crimson velvet-gloved hand, revealed the apple between her fingers: perfect, red, tempting. The forbidden fruit.
“Take the fruit. It’s sweet. It’s red.
Bite it, dear, and bow your head.
You’re not the saint they want you to be,
You’re just a girl who wants to... bleed.”
The apple floated in front of her like a sentence. She took it with trembling hands. She was about to give up.
And then… the world exploded into green.
“LET HER GO!!!!”
A flash of flame tore through the end of the main nave as if the final judgment itself had descended to earth. The shadows receded, and down the central aisle, amid emerald smoke and sacred wind, a figure advanced that seemed conjured from a baroque vision.
Elphaba emerged from the flames like a fallen angel who had chosen her own descent. She wore a black cassock open with strategic slits that revealed dark, tight leather, a cross between a dominatrix and a corrupted holy figure. From her back, wings of black feathers emerged, some broken, others intact, like vestiges of ancient battles. A thorn choker and an inverted tiara crowned her face in green shadows, while her boots echoed on the marble like a sentence. She was fire, faith, sin, and redemption, embodied in a figure impossible to ignore.
“No more lies in smoky haze,
No more games, no twisted praise.
She’s not your toy, your brand, your shame,
She is a storm you cannot tame.”
The expression on her face was that of a woman who didn’t fear hell, because she had learned to love it if it was for someone she loved more.
“This is not sin—this is her trust.
In ropes of love, not chains of lust.
What you call weak, I call divine.
Her choice is power—and it’s mine.”
Milla turned with a venomous smile, but her eyes flashed with a hint of discomfort. The duel had begun.
“She hides behind your sweet sermons,
But when she breaks, she’s at my feet.
She wants the pain, the bite, the brand,
Not your soft, pathetic hand.”
Elphaba descended from the altar with the grace of an empress. The music changed with her presence: choirs mingled with powerful organs, deep drums, and tense notes that marked the pace of a spiritual battle. There were no swords, but every movement was a thrust, every glance, a blow deeper than flesh.
“She wants to fall—yes, that is true,
But only when she chooses to.
With me she dives, but I am near.
I am the hand that catches fear.”
Milla regained control of the space with a dramatic twist, dragging Glinda into the fold once more. Her movements were swift, sensual, dangerous. She made her spin, kneel, submit. Glinda, humiliated, tried to stay on her feet, but her body seemed unresponsive.
And then Elphaba intervened. They both sang in unison.
“She wants the leash, the collar tight!
To drown in shame, to lose the fight!”
“She wants the truth, the choice, the key—
To kneel by love, not tyranny!”
“Expose her soul, parade her sin!
Let the world see what lies within!”
“Reveal her strength, her sovereign cry—
She’ll stand, not break, with head held high!”
Elphaba took Glinda by the waist, with a firmness that didn't dominate, but protected. With her, the steps were different. There was no abruptness, but rather restrained strength. Each movement was a promise of care, an invitation to balance. Elphaba danced with Glinda like someone guiding through fear, with brutally honest patience.
"You don't have to be ashamed," she whispered. "Not here. Not with me."
But Milla wouldn't budge. She raised her voice, laughed like an ancient crone, and accused:
"She doesn't want your tenderness! She wants to be destroyed! She wants to be used, broken, diminished!"
The music swelled. Glinda was thrown between them like a human pendulum. Milla brought her to her knees. Elphaba lifted her up. Milla placed chains on her. Elphaba untied them to show that true power lay in choosing to wear them.
“You shame her / I lift her
You twist her / I gift her
You break her / I free her
You brand her / I see her!”
Glinda's eyes were wide open. She didn't know what to believe, what to feel, what to be. She covered her ears, but the sound was inside her. The voices were her own, the fears, the words she had spoken to herself so many times in the dark. Was she the broken, obedient creature Milla described? Or was she the woman who found strength in surrendering to the one she loved?
The apple reappeared in front of her, thrown by Milla with a cursed laugh. Glinda caught it this time… but didn't bite. She stared at it. Hesitating.
Then Elphaba knelt beside her, wrapping her arms around her from behind, her arms a refuge amidst the chaos.
“In leather, silk, or sacred veil,
Our love will breathe, our truth prevail.
We write our vows in whispered moans,
In shattered glass and sacred tones.
No shame will stain this bond we claim,
No mask, no chain, no burning name.
In dark and light, we are the same...
Our love, our power—our Sanctum of Flame.”
Glinda looked up, and in her eyes there was no longer fear, but fire.
With a firm gesture, she opened her fingers and dropped the apple. The fruit hit the marble with a dry crunch, rolling to a stop at Milla's feet, who frowned, surprised for the first time.
Glinda sat up slowly, the impossible fusion of a nun and a goddess of desire embodied in her form. She walked toward Elphaba with confident steps, and as she passed Milla, her light blue eyes pierced her like daggers.
"If these are my sins," she declared clearly, trembling only with emotion, "I will not fear them. I will not be ashamed, nor will I flee. Not again. This is the life I chose. And I will not kneel out of fear... but out of love."
She turned to Elphaba, who was breathing hard, her lips parted, her face marked by emotion. Glinda took her in her arms with a passion as genuine as it was unbridled. Their lips met in a kiss without judgment or guilt, made of unshed tears, unleashed desire, and unspoken promises.
Elphaba broke the kiss only to tenderly touch her forehead and whisper with a dark half-smile, "You may be my submissive... but you control your own destiny."
Glinda smiled through tears and kissed her again as if it were the only possible response.
And just when the world seemed to be consuming red light and fullness...
Glinda's eyes flew open, panting. She was alone in Elphaba's penthouse bathroom, drenched in sweat and tears, huddled against the wall as if she'd been weathering a storm. The dim light of dusk barely filtered through the frosted glass.
The black wristband still adorned her wrist, but now it seemed just that... a bracelet. Her breathing trembled, but there was no panic in her chest. Only a strange calm... and a new certainty.
And then she heard it.
"Glinda! Glinda!... Where are you?"
Elphaba's voice. Warm, concerned. Close.
Glinda wiped her face with her hand and sat up with difficulty, as if reborn.
"Here... I'm here," she murmured, her voice faintly growing firm.
Because this time, she wasn't going to hide.
Elphaba burst into the bathroom, slamming the door like a desperate heartbeat through the penthouse. Her breathing was labored, her green eyes wide with panic, searching the shadows and steam.
And then she saw her.
Glinda, in the corner, crumpled but whole, like a flower that had withstood the fire.
"Glinda!" she cried, running toward her, her heart pounding. "Gods, Glinda..."
But before she could fall to her knees or begin to unravel, Glinda reached up with a trembling hand and gently took her wrist. The look she gave her was calm, unexpectedly serene.
"I'm fine," she whispered, her voice hoarse but firm. I'm fine... Elphie.
And without waiting for permission or words, she gently pulled her toward her. Elphaba wrapped her arms around her with a broken urgency, burying her face in her neck, inhaling her scent as if she could absorb her pain, as if she needed to feel her alive to calm herself. They stayed like that, holding each other on the cold bathroom floor, oblivious to the warm water still dripping from the sink, oblivious to the silence. Only the heartbeat of both of them, one on top of the other.
Elphaba didn't know how much time had passed, only that there was something different about Glinda. Something denser, more authentic. A more... complete presence.
And then, Glinda spoke in a low, almost childlike voice, laced with a vulnerability so honest it broke her heart.
"Have you ever..." she swallowed, "felt ashamed of me?"
Elphaba pulled away slightly, just so she could look into her eyes. For a moment, her breath caught in her throat, as if she didn't understand the question. And then she shook her head vehemently.
"What? No! Never." Never. Glinda, you...—her fingers caressed her face with tremulous tenderness—you are light. You are art. Even when you scream over badly applied nail polish, you are magnificent. I have never been ashamed of you. Not for a second.
Glinda lowered her gaze, taking a deep breath. She seemed to be assessing something within herself. Then she raised her face, her eyes bright but clear.
"I was... before."
Elphaba tensed. But Glinda smiled, a faint smile, full of confession and rebirth.
"I used to be ashamed. Not for you... for me. For what I wanted. For what made me tremble. For what made me... happy. I thought that if others knew... they would stop loving me. That if I accepted it, I was surrendering to something dirty. But now..."
She sat up a little more, until she was face to face with her, and with newfound confidence, she said,
"I am no longer ashamed of who I am."
Elphaba looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. As if that radiance of sincerity made Glinda even more dazzling.
"You have no idea," she whispered, "how brave you are, do you?"
Glinda rested her forehead against hers, closing her eyes.
"All I know... that when I'm with you, I don't have to hide anything."
Elphaba smiled at her with pride and admiration. "Well, I have good news for you... I'll always be with you."
And for the first time in a long time, in that bare white room, there were no masks, no papers, no insecurities disguised as irony. Just them. With everything they were. With everything they desired.
The next fourteen hours were a whirlwind of movement, plans, and barely contained sighs. After weeks of tension, of imposed masks, of silent, internal battles, for the first time Elphaba and Glinda slept together without any worries. Without knots in their chests. Without fear of waking up. Only the rhythmic breathing of two bodies that had stopped resisting the truth of what they were. When the rays of dawn caressed Glinda's face, she no longer felt the weight of shame or the edge of doubt; she felt a purpose. And when she turned and found Elphaba still asleep beside her, with an expression of peace rarely seen on her face, she understood that purpose was not just to endure, but to live as she deserved.
But there was no time for contemplation. The day of the hearing had arrived, and the world outside had no intention of stopping for a moment of tenderness.
The house quickly became a headquarters for resistance and strategy. Elphaba took command with the precision of a general. She unfolded documents, recordings, notes, summaries, and began to explain to Glinda, step by step, all the information the team had collected: irregularities by the City Council, manipulated statistics, shady links between politicians and the media, evidence of sabotage against establishments like Ozdust from within. Her voice was firm, her hands moved as if weaving a map, and Glinda, sitting cross-legged on the sofa, listened with absolute attention, underlining, correcting, and contributing ideas with that ability of hers to grasp blind spots with surgical precision.
"We have to anticipate their questions," Elphaba told her as they reviewed a data table. "They'll try to divert attention." They're going to paint you as a superficial, politically charged influencer who only got into this on a romantic whim.
Glinda let out a dry laugh.
"And what will they say about you? That you're a manipulative radical witch?"
"More or less," Elphaba replied with a crooked smile. "That's why I need you to speak clearly. To show them what I can't. You're the face they weren't expecting."
Meanwhile, in the guest room, Crope unleashed his unfiltered creativity. He moved like a haute couture alchemist, adjusting fabrics, searching for tones that conveyed strength and elegance without being obvious. The brief was clear: "Make it look like she's going to a legal hearing... but also that if Beyoncé comes in, they'll invite her to the front." The result: a straight-legged pink linen pants and blazer combo with a structured ivory-white high-neck blouse, with modern, feminine lines, crowned by an emerald star-shaped brooch. Power, but with style.
Meanwhile, Tibbett played his role as mentor with the vehemence of a star lawyer and the patience of a therapist. He feigned hostile questions, interrupted, and demanded concise answers, while Glinda rehearsed again and again, correcting postures and fine-tuning her tone. The transformation was astonishing: Glinda, her hair pulled back with functional elegance and without a trace of her usual glamorous makeup, responded like a professional who wasn't afraid to make people uncomfortable.
"Breathe before you say the statistic. Pause after the 'and yet.' Look at the person you're talking to, not the floor," Tibbett told her quietly but firmly.
Boq, like a little fairy godmother with a degree in nutrition, walked around the department with a smoothie in each hand. "This has maca, plant protein, and a touch of matcha," he explained, while Glinda took it with a nod of deep gratitude. There was something deeply restorative about seeing all those fragments of her life—her former companions, her allies, her loves—reunited not out of obligation, but by choice. No one was saving her skin. They were there because they believed in her.
While this was happening, Fiyero, who had until now been a wandering and mysterious shadow, took the most unexpected step of all: he agreed to an exclusive interview with the Emerald Post. In a soberly recorded conversation from his apartment, he confessed that he had abandoned his family's legacy not on a whim, but because he had seen how the machinery of power oppressed those who had never had a voice. That his friendship with Elphaba, and the work he had witnessed at Ozdust, had opened his eyes. That he supported Glinda not as a public figure, but as a citizen fighting for something real. The post of the interview preview went viral in less than an hour.
And amid all this orchestrated chaos, Glinda and Elphaba never stopped searching for each other. Between documents, between rehearsed lines, between wardrobe adjustments, they always found a moment to hold hands, to rest their foreheads against each other, to whisper, "You're doing everything right," or a simple, "I'm here." They needed nothing more.
In an impromptu break, they sat on the balcony. The sun was already setting, tinting the sky a warm, serene gold. Glinda rested her head on Elphaba's shoulder, and for a second, the world stopped.
"You know something?" Glinda murmured.
"What?"
"Together... we are limitless."
Elphaba smiled, saying nothing. She just closed her eyes and held her tighter.
Evening had begun to settle over Emerald City like a bated breath. From the heights of Elphaba's penthouse, the city lights twinkled like scattered stars, and inside, the air was charged with a unique mix of adrenaline and tenderness. The group was still gathered, scattered across the sofas, cushions, and rugs in the spacious living room, surrounded by boxes of Chinese takeout, cans of kombucha, and crumpled documents with notes in the margins.
Tibbett, ever theatrical, had taken on the role of game show host, pacing back and forth with chopsticks as if they were microphones.
"And by 500 points!" he exclaimed, pointing dramatically. "What data proves that the suspension of private establishments in the West Side is an illegal administrative maneuver?"
"Urban Ethics Committee Report 7B," Glinda replied with a confident smile, without a second's hesitation. "Issued three days before the closing, ignored by the board of directors, and withheld from the official report. Page four, paragraph two."
Tibbett spun around, as if fainting from excitement.
"And we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen!"
Laughter erupted around the room. Crope, his face half covered by a dumpling he'd over-spiked, clapped enthusiastically. Boq, on the verge of sleep, limply threw a cushion at him.
Glinda shrugged, as if it didn't matter, though she couldn't hide the small, proud smile that escaped her. She had changed. She was no longer the girl who needed to charm to be heard. Now she spoke, and the world listened because they wanted to hear what she had to say.
Elphaba sat right next to her, her legs crossed on the sofa, a cup of tea in her hands, and that look of hers that spoke louder than any compliment. Occasionally, she'd contribute a technical fact, a legal observation, or simply nod when Glinda hesitated. But they didn't need to talk for long. Whenever Glinda hesitated for a split second, all she had to do was turn her head slightly and meet those deep, steady green eyes, and she'd find the answer again.
After more than an hour of review, they finally declared a truce. Tibett dramatically sank down onto a beanbag, claiming that "not even the most intense TikTok lawyers would have put up with her for that long." The laughter loosened the atmosphere, and little by little the murmurs dispersed into more scattered conversations.
Glinda and Elphaba stood apart for a moment, sitting opposite each other in the warm gloom of the room, illuminated only by the city lights behind the large windows.
"See?" Elphaba said, her voice soft but firm. "You're ready."
Glinda looked at her, that gaze filled with gratitude, with something deeper than admiration. Something that felt too much like love.
"Thank you," she replied. "But... I wish you were there with me. Not just as part of all this... but by my side."
Elphaba hesitated for a second, surprised by the sincerity. But she nodded.
"I'll be with you. In any way I can."
Glinda shook her head slowly, smiling faintly.
"Don't get me wrong... I mean, I want you there by my side. Because all of this, everything that's happening... you started it. You showed me that it was possible to fight for more than my image. You made me see that I didn't have to follow the rules just because they were taught to me."
Elphaba lowered her gaze, smiling discreetly, almost embarrassed. But in her chest, a warm wave expanded, difficult to contain.
"I started the battle," she murmured, raising her gaze to meet hers again. "But you're going to finish it."
There was a moment. Silence. The world around her seemed to freeze. The city lights, the echoes of the rest of the group, the soft sound of distant traffic… everything faded away the instant their hands instinctively reached for each other and found each other, intertwined. Neither of them said anything. There was no need to.
Until Elphaba's phone vibrated on the table.
They both jumped slightly. Elphaba took it without urgency, almost annoyed by the interruption. But when she saw the ID, she frowned.
"Is it... the academy?" she murmured.
Glinda straightened, alert.
"Nevermore?"
Elphaba nodded and answered the call. The call lasted longer than anyone would have expected, and with each murmured word from the phone, the tension seemed to rise for everyone.
The ringing of the phone was still echoing in the air when Elphaba pulled it away from her ear, as if the device itself had begun to burn her fingers. Her gaze, always sharp and determined, had turned glassy, almost confused. The muscles in her face seemed to harden as she processed what she'd just heard. She didn't need to say anything before Glinda, who was watching her with a mixture of concern and intuition, stood up immediately.
"What happened?" she asked softly, though a palpable tension seeped into every word.
Elphaba ran a hand over her face, as if doing so would sort through the tangle of thoughts building behind her eyes.
"An urgent meeting with the Nevermore leadership," she murmured. "They say a serious situation arose... something to do with my position, my record. They weren't clear, but the tone... it wasn't good."
Glinda frowned.
"Does that make sense? Now? At this hour?"
Elphaba shook her head slowly. Her mind was already working faster than her words allowed.
"No. It doesn't make any sense. It's a distraction. They're trying to keep me away from you during the hearing." Her voice trembled on the border between anger and panic. Not for her. For Glinda. For leaving her alone, for repeating past mistakes. The words didn't come easily. She was used to making difficult decisions, but this time, the price was what hurt the most.
"But if I don't go," she continued, her gaze lost in thought, "everything could get worse. They can use it to discredit me. Discredit us. Invalidate everything we said, everything we discovered..."
The silence grew thick. The group sensed something was up, but didn't dare interrupt. Tibbett and Crope exchanged worried glances, while Boq and Fiyero resisted the urge to intervene. This was a conversation that didn't belong to them.
Glinda, for her part, had made a decision. She approached Elphaba with an open heart, without pride, without fear, and took her hand firmly. Hers was warm, soft, but trembled slightly.
"Go," he said, with a tenderness that ached. "You have to go. This matters too. It won't do any good to defeat the senator if you can't protect yourself."
Elphaba shook her head immediately, as if the very idea were unthinkable.
"No. No, Glinda, I can't leave you again. I already did it once, and I won't..."
"You're not leaving me," she interrupted, firm. "You're fighting with me. In your own way. For you. For us. And this time... I know you'll come back."
Elphaba looked at her. Really looked at her. With a mixture of admiration, disbelief, and something much more intimate: faith. Faith in her. Faith that she would succeed. Faith in them.
"This is just bureaucratic nonsense," Glinda continued, smiling bravely, though her eyes were moist. "You'll figure this out quickly and be back in time to be with me. To see me finish what you started. This time we'll be together." As it always should have been.
Elphaba couldn't breathe. Every fiber in her body urged her to stay, to stay, to remain by her side in that audience that had defined so much of their history. But at the same time, she knew Glinda was right. And there was something about the way she told her... something that made her finally let her guard down.
She nodded. Very slowly. She swallowed. She squeezed his hand tightly, then let go.
"Okay," she whispered. "But I promise... I'll be back as soon as I can. This time..."
He looked into her eyes, with an intensity that took her breath away.
"This time we'll fly together."
Glinda smiled, and without thinking, she moved closer to embrace her. A deep hug, unhurried, without resistance, the kind that holds words that don't fit into sentences. Elphaba hid her face in her neck and let her body rest for a second in that silent refuge. Neither of them said "I love you," but every gesture screamed it.
When they separated, Elphaba walked toward the rest of the group. She said a brief goodbye, explaining in a few words that she had to attend to an urgent matter, but she would return. No one asked too many questions. Everyone understood.
But before she walked out the door, she looked back at Glinda. She was still standing there, looking at her as if nothing in the world could break her. And in that moment, Elphaba made a promise to herself that she was determined to keep… This time, she wouldn't abandon her.
The city was enveloped in a soft mist that failed to hide the hustle and bustle. The middle of the day was dawning with a palpable urgency in the air. Glinda stepped out of the car with firm steps but bated breath, flanked by Tibbett and Crope, who had dressed as if they were accompanying her to a gala, not a court hearing. She held a folder full of notes in one hand, a thermos of coffee in the other, but what kept her going wasn't the caffeine or the papers: it was the promise.
A few blocks away, Elphaba accelerated her motorcycle down the avenue as if she could beat time. The engine roared like a runaway heartbeat as the city passed around her in rapid streaks of gray and green. Elphaba couldn't see the cars, the pedestrians, or the traffic lights changing too quickly. She only saw Glinda's eyes when she told her, "This time we'll fly together." Her body was on its way to Nevermore, but her mind, her soul, remained in that penthouse room, in that embrace that smelled of jasmine and home.
Glinda stopped when she saw the courthouse entrance. A wall of journalists, cameras, and microphones awaited them, waving credentials and shouting her name as if she were a movie star and not a young woman preparing to challenge a senator in the heart of the establishment. Crope stood in front of her, with his best PR smile, while Tibbett took the initiative with a lift of his eyebrow and a "Please follow me" that sounded more like an order than a suggestion.
"Don't look at the flashes," Crope murmured, putting his arm around Glinda's shoulders. "Imagine it's a Cannes red carpet and you're Cate Blanchett."
Glinda gave a short laugh. She was scared, yes. But she wasn't alone. And if Cate could do it, so could she.
Meanwhile, Elphaba parked in front of the iron gates of Nevermore, the academy that had once been her sanctuary. The wind stirred her dark coat, and as she walked through the ancient halls covered in Gothic stained-glass windows and the smell of floor polish, students peered at her from half-open doorways. Some whispered, others followed her with their eyes, as if standing before a tarnished legend. She walked upright, each step more restrained than the last. The headmistress was waiting for her. Or someone much worse.
Glinda arrived inside the courthouse with her nerves on edge. The waiting room outside the civil courtroom was almost empty, save for the low murmur of other hearings in progress and a coffee machine blinking resignedly. Tibbett sat across from her, and Crope handed her a steaming glass.
"No sugar," she said with a knowing smile. "Because the sweetness today is in your voice, not in your coffee."
Glinda accepted the glass, but didn't drink. She simply stared at the door that would open in minutes. The place where everything would change. Where she would have to speak for herself, for Elphaba, for all those who had been silenced. And yet, her thought remained one: Has she arrived yet? Will she be all right?
In another building, another waiting room, Elphaba sat in one of the cold metal chairs outside the headmistress's office. The walls were gray, impersonal, adorned with commemorative plaques and an old framed group photograph. Despite the emptiness, she could feel the weight of the stares, the whispers in the hallways that she couldn't quite hear. Her fingers drummed against her knee. Her phone vibrated once in her jacket, but she didn't dare look at it. Her only distraction was the memories of Glinda, of how she had squeezed her hand that morning, of her voice when she had said, “We’ll finish this together.”
The tension built like steam trapped in a sealed jar. Every second was a tick on the clock of something inevitable.
And then, in perfect synchronicity, both doors opened.
At Nevermore, a woman in a gray suit appeared in the principal’s doorway. She carried a folder in her hand, wore rimless glasses, and a stony expression.
“Miss Thropp, you may come in.”
Elphaba stood up. She adjusted her collar, ran her fingers through her hair, and took a deep breath. A single thought sustained her: Don’t make me late… she’s waiting for me.
At the courthouse, an aide peered through the crack in the heavy oak door.
“Miss Upland. They’re about to begin. You may come in and prepare.”
Glinda nodded and stood. Tibbett smoothed his jacket with a ceremonious gesture, and Crope offered her a warm smile as he slipped a small rose quartz stone into her hand, murmuring, "For good energy. It doesn't work miracles, but it helps balance the chaos."
She didn't get to thank him. The murmur grew suddenly, like a wave breaking in the hall. Voices, lights, flashes. Something was approaching.
And then they saw it.
The hallway lit up as if an invisible red carpet had been rolled out from the courthouse's main entrance. A swarm of reporters retreated, pointing microphones and cameras at the newcomer. Senator Oz walked with his signature stage presence, his stride measured, his smile ready, impeccably dressed in a pearl-gray suit that contrasted with the ceremonial mourning of Madame Morrible, who escorted him on his left side like an authoritarian shadow. On the right side, Officer Chistery, with an imperturbable expression and dark glasses, made his way through the crowd with smooth but decisive movements.
"Senator, what do you expect from today's hearing?" a reporter shouted.
"Only the truth, as always," he replied, his voice velvety, without slowing down. "I'm sure we'll all leave today with greater clarity and confidence in the project that is bringing so much good to our city."
"What do you think of Miss Upland and her statements?"
"Oh, Glinda," he replied, modulating his tone as if speaking about a mischievous niece. "She's brilliant, passionate, idealistic... and that's admirable. We all go through that stage. But real decisions, the ones that change lives, must be made with full information, not just passion. I'm here to listen, of course. We're all on your side. We only want the best for Emerald City."
Glinda didn't respond. She couldn't. Because suddenly, Oz had stopped right in front of her.
The world seemed to fall silent. Crope pressed his lips together. Tibbett raised an eyebrow, his expression icy. And Glinda… Glinda held his gaze.
"Glinda," Oz said, with a soft smile, his voice lower, almost paternal. "This is an important day, isn't it?"
She nodded firmly.
"It is, Senator."
"I trust this exercise will help you put things into perspective. Sometimes, an audience is just what we need to grow. And all eyes are on you. You will shine, as always."
Glinda smiled politely. But it wasn't the smile of a grateful child. It was the smile of a woman who had spent entire nights studying, doubting, bleeding emotionally for this moment. It was the smile of someone who has understood what it means to have to prove her truth to a system that underestimates her.
"Thank you for your support, Senator," he said clearly. "I'll make sure everyone hears what they need to hear. Unfiltered."
A flash passed through Oz's eyes. Barely a second. Then the smile returned. He turned to the reporters, extended his arms as if blessing a ceremony, and disappeared into the room, escorted by Morrible and Chistery.
The hubbub resumed behind him, but it no longer mattered.
Tibbett exhaled through his nose, crossing his arms.
"If that man were more artificial, he'd come with a warning label."
"And yet half the country would still buy him on sale," Crope added.
Glinda listened to them, but her gaze remained fixed on the door Oz had just passed through. She took another deep breath. This time deeper. Because she knew:
That man had power. But she had the truth. And that—that was a weapon, too.
Glinda took another deep breath as she approached the courthouse door. Each step seemed to rumble inside her chest. Though her resolve was firm, she couldn't help but feel anxiety seeping through every crack. Just as she was about to move forward, she stopped, frowning.
"Where are Fiyero and Boq?" she asked, looking around.
Crope, who was checking his phone with a hidden smile, looked up.
"Oh, that's it..." Brrr insisted that if they were going to be part of a historic moment, they should dress for the occasion.
"Dress for the..."
But she didn't get to finish the sentence.
Because at that precise moment, Tibbett, who had been distractedly flipping through a folder, dropped his jaw. Literally. His lips formed a silent "O." Glinda followed his gaze, slowly turning... and then she saw him.
"It's not true!!!!!" Advancing as if walking in slow motion down an invisible runway, Fiyero, Boq, and Brrr entered. Lined up, synchronized, defiant. As if they were the cover of a futuristic fashion magazine with a taste of magical nostalgia.
Boq led the group with a determined stride, wearing a silver three-piece suit so perfectly fitted it seemed fused to his body. Every movement made the ensemble shine like steel in the sun. Geometric details on the lapel and a small pocket watch completed the look: understated, gleaming, implacable. He clearly didn't need a heart to make a statement.
Beside him, Fiyero walked as if he'd never learned to march in a straight line, and that very thing made him magnetic. His emerald green and black suit had asymmetrical cuts, purposefully crooked seams, and imperfectly rolled-up sleeves. He looked on the verge of falling apart... but every mistake was intentional. As if elegance had fallen to the ground and Fiyero had picked it up in his own way. It was refined chaos, intelligence with calculated carelessness.
And rounding out the trio, Brrr. With a floor-length amber coat that looked like it was made from her own hair, impossible-to-ignore golden sunglasses, a top hat with a bow tilted theatrically, and a polished wooden cane that clacked with every step. She moved as if she didn't need permission to exist. Ridiculous, elegant, and glorious.
The three of them stopped right in front of Glinda, like divas ready for the red carpet of Judgment Day. She gaped at them.
"What... what is this?" she asked, a mix of nervous laughter and bewilderment.
Brrr took off her glasses with a dramatic twist and pointed proudly at her own creation, like a painter pointing out his masterpiece.
"My testament to fashion and endurance. Elphaba left me in charge of the wardrobe. I regret to inform you that we are now art."
The three of them burst into laughter. Even Crope, who was usually the most sarcastic, had to cover his mouth with his hand to keep from spitting out his coffee. Tibbett sighed as if the situation had overwhelmed him, but his eyes shone with tenderness.
Glinda couldn't stop laughing. It was a respite, a flicker of lightness amid the tension. For a moment, the weight of what was about to happen dissolved, replaced by that unbreakable bond they'd formed. Family of choice, partners in an elegant revolution.
Just as they were about to enter, Fiyero approached her. His tone lowered, his hand barely touching her arm.
"Hey. Remember that charity event? When everyone was pretending and you were the only one who said anything real."
Glinda nodded, smiling shyly.
"Do exactly that today. Be the most authentic person in that room. Not because you have anything to prove... but because they have no idea who they're messing with."
She swallowed. The words resonated louder than any legal advice. Fiyero winked at her and walked away, leaving her with her heart pounding.
They all looked at each other one last time, lined up in front of the courthouse door.
"Ready?" Crope asked.
"Always," Tibbett said.
"We were born ready," Brrr said, adjusting his top hat.
Glinda took a deep breath, squeezed the quartz in her hand, and smiled.
"Then we'll change history."
And together, they walked through the doors.
While a crucial chapter in Glinda's story began to be written in the courthouse, in another corner of the world, in an office with high ceilings, heavy curtains, and sharp silence, another equally decisive moment was unfolding.
A heavy silence hung in the room, filled with stern glances and whispers disguised as professionalism. Elphaba sat in a chair right in the center, as if she were an object to be evaluated. Opposite her, on her throne behind the desk, stood the imposing Director Weems, rigid, serene, calculating. On either side of her, several assistants and members of the Board of Education took notes, murmured to each other, and avoided her gaze.
Elphaba crossed her arms, drumming her fingers on her elbow. Impatience boiled in her veins.
"Are you going to keep talking to each other, or is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on?"
One of the secretaries, a small man with crooked glasses and trembling hands, tried to answer weakly:
"Miss Thropp was called away regarding... a delicate situation... involving some family history that has come to our attention..."
Elphaba looked at him as if she could burn him with her eyes. The man hesitated further.
Weems closed his folder with a snap.
"Enough." The principal's voice filled the room. "Let me explain, Mr. Huxley, before you swallow your own tongue."
Everyone fell silent. Weems leaned forward slightly, clasping his hands on the desk.
“Miss Thropp. We have recently received official information suggesting that a close relative of yours, your father, has been involved in a discriminatory scandal. A public case of incitement to hatred toward foreigners and people who do not conform to certain “traditional ideals” of our community.”
For a moment, the world stopped.
Elphaba blinked slowly. Her jaw tensed. She felt fury rising like lava up her spine. Again. Again the past she didn't choose. Again her name, her blood, being used as a chain. Again the sins of her father tied to her wings.
“Are you serious?” she whispered. Not because she doubted, but because the poison was so thick she couldn't scream yet. “Are you going to drag me into this mess again because of that man?”
The councilors shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. Weems maintained his composure, though a cold, inquisitive sparkle shone in his eyes.
“Understand that this puts the institution in an awkward position. You are a public figure. Your personal connections—even if they weren't yours to choose—affect the community's perception of Nevermore. We are in a sensitive moment.”
“No, you are in a cowardly moment,” Elphaba retorted, standing up. “I don't share your ideas, nor do I identify with your rhetoric. I've made that clear for as long as I can remember. How many times am I going to have to apologize for someone else's crimes?”
One of the council members intervened in a “reasonable” tone:
“The point is not to blame you, but to consider that your family background, coupled with certain past incidents, could once again call into question your…”
“My what? My integrity?” Elphaba interrupted, her voice low but dangerous. “If you're accusing me of something, do it up front. If not, release me and let me return to my people.”
The atmosphere grew even more tense. Some employees looked down. No one wanted to be the one to answer. It was then that Weems spoke again, this time in a more serious tone, almost with a hint of restrained enjoyment: "There's another matter, Elphaba." Weems let out a small sigh, as if this whole circus were a bureaucratic burden she could barely tolerate. "We've requested testimony from two members of our faculty to provide additional context to the concerns that concern us today.
When the door opened, Elphaba nearly overturned her desk in rage. She didn't need anyone to tell her who the newcomers were.
Isaac Norman, the world's most irritatingly mediocre literature teacher and her idiot ex (or ex-something?), strode in with ridiculously confident stride. Beside him, the new math teacher, a blonde who seemed to confuse equations with clothing labels, was smiling at her as if she'd just won a prize for the most poisonous gossip of the month.
Elphaba didn't need to hear what was coming. She knew it. She sensed it. She'd smell it if necessary.
"To better understand the matter," Weems said with a politeness that sounded like a slap, "I want you to hear a statement we received this week directly from Professor Norman."
Isaac feigned an affected sigh before beginning:
"This is an awkward situation for me... and believe me, it's not easy for me to talk about this, but I'm doing it for the good of the institution." Miss Thropp, during our brief... personal interaction, showed an affinity for certain sensitive practices... of an... intimate nature, which could be considered worrying signs of emotional imbalance.
"She's referring," Weems continued, "to behaviors related to dynamics of dominance and submission, expressions of sexuality that, while not illegal, can influence students' perceptions and the academic environment... especially when combined with a contentious family history."
The room seemed to hold its breath. Elphaba leaned forward slightly, smiling toothily.
"Are you talking about my private life? Is that what you're using now to judge my ability as a teacher?"
The new teacher nodded with theatrical concern.
"We're concerned about the influence this might have on the students. After all, Miss Thropp has an... how can I put it... intimidating image. Such a temperamental young woman, with such a... complicated past."
Elphaba clenched her fists so tightly her nails nearly pierced her palms.
Was that the best they could do? A pathetic ex-scorner mounting a moralistic rant about not being able to stand being made a fool of? And the new one? A copycat who seemed to have never read a single essay by Thropp, but had an opinion on his "temperament."
"This isn't a moral judgment," one of the council members continued, "it's simply an ethical review of professional boundaries, institutional image, and the values we promote."
Isaac quickly chimed in, with that falsely contrite look Elphaba knew so well:
"This isn't about moralism, El. It's just that... there were times... where your behavior on campus was... provocative. I'm not saying it's wrong, it just... creates discomfort. Especially when one of those involved is a public figure like yourself."
"Involved?" Elphaba repeated with a dry laugh. "Are you talking about yourself in the third person, Isaac?" The new professor gave a nervous laugh and continued,
"The truth is... when I walked onto campus, I sensed a slightly... aggressive energy from Elphaba. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but it's important that we all feel safe..."
"Safe?" Elphaba interrupted, standing like a tower of suppressed rage. "About what, exactly? That I don't tolerate idiots? Or that I don't hide from who I am, even if it makes them uncomfortable?"
Isaac raised an eyebrow with feigned dignity, but it was clear he enjoyed seeing her cornered like this.
And then Elphaba understood everything. Every second of that hearing, every word, every document, was nothing more than theater. An elaborate distraction. A trickle-down public humiliation. The senator and his allies were making sure she didn't reach Glinda. That she felt small. Insignificant. Guilty for existing.
For a moment, she wanted to scream. Out of pride, out of dignity, out of sheer exhaustion. She wanted to stay and destroy every word with logic and fury.
But she thought of Glinda. Of that room full of hyenas. Of the trembling look she'd have. Of what was coming. And how she, Elphaba, had promised herself never to be silent again, but also never to leave her alone again.
She stood up.
Everyone looked at her, as if expecting an explosion. But Elphaba just took a deep breath. And in a voice as cold and sharp as ice, she said,
"I understand. No need to continue. This isn't a hearing. It's a show."
She straightened her coat with dignity, cast one last glance at Isaac and her replacement doll, and added,
"I'm not going to waste another second on this. Give me a suspension. Expel me if you want. But I'm not going to sit here while the same old story repeats itself."
Weems raised an eyebrow, surprised.
"Are you leaving this hearing?" "No," Elphaba replied, turning toward the door. "I'm choosing what truly matters."
While Elphaba's fate was at stake, so was Glinda's. The idealistic young blonde stood in front of the large central platform, the spotlights directed at her as if she were a defendant in an opera. The tension was suffocating. Tibbett, at her side, never took his eyes off the papers in front of him, but one of his hands rested on the back of Glinda's chair. Silent support. One presence among many that wasn't feigned.
Behind her, her friends looked at her with anguish and pride. They knew how unfair this was. They knew she was more than an image, more than a campaign. But they also knew that didn't matter in this room.
Across the room, with imperturbable composure, stood him: Senator Oscar Zoroaster Diggs. Oz. The puppeteer with the golden smile. The same one who could convince a hurricane it was just a spring breeze.
Beside him, like a statue of frozen marble, stood Madame Morrible, CEO of Shiz.Corp, her fingers interlaced in her lap, her face carefully sculpted to convey no emotion.
The council, a group of gray but well-dressed figures, took their seats as if preparing to attend a banquet. And Glinda was the main course.
One of them, in a bored but ceremonious voice, began the protocol.
“We are gathered today to clarify the civil and ethical liability of the city's Urban Renewal Project, promoted by the current government and supported by Shiz.Corp. This is based on recent testimony and accusations made by Miss Galinda Arduenna Upland. The council will evaluate her knowledge, active participation, and potential harmful consequences arising from the project.”
Glinda breathed deeply, upright, elegant. But inside, a single phrase hammered relentlessly:
“Where are you, Elphaba?”
“With this,” the spokesperson continued, “the floor is given to the honorable Senator Zoroaster Diggs.”
And then, the show began.
Oz stood up with that precisely calculated smile, that look of a wise grandfather mixed with a used-car salesman. His voice was enveloping, seductive. Every word of his seemed anointed with moral authority, although each sentence was a lie coated with hope.
“Distinguished members of the council… citizens present… and to our beloved Miss Glinda Upland.” Today we are here not to judge coldly, but to reflect. To reflect on the future of our city. Of our community.
His tone was soft, paternal, almost syrupy.
"The Urban Renewal Project was conceived to bring order, efficiency, and modernity to a broken system. The marginalized areas were hotbeds of crime. The schools were overcrowded. The streets were abandoned. We... all of us, decided to act."
He walked as he spoke, projecting charisma with every step. The cameras adored him.
"I understand there are doubts. Transformation breeds resistance. It's natural. But we've been transparent. We've invested in technology, transportation, security... and values. We've brought discipline, structure, and moral cleansing to corners that were gripped by chaos."
Tibbett gritted his teeth. "Moral cleansing." Oz's favorite euphemism.
"And at the heart of that transformation," the senator continued, turning directly to Glinda, "was always a brilliant figure." Inspiring. Brave. A leader. Miss Glinda Upland.
Glinda swallowed. “Where are you, Elphie…”
“No one forced her. No one manipulated her. She chose to be the face of this rebirth. She smiled at our campaigns. She gave speeches. She participated in forums and interviews. She was, and remains, a symbol of this emerald awakening.”
As she spoke, the screens played a montage of images of Glinda at public events, giving speeches, greeting children in newly “transformed” neighborhoods… images edited and choreographed with surgical precision to irrevocably associate her with the Oz regime.
Glinda felt a knot in her stomach. The images were real. But they didn't tell the whole story. They didn't show the doubts, the questions, the things she was never allowed to see.
"And that's why," Oz concluded, approaching the lectern again, his voice heavy with mock solemnity, "this council must ask itself a key question: how do we interpret the fact that now, just when the project is at its most delicate point, Miss Upland has expressed doubts, questions, and even sympathies with sectors that have attacked our reforms?"
He turned, facing Glinda theatrically.
"Was she an infiltrator? A weak figure? Or simply a confused woman who allowed... dark influences... to seduce her into disorder?"
Silence.
Not a murmur.
Tibbett leaned toward Glinda, barely whispering:
"Not yet. Wait. Let her drown in her poison."
Oz, satisfied, sat down. Madame Morrible smiled with those thin, old-serpent lips. Everything was coldly calculated.
The council thanked the senator for his "words committed to the common good."
And then, it was the defense's turn.
One of the judges, in a neutral voice, said:
"Miss Upland. Mr. Tibbett. You may proceed with your initial defense."
Glinda felt the eyes on her. The weight of the city. The weight of mistakes. Of decisions. Of silences.
Tibbett stood nimbly, adjusting his jacket, and in a firm, almost ceremonial voice, said:
"My client, Glinda Arduenna Upland, will speak in her own defense. As a public figure and citizen committed to integrity, she will exercise her right to answer for herself."
He nodded briefly to Glinda, then sat back down.
Glinda rose gracefully, her face impeccably made up and her golden hair styled with almost surgical precision. Her heels echoed on the polished floor. The aisle to the center of the courthouse seemed longer than ever. Her hands trembled, though she tried not to let it show. In her ears, the silence weighed like a scream. She stood before the bench, looked at the jury, at Oz, at Morrible. She looked at her friends. And then, she lowered her eyes.
The microphone in front of her was on, but Glinda didn't speak.
She hesitated.
For a second, everything came crashing down on her: the press, the disappointed citizens, the banners outside the courthouse, her face repeated on screens with devastating headlines. She hesitated. She hesitated because no matter how many times she rehearsed what to say, no sentence would hold up when the weight of guilt fell with such cruel precision on her shoulders.
Shut up. Resist. Say what they expect.
No. Speak the truth. Say what matters. Speak for her.
What if you lose everything? What if you betray her again?
She closed her eyes.
And then she thought of her.
About Elphaba. About the unspoken promise, barely whispered one night before they parted. About the promise that was, more than words, a look. A kind of silent contract between two wounded souls who didn't know how to end their story, but knew it wasn't over yet. He thought of the times they failed each other. And the one time they promised never to do it again.
"We'll have our happy ending."
But he didn't just think of Elphaba. He thought of everything. Of his childhood, of the cold gardens of the family home where he learned to smile perfectly. Of the dresses his mother chose, of the endless list of "shoulds" and "don'ts" that marked each year of his adolescence. He thought of the pageants, the galas, the memorized speeches, the times he wished he could run in the opposite direction. He thought of his successes. His mistakes. The trophies that meant nothing and the small gestures that made all the difference. She thought about the night she decided to support Oz without really knowing the real consequences of this decision. She thought about how many times she wanted to speak and stayed silent out of fear, out of habit, so as not to disappoint.
And then she opened her eyes.
She was no longer in the courtroom.
The world hadn't changed. She had changed.
She was no longer in the municipal courtroom with its gray walls, its cold neon lights, and its atmosphere of bureaucratic trial. No. Now she was in a castle.
An immense castle, of damp stone and silent gargoyles, with broken stained-glass windows that filtered a strange, heavenly light. She wore a princess dress, a dazzling one, like the ones she imagined when she was a child and wrote her bedtime stories. The embroidery was of gold thread, and topaz stones sparkled in the fabric. But her wrists were manacled with crystal chains. And in front of her, in a raised court, a dozen towering figures looked down with disdain.
They were exaggerated caricatures of the royal council judges. Behind them, seated on ridiculous thrones and shiny plastic crowns, were Oz and Morrible, dressed as corrupt royalty, smirking. An executioner waited to one side with a guillotine that seemed made of marble and flat screens. The audience was a mass of indistinct shadows, murmuring, laughing, judging.
And Glinda understood. This was not a dream. It was her trial, yes, but told in the language of her soul. In the intimate mythology she had built to survive. It was her fairy tale… twisted, corrupt, tainted by reality. And precisely because of that, she had to speak.
She took a deep breath.
The manacles began to tremble.
And Glinda… spoke.
“I’ve spent my life trying to be perfect.”
Her voice was clear, without a tremor.
“The perfect daughter. The ideal student. The kind, smiling, bright face. The inspiration for little girls. The ambassador for worthy causes. The pretty face of cruel reforms. The sweet voice of speeches I didn’t write. I’ve lived under the glare of the spotlight… that burns when you’re not on the right side.”
The royal court shifted uncomfortably.
“I learned to say what was expected. To do what they said I should. To stay silent when something hurt me. To smile when they wanted to destroy me. But not anymore.”
The glass manacles cracked.
"Do you want to know who I am?"
She paused.
"I am the daughter of a father who taught me to be silent in order to survive, and of a mother who taught me to shine so I could be seen. I am the young woman who believed that love was enough. That faith in institutions could fix the world. That if I followed the right path, everything would be all right. I am the woman who supported a project I didn't fully understand, because I trusted the wrong people, and because... I was afraid of not belonging."
The shadowy audience whispered. The guillotine clinked.
"And yes, I made mistakes. I allowed myself to be used. I allowed myself to be adorned. But I also learned. I saw the truth behind the glitter. I saw what was done to those who didn't fit in. I saw what was done to her."
And Glinda didn't stop.
"You talk about 'renewal.' Of 'progress.' Of a more modern, cleaner, more orderly city. You say you will bring hope and security. That you will demolish the old to make way for the new." But I've seen the kind of world they want to build.
She approached the court. With each step, the ground beneath her feet blossomed as if her voice gave life to the dead stone.
"They say they want safer streets, but they only seek more heavily patrolled streets. More closely watched by cameras, by guns, by unblinking eyes. They say they want to eliminate 'decay,' but what they call decadence... is us. The different ones. The disobedient ones. Those who love poorly. Those who dress poorly. Those who don't bow their heads."
Oz watched her from his throne, still with that sideshow smile. But there was something different in his eyes now: contained rage. Elphaba had once called him a "coward." And Glinda, now, understood why.
"The renovation project is not a work of architecture. It's ideological surgery. It's an aesthetic cleansing of what you consider ugly." They want to turn the city into a showcase for investors, while hiding the different, the poor, the oddballs, the rebels... under concrete carpets.
She turned to Morrible, whose image of a queen now resembled an old doll, one of those that stares at you with glassy eyes from a forgotten shelf.
"And you... you dressed this up with soft words. With colorful advertising. With prime-time smiles and rose-tinted social media campaigns. You said it was 'for the future.' But it was never for the future. It was for power. For control. For fear of losing what you believe belongs to you."
She approached the center of the castle, the epicenter of that vision that was no longer an illusion: it was her truth. And she proclaimed it forcefully:
"And you know what bothers you the most? That someone like me had the nerve. The nerve to look you in the eye. To smile in your chambers. To sign my name. And then regret it."
The castle walls began to crack.
"Yes. I regret it."
A silence.
"And not out of weakness, but out of strength." Because I had the courage to look around me and see that what you are building is not a future… but a cage.
And then, she raised her face. Her eyes shone, not with tears, but with something more dangerous: determination.
"This is my tale. My trial. And my verdict is clear: it is you who should be in the dock. You, who manipulate, who distort, who destroy with smiles and policies disguised as progress. But I no longer belong to you. Not as an image. Not as an accomplice. Not as a victim."
The silence that followed Glinda's words was so absolute that even the torches seemed to flicker with respect. The entire castle—that fantastic vision born from the heart and mind of a woman on the brink—held its breath. The royal court did not move. The verdict hung in the air, fragile, about to fall like a withered leaf.
And it was then that Oscar Zoroaster Diggs rose slowly from his throne, like a wronged king ready to crush the rebellion with a glance. His eyes blazed. He was about to utter something lethal, something certain, when…
“Wait a minute,” Madame Morrible interrupted with the cruel elegance of an old snake. “Are we really going to listen to all this as if it were a serious declaration?”
Morrible’s words broke the spell. Like a snap of fingers tearing everyone from a beautiful dream, the court stirred. Murmurs. Dry laughter. Disbelief.
“Glinda… Glinda, Glinda, my dear,” Morrible continued, pacing the room in his cloak as if trailing contempt behind it. “What a touching scene. What an elaborate monologue. You almost made me cry. Almost. But enough with the fairy tales. This isn’t a romance novel. It’s politics. Fact.” And you, my child, don't even know what that is.
Glinda opened her mouth, but Morrible was quicker:
"You speak of conspiracies, of control, of social cleansing and surveillance. And your source? Your proof? Your backing? A promise?!" She laughed cruelly. "You have no allies, no evidence, no brains. You are alone. In your moralistic bubble, in your fragile faith in love and fairy tales. Who has your back, Glinda? Who?!"
"I'm not alone!" Glinda cried, her heart in her throat. "I'm not alone, she was with me from the beginning, she believed when I was still lying!"
"She?" Morrible laughed theatrically, delighted with her victory. "And who is she, my dear? Your fairy godmother? Your inner voice? One of your broken dolls? Who is this mysterious figure who will change the fate of the world with her magic wand?!"
The council laughed. Oz smiled, satisfied. The verdict was about to fall. Everyone waited for the final nail in the coffin.
And then...
The castle gates exploded. And throughout the kingdom, the scream echoed...
"IT'S ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The sound was like an elegant thunderclap, like a black velvet storm. The echo bounced off the stone walls, making everyone turn, and the laughter died one by one, like candles blown out by the wind.
From the purple smoke that invaded the threshold, a figure emerged.
Tall. Imposing. Radiating suppressed fury and savage elegance.
The dress was a work of art in black and dark green, fitted to the body with Victorian lace, a fitted corset, subtle sheerness, and velvet shoulder pads that resembled raven wings. Her skin shone like a strange jewel in the castle light. Her dark lips, her eyes lined like razors. And the hat. The wide-brimmed hat that didn't ask for respect: it demanded it.
Elphaba Thropp.
The court fell silent. Morrible took a step back. Oz gritted his teeth. Glinda... Glinda held her breath, her eyes filled with something between astonishment and relief. As if her heart had returned to her chest after being lost in the storm.
"You wanted proof?" Elphaba continued, walking toward the center of the castle, each step an aesthetic threat. Did you want to know who lit the spark? Here I am. I lit it. I set it in motion. I opened her eyes... and she had the courage to look.
She stood beside Glinda and looked at her. Not as a savior, not a martyr. But as her equal. Her accomplice. Her other half.
A supernatural wind passed through the great hall of the castle, moving the curtains as if they were breathing. Elphaba stood in the center, like a dark crack that had opened in the facade of this perfect world of stone and fantasy. Everyone watched her, frozen between wonder and fear, as her silhouette stood tall with a dignity that had taken years to rebuild.
And then, she began to sing.
The first note was low, vibrant, born from the center of her chest, like a lament turned into strength. The room darkened slightly, not from the absence of light, but from the presence of a new gravity. Her voice, raw and trained in exile, seemed to break the walls of the imaginary castle.
“I once stood in their halls, so proud, so blind,
Drank their lies like wine, thought their words divine.
They crowned me with silence, dressed me in chains,
Told me their order would cleanse all the stains.
But I was the stain…
And I bore it with pride.
Till I saw what they hid,
Till I knew what they lied.”
As she walked, the shadows stretched behind her. They weren't fearsome, but revealing: they reflected her past. Floating images appeared as she passed, like animated paintings suspended in the air. Elphaba could be seen walking in time with Morrible, being his best employee and following all his orders. The court looked on, some in horror, others in mute sympathy.
The music swelled. An invisible string quartet accompanied her, as if the castle itself offered its support. The floor became a dark mirror, and key moments were projected onto it: Elphaba confronting Oz for the first time, listening to his ideas and plans for “improvement” for the city. Elphaba is shown fleeing, leaving Glinda behind.
“I ran from the fight, when the fire grew cold,
Left her standing where the truth should've been told.
It was easier to vanish, become myth, become ghost,
Than to face the only soul who ever loved me the most.
I abandoned the light…
And she burned in my place.
But her voice called me back,
Through time, through disgrace.”
She turned to Glinda. Everyone did. The entire room spun in a slow waltz of attention.
Glinda stood still, her eyes open, glittering. She didn't move, but everything inside her trembled.
Elphaba reached out to her, as if the song wasn't enough, as if she needed to touch the reason she was there.
A gust of wind swept through the castle and lit up the stained-glass windows. The images they held weren't saints or legends: they were royal documents, names, figures, statements, and testimonies that Elphaba had collected. Each window was now proof. Elphaba turned to the council, whose arrogance was beginning to crumble under the weight of evidence.
“You want your villain? Then fine, here I stand!
But the true mastermind holds the crown in his hand.
Your "Renewal" is rotten, dressed in patriotic gold,
A cage for your minds, your hearts bought and sold.
This senator's script, this masquerade,
Is a theater of fear he himself has made!
He twisted the law, rewrote your fate—
And Morrible smiled while she sealed every gate!”
And then, with a wave of his hand, he gave Glinda the floor.
Glinda, as if spellbound, took a step. The music lowered, giving way. Her heels clicked decisively as she walked to stand beside him. They looked at each other. And for the first time, Glinda began to sing.
Her voice was different, softer, but no less powerful. A pure soprano that cut the air clearly. Her song was not a denunciation; it was a confession.
“I was the puppet, the pretty face for the lie,
Waving banners of hope while I watched people cry.
They gave me the stage, the lights, the crown,
But the higher I rose, the more I looked down.
And I saw her fall...
Because I stayed still.
But I’ve opened my eyes—
And now I have will.”
As she sang, documents emerged from the floor: floating pages, signed with her name. Announcements in which she smiled alongside the senator. Newspaper clippings. Declarations. She had supported everything.
Both were now at the center. The music swelled again. Their voices mingled.
The duet began as a counterpoint—a mutual reclamation of mistakes, of abandonment, of unspoken love—and ended as a united declaration: not to the world, not to the court, but to each other. “I was fire, I was rage, I was fear in the sky—"
“I was charm, I was grace, I was living a lie—"
“But the truth doesn't sleep when your heart's still awake.
And the cost of regret is the future at stake!”
“Let them mock, let them jeer, let them strip me bare—
“I would stand in the storm if I know she’s there.”
“Let them burn me again, let them twist what I say—
But I won't disappear.
Not again.
Not today.”
The stained glass windows burst into light. The roof of the castle opened, revealing the sky. The ground rose like a stage. They stood united in front of a crowd of faces that could no longer feign ignorance.
“You are the voice that reached through my pain...
The hand I let go... the one I’ll now reclaim.”
“You are the storm I feared, but needed to face.
The chaos that freed me from a gilded place.”
“We are no longer shadows of who we were told!”
“We are the flame that breaks through the cold!”
“You’re my truth.”
“You’re my fire.”
“Only truth can raise our love from the mire.”
And then… the castle began to fade.
It didn’t collapse. It didn’t explode. It simply dissolved, like mist that recedes with the dawn.
The music stopped.
And Glinda… Glinda opened her eyes to the real world.
The audience chamber was completely silent.
Beside her, the real Elphaba, standing by her side, held her hand.
They both looked at each other. There were no more Victorian costumes, no talking stained-glass windows, no imaginary courtesans. Just a cold room, with fluorescent lights and microphones.
The scent of the room—a mix of waxed wood, old paper, and cheap perfume—brought her back to reality. In front of her, piled on the council's dais, lay dozens of printed documents, folders, flash drives, photographs, call transcripts, and sworn testimony. Nothing sung, but everything spoken.
The fantasy was gone, but its strength remained intact.
Elphaba held her hand. Not as if she were still singing. Not like a fairytale heroine. But like herself, with that simple, real gesture of being there, firm, without illusory promises or masks. Glinda glanced at her and saw something new in her eyes: pride, yes, but also tenderness, and love, and an ancient weariness finally finding rest.
The city council remained silent, less respectful than shocked. The members looked at each other, sweating under the lights, trying to pretend they understood the scope of what they had just heard. On their desks lay all the evidence: the web of ideological manipulation disguised as renewal, the privatization of public institutions at the hands of Shiz.Corp, the speeches rewritten by consultants, the social segmentation strategies camouflaged as civic progress. It was all there. Everything had been exposed.
Then Oz stood up.
For a moment, he looked like the same charming senator he always was. He smoothed his jacket, forced a smile of false disbelief, and walked to the center like an actor who'd forgotten his lines but was confident in his charisma.
"This is... this is ridiculous," he said, without even looking at the documents. "You're all being manipulated by... by a bitter woman and a publicity doll with delusions of grandeur."
He turned to the audience, gesturing broadly.
"Are we going to take a disgruntled former Shiz.Corp employee seriously? A woman who disappeared for months and returns with a box full of lies and newspaper clippings? And the other one?" Please! Glinda Upland wouldn't know how to read a contract if it had neon lights. She was hired to smile on billboards, not to understand systems of government.
Elphaba lightly squeezed Glinda's hand. This time it was she who smiled.
"It's still his greatest weakness," she whispered. "He thinks if you don't shout like him, you don't know anything."
But before Glinda could respond, someone stood up in the audience….. Brrr.
Dressed in a badly ironed brown jacket and with an expression of absolute weariness, he raised his voice with the power of a cannon.
"If you want someone to shut up, you start it, you old plastic scumbag!"
There was a second of utter stupor.
Oz blinked, offended.
"Pardon?"
"You can shove your patriarchal, mercenary, opportunistic rhetoric where the sun doesn't shine!" "Brrr," Brrr bellowed, pointing at him with a pen he seemed to have saved just for this moment. "Because everyone here knows you didn't do this for the people, but for your ego! And because you're a coward with the airs of a carnival magician!"
And as if that spark had been enough, the room erupted in shouts.
The councilors shouted among themselves; one demanded a legal review of the documents, another wanted a break, another shouted for a press representative, and someone else proposed suspending the session. The audience also argued, reporters turned on cameras, advisors whispered in their bosses' ears. The microphones picked up absurd fragments:
"That's not in the regulations!"
"How did you get those emails?!"
"Is just me or there seems to be romantic tension between the two of them?!"
"Enough with this nonsense, this is a court!"
Amid the growing chaos, Glinda and Elphaba stood there, together. They didn't say much; they didn't need to. Glinda, still seated, stroked the back of her hand with her thumb, as if affirming something that doesn't need repeating.
"You came," she whispered.
Elphaba looked at her tenderly.
"I promised," she replied.
And for a moment, amid that hell of shouting and denials, it seemed as if nothing else mattered.
Then the gavel on the dais fell loudly.
"Order!" shouted one of the council members. "Order in the room!"
Three more gavel blows.
One by one, the audience fell silent. Even Oz, who was still muttering under his breath, finally closed his mouth when he realized no one was going to applaud him this time.
The council member, a thin man with a shaky but clear voice, took the microphone. He licked his lips, arranged his papers, and looked at the two women in the center of the room.
"The council has taken note of all the evidence presented, as well as the testimony and documentation submitted by Citizens Glinda Upland and Elphaba Thropp. In view of the magnitude of what has been presented..." He took a deep, trembling breath, "... this room will go into a closed emergency deliberation session."
Immediately, murmurs began, but soon the gavel on the bench struck again. This time not to demand silence, but to declare a measure.
"Before this council enters into deliberation," the senior counselor announced gravely, his voice now firmer, as if the weight of the moment had restored his sense of duty, "and considering the magnitude of the evidence presented here, this court decrees that, out of an abundance of caution and institutional responsibility, all activities related to the Urban Renewal Project are officially suspended until further notice."
The announcement fell like a lightning bolt on the audience.
"Furthermore," he continued, "Shiz.Corp is requested to immediately hand over all documents, contracts, correspondence, and files relevant to the project for review by this council and the independent regulatory bodies."
For a second, no one breathed.
And then, the eruption was immediate.
Fiyero was the first to applaud, standing, as if he were in the middle of a theatrical ovation. Beside her, Brrr roared with joy, throwing his hat in the air, while Boq, Crope, and Tibbett joined in enthusiastically, clapping loudly that echoed throughout the room. Several attendees stood. Some cried. Others laughed. Some applauded loudly while others—the most nervous and well-groomed—simply left the room, clutching their briefcases with white knuckles.
And in the heart of that moment, Elphaba and Glinda embraced.
Not formally. Not gratefully. They hugged each other with their whole bodies, tightly, as if they could finally stop tensing their shoulders and let go of everything they had carried. Glinda buried her face in Elphaba's neck, and Elphaba closed her eyes, breathing in the sweet scent she remembered from the earliest days, from the halls of Shiz, from the first kind gesture, from laughter behind a closed door. Perhaps the war wasn't over, not entirely. But this battle was. And the taste of this victory was real. Undeniable.
When they finally left the hearing room, they did so hand in hand like two citizens, two women, and also two public figures who had just changed the course of history. But as soon as they crossed the building's doors, a storm of flashbulbs, microphones, and screams engulfed them like a hurricane.
"Elphaba! Glinda! Is it true that Senator Oz is being implicated in a conspiracy?"
"What role did Shiz.Corp play?"
"Why return now?"
"What is your current relationship with the senator?"
"Is it true there was fraud at the Territory Redistribution Board?"
Glinda blinked in the lights. Elphaba tried to speak, but a reporter almost shoved the microphone in her mouth. Then Tibbett emerged like a tropical bird in a gray conference room. “Dear media, journalists, detractors, and frustrated theatergoers: My name is Tibbett von Silvergrove, attorney for the Most Excellent Miss Glinda Upland, and by extension, for her most worthy ally in this cause, the always charming Miss Elphaba Thropp.”
Glinda stifled a laugh, and Elphaba rolled her eyes with a smile.
Tibbett raised both hands, like someone stopping an opera to sing a solo.
“I ask, demand, and propose attention. This story is complex, intricate, and delightful. But above all, it requires telling with precision, integrity… and a dash of drama. So to all of you who ask for truths, I offer a… narrative.”
The crowd erupted in shouts of questions.
“And your source?” one shouted.
“My source is the truth!” Tibbett replied.
At that instant, Glinda squeezed Elphaba’s hand and gently tugged at it.
"Do you think we can get out this way?" she murmured.
Elphaba narrowed her eyes, assessing the crowd, then looked at Brrr, who was already approaching to join Tibbett.
"It's our best chance."
"Who's going to speak now?"
"Your official spokesperson, isn't it?"
Glinda smiled wickedly.
"Then... let him speak."
And with a deft, swift step, she approached one of the microphones, raised her hand to request silence—which she failed to achieve—and yet said in a perfectly clear voice:
"My official spokesperson will be able to explain everything better than I can."
And she pointed at Brrr.
The renowned dandy comedian took two steps forward, cleared his throat exaggeratedly, and said in a deep, dramatic voice:
—Ladies, gentlemen, and beings of free interpretation: allow me to tell you a story. A story of manipulation, of power, of friendship... and of redemption. As Oscar Wilde said! Experience has no ethical value: it is simply the name we give to our mistakes.
And while the press descended on Brrr as if she were a Broadway star on tour, Elphaba and Glinda slipped through the crowd, still holding hands, giggling softly, like two teenagers who had managed to sneak into a forbidden party... or escape from a castle.
They ran hand in hand, dodging cameras, pushing open doors, laughing as if they were accomplices in a prank. Finally, they stopped, hidden behind a large white marble column, far from the crowd, breathing heavily, their faces flushed with adrenaline... and something more.
Glinda looked at her with a smile, with that expression of hers, a mixture of joy and fascination every time Elphaba broke the world and put it back together with a different logic. Elphaba, for her part, watched her like someone looking at a constellation after years in darkness.
But the tender moment was cut short.
"Elphie," Glinda said, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper, "and Nevermore? What happened with the summons? Are you okay?"
Elphaba lowered her gaze and sighed. A smile formed on her lips, half resigned, half ironic.
"The summons was just another excuse," she said. "They called me to 'account,' so to speak... but in reality, they just wanted to condemn me for being who I am. Again. Someone leaked things about my past, they jumped to convenient conclusions, they created their narrative. They didn't want to listen to me anymore. They just wanted to... erase me."
Glinda frowned, the pain in her eyes real.
"So what now?" Are they going to chase you?
But Elphaba shrugged, without an ounce of remorse.
"I quit."
"You quit?" Glinda blinked in surprise.
"Yes. I'm not going to stay where they don't want me. They need me more here, with you... with them. I'm tired of begging for acceptance in places that predetermine that I'm the problem."
There was a silence. A respectful, almost solemn silence.
"That's why I was late," Elphaba added. "And to top it all off, they wouldn't let me in."
Glinda laughed, almost indignant.
"What? Then how did you do it?"
Elphaba smiled, now with a hint of shyness she rarely showed.
"Someone helped me."
"Who?"
Elphaba nodded, subtly pointing behind her.
"Look for yourself."
Glinda turned slowly.
And then she saw him.
Standing among the distant crowd, next to an opposite column, was him. Her father. Highmuster Upland.
Dressed in a simple but impeccable suit, his hair grayer than before, his wrinkles more pronounced... but the expression was unmistakable: a warm, proud smile. His eyes shone with emotion at the sight of her.
Glinda froze.
Her heart leapt.
They hadn't spoken since that last argument with her mother, since Glinda revealed the whole truth: about Shiz.Corp, about Elphaba, about herself. She had cried, screamed, and left with her heart in pieces. And although her father, back then, had whispered to her that he loved her, that he was proud of her, and that he would always be on her side... they hadn't spoken again. Glinda feared that the silence had broken something forever.
But there it was. Not broken. Present. Proud. As only he knew how.
"Go with him," Elphaba told her softly. "He's waiting for you."
Glinda swallowed. She took a step, then another, as if time were turning back with every movement. Finally, she reached him.
"Popsicle...?" she murmured, her voice breaking.
"My little star," he replied with a shaky smile.
And he hugged her.
Not with words. Not with explanations. He just held her.
And it was enough.
Glinda clung to her father as if he were her anchor and her home. She felt his fingers tremble as they clung to his back, how for the first time in a long time she didn't have to maintain any facade. She was no longer just the image of perfection that society wanted. She wasn't a campaign. She wasn't a slogan. She was a daughter. And she was a free woman.
And he hugged her for both of them.
When they separated, tears in his eyes, he looked at her tenderly.
"Popsicle... are you?"
"I saw and heard everything, I knew I couldn't miss it, and I think I arrived just in time to help Elphaba." They both smiled knowingly, and finally, adopting a slightly more serious tone, Highmuster continued, "I was always proud of the little girl you are, Glinda, but now... I am absolutely amazed at the woman you've become."
Glinda smiled, still crying. She looked back.
And saw Elphaba, watching her with a soft smile, her arms crossed, leaning against the column. The same look as always. The one that said: "I understand. I'm with you. I'll wait for you."
Father and daughter remained hugged, an emotional knot sealed after so long without words. Glinda was still trembling slightly, held in Highmuster's arms, as if the world around her might disappear for just one more second.
From a few feet away, Elphaba watched them. A soft smile spread across her face, a mixture of tenderness and a shy desire not to interrupt. She was about to take a step back… when she heard:
"Elphaba," Highmuster called, his voice warm. "Come. This is your place too."
Elphaba stood still for a moment. Was he calling her? She hesitated, but the way Glinda nodded, as if to say "yes, come," gave her the signal. She approached.
When she was at her side, Highmuster extended his hand, but then changed his mind and gave her a brief but firm hug.
"Thank you," he said sincerely. "For everything you did. For my daughter… for being with her. He gently let go of her and turned to look at her with sincere eyes. “I know that... that our house wasn't kind to you. That my wife... well, there are no excuses. I can only say I'm sorry. And that, despite everything, you will always be welcome in our family.”
Elphaba swallowed.
She wasn't used to this. To the warmth. To the unconditional acceptance. But there it was: that unfamiliar, almost trembling feeling of being seen, welcomed, loved.
Glinda took her hand gently. They smiled at each other. A real smile.
"Thank you," Elphaba murmured, genuinely moved. "You don't know what this means to me..."
Highmuster nodded, touching his chest with a gesture of fatherly solemnity. But the serious moment was abruptly broken when Highmuster snapped his fingers and, with a hint of mischief, said, "By the way... all this stuff about hearings and public speaking reminded me of when Glinda, as a little girl, climbed onto the stage at school, thinking it was a private rehearsal, and started practicing her speech with a broom, thinking it was a microphone."
"Popsicle, no!" exclaimed Glinda, red-faced.
Elphaba covered her mouth to keep from bursting out laughing.
"She was a very... passionate little girl," added Highmuster, chuckling. "The broom, by the way, was upside down."
"ENOUGH!" said Glinda, gently hitting him on the arm. "I told you never to say that again!"
"You're right, you're right," he said, raising his hands as if in theatrical surrender. "I'm going, I'm going. I'll leave you two alone, I know how to read the air."
She turned to leave, but paused for a moment, as if she needed something to close the scene.
"Oh, one more thing," she said innocently, looking back. "If they ever decide to give me grandchildren... well, I think it would be a great opportunity to show off my knowledge..."
"DAD!" Glinda cried, horrified.
Elphaba immediately turned red, as if she'd just been thrown into a pool of lava.
Highmuster raised both hands and walked away whistling, delighted with the reaction he'd caused.
Glinda took a deep breath, somewhere between indignation and amusement. But before she could completely walk away, her face changed. The laughter died away, and doubt appeared.
"Dad..." she called, uncertain. "And Mom?"
Highmuster stopped. He turned around.
Her smile was still there, but it was sadder now. Her eyes, though soft, held a truth she couldn't disguise.
"That... maybe you should see for yourself," he said. "But you have no obligation, Glinda. None. Not anymore."
He looked at her for a second longer, with that love that needs no words. Then he nodded to both of them and left.
They were left alone.
Glinda sighed. Elphaba squeezed her hand.
"Are you okay?"
Glinda didn't respond immediately. Then she nodded, with a small smile.
"Yes. With you... yes."
And so, for the first time since it all began, they allowed themselves to truly breathe.
But as the two remained embraced, protected by the column and the distant murmur of the still-agitated press, they allowed themselves a moment of peace. In the distance, beyond the steps of the council building, a dark limousine waited at the curb, far from the commotion. The tinted windows made it impossible to see in... except from within.
Inside, Madame Morrible, tense and tight-lipped, stared irritably out the window. Her fingers tapped against the tablet with the legal summary of the session. Barely contained anger made her kick impatiently.
"What now?" she snapped. Are we just going to sit back while those two step on our throats with smirks?
Beside her, Oz, impeccable as always in his tight suit and actor's smile, didn't seem to share the concern. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he watched the scene with narrowed, almost amused eyes.
"Relax, Morrible," he said in that soft, disarming voice he used when he was at his most venomous. "They played their cards well today. I won't deny it. An emotional presentation, a public scandal, a bit of press. Very theatrical."
Morrible turned his head, his eyes wide with frustration.
"Theatrical or not, they put us in check! The council suspended the project, Shiz.Corp is at the center of the storm, and now we have a martyr and a heroine embracing each other like they're the city's new Founding Mothers."
Oz smiled serenely.
"So? Have you forgotten what happens after the first act?" The woman looked at him in confusion. He leaned back, elegantly crossing one leg.
"The audience applauds. The heroes kiss. And just when they think they've won..." he snapped his fingers, "the second part begins. The most interesting."
Morrible narrowed her eyes, more cautious.
"And what's the plan?"
Oz turned his head to look back at the girls, still woven into the crowd, as if they were the stars of their own fairy tale.
"Sometimes..." he said with a sly, almost serpentine smile, "if you play your cards right, even your opponent's victory... can turn out to be your best move."
And with that, he leaned back, calm, while Morrible watched him uneasily. The limousine slowly pulled away from the council, while the camera lights continued to twinkle outside like malicious fireworks.
Because as Oz said, the curtain had fallen for now... But the show must go on.
Notes:
And with that, we only have one more chapter left to conclude this second season! Without a doubt, writing this double musical chapter was the most fun and complex thing I've done with this story, but I enjoyed it a lot and I hope you did too. If so, please comment and I'll publish the season finale soon.
Chapter 19: DREAMS THE WAY WE PLANNED 'EM
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
FOUR YEARS LATER…
The city was enveloped in one of those mornings that seemed to be crying out to be told. A mixture of soft mist and golden light filtered through the penthouse's immense windows, caressing the elegantly lined furniture and the books stacked haphazardly on every available surface. Among the perfectly living plants and a forgotten cup of cold coffee, Elphaba stood, her brow furrowed, her fingers dancing on her laptop keyboard.
She was wearing an oversized sweater that surely belonged to Glinda—or that Glinda had declared hers in a still-unfinished argument—and glasses that defied all aesthetic logic, but which she defended with the stubbornness of someone who had worn them since she was fifteen. Elphaba wrote with an intensity that blended intellectual fervor and a kind of enthusiastic melancholy. The words flowed as if they were coming not from her head, but directly from the exact center of her chest.
“...it wasn't just about exposing the truth. It was about who dared to speak it, even knowing what it might cost. She did. She showed me how it's done. No one, not even me, believed we'd go this far. But there she was, standing, her voice shaking and her soul on fire. I was running away, as always. And she brought me back.”
She paused to reread, her soft, nostalgic eyes reflecting more than her words let on. A smile slowly spread across her face as she let her hands rest. She adjusted the cursor to continue with the final sentence of that chapter:
“And that's when I realized…”
Elphaba was about to continue when, without warning, her laptop screen clicked to a halt. Elphaba blinked. Slowly, she looked up... and there she was. Glinda.
Standing in pink satin pajamas and a disproportionately luxurious robe for the occasion, arms crossed and one eyebrow perfectly arched, the blonde stared at her as if she'd just committed high treason. Behind her, on the kitchen island, an open box of cupcakes lay as evidence of the crime about to be prosecuted.
"You ate the last pistachio one?!" Glinda blurted, outraged, as if she'd just discovered Elphaba was selling state secrets to a foreign government.
Elphaba froze. She processed. She blinked again.
"...What?"
"The. Last. pistachio. One! It was mine! I put a note on it, Elphie! A note with my name on it. And a gold star sticker! Does that not mean anything in this household anymore?!"
Elphaba closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. She exhaled.
“Glinda, that was three days ago. I thought the star meant you were proud of me for finishing the report for the Nevermore board.”
“What kind of savage logic is that? Who puts out praise stickers between functioning adults?!”
“You, apparently,” Elphaba countered, jerking her thumb toward the mantel where a picture frame displayed a photo of the two of them embracing at their wedding, with a tiny gold star taped to one corner that read “Couple of the Century!”
“That was decorative!” Glinda protested, putting a hand to her forehead in a Greek tragedy gesture. “I can’t believe I ran into someone who mistakes possession labels for awards.”
“Oh, are we talking about ‘possession’ now? Do you want to get back to the discussion about your color scheme for towels? Because it’s not normal that a “face” towel can’t touch a “hand” towel without causing a diplomatic crisis.”
“THAT’S OFF TOPIC!” Glinda continued, raising a finger as if she were about to present the final evidence in a Supreme Court case. “And if we’re going to assign blame… Remember how you hid the linen napkins because ‘visitors aren’t worth the effort’ was sociopathically unacceptable!”
Elphaba snorted, rolling her eyes as she slumped into one of the kitchen chairs.
“That was the brunch with your friends from the Pastel Blazers Club! One of them asked me if I had a license to live in this building.”
“She said that because she couldn’t understand your sarcastic accent!” Glinda retorted, pacing around the kitchen while gesticulating. “Not everyone is born with a PhD in sarcasm and generational trauma, you know?”
“And what’s my fault if I didn’t come out of the womb using words like ‘divine’ and ‘terrifying’ to describe salads?”
Glinda stopped. She turned slowly.
"Are you calling me shallow?"
Elphaba threw up her hands.
"I'm saying no one needs choreography to serve coffee."
"That's called theatrical hospitality! It's an art form!" Glinda shouted, pointing at her chest in indignation.
"It's a form of show-off! Just like your 'charity workshops' where you pose more than you help."
Glinda opened her mouth, offended.
"At least I don't use the yoga session to fall asleep in the last pose like a cursed rock! I don't even laugh when the instructor says 'let go of control'!"
"Well, forgive me if I find it funny that a group of adults pay to lie on the floor and 'breathe their purpose'!"
Glinda let out a strangled noise, as if Elphaba had insulted her deceased grandmother.
"At least I'm not the one yelling at the oven every time it doesn't heat fast enough for your 'anti-establishment' stew!"
"And you yell 'harder, witch!' every time I tie a new knot in your bed!"
Silence. The sentence floated, resounding and explosive, in the perfumed air of the kitchen.
Glinda froze. So did Elphaba.
They both looked at each other.
Once...
Two...
Three...
"How dare you bring that up in the middle of an argument over a cupcake, Elphaba Thropp?" Glinda bellowed, her eyes so wide they looked like two full, angry moons. "That's out of bounds! INDECENT!"
"You brought out the linen napkin! This is all-out war!"
"That was a household item! This is a highly private and consensual sexual preference! Private, Elphaba! PRIVATE!"
"Oh, please! You have a drawer with more accessories than a mechanic's shop!"
"I'M LEAVING!" Glinda shouted, with the dignity of a humiliated empress in court. "I'm going to rearrange my heels! At least they don't psychoanalyze me when I'm vulnerable!"
And with her dignity scratched but intact, she turned around, picked up her box of cupcakes (with exaggerated dramatics), and left the room with firm, theatrical steps that made a tick-tick-tick sound even though she was barefoot.
Elphaba remained silent in the ensuing silence, her mouth tilted in a barely contained smile, somewhere between Pyrrhic triumph and "I was too clever." She sank back into the chair in front of the laptop, sighed, took a cold sip of her forgotten coffee, and looked back at the screen. The cursor was still blinking in place, patiently waiting for the next part of the story.
She went back to typing.
—“…and that's how I discovered that true love isn't measured by flowers, romantic dinners, or eternal promises. Love, real love, is measured in absurd arguments over dessert, in poorly hidden secrets, and in the awkward moments we choose not to let go of.”
But no sooner had he finished typing that line than he stared at her for a few seconds. His smile had faded a little. The sweet anger of the comical moment had settled in his chest like a small weight. Because yes, it was absurd, and yes, he loved that stubborn blonde like no one else… but he also knew that those arguments, no matter how silly, sometimes left traces.
Elphaba rested her chin on her hand and looked toward the door through which Glinda had disappeared. Her fingers tapped thoughtfully on the keyboard. Then she typed one more line.
—“…sometimes, love is more like a glitter-covered battlefield than a romantic postcard. But it's still worth fighting for.”
She sighed.
"Especially if you know that she, even if she hates you for eating a cupcake... always comes back."
And, as if summoned by those words, a distant, high-pitched, absolutely Glinda voice sounded from the hallway:
"And you better not have used my night cream!! The lavender one, Elphie!! LAVENDER!!
Elphaba smiled.
"I love you, crazy," she murmured to herself. "I love you more than I can express or bear..."
CHAPTER 19: Dreams the Way We Planned 'Em
IN THE PRESENT
"Okay... I don't want to lose the thread of this, let's see... oh yes, in the end, it's about speaking up when it's hardest. About putting on the line what's been won for what's right. About not forgetting that sometimes the most revolutionary thing... is simply not staying silent."
While the city lights flickered between skyscrapers, the media was ablaze. On the giant screens of Times Square, in the alerts on news portals, in political podcasts, in the frenzied tweets of influencers and hallway commentators... there was no other talk.
"Senator Oz's urban renewal project under investigation," headlined the Emerald Times.
"Glinda Upland, the rogue heiress who turned against her own corporate legacy," said OzNews, with a photo of her holding up a dossier as if it were a scepter.
"Surprise testimony: Elphaba Thropp joins the public offensive," read another article, with a frozen clip of her on the stand, her eyes blazing, her voice firm, dismantling piece by piece the ethical flaws in the project in question.
Television, online newspapers, radio newscasts, even social media, jammed with endless threads and viral videos: they all had the same focus. The previous day's public hearing had left an indelible mark on the city's political pulse. And at the center of it all, two names shone like lightning in a dark night.
"Every media outlet in the country is discussing the public hearing held yesterday at the Emerald City Central Council, which has challenged the controversial urban renewal project promoted by Senator Oz, by exposing structural, ethical, and social flaws in its design and execution."
“What surprised the entire country,” the journalist continued, “was that the project’s emblematic figure, the renowned Glinda Upland, broke her longstanding ties with the initiative to spearhead a critical offensive that left more than a few speechless. Ms. Upland, with an impeccable, well-documented, and direct presentation, not only questioned the project’s transparency but also uncovered practices of social exclusion that had been ignored under a facade of modernity.
Her testimony was joined by another unexpected figure: Elphaba Thropp, a former Shiz.Corp employee, whose appearance further ignited the public debate. Ms. Thropp reinforced Upland’s points and shared internal evidence that, in her words, ‘exposed the truth behind the institutional makeup.’
As a result, the Council has declared a temporary suspension of the project, pending an independent analysis. The final verdict will be announced in the next 24 hours. But one thing is certain: these two women have shaken the foundations of power in the City. Esmeralda.”
The news camera showed archival footage of the exact moment Glinda stood before the senator, documents in hand, voice steady. Then, a closer shot showed Elphaba, her hair pulled back, no makeup, holding her gaze like a loaded gun. No fireworks were needed. Her presence was enough.
“For now, it is believed they are both resting and regaining strength after a day that will undoubtedly be remembered for years to come.”
As the news covered every corner of the city like a storm of headlines and divided opinions, the camera slowly panned from the news screens to the top of the building where Elphaba lived. From the outside, the penthouse looked as quiet and picture-perfect as a postcard. Inside, however, another storm—of a much more personal kind—had just erupted.
The loft door swung open, not out of necessity but out of emotional urgency. Glinda barely managed to close it before Elphaba shoved her against the wall with an adrenaline-fueled laugh, kissing her as if only a few hours had passed since they stood before the city council to challenge entire power structures. Purses tumbled inelegantly to the floor, heels clattered against the entryway furniture, and a jacket ended up caught between the door hinges without anyone caring.
"Do you know what we just did?" Elphaba whispered between kisses, her breathing ragged, her eyes shining.
"Destroying a manipulative corporate narrative from within with evidence, arguments... and dressed like goddesses," Glinda replied with a sly smile before kissing her again. "It was incredible. But this... this is better."
Between breathy laughs, they made their way inside as best they could, tripping over a stack of books and accidentally pushing a chair. Elphaba lifted Glinda up, still kissing her, with the confidence of someone who knows every inch of that body, and sat her on the kitchen counter as if it were a sacred surface. Glinda unbuttoned her blouse, tossing it through the air without looking, and caught Elphaba by the back of her neck to pull her closer.
"Are you sure you want to continue?" Elphaba murmured between soft gasps, like a tenderness that never completely fades. Glinda laughed, that laugh of hers that always seemed to contain the sun.
"After we confronted the senator and nearly set public opinion ablaze with legal arguments? Yes. I earned this."
The kiss that followed was slower, deeper. There was no trace of Glinda's perfect makeup or Elphaba's messy hair; only them remained, vulnerable, exhausted, and exhilarated all at the same time. The distant sound of a news report continued from the forgotten television in the background, a journalist speaking solemnly:
“...there are no recent precedents of public figures confronting their own political alliances with such impact. Elphaba Thropp, who was fired from Shiz.Corp after a cover-up scandal, reappeared today not as a victim, but as a key witness. The surprising alliance with Glinda Upland—a media figure, face of the initiative, and now its main opponent—marked a historic turning point…”
But the rest was lost in the sound of muffled laughter, clothes slipping against the polished floor, and intimate murmurs that only they understood. Because beyond politics, the media, the speeches, and the headlines, they knew that what they had achieved was more than an institutional victory: they had been elected. Against all odds. Against all expectations.
And that night, there was no room for fear, doubt, or strategy. Just the two of them, reuniting, like every time. Without masks, without armor. Just skin, history and overflowing love.
Elphaba and Glinda fell to the floor together as one, entwined in a mix of soft laughter, stolen kisses, and rapid breathing. The cold, smooth wooden floor contrasted with the warmth radiating from their skin and the intensity of what they felt. Neither of them wanted to separate for even a second, as if everything they had experienced that day—the speeches, the attacks, the tension—had finally broken the last barrier between them. The outside world no longer existed. Only their hands, their mouths, their bodies.
Glinda, her cheek resting on Elphaba's chest, spoke between sighs, barely separating between kisses.
"Do you remember... what you promised me... when this was all over?"
Elphaba smiled without opening her eyes, enjoying the tickle of Glinda's voice traveling over her skin.
"Now?" she asked mockingly. It was a long day, Blondie... you might be forgiven if you forget.
Glinda sat up slightly, her lips brushing Elphaba's neck with the mischievous determination of a child who won't let a sweet fiancé pass her by.
"No. You promised. And I kept my end of the bargain. So... now it's your turn."
Elphaba gave a soft laugh and sat up, running her hands through her tousled hair as she settled onto the floor. She knelt in front of Glinda, who was still sitting on the floor, disheveled, her blush rising to her cheeks and her hair a glorious golden tangle.
Elphaba took a deep breath, and something changed in her gaze. That playful spark honed into a contained fire, one Glinda recognized all too well. She became upright, focused, completely in control. She had changed her tone, without needing to raise her voice. Just a presence that dominated the air.
"Do you remember the rules?"
"Yes," Glinda replied with a perfect mix of nervousness and excitement. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation.
"Do you remember your position?"
"Yes."
"And your role?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Very well..." Elphaba tilted her head slightly, raising an eyebrow. "What will your safe word be?"
Glinda opened her mouth, as if instinctively about to say "Popular," as always. But something inside her stirred. A new prank. An evolution.
She smiled slowly, like someone revealing a secret.
"Wicked."
Elphaba let out a low laugh, like soft thunder vibrating in her throat. She liked it. She liked it very much.
"How appropriate..."
Glinda was about to say something else, perhaps a silly comment, a joke... but Elphaba reached out and placed a single finger on her lips.
Silence.
A subtle gesture. But in that gesture was everything: the promise, the trust, the safe space, the mutual respect, and yes, also the surrender. Not a surrender, but a free and joyful choice.
And then, Elphaba bowed her head and, in a firm, confident, ceremonious voice, decreed:
"The game has begun."
Elphaba stood with her characteristic feline elegance, allowing her silhouette to stand out against the dim light of the penthouse. Her gait was slow, deliberate, allowing the silence between each step to fill the air with anticipation. Glinda remained on the floor, in the position she already knew well: sitting on her heels, back straight, hands on her thighs, gaze lowered but attentive. Time between them didn't pass as it did in the rest of the world. Everything was slower, clearer, more charged with meaning.
"Stand," Elphaba commanded softly, without needing to raise her voice.
Glinda obeyed without hesitation, with a mixture of reverence and restrained emotion. It wasn't submission out of weakness, but a conscious, chosen surrender. That was the unbreakable foundation of the game: freedom.
Elphaba came closer, so close that Glinda's scent—of flowers, of vanilla, of something decidedly her—floated between them. She took her chin in her hand, lifting her face, observing her. Her eyes were two lanterns lit in the night, searching for the truth in the face before them.
"Are you with me?"
"Always," Glinda whispered.
Elphaba nodded, satisfied, and then turned gracefully on her heel.
"Follow me. Don't ask questions."
Glinda walked behind her, barefoot on the shiny floor of the penthouse, letting anticipation take its course. It was a dance they knew well, a score they wrote together, with their gaze, their skin, their memory.
Elphaba led them down a long, soberly decorated hallway to a door hidden from plain sight. She opened it with a simple gesture, and behind it was a room unlike any other. More intimate. More charged.
The "playroom," as they had dubbed it with a smile, was a subtly designed place. It wasn't a cliché or a parody; it was a carefully curated, aesthetic, sober, elegant space. A cross between a private theater, an artist's studio, and an intimate retreat. There were softly lined furniture, thick sound-absorbing curtains, low, warm lighting, and carefully arranged objects, each with its purpose, each with its story.
Elphaba entered first, turned, and extended a hand to Glinda.
"You enter as what you are tonight."
Glinda lowered her gaze for a moment, held her breath, and stepped forward, crossing the threshold with the almost ritualistic respect of one entering a sanctuary. A faint smile touched her lips as she took Elphaba's hand.
Inside, the atmosphere changed. Not just the air, but the energy. The game was no longer just promise: it was action.
Elphaba guided her to a rug in the center of the room.
"Knees. Back straight. Hands behind."
Glinda obeyed, suppressing a nervous smile. It wasn't fear: it was excitement. It was the knowledge that here, in this place where control was a consensual choreography, she could stop holding the world up for a while. She didn't have to please anyone, or impress anyone, or justify her existence. She just had to be.
Elphaba walked around her like a conductor fine-tuning each note before a big performance. She touched her shoulder. Her neck. Her chin. Firmly, but also tenderly.
"Today you will listen." You will not argue, or correct. You will not even offer an opinion. Is that understood?
"Yes, mistress," Glinda whispered.
"Today," Elphaba continued, crouching in front of her, looking at her as an equal, "...you will let me worship you in my own way. You will let me show you that even when I humiliate you... I do it because I see you. Because I know you better than anyone. Because you deserve it."
Glinda swallowed. Her eyes shone. Excitement and desire danced inside her at the same time. And then she nodded.
"I'm ready."
Elphaba smiled. Not mockingly, but proudly. Because that "I'm ready" wasn't just for the game. It was for them. For what they were capable of building.
The first command fell, soft as a feather.
"You are going to look in the mirror. And you are going to tell me out loud what you see. But not what the world believes. I want your version. Raw. Real."
Glinda took a deep breath. The game was just beginning. And it already felt like a reality. Glinda stood slowly, with a mixture of nerves and ceremony. She walked to the full-length mirror that occupied the side wall of the room, bordered by a soft, warm light that illuminated her reflection with honesty. There were no filters, no cameras, no studio makeup. Just her. Glinda Upland. The woman the world had seen as a symbol of perfection... and who now faced herself at her most vulnerable.
"Speak," Elphaba commanded from behind her, her voice calm, not raised, but charged with that serene power that could move mountains.
Glinda swallowed, her eyes fixed on the reflection. She hesitated for a second, then spoke, almost as if exhaling each word.
"I see someone... who spent years trying to be liked. Who smiled to hide her fears. Who wanted to be so bright that no one would notice her shadows."
Elphaba approached slowly, until she was standing right behind her. Without touching her. Her mere presence was enough to make the air tremble.
"What else do you see?"
Glinda blinked hard. It wasn't easy.
"A woman who hates to fail. Who fears that if she isn't perfect... she's not enough."
Elphaba tilted her head and let a barely perceptible smile cross her face.
"And what do you see when you look at me?"
Glinda didn't hesitate.
"I see someone who truly sees me. Even when I don't want them to."
Elphaba then raised a hand and gently brushed the hair from Glinda's neck. She finally touched her. Not as one claims a body, but as one touches a treasure.
"Do you want me to show you how I see you?"
Glinda nodded.
"Yes, Mistress."
Elphaba guided her back to the center of the room. This time she didn't immediately give her an order. She circled her once more. Not like a predator, but like an artist studying her work. There was beauty in Glinda's stillness. In her restrained surrender. In her willingly swallowed pride.
"Knees again."
Glinda obeyed without hesitation. She knew that here, in this space, she lost no power by doing so. She surrendered it by choice. She transformed it into something else.
Elphaba took a black silk ribbon from the shelf and wrapped it gently around Glinda's eyes. The darkness wasn't a loss, it was a release.
"Now you will see nothing. You will only feel. You will only hear my voice." Elphaba crouched in front of her, her lips close to Glinda's ear. "Today I will disarm you. Not to destroy you. But so that you may see all that you are... without the mask the world imposed on you."
The first gesture was simple: a touch on her cheek, barely with her fingers. Then he moved down her neck, down her bare shoulder, letting every millimeter of skin receive attention. It wasn't a casual caress. It was ceremony. As if an unspoken word was written with each touch.
"Do you feel small?" Elphaba asked, her voice sweet.
"Sometimes... yes," Glinda whispered.
"Well, I see you as enormous. So enormous that the world shrinks when you enter a room."
Glinda took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling sharply. The humiliation, if it could be called that, didn't come from insults. It came from the mirror Elphaba held in front of her. One more real than the one in the dressing room. One that showed her strength... and her fragility.
"Today," Elphaba said, "you will be my object of devotion. And yes... you will also beg. You will tremble. You will bite your lip. But not out of punishment. Out of pleasure. Out of truth." And with that, he stood and stepped back, letting the echo of his words float like incense. Then, as if triggering a silent symphony, the lights dimmed a notch. The room was transformed. The game was moving forward, but it was more than that: it was a dance of souls, an act of pure trust.
Elphaba leaned closer again and whispered,
"What's the safe word?"
"Wicked," Glinda said, her voice firm, a smile on her lips.
"Fine. As long as you don't say it..." Elphaba smiled. "Anything's allowed."
The room had fallen into a thick, but not uncomfortable, silence. It was the kind of silence that spoke in whispers. Glinda, still on her knees, breathed slowly, almost as if each inhalation reconnected her to her own skin. The silk ribbons over her eyes allowed her to imagine rather than see, and in that not seeing, she found an unexpected clarity.
Elphaba circled her slowly, her steps soft as if she were floating across the carpet. There was something feline about her gait, a lurking calm that inspired not fear, but anticipation.
"I've missed you in this room, you know," Elphaba said finally, her voice caressing the air with a mixture of nostalgia and mischief. I thought you might never put yourself in my hands like this again.
Glinda gave a subtle smile.
"I wasn't sure either," she whispered. "But now I can't imagine being anywhere else."
Elphaba stopped in front of an elegant, antique chest, made of dark wood with wrought-iron details. She bent down and, with almost reverential care, opened the lid. A faint scent of leather, violet, and lavender rose in the air.
"I had this made months ago," she said, rummaging through an array of fabrics and straps. "Long before... well, before the storm passed. I thought I'd never get to use it on you. But here we are."
Elphaba stood with a measured gesture, as if presenting a piece of haute couture on a secret runway. She held it before her: a unique outfit, somewhere between sensual and theatrical, a deep purple straitjacket reinterpreted in a bondage style, with sections intertwined by soft leather straps, silver buckles, and strategically exposed cutouts that suggested more than they revealed. An exquisite blend of provocation and aesthetics.
Glinda opened her lips to speak, but emotion stopped her voice.
"Is that for me?" she asked incredulously, still unable to see.
"Yes, and only for you," Elphaba replied, moving closer. "Few things give me as much pleasure as wearing what's mine."
Without asking permission—because she already had him in the deepest part of their bond—Elphaba began to place the garment on him, piece by piece. She did so with the precision of a professional dressmaker and the care of a devoted lover. Each adjusted buckle was not an act of submission, but a symbolic bond between them. As she did so, she continued speaking to him with enveloping calm.
"Why do you think I chose it in purple?" Glinda thought, her voice vibrating as Elphaba adjusted one of the ties on her thigh.
"Because it's the color of power... and of the hidden. And because you know I've always wanted to wear it, even if I never dared."
Elphaba smiled contentedly.
"And because it's the color that best reflects what we are together: royalty hidden among the forbidden."
Once she finished adjusting the last straps, Elphaba stood behind Glinda. Gently, she removed the blindfold from her eyes. The soft light of the room caressed her dilated pupils as her eyes adjusted to seeing again.
And the first thing she saw was her reflection.
Glinda froze. In front of her, in the mirror, was her image... transformed. Her silhouette wrapped in leather and seduction, as if the figure in the reflection were a superhero from a hidden, rebellious universe. Vulnerable and powerful at the same time. There was something theatrical about it, something out of time. Something deliciously provocative.
"Good heavens..." she whispered with a mixture of shock and delight, bringing a hand to her lips.
But before she could say more, Elphaba slipped a lovely padded gag between her lips and deftly secured it. It wasn't punishment. It was a promise: of silence, of surrender, of play.
And then Elphaba bent down, her mouth close to Glinda's ear, and whispered in that tone that mixed fire and tenderness,
"Look what we are when no one is watching."
Glinda let out a soft moan, a mixture of emotion, desire, and surrender. In that moment, there were no more trials, no news, no audiences, no town councils. Just them. Two women in love, discovering each other in the intimacy of a world only they shared. Every step in the game was a declaration: "I trust you. I want you. I belong to you."
As she secured the last clasp of the hidden harness in the back of the purple suit, Elphaba leaned down to Glinda's ear, her lips barely grazing her skin, her voice tinged with a delicious mockery, a whisper as sharp as a secret.
"Consider this... a little revenge," she whispered, letting the tone hang in the air like a spark about to ignite a fire.
Glinda, gag in place, frowned in confusion. But when she heard the next bit, her eyes widened.
"For hiding me under your bed in your parents' house, Princess. Did you think I'd forget that?"
A strangled sound escaped Glinda, a mixture of indignation, surprise, and amusement. Before she could respond—though she had no way to respond—Elphaba pulled on a hidden rope hanging from the ceiling. The mechanism activated with a soft click, and gently but firmly, the harness tightened, lifting Glinda off the floor by just a few inches. She was suspended in the air, immobilized with surgical precision: just enough so she couldn't touch the ground, but with complete comfort and safety. The engineering was impeccable. Of course it was. It was Elphaba.
"There you are, perfect," Elphaba said with a contented sigh, slowly pacing around her like a painter assessing his masterpiece. "Silent. Exposed. Punished... with style."
Glinda made another sound somewhere between complaint and amusement, slightly waggling her legs. It wasn't a protest, it was a playful surrender. The kind of surrender that only comes when the heart is completely secure.
"Stay there, my floating ornament. I need... to change into something more appropriate to continue."
And without further ado, Elphaba left the room, leaving Glinda suspended in soft shadows and light, her body vibrating with anticipation, her mind swirling in that intoxicating mix of vulnerability and desire. The minutes passed slowly, as if time had become liquid, rippling. Only the slight sway of the harness broke the silence.
Then, it was heard.
Tock... tock... tock...
The heels were impossible to mistake: firm, elegant, each step a declaration of power. Glinda looked up, still limited in her movements, and saw it. Or rather, saw her.
Elphaba was returning.
She was dressed in absolute black, but not just any black: shiny leather, fitted with lethal precision, with silver details that caught the light like lightning. A kind of structured corset encased her figure like the armor of a war queen, a goddess without a country who had carved her own throne. Elbow-length gloves. High heels. A cold expression, a fiery gaze. Elphaba didn't just dress, she transformed. She played her role with overwhelming intensity.
She stopped in front of Glinda, crossing her arms, tilting her head with that smile that always preceded chaos... or pleasure.
"Look at you," she said finally, touching her nose with a single finger, teasing, charming, absolutely dangerous in the best way. "Hanging from the ceiling like a work of contemporary art. And yet, you're still the most beautiful thing in this room."
Glinda moaned softly, her eyes full of fire and tenderness. Elphaba walked around her once more, enjoying every reaction, every visible heartbeat in her lover's skin. There was no shame, only play. Only love translated into performance, into unwavering trust.
"Now," Elphaba added, her voice firm but playful, walking to a small sideboard where several elegant accessories rested. "Let's keep playing. But first... I need to confirm something."
He returned to her, took her face in both hands—with tenderness disguised as control—and murmured,
"Are you still mine?"
Glinda nodded, her head firm. A tear of emotion slid down her cheek. Not out of fear. But because she felt free. Freer than ever, right there, suspended and protected, desired and cared for.
"Good girl," Elphaba whispered, kissing her forehead before adding with a dark smile. "Let's begin the second part."
And so the night continued in that game room that seemed suspended outside the real world. There were no phones, no newscasts, no jitters of a public audience. There were just the two of them: one surrendered to the power of the moment, the other devotedly exploring every corner of desire and surrender.
Elphaba ingeniously deployed all kinds of carefully designed games and mechanisms, tools of the art of control, of nonverbal language, of intelligent provocations. Every bond, every gesture, every phrase laden with irony and sweetness, was part of an intimate and deeply interwoven dance.
Glinda, dressed in her shimmering violet gown, was a spectacle of radiant surrender. Every humiliation was a stroke to her ego, not because it made her feel less... but because, ironically, it made her feel more. More connected. More alive. Freer in her absolute surrender to Elphaba, the one person before whom she could completely drop all her masks. And that, deep down, was what turned her on the most.
Just before the "final challenge," Elphaba walked with measured grace toward a structure that looked like something from a cabinet of personal inventions. It was a chair—or rather, a peculiar throne—designed with disturbing precision. Tubes, straps, ergonomic cushions, and a rotating structure at the base.
"Will you come up, my dear?" Elphaba said with a theatrical bow.
"What's that?" "Glinda replied, sitting down slowly as she studied each part with a mixture of fascination and distrust.
"One of my favorite pieces. I call it The Quiet One. It serves to calm spirits... or the opposite, depending on the accessory you put on it."
As Elphaba painstakingly adjusted the straps and mechanisms, Glinda snorted, lightly tossing her golden curls.
"I feel like I'm being set up," she murmured.
"You're being honored," Elphaba corrected. "How can you not pay tribute to someone who has been so brave... so obedient... and so absolutely ridiculous?"
Glinda narrowed her eyes, amused and defensive at the same time.
"This is a trap. I'm sure this is a trap."
"Of course it is. What kind of queen would I be if I didn't set elegant traps?"
But then Elphaba walked over to a small wardrobe at the back of the room. She opened it like someone revealing an ancient treasure, and from inside she took out... a box. Not intimidating at all. Even... playful, and she secretly took out what was inside.
Glinda raised an eyebrow, trying to figure out what was going on. And then, with a smile that could no longer hide what was about to come, Elphaba straightened and revealed what she had hidden behind her back: a sizable, bright red, and perfectly shaped vibrator.
Glinda paled as if she'd been shown a spirit.
"No!"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow in dark amusement.
"Yes."
"That's not sexy! That's medieval punishment!"
"And yet," Elphaba retorted, stroking one of the mechanical arms with disturbing tenderness, "I suspect it's not so foreign to you."
Glinda pouted. Then she lowered her gaze, murmuring embarrassedly,
"When I was fourteen... I found one in my Aunt Mags's private collection. I tried it. Once."
Silence.
"Well, three times. Okay. Loads of times! But it wasn't industrial-strength! It didn't have... a dimmer button!"
Elphaba couldn't hold it back.
She bent forward, covering her mouth to stifle laughter. But she couldn't. An honest, clean, clear laugh escaped her, momentarily breaking her domineering mask. Glinda, tied up and hot, couldn't help but catch the contagion and burst out laughing as well.
"You broke character!" she accused, giggling.
"No! Never!" Elphaba tried to compose herself, wiping a tear of laughter from the corner of her eye. "It was a lapse... of humanity."
"Mmm-hmm, 'Mistress of Pain,'" Glinda said, tilting her head mockingly.
"Mistress of Pain, thank you. I'm not marrying you yet."
The two stared at each other for a second, that spark of complicity shining like lightning. Then Elphaba, with renewed theatricality, approached feline-like, adjusting the last component of the device on Glinda's private part and regaining her commanding tone.
"Now, where we were... ah, yes. The sweet, ridiculous revenge you deserve."
"Is this for hiding under the bed?"
"Among many other things." How to always win arguments without valid arguments.
Glinda sighed with dramatic resignation as the feathers began to spin.
"Just to clarify... This isn't domination, this is torture."
"Ah, dear," Elphaba said as she approached, device in hand. "Sometimes the line is very, very thin."
Glinda swallowed one last time, and Elphaba settled in beside her, as if she were about to conduct an interview.
"Very well. Last game. Simple rules. I ask questions. If you answer honestly, the intensity goes down. If you lie... it goes up. Ready?"
"This is a nightmare."
"We'll take that as a yes."
And she pressed the power button.
The vibrator began to move. At first, barely touching. Glinda jumped and let out an involuntary laugh.
"NO! This isn't fair!"
"Question one," Elphaba said, elegantly crossing her arms, as if she were at a conference. "Are you still bothered that I left my hairbrush in your bathroom last week?"
"Yes!" Glinda cried out between laughs and moans, arching her body. "Yes, because it's tangled with mine!"
Elphaba toned down the tone a little.
"Honesty. Good. Question two: Did you want the Council to stop the project... or did you just want me to admire you more?"
Glinda blinked. Then, moaning even louder, she cried out, "Both!"
The vibrator sped up just a little, as if the machine also approved the answer.
Elphaba leaned over her, bringing her lips close to Glinda's ear as the laughter grew uncontrolled, a mixture of exhaustion, tickling, pleasure, and the kind of laughter one only allows oneself when one is completely safe.
"If you want me to stop..." Just say the magic word… Or cursed, in this case. Say it…
“NEVER!” Glinda decreed, though her body trembled like jelly and her eyes blazed with fury and passion.
She crossed her legs with the grace of an empress on her throne, regarding her prisoner with a feline smile. In her role, she wasn’t just a dominatrix: she was a stage manager, a playwright of desire. And this was her ridiculous masterpiece.
“Next question,” she said with mock solemnity. “Are you wearing my green nightgown just because you miss my scent… or because you know it looks better on you than on me?”
“I’m not going to answer that!”
“Wrong!” Elphaba turned the dial. And the damn toy attacked Glinda mercilessly.
“ELPHABAAA!” Glinda squealed, throwing her head back with desperate laughter. “ALRIGHT!” BOTH!!
Elphaba leaned back in her chair, clearly pleased.
"Honesty level 10. I love it. Third question: Which of your dresses did you find most ridiculous during the senator's campaign?"
Glinda tried to breathe between spasms of laughter. Elphaba pressed a button, and a vibrator began to move slowly.
"The pink one with the giant flower!" Glinda shouted like a traitor under pressure. "I LOOKED LIKE A PEONY IN HEELS!"
"I knew you hated it," Elphaba said with a triumphant smile, pointing her finger like an opera villain. "And now the world knows!"
Glinda was red-faced, sweaty, and moaning so much she could barely form words. But her eyes shone with something stronger than laughter: absolute confidence, surrender in the best possible way.
"Very well," Elphaba continued, pretending to check an invisible notebook. Final question: What were your thoughts when you first saw me walk into the public audience in that black suit?
Glinda, her face flushed from screaming, gasped for air.
"I thought... I thought you'd stolen Maleficent's look and were better at it!"
"Awww," Elphaba said with a smile. "Bullshit! And you know it. Want to rephrase your answer?"
"I thought I wanted you to arrest me!" Glinda cried, holding back her own near-exploding orgasm. "And interrogate me for hours!"
Elphaba let out a delicious, genuine laugh. She stood up, walked slowly around the structure, and leaned down to kiss Glinda's sweaty forehead.
"Now that's it. That's my girl... And I'll give you exactly the reward you're looking for..."
Turning the dial, Elphaba activated the vibrator at full power, and Glinda felt the sudden tug.
—NO!!!!!..... NOOOOOO….. WICKED! WICKED!!!
Elphaba immediately turned off the machine and bent down to calmly undo each tie, with gentle, respectful, and devoted gestures. At the same time, she carefully removed the device from Glinda's crotch.
She sat down next to her on the rug, and Glinda, still slightly trembling, got down from her seat and immediately settled on her lap, exhausted, still trembling between laughter and relief. Elphaba hugged her tightly, cradling her as if she were a treasure she would never let go of.
"You're a monster," Glinda murmured, burying her face in her neck.
"And you're a saint, for putting up with me," Elphaba replied.
They stayed like that, embracing, wrapped in the silence after the most intimate storm. There was no need to say more. The game was over. But love—true love—was just beginning another round.
Finally, Glinda fell asleep with a small smile on her lips, still warm with laughter and emotion, overcome by exhaustion. Her fingers, which until a few minutes ago had clung tightly to Elphaba amidst their games and confessions, now rested gently on her chest. Elphaba looked at her silently, as if contemplating a constellation that only she knew how to read.
Her green eyes, so accustomed to calculating, analyzing, and protecting herself, were now filled with tenderness. And also with a soft but firm weight: that of regret.
"How could I live without this?" she thought, gently stroking a golden lock of hair that fell over Glinda's face.
She remembered those cold, empty nights in motel rooms, or on the couches of old friends, with all those distractions and anxieties that couldn't silence the voices in her head. The times she reached for the phone, only to stop herself before dialing. The letters written and burned. Half-broken promises. Pride misinterpreted as strength. Anger masking sadness.
And guilt... that stubborn old companion.
It could have been so easy—a call, a phrase, a step toward her—and all of that would have been behind her. But she didn't. Because she didn't know how. Because pain is also a form of defense.
Now, with Glinda sleeping in her arms, it seemed absurd. So many wasted hours. So many days of internal struggle, when everything she needed was here, in her embrace, breathing with trust and surrender.
But it wasn't all in vain.
Because if there was one thing Elphaba understood better than anyone... it was that even the most broken paths can lead us home. And this time, finally, she was sure she'd arrived.
Carefully, she carried her in her arms, as if carrying a fragile but priceless jewel. Glinda murmured something in her sleep, snuggling closer to her chest. Elphaba smiled. She walked slowly down the hall, her steps silent, carrying her back to the room.
He tucked her into the sheets, sat beside her for a few moments, and watched her sleep, with the calm of someone who no longer had to escape from anything. Then, as if casting a spell on herself, he whispered, "I'll never abandon you again."
He slid in beside her, wrapping her in his arms, and together they slept in their own blanket of peace and love.
And just as the night had surrendered to their games and confessions, the new day arrived... radiant, bright, promising.
And as always, they were arguing.
"Glinda, by the gods of Olympus! This is just lunch, not an audience with the Empress of Heaven!" Elphaba shouted, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, wearing black pants, a tank top, and her favorite leather jacket. Simple, practical, clearly impatient.
"And precisely because it's an informal luncheon, I must balance elegance with casualness to appear perfectly carefree," Glinda replied from inside, her voice melodious and determined as she tried on her third pair of heels.
"At most, it's a brunch at a corner café, not a parade on the Crystal Palace carpet!" Elphaba grumbled, already descending the stairs in resignation.
After what seemed like an eternity to Elphaba (and in real time, it was exactly twenty-seven minutes), Glinda appeared. She was wearing a short pale pink dress with gold trim, a crisp white jacket, designer sunglasses, and her "I look gorgeous and you know it" smile.
Elphaba sighed.
"Really?" she muttered.
"Really what?" Glinda asked, offended. "Are you going to tell me you don't love it?"
"I just wonder if that jacket can withstand the heat of your ego," Elphaba said, already opening the door to leave.
The discussion continued in the elevator, then in the lobby, and then as they crossed the building's entrance. They went back and forth between ideas for where to eat, opinions on menus, almond milk versus real coffee, and whether brunch was, technically, brunch or early lunch.
Glinda, used to being in logistical control of outings, turned toward where her luxurious pearly white convertible was usually parked.
"I'm going for a drive. I feel like listening to Celine Dion."
But Elphaba put a hand on her shoulder.
"Not today."
"What?"
"After yesterday's hearing, maybe it's not a good idea to cruise around town in a white convertible that basically screams 'look at us.'"
"So what are you proposing? An Uber with tinted windows?"
Elphaba didn't respond. She just turned, walked to the side of the building... and there it was.
Her shiny black motorcycle, with silver accents and a small extra helmet hanging from the handlebars.
Glinda looked at her as if she'd just suggested flying on a broomstick at brunch.
"No."
"Glinda…"
"NO."
"Come on, you know part of you always wanted to ride behind a witch on a motorcycle," Elphaba teased with her crooked, defiant smile.
"That was a sexual metaphor and you know it," Glinda murmured, blushing slightly.
"So?" Elphaba laughed. "It's a great metaphor."
"I'm wearing heels!"
"I've fought dragons in heels," Elphaba countered as she tossed her the metallic pink helmet, personalized with a small gold star on the side. A special edition she'd clearly had made for her.
Glinda caught the helmet with a sigh and a resigned grimace.
"If this ruins my hair…"
"I'll give you a hair repair ritual afterward," Elphaba promised, already mounting the motorcycle with all the attitude of someone who knows she looks fucking good.
Glinda climbed in behind her, reluctantly at first, but as soon as she placed her hands on Elphaba's waist, her expression changed subtly. Perhaps there was something intoxicating about that shared chaos. Perhaps that vertigo was just what they needed.
"Ready?" Elphaba asked, looking over her shoulder.
"Make it worthwhile," Glinda murmured, adjusting her sunglasses with a dramatic gesture.
And Elphaba, smiling, twisted the throttle. The roar of the engine filled the street, and the two disappeared around the bend in the avenue, riding amid laughter, argument, and desire.
The roar of the motorcycle pierced the air as Elphaba sped through the streets, Glinda's hair billowing like a golden banner behind her. From her position, Glinda shouted loudly to be heard over the wind:
"The Brasserie Céleste is nearby! They have a truffle soufflé that is a spiritual experience!"
"No!" Elphaba called over her shoulder, turning left without warning.
"Then Le Papillon Doré! It has a private terrace with linen curtains and harp music!"
"I went hungry there once! It was like eating air shaped like a flower!"
"That's part of the charm!" Glinda countered, gently bumping Elphaba's shoulder with her fist.
"I'm not going to pay eighty galleons for a salad with a Latin name!"
Glinda yelled out three more restaurant names, all equally pretentious, and each received a mocking refusal or a "Are you kidding?" from Elphaba. Until suddenly, without warning, Elphaba swerved down a side street.
"Where are we going?!" Glinda yelled, holding on tight.
"Somewhere real," Elphaba replied mischievously.
A few minutes later, the motorcycle pulled up in front of a small establishment with hourglass-shaped neon lights and a cartoonish green dragon on the sign. The words "The Time Dragon" glowed above the entrance, accompanied by drawings of happy children wearing cardboard crowns and eating giant hamburgers.
Glinda hopped off the motorcycle as if she'd just been thrown into an alley.
"No," she declared. Her tone was firm, definitive, and offended.
"Yes," Elphaba retorted with a triumphant smile.
"This is a children's restaurant! Is there a clown inside or just one at the entrance?"
"Don't underestimate it. This place has the best burgers in all of Emerald City. There was also one in the small town where I grew up, and when I was in college, I lived off the number seven combo with extra cheese and staying late as a student at one of the puzzle tables."
"The logo has a dragon wearing roller skates!" Glinda exclaimed, pointing in horror.
"And I'm sure that dragon has better taste than snobby chefs who use tongs to place a leaf in the middle of a plate."
Glinda crossed her arms, frowning.
"This is humiliating."
"More than being suspended in a harness last night while you screamed from tickling?"
"Elphaba!" Glinda squealed, blushing up to her ears.
"Come on, Princess, I'll buy you a rainbow milkshake. If you let me choose lunch, I promise you choose dessert... and whatever comes after that," Elphaba said with a smile that melted even the strongest spells.
Glinda looked at her with a mixture of exasperation and surrender.
"Old gods... fine. But if someone asks me to dance with a dragon mascot, I'm going to scream."
"That only happens on Saturdays," Elphaba said as she opened the door, where children's music and the sound of a prize machine played.
Glinda sighed deeply, smoothed her hair, lifted her chin, and walked in.
It was chaos: children running around, colorful lights, arcade machines, tables filled with cardboard cutouts of the “Time Dragon” from different historical eras (in Roman armor, with a cowboy hat, with a space helmet…). But in the back, Elphaba found a secluded booth, right next to a decorative fish tank and a screen showing old cartoon episodes.
“Look at this,” Elphaba said excitedly, pointing at the laminated menu. “Future Warrior Combo.” Double meat, cheese, endless fries, and a surprise inside.
“Probably a poisonous plastic toy,” Glinda snarled as she flipped through the menu with a fingertip, horrified but secretly amused.
“Admit this is more fun than watching chefs make carrot foam on a hot stone.”
Glinda glanced at Elphaba, then at the running children, and finally at the dragon mascot dancing in the corner. She gave up with a resigned smile.
"You owe me a restaurant with silverware after this."
"Deal. But first, get ready for the best burger of your life."
And so, between fries, ridiculous games, and the most absurd contrast with the night before, the two shared a lunch filled with laughter, knowing glances, and the certainty that their love, however strange, was built on those moments: the mundane and the magical, the erotic and the childish, the chaotic and the real.
"Do you know what you're going to order yet?" a nasal voice asked with the enthusiasm of a wet stone.
They both turned. In front of them was a goth teenager with smudged eyeliner, black lips, and a restaurant hat with dragon ears clearly altered to look sad. The uniform was fluorescent green with padded shoulder pads and an embroidered "The Time Dragon" logo that seemed to melt from sheer embarrassment.
The nameplate read "†Kiara†."
"A double cheeseburger with extra cheese, caramelized onions, and... mmm... more cheese," Elphaba ordered with a satisfied smile.
"And... do you have a salad?" Glinda asked, examining the menu with imaginary tweezers.
Kiara looked at her as if she'd asked for a treatise on existential philosophy.
"We have potatoes without bacon."
"Is that all?" "And if you want, I can give you the lettuce leaf that falls off the other combos," she replied in a tone that mixed irony, workplace trauma, and adolescent nihilism.
"Perfect, she'll eat like a normal person too," Elphaba interrupted before Glinda ordered a "papalechuga," handing over the menus.
"A simple one without toppings for the queen of the sophisticated palate," Kiara said, listlessly writing it down and turning on her platform boots to leave.
When the girl disappeared among the neon lights and children's screams, Glinda let out a long, dramatic sigh, as if she'd just stepped out of a particularly unpleasant opera.
"I can't believe I'm about to eat processed meat under the grinning face of a dragon in medieval armor."
"Could be worse," Elphaba replied, swirling the small glass with the order number on it. "You could be alone."
Glinda crossed her arms, annoyed. Then, like someone spilling the beans, she murmured, "Did you know I was almost a vegetarian?"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, turning to her with genuine interest.
"Oh, yeah? And what happened?"
"You did." Glinda took a napkin and began folding it meticulously. "It was after we broke up. I had so many empty nights that... well, whatever was on my menu didn't seem so important anymore. Especially since the wee hours were coming up next... and I needed something greasy to survive."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Greasy like...?"
"Like a triple cheese sandwich with caramelized onions and tears."
Elphaba burst out laughing so loudly that it caught the attention of a child at the next table. Glinda frowned in offense at first... but then, helplessly, she started laughing too.
“You’re the only person who makes my tragedies sound like comedy sketches,” Glinda laughed.
“And you’re the only person who can describe an emotional breakdown like it’s a Yelp review,” Elphaba replied.
Glinda leaned across the table, her smile softening.
“It was awful, you know? Not just losing you… but not knowing if you were even eating at two in the morning… or if you were okay… or even alive.”
Elphaba was silent for a moment. Her hand found Glinda’s on the table, held it firmly.
“I was eating. Horrible. Instant noodles and stale bread. But yes… I was alive.”
Glinda looked at her, and for a moment, amid the sounds of video games and children’s laughter, a space of absolute stillness was created. Until…
“You really cried for me… eating a cheese sandwich?”
“It was emotionally symbolic!” "Glinda exclaimed, offended but also smiling. "As if she were chewing up everything she couldn't say."
—"Processed cheese therapy"... How "romantic."
Glinda tried to remain serious, but couldn't help it. A soft laugh escaped her.
—Idiot.
—Drama queen.
—Bitter witch.
—Spoiled blonde.
They both remained silent for a few seconds, laughing in sync as if the old tune of their relationship was still playing in the background, albeit off-key at times. Outside, a horn honked. Inside, the stuffed dragon was doing a choreography in front of a three-year-old boy who clearly just wanted his ice cream.
—I don't know if it's because you missed me or because you genuinely think the sandwich helped you," Elphaba said, glancing at her, "but that's the most adorable thing you've said today."
—And that includes my protest against this awful place?
—Especially that.
And just then, Kiara returned with the tray.
"A cheeseburger with onions, a sad burger that not even a cow would respect, and two chocolate milkshakes with glitter toppings because they messed up in the kitchen and I'm not going to fix it," she said, leaving everything with professional reluctance.
"You're a sweetheart, Kiara," Elphaba said mockingly.
Kiara rolled her eyes and walked away.
Glinda took her plain burger, looked at it with resignation, then looked up to find Elphaba already biting into hers with childlike happiness.
"I can't believe I'm back with you," Glinda murmured, smiling.
"You came back for the burger. I'm just the topping."
They both laughed, clinking their milkshakes with an impromptu "cheers" while, for the first time in a long time, the city seemed to still around them.
With the fries almost finished and the milkshakes reduced to watery ice, Glinda leaned back in her seat, wiping her lips with a barely absorbent recycled paper napkin.
"Well?" she asked, almost casually as she played with the straw in her glass. "What are you going to do now?"
Elphaba, who had just taken a final bite of her cheeseburger, glanced at her sideways as she chewed.
"After this gourmet feast?"
"After you leave Nevermore, of course," Glinda clarified, taking a sip of her milkshake. "Are you going to apply to another school for special outcasts, or... will you dedicate yourself to dispensing wisdom in alternative cafes?"
Elphaba swallowed, wiped her hands with the most wrinkled napkin in the universe, and snorted.
"I highly doubt any educational institution will open its doors to me again. That idiot Isaac Norman took good care of that when he decided to expose me in front of the entire school board." It was like a reality show, but with less makeup and more betrayal.
Glinda gritted her teeth at the sound of that name. She felt hatred rise in her throat like a bad glass of wine.
"That jerk..." she muttered. "I always knew he was scum from the first time I saw him with you in the hallway at school. Pretentious, pedantic, with that 'look how progressive I am for dating a witch' look on his face."
Elphaba burst out laughing, surprised by the venom in Glinda's voice.
"Wow! Was that jealous hindsight?"
"No!" Glinda protested too quickly. "It was an objective, sociopolitical observation based on my unerring feminine intuition."
Elphaba laughed again and shook her head.
"It doesn't matter anymore. What matters is that I have no idea what to do with my life. When I quit Shiz.Corp and... well, when you and I grew apart, I thought about leaving town." I've always wanted to travel. Go to Iceland, maybe. Or get lost in Japan. Study volcanoes in Hawaii. Something like that.
"And why didn't you?"
"Because..." Elphaba looked down for a second, twisting her silver ring without thinking. "Something was holding me back. Like there was an invisible string pulling me to stay. Some kind of... stubborn need not to give up completely."
"'Something'?" Glinda asked, though she knew exactly what.
"You, stubborn blonde. It was you."
Glinda fell silent, the restaurant air filled for a second with the shrill chanting of "Happy Birthday" from the next table. Then, in an attempt not to sound so affected, Glinda changed the subject.
"And what do you think I'm going to do now?"
Elphaba shrugged.
"You're not going back to Shiz.Corp, that's for sure." And... maybe you could work with your mother at one of those charitable foundations that “redefines altruism over a glass of champagne.”
“Not a chance!” Glinda exclaimed immediately. “I’m not going to spend my days smiling beside my mother pretending to care about charity golf or charity auctions for ladies who collect glass sculptures.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Glinda looked thoughtful. Her gaze wandered around the place, stopping on an absurd mural of a grinning dragon traveling back in time to deliver hamburgers to ancient civilizations.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “For the first time in my life, I don’t have a plan, a roadmap, a calendar full of commitments. And as strange as it sounds... that excites me. I don’t know where I’m going, but for the first time... that doesn’t terrify me.”
Elphaba watched her silently, with a faint smile.
"Scary. You're going to get interesting."
Glinda stuck her tongue out at her, but then lowered it slowly.
"What if we don't find what we want?"
"What if we do?"
"What if what we want... turns out to be this?"
They both looked at each other. The place was far from romantic. A child was crying because his dragon toy was missing a leg, the goth waitress was arguing on the phone in the corner, and the combo special sign was flickering with an electric noise. But something between them, amidst all that, was right.
"We'll figure it out," Elphaba said.
"Together," Glinda added.
Just as Glinda was saying something sweet—something that would surely have ended in one of those phrases you remember forever—PLOP.
A foam dart embedded itself with surgical precision right in the center of her forehead.
Elphaba spit some of her drink out of her nose with laughter. Literally.
"What the... hell?!" Glinda froze like a statue, eyes wide open, the dart perfectly centered like Buddha's third eye in a cheap comedy.
In front of them, a boy no more than seven years old proudly held a Nerf XL3000 dart gun, laughing like he'd just won an Emmy Award.
"I beat you, blonde witch!" he shouted as he fled in the opposite direction, seemingly unsupervised.
Glinda, red-faced with fury and humiliation, jumped up.
"Come here, you little sociopath! I'll teach you some old-fashioned manners!"
Elphaba, who was choking on laughter in her chair, barely managed to speak.
"Glinda... please don't adopt this as a charity project right now..."
But Glinda was already marching up to the counter like an angry stockbroker.
Behind the counter was Kiara, the most unmotivated goth teenager in the northern hemisphere, leaning against the counter, staring at her cell phone with an expression that screamed "I hate this whole thing."
"Miss!" Glinda said sharply, the dart still stuck to her. "A kid shot me with a toy gun right in the face! Aren't you going to do anything?!"
Kiara didn't even look up.
"Are you dead?"
"What?! Obviously not!"
"So it's not an emergency," Kiara said, taking a piece of gum out of her mouth and shamelessly sticking it to the side of the counter. "On Tuesdays, insurance doesn't cover emotional trauma."
"Where are the responsible adults in this place?!" Glinda yelled, each word louder than the last.
"They don't exist," Kiara said with a sarcastic smile. "Like self-esteem, emotional stability, or a check-out time."
Glinda froze, so furious she seemed to be steaming.
Meanwhile, Elphaba, still laughing in her seat, grabbed her phone, which was vibrating nonstop. The screen said "Fiyero," and her smile faded for a second.
Before answering, she looked up and saw the boy again, who was now hiding under a table, shooting darts at the customers as if he were part of a guerrilla group.
With a sudden thought and a crooked smile, Elphaba leaned toward him and offered him a five-dollar bill.
"Hey, mini-terrorist... want to earn this?"
The boy looked at her suspiciously, but curious.
"What do I have to do?"
"Just a special mission," Elphaba said, discreetly pointing toward the counter where Glinda was still raging against the universe. "Fire one more... but aim for her ass this time."
The boy nodded with the solemnity of a professional sniper.
Elphaba answered the phone with that relaxed tone she only used when she knew she was in absolute control of her world.
"How are you, Fiyero?"
"Elphaba! Finally. How are you? How's Glinda?" He seemed genuinely interested. "We didn't have time to talk after the hearing. Everything was chaotic."
"Oh, everything's fine," Elphaba replied with her dry humor. Glinda was attacked with tactical foam weaponry and is threatening to sue a seven-year-old. The usual.
Fiyero laughed on the other end.
"Sounds... normal. Look, it'll be a little quiet at the club tonight, just a few drinks. I thought you might come. They're also going to broadcast the city council's final statement on the renovation project live. Maybe there's cause for celebration."
"Celebrating with politicians and alcohol? Sounds like hell," Elphaba said, taking a sip of her drink. "But anyway, I'll ask Glinda. Thanks for the treat."
As she spoke, her gaze shifted to the real-time chaos.
Glinda was still at the counter, still facing Kiara, who was responding at such a slow, listless pace that it seemed each word was draining her of existence. And then... WHAM!
Another dart flew through the air and hit its target: Glinda's perfectly clothed rear end.
The startled scream was so high-pitched it made two elderly women at the next table jump.
Glinda spun around like an action-movie villain and shot after the boy.
"COME HERE, YOU MINIATURE DEVIL!"
Elphaba watched the spectacle as she spoke to Fiyero, unable to contain her laughter.
First, Glinda chased the boy between tables, shouting sophisticated threats in a British accent.
Then, the boy, using ninja-like evasion tactics, hid under a table, turned the tables, and began chasing her.
Eventually, they were both running in circles, yelling incomprehensible things while the other diners simply tried to continue eating as if nothing had happened.
"Elphaba?" Fiyero said. "What was that noise?"
"Just a live sitcom. Everything's under control."
"That sounds like it isn't." But think about it, okay? I'd be happy to see you. Take care.
"You too, Fiyero," she replied in a friendly tone. She hung up.
And just as she put the phone down... there she was.
Glinda.
Standing in front of her like a statue of fury and resignation.
In her head, a crushed vanilla ice cream cone with a scoop still slowly melting down her forehead like the cherry on top of her misfortune.
The image was so ridiculous, so perfectly absurd, that Elphaba could do nothing but laugh again, without compassion.
Glinda looked at her with fiery eyes.
"It's official," she said in a flat, icy, and devastated tone. "I'm going vegan."
And she slumped back in her chair, defeated.
Elphaba, still smiling, passed her a napkin.
"You won't last a week."
"I want to live in a world without meat. And without children. Especially without children."
"You'll have to choose, Glinda. Because believe me, vegans bring drama too."
Glinda looked at her hands, with an existentialist expression that almost seemed like something out of a Shakespearean monologue.
"Elphie... do you think you can make tofu with dignity?"
"No," Elphaba replied tersely. "But you can try while you accompany me tonight to see Fiyero."
Glinda raised an eyebrow.
"And what does Fiyero have to do with my spiritual quest and my new life based on legumes?"
"He has free alcohol."
Glinda sighed.
"You convinced me."
The day was fading with the melancholic slowness of an eternal Sunday, and the city, like a restless heart, was beginning to beat with renewed strength. Neon lights were turning on one by one, like small promises of oblivion, glowing on the worn concrete and rusted roofs. On the west side, where the sounds of nightlife replaced the corporate bustle, Club Ozdust stood like a beacon among the shadows, a sanctuary for the lost, the eccentric, and those who still believed in the magic of a good song with a drink in hand.
The place was in full swing: purple lights flickered in sync with the lounge music pouring from the speakers, the stage in the background was still covered by a red velvet curtain gently waving from the air conditioning, and the swinging kitchen doors creaked every time a server entered or left. Amidst this organized chaos, the absolute queen of the club, The Whiz, paraded in impossible heels and a sky-blue wig so large it seemed to defy the laws of gravity. With a tray in one hand and a list of orders in the other, she crossed the room with the energy of a tropical storm, dropping greetings, dramatic moans, and phrases like, "Honey, that cocktail is drier than your ex after the divorce, make it again!"
Behind the bar, Fiyero moved with an efficiency no one would expect from someone who was habitually late to everything. He wore a rolled-up white shirt, his hair slightly messy, and a smile halfway between stressed and hopeful. He poured drinks, gave orders to the staff, collected empty glasses, and, every so often, nodded to a regular customer.
Leaning on the bar, shoulders hunched and a defeated expression that even the best drink couldn't disguise, Boq swirled the ice in his glass with his straw. The drink—a bitter with soda and something else that Fiyero had prepared for him without asking—was almost untouched. Beside him, Brrr, dressed in his signature brown jacket and round glasses, nodded gravely.
"So... they fired you?" Brrr asked in that neutral tone he used for almost everything, as if he were always narrating a documentary.
Boq gave a dry laugh.
"What did you expect? After the hearing, it was just a matter of time. Shiz.Corp is cleaning house, and I'm one of the easiest to sweep."
Brrr frowned.
"It was the cost of doing the right thing. You knew that."
"I knew it, yes," Boq said, leaning his elbows on the bar and hiding his face in his hands. "But that doesn't make it any easier. You know what's worse? I can't even go home to my parents. They probably don't even remember I exist anymore. It's like I've been filed away in some cardboard box in the garage of their memories."
Fiyero, who had been listening with half an ear while wiping glasses with a damp rag, approached the two of them.
"Boq, listen to me," he said firmly, placing his glass on the bar with a soft tap. "If Ozdust survives tonight... if the council decree doesn't send us to hell with new taxes or ridiculous fines... I'll get you a job here. Administrative, not glamorous, but permanent. And more importantly: real."
Boq looked up skeptically.
"Working in a club? Me?"
"What? Do you think you're too smart for that now?" “No, it’s not that. It’s just... I don’t know if I fit in this world,” he murmured, looking around as a customer in a plastic tiara belted out a song alongside a group celebrating a birthday. “This seems so... far from everything I thought I’d do.”
“Boq,” Brrr chimed in, with a half-smile. “You’re literally in the only place where no one judges you for not fitting in. That’s what this place is all about.”
Fiyero nodded.
“Here, we work with who we are, not what we pretend to be. Besides, you’re not alone. Almost all of us here were rejected from somewhere. Or everywhere. So, if you’re up for it, start with another drink. This time, by the house.”
Boq smiled for the first time all night, weak but sincere.
“Thanks, Fiyero. Honestly.”
Just then, The Whiz flashed behind them, blowing kisses. “Brrr, hairy heart, you have ten minutes! The microphone won’t warm up on its own, and people are already looking at their phones!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Brrr replied, as if he were going to come on in an hour. “Just getting my mind right.”
“Well, get your mind right, baby!” The Whiz shouted from across the room. “Because if you’re late again, you’ll end up doing stand-up in the bathroom.”
Fiyero laughed and returned to the bar, leaving Boq nursing his new drink and Brrr craning his neck like he’s about to be slaughtered.
Amid the crowd of bodies moving to the music and the whirring of strobe lights, Elphaba and Glinda made their entrance. It wasn’t a dramatic appearance; there were no spotlights or applause, but they still seemed to claim their own little center of gravity within the colorful chaos of Club Ozdust. Elphaba wore a simple, effortlessly elegant black ensemble with metallic details that only stood out when the light hit them at just the right angle; Glinda, meanwhile, wore a short champagne-colored dress with a white leather jacket over it, her hair loose and perfectly imperfect waves giving her an air of something between celebrity and urban rebel. Both hadn't dressed to impress, but the results spoke volumes.
Glinda stopped just inside the entrance, looking around with a mixture of fascination and nostalgia.
"Wow... this is totally different from coming here at noon to try to convince Fiyero not to drown in his own melancholy," she said, squinting to make out the details of the club in its nighttime mode.
Elphaba smirked.
"First time coming here during rush hour?"
"This place, yes. But don't think I'm a saint," Glinda replied, casting a knowing glance at the groups dancing, laughing, or simply lost in themselves. "I had my wild years. Though most of them were in clubs with unpronounceable names and velvet-covered walls."
"I, on the other hand, spent my Saturday nights reading Mary Shelley aloud," Elphaba countered with her trademark dry humor. "Surrounded by cold tea and teenage frustration."
Glinda giggled mockingly, placing a finger on Elphaba's cheek.
"You're such a nerd. An adorable, incorrigible nerd."
Elphaba pursed her lips, ready to retort, but Glinda got in first, lowering her voice just a bit, as if confessing a secret.
"And nerds drive me crazy."
Elphaba looked at her, a second in mock bewilderment, before letting out a dry, high-pitched laugh.
"You only say that because you know I like it when you say it."
"Exactly."
The staring match lasted only a few more seconds, until a familiar voice broke the bubble between them.
"Hey! Girls! This way!" Tibbett appeared among the crowd like a drowning man in waves, raising his arms above his head while making exaggerated signs.
They both turned at the same time and saw him at a table in the right corner, next to Crope, who was greeting them with a glass in hand and a smile like someone who'd had more than one drink under his belt. Tibbett was waving them off as if he feared they'd disappear into the crowd.
Glinda winked at Elphaba.
"Let's go before Tibbett jumps up on a chair to call us over. I can see he's capable of it."
They made their way through the dancing bodies and the waiters zigzagging like swift fish. The table was in a semicircular area with cushioned armchairs, close to the dance floor but far enough away to be able to talk without shouting. Crope, wearing a silver shirt that gleamed in the purple ceiling light, offered them space with a sweep of his arm.
"Welcome to the more degenerate side of the city!" he joked, toasting the air.
"Always so subtle?" Elphaba replied as she took a seat next to him. Tibbett, already half-reclining in his seat, let out a dramatic sigh.
"We were betting on how long it would take. I said fifteen minutes. Crope said you"—looking at Glinda—"were going to make them wait just for aesthetic reasons."
Glinda shrugged elegantly.
"And you were wrong?"
"With pleasure."
As the drinks began to circulate and the conversation ignited with comments about The Whiz's latest performance and rumors of the city council's decision, Elphaba let her gaze wander for a moment, taking in the surroundings. The club, with all its raucousness and pace, had something comforting about it that night. Perhaps it was the company, or perhaps the almost superstitious feeling that this might be the last time they would experience it like this, before everything changed.
"Let's see..." she said, drawing out the words like candy. "What stage of the soap opera are our two great city heroines in?" Reconciled and in love? Or still in the "don't touch me because I'll remember what you did in episode 5" phase?
Elphaba rolled her eyes.
"Do you always go in like that, right now?"
"Of course, my dear. Drama comes in better without anesthesia."
Glinda, with a delighted smile and a hint of genuine blush on her cheeks, was the first to attempt an answer.
"We're fine. We're reconnecting, rediscovering each other... It's as if time hasn't passed."
"But it has," Elphaba interrupted, in her characteristic tone. "And it wasn't all exactly glorious."
"Obviously not," Glinda said, still smiling. "But it is now. Or at least gloriously complicated."
Crope laughed silently, holding his glass in both hands, watching the dynamics like someone watching a live romantic comedy. Tibbett, without missing a beat, landed his next question like a surefire blow.
"So, the obvious question... when's the wedding?"
The sentence fell like a bomb on the table.
Elphaba choked on her drink, slamming the glass against the table as she coughed. Glinda's eyes widened, unsure whether to laugh, respond, or run away. Crope let out a dry laugh that made the couple at the next table spin around.
"What?!" Elphaba said between coughs, wiping the corner of her mouth with her sleeve.
"Tibbett, please!"
"What?" he said, theatrically offended. "You've already made headlines, you were part of a public hearing, you saved half the city! Isn't this the perfect time to seal the deal?"
Glinda, still blushing, tried to take control.
"I think what Elphaba means is... we just got back. We're taking things slowly, aren't we?" "Exactly," Elphaba said, one eye still watering from the shock. "Besides, I don't know if we'd survive a wedding. You wanting everything to be pastel pink and unicorns, and me... well, me wanting no flowers, no guests, and no wedding."
"Pardon?" Glinda crossed her arms. "No flowers? What kind of soulless dystopia are you describing?"
"One on a budget, for starters."
Tibbett and Crope burst out laughing, and within a minute, Elphaba and Glinda were fully engaged in a ridiculously detailed discussion about imaginary weddings: Glinda describing a seaside ceremony with fireworks and a string orchestra, Elphaba retorting that she'd prefer to get married in an empty library, with witnesses of paper and ink, no noise, no superficialities.
"And what about the menu?" Crope asked, already amused to tears.
“Vegan, obviously,” Glinda said with a defiant smile, crossing her legs. “I decided after I had an ice cream cone thrown at my head.”
“That doesn’t count as an epiphany!” Elphaba grumbled.
“It counts as a divine sign.”
Jokes flew back and forth like foam darts. Tibbett and Crope laughed as if the entire club were a stage just for them. And for a moment, at that table, amidst neon lights and half-empty glasses, everything was light, chaotic, happy.
And then, the spotlight came on.
The white spotlight descended from the top of the club, breaking the gloom of the dance floor with surgical precision. Conversations gradually died away, the hubbub turning into an expectant murmur. From the side of the stage, with his scruffy but charismatic style, Sir Brrr emerged as if he had just woken up from a nap amidst the chaos.
He wore a red velvet jacket, plaid trousers, and thick-framed round glasses. In his hand, he held a wireless microphone that looked like it had survived several wars. His presence commanded a strange kind of authority: that of a comedian who knows that, no matter what, he has the final say.
"Good evening, creatures of vice," he greeted in a deep, perfectly modulated voice. "Are you ready for the part of the show where you question why you left the house?"
Laughter erupted almost immediately. Sir Brrr was an institution, a cross between a stand-up comedian, a social observer, and a half-paid emotional therapist. From their position, Elphaba, Glinda, Crope, and Tibbett watched him take center stage and perform his act with that improvisational mastery possessed only by those who knew real pain and how to mock it. And as laughter filled the room and the lights danced like artificial stars, Elphaba and Glinda glanced at each other, smiling, as if the universe was granting them a few more minutes of respite before returning to everything else.
Sir Brrr walked across the stage, microphone resting on his chin and a crooked smile, like someone who knew they were about to get into trouble… but didn't care at all. His voice, as raspy as it was enveloping, floated over the tables, above the murmur of drinks and laughter.
"Ah, Ozdust… what would we do without you?" he began, drawing out the words like a cat stretching. "This place where broken hearts find tequila, and bartenders' dreams live… on the brink of a nervous breakdown."
Laughter erupted in the room, and Brrr continued mercilessly, combining his classic queer humor with sharp barbs at the establishment.
"Sometimes I wonder if the city wants to save us or slowly destroy us with forms, public hearings, and politicians who wear more makeup than I do. And look, I'm trying, huh?"
A wave of laughter erupted again.
"But tonight, oh, tonight is special. Because something unusual is happening, my darlings..." Brrr stepped off the stage with a theatrical gait, weaving his way through the tables with the grace of a royal jester, his gaze fixed on some as-yet-undisclosed target. "For the first time in the history of this temple of excess and emotional ruin..."
He stopped, raised an arm dramatically to the sky, and with his index finger extended, made a grand gesture toward the lighting booth.
"...someone important has come!"
At that moment, a spotlight came on from high above the club and bathed a table near the stage in white light.
Glinda and Elphaba.
Both froze for a second. Glinda, with her glass halfway between her mouth and the table, and Elphaba, right in the moment she was bringing a French fry to her mouth. The French fry hovered in midair as the spotlight illuminated them like two celebrities caught unnoticed on a red carpet. Murmurs, laughter, the occasional cheer from the back.
"Ladies, gentlemen, dissents and misunderstandings," Brrr proclaimed, pointing at them like someone revealing a lost work of art, "tonight we have among us the two great witches of the city. Those who said "no thanks" to the established order, those who messed with the bigwigs, those who survived the media, the system, and Twitter criticism. Let's hear it for Elphaba Thropp and Glinda Upland!" A cheer erupted. Some whistled enthusiastically, others cheered their names. Glinda raised her hand as if trying to politely deny all the attention, but her nervous smile betrayed her. Elphaba, resigned, popped the potato chip into her mouth with a theatrical sigh and mumbled something no one heard, but which might as well have been: "I knew this was coming."
Brrr approached them, still holding the microphone, her steps slow, and her aura unwavering.
"Come on, girls, don't get away from me. It's not every day we get revolutionary heroines sitting among us! How are you feeling? Liberated, empowered, or just exhausted and eager to go to sleep watching true-crime documentaries?"
Glinda let out a nervous laugh and took the microphone Brrr offered her with the gesture of a queen in distress.
"I'd say... all three, in rotating order."
"A diplomatic response!" Brrr clapped her hands. "What a surprise coming from a former spokesperson. And you, Elphaba? What's it like being the anti-establishment witch with more followers than an Instagram coach?"
Elphaba snatched the microphone from her without asking, held it to her mouth, and responded tersely, "Quite exhausting. Especially since followers don't come with coffee."
The response drew laughter from the audience, and even more so when Brrr, without missing a beat, turned to Glinda.
"And how did you survive the scandal, my queen? Through yoga, positive affirmations, and blocking people on social media?"
"No, simply..." Glinda glanced at Elphaba with a knowing smile, "simply remembering who was worth fighting. And why." The comment generated a murmur of "awws" from the audience, and Brrr, overacting a fake tear, dropped to her knees.
"Goddesses, activists, and romantics! You're not ready for this narrative!"
Brrr circled around the two of them like a cat with prey in its claws. The audience continued to roar with laughter, and Glinda and Elphaba, still slightly flushed from the surprise spotlight, tried to maintain their composure as the evening took an unexpectedly comical turn.
"I have to say it," Brrr said, putting a hand to his chest as if he were about to reveal a state secret, "there are already people shipping you online. Literally as I speak! I'm receiving memes in real time. Online videos with Taylor Swift music and everything! How do they do it so fast?"
The audience erupted immediately. Glinda covered her face with both hands, laughing through her fingers, while Elphaba let her head fall back in a mixture of exasperation and amusement.
"Come on! Don't look at me like that! You two are every fandom's dream couple!" Brrr continued, now completely absorbed in the show. One is order, light, protocol, and charm. The other is chaos, emotional depth, sarcasm, and revolution. They're literally yin and yang, but with gloss and waterproof eyeliner!
More laughter. Crope was doubled over the table, crying with laughter, while Tibbett recorded parts of the show with his cell phone and said,
"This is going straight to TikTok, babies."
"And now," Brrr continued, with a hand to his temple as if he were receiving a divine vision, "I need to think of a name for the ship. Glinaba? Elinda? ThrupLand? No, wait... that sounds like a forbidden theme park. Well, surely someone on the internet had already come up with a good name for the ship."
Elphaba couldn't contain her laughter, and Glinda gently pushed her shoulder, laughing as if she were struggling to breathe.
"Do you realize?" Brrr paced in circles, excited as ever. "This isn't a love story anymore!" This is a franchise! I'd read a book about you. No, two. No, an entire saga! Better yet… a stage musical. No, no, no. Wait. Better…
She stopped dramatically.
"A movie musical! A two-parter! With impossible Broadway numbers, choreography that makes no logistical sense, and unnecessary aerial shots. Yes! And it's coming to theaters and streaming, because we live in late capitalism, babes!"
People clapped, whistled, cheered.
"Now then... who could we choose to play them in the film? Let's see, let's see... for Elphaba... what do you think... Kristen Stewart?"
The audience gave a dubious "mmm."
"No? Too... generic Caucasian rebel? Okay, okay, I have another one. Zendaya."
Some applause was timid, others more enthusiastic.
"And for Glinda? Anya Taylor-Joy? Too ethereal? Margot Robbie? Too Barbie? Wait, wait, I know! Lea Michele—"
"NOOO!" shouted several voices from the audience.
Brrr pretended to collapse backward on the stage as if he'd been injured.
"Gods! What a demanding audience! Let's see, then, what if..." What was the name of the actress from the musical The Color Purple and the pop singer of the song of the position 69?
At that moment, Glinda raised a hand, giggling.
"Please stop. You're going to kill us laughing."
"Yes, and if someone reads tomorrow that Glinda Upland died in a club because of a comedian, the headlines are going to be horrendous," Elphaba added, still with tears in her eyes from laughing so much.
Brrr looked at them both with that mixture of tenderness and mischief that only he could conjure.
"Okay, okay, all right. I'll stop torturing you... for now. But one last thing."
She leaned a little closer and said in a lower voice, as if sharing a secret:
"It doesn't matter who plays you. No one would do it better than you. So if you're up for it... you know where to find me to write that script."
The audience burst into spontaneous applause, not only for the comedy, but for the genuine affection that permeated the air. Glinda and Elphaba looked at each other, sharing one of those looks where everything is understood without a word.
And as Brrr energetically took the microphone again to finish his act, Elphaba, between laughs, murmured softly to Glinda:
"I hope someday I can spend a peaceful night with you."
Glinda, still laughing, rested her head on her shoulder for a moment.
"I never said I was looking for peace."
As Elphaba and Glinda continued to giggle between murmurs, still wrapped in that bubble of complicity that only forms when one laughs so much that one forgets the rest of the world, a familiar—and completely unexpected—voice emerged from the side with the same elegance as always, as if it belonged to another dimension:
"Aren't you going to invite me to toast this adorable relationship, or should I just barge in like a vulgar social media journalist?"
Glinda was stunned. Literally. The color drained from her face, and her lips parted slightly, as if they'd stopped knowing how to form words. Elphaba blinked several times before turning her head and confirming with her own eyes what her ears refused to believe.
"Highmuster?" Elphaba murmured, incredulous.
"Popsicle?" Glinda managed, in a mixture of high-pitched and incredulous tones that bordered on emotional panic.
Tibbett and Crope had no such restraint. As soon as they recognized the famous Highmuster Upland, with his light trench coat draped over his shoulders, a matching hat, and that unmistakable gait of a man who knows every glance is a spotlight on him, they burst into laughter of astonishment, surprise, and fascination.
"By the Glitter Gods! What are you doing here?!" Crope shouted, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "You look like something out of a glamorous 1960s spy movie!"
"We literally pictured you in a European palace, sipping cognac with some northern diplomat!" Tibbett added, leaning back as if he had witnessed a mystical apparition.
Highmuster smiled his typically charming smile, that smile that had captivated entire rooms for decades, and with a casual gesture, he greeted everyone as if he had just arrived at a quiet family dinner and not a club in the middle of the night. "Well, I heard that his big victory yesterday would be celebrated at this club, and well... You know I could never resist a good victory celebration."
"Sure, of course, diplomatic chaos is also celebrated in queer clubs," Elphaba quipped, still smiling in disbelief.
But Glinda wasn't laughing. Not yet. She stood rooted to the spot, back straight, eyes fixed on her father as if she'd just landed. She knew him too well. And while Highmuster could move like a fish in any room, there was something about his tone... his posture... that didn't quite fit.
"And then," Highmuster said, swirling his glass, "I find myself in the middle of the seventies, walking down an alley with two people dressed as Elvis playing chess. I thought: this place has a soul. That's when I truly knew the spirit of Las Vegas."
Glinda wanted to evaporate.
But amid the general laughter, Highmuster lowered his tone. He leaned toward his daughter with an expression he rarely used: a mixture of tenderness and seriousness.
"Glinda," he said softly, "I came for another reason, too."
She looked at him suspiciously.
"Another psychedelic story?"
"No," he said, his eyes twinkling a little. "I knew you'd be here. And... she knew it too. Your mother. She's outside. She wants to talk to you."
A chill ran down his spine. Glinda fell silent; the hubbub of the club faded, as if the whole world had shut down for a moment. The idea had been floating in the air for weeks, maybe months. She knew she couldn't escape forever. And yet, she wasn't ready. Was she ever?
"I..." she began, but the words evaporated.
Highmuster, without pushing her, just nodded.
"You don't have to do it if you don't want to. But I think you know that sooner or later... this had to happen."
Glinda took a deep breath. Elphaba approached and gently took her arm. She looked directly into her eyes, wordless, but with a supportive expression. As if to say: you're not alone. Not anymore.
Glinda smiled at her with that mixture of fear and gratitude that only someone carrying old wounds can understand. She nodded and, without another word, walked away into the crowd, pushing through the club door toward the street and a past she was finally going to face.
Highmuster sat back down naturally at the table, as if the emotional circus hadn't happened. Tibbett and Crope instantly surrounded him, firing questions at him like children with a new toy. He, delighted, began to answer eloquently, with sweeping gestures and his decadent sense of humor.
"Well, that brings me to another curious story, you see... I once got locked in a wine cellar in Geneva with an ambassador and a talking parrot. A fascinating story, I promise!"
Elphaba laughed, relieved by the distraction. But just then, her cell phone vibrated in her purse. She immediately pulled it out and felt a chill when she read "private number" on the screen.
It wasn't uncommon for them to call her without identifying themselves: journalists, activists, even government figures often did so from hidden numbers. But something about the moment, the place, the vibe of that instant, made her body react with a mixture of intuition and nervousness. Her smile faded gently as she stood up, and, with all the politeness in the world, interrupted Highmuster with a light touch on his arm.
"Excuse me, just a call," she said, taking her glass of water more out of habit than thirst.
She walked through the crowd, the club's vibrant beat still echoing in the floor, until she reached a darker, more secluded corner near a wall covered in purple velvet. The flickering lights barely reached there. She answered.
"Hello?"
There was a second of silence on the other end. Then a deep voice, perfectly modulated, without a hint of hesitation or emotion, emerged like an icy blast:
"Miss Thropp."
Elphaba felt as if her chest was being squeezed with an invisible claw. She knew that voice. She'd heard it in debates, on public broadcasts, in leaked videos, in thinly veiled threats. It was Senator Oz.
Outside the club, the night air hit Glinda with the force of a bucket of ice water.
The contrast with the heat inside was brutal, but even more brutal was what she saw when she turned, when someone softly called her name:
"Glinda."
In the line of people waiting to enter the club, a few steps from the security cordon, one figure stood out like a perfectly composed painting amidst the urban chaos. Larena Upland.
Tall, impeccable, wrapped in a long white wool coat, with a decorative parasol—more symbolic than practical—hanging from her wrist like a jewel, Larena didn't seem to belong there. Her every movement was a reminder of status, of class, of control. There wasn't a wrinkle in her clothes or a shadow in her hairdo. And yet, her eyes—those same eyes Glinda had inherited—were tense. And, for the first time in a long time, they weren't hard. They were... human.
Glinda swallowed. She forced a tight smile.
"Mom."
"Thanks for coming out. I didn't mean to interrupt your evening," Larena said, taking a step toward her, still maintaining her composure. "Although I imagine the interruption has already been made."
"No," Glinda lied gently. "It's about time."
They both remained silent for a second. The music barely reached their ears, muffled by the closed door and the invisible barrier that had always existed between mother and daughter.
Larena tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. A gesture she only made when she was uncomfortable, nervous… or sad.
"You're... fine," she said finally. More of a statement than a question. As if she needed to tell herself.
Glinda nodded, then lowered her gaze.
"Yes. I am. I'm trying."
Elphaba rested one hand against the wall while her other held the phone.
The corner of the club was completely dark, barely lit by flickering lights filtering in from the dance floor. But her mind was no longer there. She didn't hear the music. Only that voice, which, despite its softness, chilled her blood.
"You know, you surprised me," Senator Oz was saying with astonishing calm. "I thought you'd have the good sense to stay out of it. But you came onstage with Miss Upland, presented the documents, and now everything's a mess. A brilliant spectacle."
Elphaba clenched her jaw.
"It wasn't a spectacle. It was the truth."
"Ah, the truth," the senator repeated with an audible smile. "The truth is a luxury few people can afford, Elphaba. And you... you're like me. We see the cracks in the world. And we don't just see them. We know how to bridge them. We know how to use them."
"We're not at all alike."
"And yet we're in the same boat, my dear," he replied, with an echo of mockery. "One that, by the way, is about to sink."
Meanwhile, Glinda walked along the sidewalk beside her mother.
The air was sharp, the kind of chill that seeps into the bones, but neither Larena nor she seemed to notice. Both were too caught up in the fragility of what they were sharing.
"Your father wanted me to come to the hearing, you know," Larena said, her gaze straight ahead. "He asked me. With that tone he uses when he wants to convince without begging. But I... I couldn't do it."
Glinda glanced at her. She wasn't ready to offer understanding. Not so quickly.
"But you saw me everywhere, didn't you?" she asked, knowing the answer was obvious. "It was quite a sight."
Larena nodded slightly.
"Yes. I saw it. I saw everything."
"So?"
Larena paused. She closed her eyes for a moment before speaking.
"I always knew... that you were too brilliant for the glass walls we always live within. Brilliant even for me. And what you said, how you said it at the hearing. I saw someone who no longer needs our approval. And I felt... pride."
Glinda blinked. She hadn't expected that.
"But I also felt fear," Larena added, her voice lower. "This world, Glinda... this world isn't kind to women who dare to speak out like you did. Those who dare to challenge the order of things."
Glinda twitched.
"So what was I supposed to do? Keep quiet? Be grateful for being allowed to pose for a photo and pretend that's power?"
"No. I'm just saying that this kind of visibility comes with consequences. And they're not always fair."
"Are you talking about me... or you?"
Larena didn't respond immediately. And that pause was enough for Glinda to understand.
Back at the club, Elphaba gritted her teeth.
"What do you mean, the boat is sinking?"
"In minutes," the senator said, "the Council will make the final decree public. They were going to pause my project, yes. But things changed. They couldn't let this whole circus go unpunished." So they made a Solomonic decision: demolish everything. Not just the project. The neighborhoods. The Ozclub. Everything.
—What? That can't be…
—What you and Glinda did made you look ridiculous. What I did too. And believe me, Elphaba… when the powerful are made to look ridiculous, they don't seek justice. They seek blood.
There was a second of icy silence.
"But I have a proposal," he added. "An alliance. You and I. We could weather the storm... together."
Glinda halted her pacing. Rage was beginning to boil in her throat.
"And what do you want me to do, Mother? Stay silent? Sit up and smile while everything burns?"
"I want you to be realistic," Larena replied softly. "This world doesn't forgive women who speak out. It humiliates them. It punishes them. It discards them. And you're doing all of this at the same time. And with her..."
Glinda turned sharply.
"There it is. I knew you were going to get there."
"It's not an attack," Larena tried, taking a step toward her. "It's... worry. That girl is no good for you, Glinda! She's a walking chaos! She'll drag you down."
“She’s the only one who doesn’t treat me like I have to hide to survive!” Glinda shouted, raising her voice for the first time. “Do you know what it was like growing up trying to please you? Trying to fit into your perfect, fake world. And now you want to tell me who I can love, who I can be with, how I should talk?”
Larena fell silent. Not out of pride. Not out of stubbornness. But out of guilt.
“I don’t want to lose you,” she whispered. “I’ve already lost too much.”
Elphaba kept her eyes fixed on the club floor, her phone pressed to her ear.
“No,” she repeated, her voice growing ever firmer. “I’m not going to be part of your insane political crusade.”
“Don’t be childish,” Senator Oz retorted. “Listen to me. The media is going to jump on you and your girlfriend like vultures. The upper class, whom you despise so much, is going to demand heads.” And the people they want so badly to protect will look to them as saviors… or villains. And they won't forgive them for not having answers.
Elphaba stopped pacing. The lights flickered behind her as if the world were crumbling.
"I'm not going to be part of your 'new order,'" she said firmly. "I'm not like you."
"Oh, no?" he countered. "I'm cutting all ties with Shiz.Corp. They're rotten. So tainted they're already a burning sparkler. I'm leaving town. I'm reinventing myself. A new campaign. And you know what? You could be part of it. This time... we could do it right."
Elphaba laughed, humorlessly.
"Right? With your disgusting, ultra-right-wing ideology?"
"Ideology," he repeated disdainfully. "Elphaba... I don't believe in ideologies. I believe in results. I became ultra-conservative because it got me votes." If tomorrow people want a communist party, I'll paint everything red and sing the Internationale. This is theater. You know about that. I can give you everything you've ever wanted. Everything. Stages, cameras, power. A voice. A real platform.
Elphaba fell silent. The club's lights flickered behind her like a slow-motion horror movie. She couldn't speak. She didn't know if it was anger, fear... or something worse.
"You know you're considering it," Oz whispered. "If you change your mind... call me."
And he hung up.
Meanwhile, on the sidewalk outside the club, Glinda stood facing her mother.
They were both on the verge of breaking down. The air was thick, icy. The tears hadn't flowed yet, but they were on the verge.
“Your relationship with that girl is going to destroy you,” Larena insisted, her voice deep and shaky. “You. Her. The world you know. The people around you won’t accept it. Not now. Maybe never.”
Glinda exploded.
“And that’s why you tried to bribe her?!” she cried, her voice cracking. “Do you have any idea how I felt when I saw that? How you made me feel, Mother! It was like you ripped something out of me… like I was worthless to you.”
Larena looked at her in horror.
“It was stupid,” she admitted, almost in a whisper. “I know. I know, Glinda. And I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified. And I wasn’t just afraid for you… I was afraid of you. I don’t recognize you anymore.”
Glinda clenched her fists, hurt.
“Maybe if you had ever deigned to see me… for real.” Not to that doll you wanted to mold to show off at your charity dinners. To me. To the person I am.
Larena breathed raggedly. Tears finally emerged, staining her impeccable mask of elegance.
"Glinda, please... don't do this. Not like this. Come to your senses. I'm begging you."
Glinda took a step back. Her eyes were glassy, her voice cracked but firm.
"I can't," Glinda was silent for a moment, searching for the strength to continue. "I love you, Mother. I will love you all my life. But I can't keep denying who I am. Not anymore. And Elphaba... she is the most important thing I have. She is what I always longed for and hid. And now I see her. And when I see her... I see me."
Larena couldn't speak. She merely nodded, her face broken.
Glinda turned away. And without another word, she walked away with slow but determined steps, leaving her mother alone on the icy sidewalk, under the closed umbrella that was no longer of any use.
The interior of Ozdust was a confusing mix of muffled music, dim lights, and muffled voices, as if the echo of the city had condensed there, in that corner amidst ruins and unfulfilled promises. Glinda crossed the entrance almost staggering, her steps hesitant, still carrying the weight of her argument with Larena like a lead blanket around her shoulders. Her golden hair, always so neat, was disheveled, her cheeks damp, her makeup smeared like an emotional map she couldn't and wouldn't erase. But when she looked up, she saw her.
Elphaba, alone, leaning barely against one of the columns that bordered the room. Her gaze was fixed on no particular point, as if her thoughts were escaping through invisible cracks, and her body—always so firm—seemed ready to crumble at the slightest sigh.
There was no need for one of them to call out to the other. They saw each other and ran, as if there had never been any distance between them, as if space had folded into the urgent desire to find each other again. And in the moment their arms linked, there were no words, only a shared trembling, a labored breath, a desperate need to cling to the only thing that still seemed true.
Glinda was the first to try to speak, but the words came out broken, amidst hiccups of anguish and fragments of sentences that died before they were born. Elphaba, trembling, opened her mouth as if to reply, but her lips only formed a gesture of defeat. They didn't need explanations. What they had both experienced that day was too vast, too harsh, to be reduced to language. And yet, the intimacy of that silence was more powerful than any speech.
It was then that a voice, amplified by the club's makeshift speakers, cut through the moment like a sharp blade.
"Attention, everyone!" announced The Whiz, standing on one of the tables, microphone in hand, a nervous smile on his face. "The city council is about to deliver its final verdict! It's on the air!"
A general murmur swept through the room like a wave. Everyone turned toward the television mounted in the corner, elevated on a dusty shelf. On the screen, the Emerald City emblem glowed in blue and gold, and the atmosphere in the club became tense and expectant. There was hope on many faces, anxiety on others. The glasses stopped being raised, the laughter faded. The entire world seemed to have shrunk to that luminous rectangle.
Everyone was watching.
Everyone… except Elphaba.
Glinda, still clutching her, noticed. She noticed how Elphaba held her breath, how her fingers squeezed her hand with a barely perceptible force. There was something in her gaze Glinda hadn't seen before: resignation, but also foresight. As if she knew what was coming. As if she'd already read that verdict before it was pronounced.
Then the image changed. An impeccably dressed council official appeared behind a lectern, his expression grave, his hands resting on perfectly aligned documents. "Following yesterday's hearing, in which deeply disturbing information was revealed regarding the urban renewal project and its connection to Shiz.Corp," the man began in a measured tone, "this council has spent the last twenty-four hours intensively deliberating on the measures to be taken..."
A low murmur arose from the audience, a pent-up breath that grew increasingly agitated. Elphaba didn't react. She remained motionless, like a statue carved from pure tension.
"...and has resolved, by an absolute majority, to suspend all activities related to said renewal project," the representative continued. "Furthermore, all formal ties between the city government and Shiz.Corp are severed, and Shiz.Corp will be subject to an independent audit and immediate fiscal review."
The eruption of jubilation in the club was almost instantaneous.
Shouts of relief, applause, hugs, some even raised glasses and kissed whoever was near them. "We won!" someone shouted from the back. "They did it!" another exclaimed. The atmosphere was charged with euphoria. With redemption. With that euphoric hope that only springs when victory seems—even for a second—absolute.
But Elphaba still didn't move.
Glinda wasn't looking at the screen anymore. She was looking at her. Because Elphaba wasn't celebrating. And if she wasn't celebrating, then something was wrong.
"However," the official added, and silence settled again like a lead curtain, "after a detailed review of the technical documents associated with the project, this council has identified multiple urban areas and structures whose situation, in terms of stability, health, and coordination with the current urban design, is unsustainable..."
Joy froze. Laughter caught in her throat.
"For this reason, activities in these areas will be suspended, certain buildings will be temporarily closed, and they will be inspected and eventually relocated or demolished, if necessary. This measure seeks to preserve the common good and citizen safety, far removed from corporate interests and with complete institutional transparency."
The speech continued, shrouding the tragedy in a cloak of technicalities and false morals. A speech designed to cleanse the council's image, to distract from the truth revealed hours before, to disguise a purge of justice.
In Ozdust, the murmurs began to rise in tone. Street names, building names, and vulnerable areas could be heard. People were asking if their homes would be on the list, if the club itself would survive. The Whiz, who had smiled a moment ago, now sank slowly back into her chair, completely silent.
Glinda turned to Elphaba, who was barely blinking.
"What do we do now?" she asked, in a whisper that was barely a voice.
Elphaba lowered her gaze, her eyes dark as a bottomless abyss. For a moment, it seemed as though she might respond with a harangue, one of those phrases she threw out like spears, capable of igniting an entire crowd. But no.
Not this time.
"I don't know," she said simply, and for the first time in a long time, that confession didn't ring like defeat, but like the truth.
And between the defeat disguised as justice, the suppressed rage, and the impending devastation that lay ahead, the two embraced as if in that fragile gesture they could protect themselves from the entire world.
Night had completely fallen over the city, and with it, a pall of silence had settled over Ozdust. The lights of the place, once vibrant and alive, flickered as if they too were exhausted. The smoke from the last cigarettes hung in the air like a spectral fog, and the music, which had once shaken the walls, had reduced to a whisper that barely accompanied the desolation.
The place was almost empty. Only a few remained: Tibbett, Crope, Brrr, and Boq, sitting in a row along the bar, like exhausted soldiers after a war they didn't know if they had won or lost. On the other side of the counter, The Whiz and Fiyero were polishing glasses that no one would ever use. No one spoke much. The sounds were spaced out, tired: the clinking of ice in a glass, the creaking of a stool, the occasional sigh.
Crope, his forehead resting against the palm of his hand, looked at Fiyero with the heaviness of someone seeking not solace but truth.
"So what are you going to do with the club?" he asked, his voice thick with alcohol, with the night, with moral exhaustion.
Fiyero raised his eyes from the glass he was drying, staring at the empty space beyond the bar, as if trying to see a future that didn't yet exist.
"I suppose the city will have to pay us something. Compensation, or whatever you want to call it," he replied without emotion. "After all, if they close this place, they have to cover the damage. That's what the law says, at least."
Tibbett gave a bitter laugh, the kind of laugh that no longer comes from humor, but from weariness.
"Maybe that's the only good thing about all this," he said, pouring himself another drink without waiting for approval. "These 'reviews' are going to be partial, limited." Nothing like that damn total renovation project. And hey... we prevented a fascist regime from taking over the city, so we won something, right?
Fiyero raised an eyebrow, the gesture heavy with irony.
"The district and the neighborhoods will survive. The government won't dare touch them, not after the scandal. There are lines even they don't dare cross. But it's the small businesses that will suffer. The family businesses. The people who don't have a voice at press conferences."
Brrr, leaning against the bar with an empty glass in his hands, he murmured in his deep, measured voice:
"Even when you win... you lose on several fronts."
A thick silence enveloped them again. One that isn't easily broken, because there's nothing more to say when hope becomes a scarce commodity.
At that moment, Fiyero sensed movement. A figure had just entered through the front door, moving with almost ceremonious calm to the bar. Without thinking, Fiyero left the rag on the wood and walked toward him, a host's instinct that doesn't disappear even in ruins. The man sat down with a distinguished, but not ostentatious, bearing. His gray suit was impeccable, his hair swept back with surgical precision. He had the kind of face you might see in portraits hanging in council chambers or in the city's oldest buildings.
"I'm sorry, sir," Fiyero said, stopping in front of him. "We're closing. Probably... for good. But if you'd like one last drink, I'd be happy to serve it."
The man looked up. His icy blue eyes bore into Fiyero's with a mixture of assessment and recognition.
"I'll just have whiskey. Straight. No ice," he said, his voice low but firm.
It was as he spoke those words that Fiyero recognized him. Tension slid down his spine like a shock.
"Highmuster Upland," he said softly, more as a statement than a greeting. Although they hadn't met face to face in a while, Fiyero instantly recognized Highmuster Upland, Glinda's father. He vaguely remembered him from that distant—and at times so absurd—time when he and Glinda pretended to be "something": a cover couple, a convenient image, a gilt-edged illusion that hid just how complex their lives truly were. And although there was never much conversation between the two of them, Fiyero had always found him... curious. Friendlier, in his own way, in that diplomatic way of men trained to smile elegantly while silently judging everything.
And yet, there was something else. Perhaps it was the fact that, in those years, Highmuster had seen him as just another guy: another rich idiot trying to impress his brilliant daughter without really knowing her worth. That condescending look had been there, yes… but over time—and especially now, sitting across from him in a club on the verge of disappearing—Fiyero could tell something had changed. There was respect in his voice, in the way he looked around the place, in the way he held his glass leisurely, as if he wanted to savor not just the whiskey, but everything the place represented.
"You know," Highmuster said after a few seconds of contemplation, "This place was wilder in the eighties. I remember coming here with a colleague from the Ministry... I think it was a theme party. They made me dress like I was part of a musical. The most elegant fool I've ever made in my life."
Fiyero let out a hearty laugh, more honest than any laugh he'd had all week. A laugh tinged with melancholy, of course, but also with gratitude. She pictured the towering Highmuster Upland in shiny shoulder pads, sunglasses, and tight jeans, dancing uncoordinated as flashbulbs exploded around him. The image was too good not to laugh at.
"I can't imagine it," Fiyero said, smiling. "Or maybe I can, and that's why it scares me."
Highmuster let out a small smile, that sharp smile that seemed to say, "Yes, I was young once, even if you don't believe it." Then silence fell between them again, softer this time, like a coat wrapping them in shared memories.
"I'm sorry about what's happening," Highmuster said then, with a quiet seriousness. "I really am. This place... it meant something. Not just to you. To the city, too."
Fiyero, uncomfortable with sympathy, tried to play it down.
"This isn't the first time a place has closed. Another will come. There's always another."
"Sure," Highmuster nodded, gently turning the glass between his fingers. "But not all of them are filled with the same soul. Still... don't worry. This has happened before. The city... survives. It always does. What the government is after now is the same old thing: to appear strong. After you, Glinda, and the others exposed them to everyone, they need to reassert themselves. In full view of the people. But the truth is already out there, Fiyero. It can't be buried forever."
Fiyero looked down, touching the edge of the bar with his fingertips, as if he needed to feel the wood to remind himself that there was still something firm amidst it all.
"Sometimes I feel like we made so much noise... only for it all to return to the same," he murmured.
"Perhaps. But sometimes," Highmuster replied, a curious gleam in his eyes, "that noise leaves cracks in the walls. And that's where the light comes in."
Fiyero looked up. It wasn't the kind of speech I expected from a diplomat of his caliber. But there it was: a truth that didn't need to be embellished with empty promises.
"I've been thinking, all this time," Highmuster continued, more relaxed, as if he could finally speak without the ambassador's mask. "Whether you like it or not, the city keeps changing. And if you really want to do something worthwhile… you have to be part of that change. It's no use resisting from the sidelines. You have to get your hands dirty. Build something from within."
Fiyero nodded, not with resignation, but with a deeper understanding. Like someone who, after struggling against the current for a long time, decides to learn to swim in it.
"I'm considering investing in smaller, but special, businesses," Highmuster said bluntly. "Not impersonal chains. Not bland franchises. Places with character. Places like this. And you, Fiyero... you seem like the right guy to run something like this."
Fiyero looked at him, first in disbelief, then with a spark igniting in the depths of his eyes.
"Are you saying that...?"
"I know some buildings for sale in the north," Highmuster interrupted, taking a sip of his drink. "Old theaters. Some bars with history. Large venues, with potential. Of course... that is, if anyone were interested in doing something with them."
It took Fiyero a few seconds to react. The fatigue of the night seemed to slowly dissipate, displaced by an unexpected excitement. He understood where he was going. He understood the gesture. It wasn't a lifeline... it was an invitation. To start over, but without giving up what was.
"Are you saying I could recreate a place like this?"
"With your touch, of course," Highmuster said, bowing his head slightly. "This isn't about copying the past. It's about honoring it... and building something that surpasses it."
Fiyero smiled, this time with conviction. One of those smiles that isn't born of immediate joy, but of the certainty that there are still worthwhile paths ahead.
"I have some ideas," he said, as if the phrase hung in the air, light and powerful.
Highmuster looked at him with genuine intrigue, raising an eyebrow as if already wondering what wonders might come from that tired, but still creative, mind.
"So... maybe this isn't the end," the man said. "Just a new beginning."
And for the first time all night, Fiyero believed it.
Highmuster stood with the same elegance with which he had arrived, as if his presence in that place had been nothing more than a fleeting apparition, a comet crossing the dark sky with the promise of something better. With a serene smile, he reached into the inside pocket of his coat, pulled out a business card of a sober but elegant design—thick paper, embossed gold lettering—and slid it across the bar until it lay in front of Fiyero.
"Call me as soon as possible," he said with a knowing wink. "We have a lot to discuss… and a lot to plan."
Fiyero nodded, his voice burning with an enthusiasm he thought he'd lost in the ashes of this long conflict.
"I will. Believe me, I will."
Highmuster smoothed the cuffs of his shirt, adjusted his coat, and prepared to leave. But after taking a few steps, he stopped, looking down at the ground as if a reflection had struck him at that very moment. He turned to Fiyero once more, his face no longer smiling but serene, filled with a wisdom that only years and scars can acquire.
"You know," he began, in a lower, almost intimate tone. "What you did, separating from your family for all this... it couldn't have been easy. Giving up your family name, your legacy, your comfort... I know what that means. And I know it wasn't a light decision."
Fiyero looked at him silently. He said nothing, but his eyes appreciated the words more than any phrase could have.
"Sometimes," Highmuster continued, "the hardest actions... are the right ones. Especially when it comes to walking away from what hurts us. We can't always save what we love... but we can save ourselves. And if we're lucky... others along the way."
They stood like that for a moment, suspended in that silent exchange of mutual respect. Then Highmuster simply bowed slightly, in a courteous farewell, and walked off into the night as if he'd come just to say that, to leave that seed of possibility before disappearing.
Fiyero followed him with his eyes until the club door softly closed behind him. And then he looked down at the card between his fingers, with a soft, private smile. It was as if the world, which had slammed shut at the end of this story, had suddenly left a window ajar.
It was then that Boq, with a timid step and a half-empty glass in his hand, approached from the other end of the bar, observing the scene with eyes that were both surprised and curious.
"Excuse me," he said cautiously. "Was that... Mr. Upland?"
Fiyero, still staring at the card, didn't respond immediately. Instead, his voice came out like an idea speaking itself aloud, rather than a direct answer.
"Boq... would you be interested in working as a manager at a new, emerging club?"
Boq blinked, confused for a second, as if he thought he'd heard wrong.
"What... Are you serious?"
Fiyero looked up and smiled. That broken but determined smile of his, the one he'd used so many times to lift others up when he himself could barely stand.
"Dead serious. I'm done looking back. I want to build something. And I'm going to need people I trust."
Boq stood there, speechless, holding the glass, his eyes slightly moistened by fatigue and, perhaps, by a spark of hope that had slipped through the ruins of the night.
And in the background, the club's old clock struck the final hour of a cycle that was closing. Outside, the city continued to breathe. Gray, wounded, distrustful... but alive. With its flickering lights, its dirty streets, and that eternal murmur that seemed to say "there's still more."
Because even after losing, when little remains but willpower, the future—stubborn and capricious—can smile.
And that night, for the first time in a long time, it did.
While an uncertain glimmer of the future began to emerge among the rubble of what had once been the club, in another part of the city, far from the echo of empty toasts and nascent pacts, two women lay silently, searching—almost groping—for their rightful place in a world that no longer seemed to have room for them.
Elphaba's penthouse, normally a refuge of firm walls and sober corners, now seemed like a stage set suspended outside of time. The dim lights of the city flickered behind the windows like distant concrete fireflies, oblivious to the emotional turmoil churning beneath that ceiling. In the dimness of the room, Elphaba and Glinda lay on the bed, still in their day clothes, exhausted, vulnerable. Their intertwined fingers were the only constant, the only gesture that belied the emotional distance that had sometimes separated their worlds.
They stared at the ceiling without seeing it, as if it held answers they dared not speak aloud. The air was still, and only their breathing—slow, measured—marked the passage of time.
"What now?" Glinda asked in a barely audible whisper, as if afraid of breaking something by saying it.
They had fought their battles. Some had won, others had lost. But they fought them together. And while that meant something—while it meant a lot—it didn't dispel the uncertainty that hung like a shadow over their thoughts. What came next was uncharted territory.
The only thing they knew for sure was that, whatever that future held, they wanted to walk it together.
"They won't leave us alone," Glinda added with a hint of sadness, still holding her hand. "We started all this, we set it in motion, and now it's gotten out of hand. We won't even be able to leave the building without being bombarded with questions, with demands… with demands."
Elphaba gently squeezed her hand in a sign of comfort, and spoke in a firm but tired voice.
"We've already fought with everything we had," she said. "Now it's the city's turn to continue. It's its fight too."
A thick silence settled between them, not awkward, but charged. Like those pauses that only exist between two people who have already said almost everything, and at the same time have so much left to say. The night seemed to embrace them in that bubble suspended between what was and what could have been.
Glinda slowly turned her face toward Elphaba. Her gaze shone not with the reflection of the city, but with the question she didn't dare let go... until she did.
"If you could turn back time..." she said timidly, like a half-spoken confession. "To Christmas night..."
Elphaba felt a knot form in her stomach. She knew exactly what she meant. That night, amid the cold, the flickering lights, and the hopeful murmurs, when Elphaba had held out her hand. When she had said, "Let's go. Leave all this behind. Come with me." But Glinda didn't go. And Elphaba left alone.
"Would you change anything?" —Glinda finished, her voice trembling slightly, as if each word hurt a little.
Elphaba was slow to respond. When she did, her voice was low, almost a whisper.
"Leaving you that time... was the worst mistake I've ever made."
Glinda blinked, swallowing.
"Not leaving with you... was mine," she replied, just as sincerely.
She turned slowly until she was snuggled up next to Elphaba, resting her face on the other's chest, closing her eyes, listening to her heartbeat. Elphaba lowered her gaze and put an arm around Glinda, pulling her closer, resting her chin on her head, as if her anchor in reality depended on that gesture.
They didn't know if the world out there would still see them as leaders, as traitors, as symbols or threats. They didn't know if they would be welcomed or rejected, if they might have a new cause or just a long exile.
But maybe—just maybe—they would have another chance. For them. For what never ended up being. For what, despite everything, they never stopped longing for.
Glinda raised her face slightly, her eyes shining with a soft tenderness, fragile as crystal. Her voice, unadorned and unadorned, caressed the air between them:
"What if this time we have another chance?" she whispered. "To leave... together."
Elphaba looked at her silently, as if afraid to break the spell of that moment. A melancholy smile slowly spread across her lips, without mockery, without defense.
"Leave?" she repeated sweetly. "Where to?"
Glinda didn't hesitate.
"Anywhere. You once said you wanted to see the world... maybe this is our chance. We spent so much time running in circles, trying to find each other amidst the chaos, amidst the noise. Maybe now we can move forward. It doesn't matter where. Only the how matters. Together."
The proposal was as simple as it was absurd, as impulsive as it was necessary. Elphaba looked at her for a moment, then let out a soft chuckle, full of wonder and tenderness.
"Are you saying you want to leave everything and never return?"
Glinda shook her head, certain, firm.
"No. We will return... someday. But not now. For now, we have a whole world ahead of us. One we can discover in our own way. Away from prying eyes, away from judgment. Just you and me. As it was always meant to be."
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. Her mind was torn between roots and wings, between what still hurt and what could heal. But when she looked at her, when she saw the sincerity in those eyes she knew better than she knew herself, there was no room for doubt.
"You're crazy," she murmured, between laughs.
Glinda sat up slightly, moving closer, her lips brushing against hers with a mixture of daring and tenderness.
"Maybe," she said. “But tell me, what do you think?..... Are you coming?”
Elphaba stared at her, and for a moment the world stopped. All the fears, all the hurts, all the old versions of herself dissolved into that question. There was no map, no destination. Only a promise.
"With you..." Elphaba replied, her voice as low as a sigh, as firm as an ancient promise. "I would go until the end of time."
The kiss that followed wasn't grand or perfect. It was real. A silent pact between two weary souls who, at last, chose each other without fear. They held each other tightly, their bodies seeking shelter amidst the uncertainty. And for the first time in a long time, they both smiled without regret, without masks.
Clinging to each other, they knew they didn't need answers.
Only a path.
And the certainty of never walking it alone again.
Soon after, Elphaba's penthouse, once a refuge from battles and storms, was filled with a new movement. Vital. Joyful. Two figures flitted around the room like girls running away from school, packing amid laughter, gentle shoves, and excited exclamations. Suitcases opened with a resounding click, like portals to another life they were only just beginning to imagine. Elphaba, true to her practical nature, sorted through a small pile of clothes, folded with meticulous efficiency, while Glinda, surrounded by a mountain of dresses, heels, hats, and scarves, debated between aesthetics and common sense.
"Is this necessary?" Elphaba asked, holding up a pair of boots with ridiculously high heels.
"Of course it is!" Glinda countered with mock indignation. "You don't know when we might need to make a good impression."
"For what? To impress some cactus in the Western desert?" "Cactus? Are we going to the desert?"
"I said West, not desert. Although it doesn't sound so bad. Few people, grand landscapes, lots of stars..."
Glinda thought for a second, then smiled, her eyes twinkling.
"I like it. Let's start with the West, then."
"The West will be our beginning," Elphaba repeated with a hint of unintentional poetry, which drew a soft laugh from Glinda.
As they discussed what to take and what the ideal route might be, the connection between them grew stronger, more fluid, as if all the old versions of themselves had finally merged into this new phase, without needing to hide or disguise themselves.
Glinda quickly rummaged through her things, randomly throwing items onto the bed, many of which Elphaba ended up folding out of sheer need for order. Between laughter, jokes, and comments, the atmosphere in the apartment became light, almost weightless. As if the past was left behind with each piece of clothing packed.
"You know," Glinda commented as she closed one of her suitcases with effort. "For now, at least we won't have to worry about looking for new jobs..."
"Phew... that's a relief," Elphaba replied, slumping onto the sofa, panting dramatically.
Glinda looked at her with a mischievous smile, crossing her arms.
"Although I must admit I still have a small thorn in my side," she said theatrically. "I would have loved to give that despicable Professor Norman what he deserved for what he did to you."
With a smile full of satisfaction, Elphaba looked at Glinda and said casually,
"Don't worry about Norman. Let's just say... someone owed me a favor. And he's already been taken care of."
Glinda narrowed her eyes, intrigued.
"Someone? Who...?"
"Don't ask," Elphaba replied with an enigmatic half-smile. "It's better not to know."
And almost as if the universe responded to its own twisted logic, in an unknown part of the city, far from the light of day and the noise of everyday life, inside an abandoned warehouse whose sole purpose seemed to be to hide secrets, two figures suddenly woke up.
Professor Isaac Norman, still with traces of arrogance in his eyes, and the insufferable math teacher—his lover, with whom he shared not only retrograde ideas but a profound lack of charisma—found themselves gagged and tied to chairs, their wrists firmly restrained by chains and neon lights flickering above their heads as if hell itself had taken on a modern aesthetic.
They both struggled in vain, their eyes filled with bewilderment and fear, until the sound of heavy footsteps interrupted the silence.
Two young women dressed in school uniforms stopped in front of them.
One had hair as dark as night and an expression that seemed carved from tombstone; The other radiated an almost comical enthusiasm, with blond curls and a smile so wide it was disturbing. Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair.
The two gazed at each other for a second, sharing one of those looks that said more than any words. Then, without taking their eyes off their hostages, they kissed slowly, almost ceremoniously. It was tender. And deeply disturbing.
Then, as if part of a carefully rehearsed ritual, they each put on masks. Wednesday opted for a white porcelain mask with black teardrops painted on it; Enid for a pink bear mask covered in sequins and metal fangs.
Wednesday picked up a long scalpel with the precision of a surgeon. Enid unrolled a trolley filled with scissors, paintbrushes, glitter, paints, and a hot glue gun.
"New test subject," Wednesday whispered with delight, running a cold finger over Norman's face.
"And a new doll to play with," Enid crooned, approaching the math teacher with sparkling eyes. "Oh, there's so much room for improvement!"
Wednesday slowly turned her face toward her victim, tilting her head.
"I told you our anniversary would be unforgettable."
"And it is!" Enid laughed as she chose her first color of eyeshadow. I'm so excited... it's like couples therapy, but with scalpels!
They both approached leisurely, raising their "instruments" theatrically, ready to unleash their macabre creativity.
The cellar filled with the sound of giggles and whispers, mingled with the useless muffled screams of their victims. Outside, no one could hear a thing.
And so, in some secret corner of the city, as Glinda and Elphaba prepared their journey to freedom, two girls celebrated their love... in their own way.
Slowly. With precision. And with great style.
"Sometimes endings are nothing more than beginnings in disguise. Sometimes to find our place, we must first leave everything behind: the pain, the guilt, the hurt... even parts of who we once were."
Dawn fell like a slow sigh over the sleeping city. The streets, damp with night dew, shimmered in the dim orange light of the lanterns, while the world seemed to hold its breath, waiting for the beginning of something new. In a secluded corner in front of Elphaba's apartment building, the trunk of Glinda's car suddenly opened with a metallic screech. Elphaba, wrapped in a long, dark coat that protected her from the cold, laboriously loaded the last suitcases. Her fingers grew slightly numb from the touch of the icy metal, but it didn't matter. Not now.
Glinda stood by the car, wrapped in an ivory woolen scarf that covered part of her face. She gazed at the skyline of the city stretching into the distance, its silhouette outlined against the sky that was tentatively beginning to lighten. Her gaze was damp, but serene. It wasn't sadness she felt. It was something deeper. It was farewell.
"Ready?" Elphaba asked, closing the trunk with a firm shove that echoed in the empty street.
Glinda nodded silently. When Elphaba approached her side, they held hands without thinking, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. They looked at each other. There was no need for words. Not now. The journey wasn't just physical; it was a promise made flesh, a reconciliation with the past and a leap into the void of the unknown.
"Sometimes we think the past defines us. That wounds are the roots of who we are. But with time—and sometimes, only with the right distance—we understand that it's not the pain that shapes us, but what we choose to do with it. What we leave behind doesn't disappear, but it stops weighing on us when we decide to move forward. And even more so when we move forward holding the hand of the one we love most."
In another corner of the city, inside the decaying but still-lit Ozdust lounge, Fiyero raised his glass one last time. Beside him, Boq, Brrr, Tibbett, Crope, and The Whiz laughed with a bittersweet nostalgia. The lights flickered over the empty dance floor, now silent, as if it too were saying goodbye. They had closed a chapter, yes, but something new was growing in their hearts: a project, an idea, a different dream. In the background, music played softly, and Fiyero toasted without looking back, with the conviction of someone who has decided to commit to something better.
"To what is to come," he said. "To what we are going to build."
"Many said goodbye with the hope of what tomorrow holds. Others, with wounds that still ached."
At the Upland residence, it was a different story. The silence was thick, as dense as the red wine Larena held between her fingers. She sat alone in the large armchair in the main living room, the low light casting long shadows on the marble walls. Her eyes were red, exhausted, fixed on a family photograph where everything seemed so perfect… so false. Her trembling fingers caressed the edge of the frame with tenderness and rage, in an emotional swing that wore her down from the inside out.
Then, the door opened. Highmuster entered unannounced. He stopped when he saw her, his eyes hardened with disappointment. There were no shouts, no words. Just a look filled with what was left unsaid, what no longer mattered. He simply nodded and retreated to his room. Larena didn't stop him. She just stood there, motionless, watching the door close and leave her alone with her wine, her photo… and her silence.
"Some endings come without redemption. But even there, in the most sterile sadness, there is truth."
Meanwhile, in the dark skies above the city, a private jet cut through the clouds. Inside, Senator Oz watched the lights in the distance. He didn't seem tired, but he was thoughtful. He frowned as his finger slowly turned the ring on his right hand.
"Sir," the flight attendant said gently. "Miss Morrible insists on speaking with you. She says it's urgent."
Oz didn't take his eyes off the window.
"Tell her I'm unavailable," he replied emotionlessly.
With a sigh, he returned his attention to the folder on the table. It was thin, elegant, with the name "Elphaba Thropp" in black letters on a white background. As he opened it, his eyes lingered on the family history section. His frown deepened. Something about those lines caught his attention… something he hadn't noticed before.
"You can run away from many things. From a scandal. From a past. From a city that turned you into a monster. But from some people… you don't run away. You just postpone the confrontation."
And while in one part of the city, the only lighting was the neon glow of a secluded bar, one where shadows drink as much as souls. At a side table, sitting alone with an amber drink in one hand and her cell phone abandoned on the wood, Miss Morrible gritted her teeth. Her face, wrinkled with fury, was barely illuminated by the dim light, as she angrily tossed her phone to the side, resigned to the idea that her "partner" had abandoned her. In front of her, a fresh edition of the newspaper, open to the front page: a picture of Elphaba and Glinda in the audience, holding hands, serene and strong.
With a grimace of disgust, Morrible crushed out her lit cigarette right over their faces. The paper crackled under the heat of the tobacco, and a cloud of ash rose like a curse.
"They look better this way," a female voice said mockingly.
Morrible looked up, annoyed. In front of her, a young waitress in a tight uniform, red hair tied back in a ponytail, thin glasses, and a razor-sharp smile held her gaze. Her name didn't need to be spoken.
Milla.
The look they exchanged wasn't that of strangers. It was a silent promise. A dark complicity.
Morrible gave a crooked smile and nodded slowly.
"Even when we leave, something of us always remains behind. A rumor, a trace, a spark that never completely goes out. Because some pasts aren't forgotten. Some pasts... become future threats."
Back in front of the building, Elphaba and Glinda got into the car. Elphaba took the wheel, and Glinda, still holding her hand, settled into the passenger seat. The engine started with a soft purr, and the vehicle glided through the silent streets, passing unlit traffic lights and familiar corners. Soon, the city began to fade behind them. The skyscrapers became silhouettes, and the asphalt transformed into a road. Elphaba glanced at Glinda, who smiled as the morning wind played with her golden hair. They looked at each other. And laughed. With that light laughter that comes from the soul when it finally feels free.
"West, did you say?" Glinda asked with a mischievous smile.
"West," Elphaba affirmed, speeding up a little more. "To where the map says nothing. To where the new begins."
"And so it began. Not a flight. Not an escape. But a choice. To walk into the unknown knowing that, for the first time, I was not alone.
Life has strange ways of pushing us off the path we thought was ours. But sometimes... it's on the fringes that we finally find what truly matters.
Love. Freedom. Truth. And most of all... a new beginning."
And the car continued on its way as the city fell behind them and the world, in all its vastness, opened up before them.
Morning was finally breaking over the city. The sun was beginning to filter between the skyscrapers like a timid but constant intrusion, drenching the streets in a golden and promising light. In the lobby of the elegant building where Elphaba Thropp had lived, everything looked the same as always: polished marble, soft lights, instrumental music barely filling the air. But the calm was just another illusion.
Jason, the young man at the front desk, was returning to his post with a steaming coffee in his hands and headphones dangling from his neck. He yawned as he walked across the cold marble, not expecting anything out of the ordinary. That's when he saw her.
A young woman was standing by the counter. She had arrived silently, like a whisper. She was wearing a simple dress of a dull blue, travel-worn boots, and a coat draped over her arm. Her brown hair fell in soft waves, and her serene blue eyes scanned the lobby intently, as if searching for something she already knew.
Jason straightened quickly, hiding his yawn with improvised professionalism.
"Uh... excuse me, miss. May I help you?"
The young woman smiled gently.
"Yes. I'm looking for Elphaba Thropp. I was told she lives here."
Jason blinked, surprised. The name wasn't common. And in fact... yes, right. Mrs. Thropp. Or miss. It had never been clear. He'd only met her a couple of times in person, and she wasn't usually very friendly.
"Ah... yes, yes, that's right. She lives here... or, well, used to," he said with a nervous gesture. "The colleague from the previous shift told me she left early this morning. She left with a companion. They had bags. Maybe a trip."
The young woman didn't seem disappointed. She just nodded with an odd calmness, almost as if she'd expected it.
"No problem. I can wait. I know it'll be worth it."
Jason swallowed. There was something... peculiar about her. Not threatening, not exactly. But different. As if reality were bending a little around her, as if she didn't quite fit into the ordinary world.
"Do you want me to leave a message for when she get back? A number? A name?"
The young woman tilted her head. Her smile widened slightly.
"Oh... no need. Elphie already knows who I am."
Jason felt a chill run down his neck.
"Would you like to leave your name anyway?" he persisted, more out of protocol than anything else.
The young woman seemed to think about it for a second longer. Then, as if as a courtesy to make him feel better, she inclined her head slightly and replied,
"Gale. Dorothy Gale."
And with that name hanging in the air like an ancient echo, she sat down in one of the armchairs in the lobby. She crossed her legs, rested her elbows on the armrests, and stared straight ahead, serene and patient. Like someone who had arrived exactly when she was supposed to. Like someone who knew that what was truly important... hadn't even begun yet.
Notes:
And with that, we conclude the end of this second season! Anyway, the story is still far from over, and as the end of this chapter indicates, the next season will be a little different, following our protagonists on a road trip that will take them to different places and unique experiences. I'll be taking a short break before starting the next season, but I'll leave you with this preview. As always, please comment and share your opinions about what you think of the story so far and what you would like or hope for its future.
Chapter 20: SPECIAL: ONE SHORT DAY
Notes:
Special chapter that serves as an interlude between seasons two and three, I hope you enjoy it!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
SPECIAL CHAPTER: One Short Day
The sky was beginning to turn shades of orange and purple, like a watercolor slowly spreading across the horizon. The sun, tired but still proud, was gracefully descending behind the distant hills. On the highway, silent except for the murmur of the wind and the occasional truck forgotten by time, a luxury vehicle was advancing. It didn't run, it floated, as if its presence were out of place on that dusty, featureless route. The golden reflection of the sunset curved across its tinted windows, returning a blurred image of two figures inside, immersed in a barely contained argument.
A few miles away, next to a rusty sign that barely retained the letters "Sunset Diner," a small roadside diner stood with dignity against the ravages of time. The striped awning bent in the breeze, and the sound of an old blues song escaped through a crack in the half-open window, mingling with the constant sizzle of the stove. Inside, the yellow light was soft and inviting. The walls were adorned with framed photos from decades past, awards for “best cherry pie in the county,” and newspaper clippings recounting happier times. The clientele was sparse: a single man wearing a dusty hat and a blank stare; an elderly couple sharing a vanilla milkshake without speaking; and a young woman in the corner, typing on her laptop with a frown.
The waitress, in her fifties, her hair tied back in a tight ponytail, was finishing pouring coffee into the half-empty cups while mentally counting the coins clinking in her apron. She turned back to the register and sighed. “Five dollars twenty,” she murmured, knowing that wasn’t going to improve much for the rest of the shift. From the kitchen, a male voice echoed through the steam and the smell of fried onions:
“Do you think anyone else will order anything, or can I turn off the griddle?”
She raised an eyebrow, turning her head toward the solitary man’s table.
"Unless Mr. Apple Pie on the corner wants another slice, I think you're safe, Chuck," she said, wiping her hands on her apron.
The routine continued as it had so many nights. Until the muffled roar of the luxury engine broke the calm. The car's headlights reflected in the shop's windows and then slowly went out. The waitress, without looking up from her checks, already knew what was coming. She rolled her eyes.
"Please don't let it be six clingy kids and one father who thinks the kids' menu is optional," she whispered to herself.
The vehicle's door opened and, as in a perfectly rehearsed scene, two female figures got out. One tall, slender, dressed in functional clothing, dark and elegant in its coldness; the other radiant, perfectly coiffed despite the journey, wearing a light pink blazer that seemed resistant to staining with the dust of the real world. As imposing as they seemed, they didn't bring peace: they were arguing. And excitedly. "You can't just change the station mid-song! The chorus was coming up!" she protested, taking off her glasses and pointing at her companion.
The second, taller, greenish-skinned brunette was wearing a worn leather jacket, sturdy boots, and had an air of natural sarcasm in her eyes.
"I was saving you from another self-help pop ballad with ukuleles. You're welcome," she replied, shrugging as she slammed the car door shut.
"That song was about emotional resilience! It was beautiful!" the blonde countered.
"It was a musical crime," the brunette corrected. "And if you're going to torture me like this, at least let me speed up... we've been going at a snail's pace since we left the city!"
The two entered the club amid murmurs, exchanging barbs that floated with familiarity rather than tension. They knew each other too well. Enough to argue without hurting each other. The waitress watched them enter from her position and, for a moment, felt the air of the restaurant change. Not because of luxury or status, but because of the energy with which both women inhabited the space. So different that it seemed impossible not to notice them, and yet, they walked as if they were pieces of the same puzzle, finally fitted together.
"Table for two," the brunette said, casting an exploratory glance around the interior as if assessing a new dimension.
"If possible, by a window," the blonde added with a friendly smile and a tone that barely concealed her travel fatigue.
"Sure, follow me," the waitress replied, taking their menus while still observing them curiously.
As they walked toward the back of the restaurant, the other customers looked up for a moment, some because of the contrast, others because it was impossible not to stare. And yet, when the two sat down face to face, the murmurs died away. As if that corner of the restaurant had closed in on itself, containing them and the comfortable silence that was beginning to form.
The sun had already begun to set behind the hills, and the orange light cast long shadows on the wall. Elphaba, leaning back in her chair, gazed out the window at the horizon while Glinda flipped through the menu with exaggerated abandon.
"Do you know this place has three kinds of waffles?" Glinda commented, without taking her eyes off the laminated paper. "I didn't know that was legal in one establishment."
"Are you surprised?" Elphaba responded with a raised eyebrow. "You're in no-rules territory now, Princess. Unlimited waffles and sad songs playing in the background... anything goes."
Glinda laughed softly, closing the menu.
"I like it. It's... relaxing. Not what I was hoping for on our first day, but I like it."
"And what were you expecting? A welcoming fireworks display?"
"No, something more... symbolic, maybe," she replied thoughtfully. "But now that I think about it, this is perfect. You, me, waffles, and no drama. Finally."
Elphaba took one of the coffee cups the waitress had left them shortly after and blew out the steam slowly, watching Glinda over the rim.
"Don't get too excited. Drama tends to find us all the same," she said, but her voice held no cynicism. Only a gentle warning tinged with truth.
The light from the window had softened into a faint gold as the conversation between Glinda and Elphaba shifted, as always, to terrain as familiar as it was chaotic: food. The menu cards, laminated and somewhat sticky to the touch, rested between their hands as they both scanned the options with different priorities in mind.
"Look at this," Glinda said, pointing to a triple-decker hamburger with cheese melting down the sides. "How awful. Three kinds of meat and bacon on top? Don't they believe in arteries here?"
"No," Elphaba replied without looking up. "But they do believe in flavor. And in cardiac collapse as a spiritual experience."
Glinda sighed exaggeratedly, crossing her legs and adjusting her coat belt as she adopted her pedagogical tone.
"I remind you that since we left the city, I've officially begun my vegan life. And I'm not about to break it just because we're stuck in a roadside cafe where the freshest vegetables probably come in a can."
"Oh, yes," Elphaba muttered, unable to suppress a crooked smile. "The vegan life. How many times have you said that before? Five? Six?"
Glinda crossed her arms, pursing her lips in disdain.
"That doesn't matter, I'm taking it seriously this time. It's a matter of principle. And also of inner cleansing, mental clarity, and vibrational energy."
"And how does that translate to this menu?" Elphaba asked, leafing through the menu with a resigned expression. "Are you going to order a salad without dressing or soul?"
"I can have fries," Glinda said with a triumphant smile. Technically, they're vegan, so that, combined with a healthy drink, would be an ethically healthy delicacy!
Elphaba rolled her eyes, putting the menu aside.
"That's very noble of you. But I remind you that now that we're officially out of work, and we no longer have your parents' magic credit card, maybe we should consider not spending twenty-five dollars on a pressed juice that's actually mint water with a floating cucumber. Maybe we should pretend we care about money."
"Or maybe we should just enjoy the trip of our lives without obsessing over the expense!" Glinda retorted, offended but still in her lighthearted tone. "Isn't this supposed to be an adventure? A road trip to reconnect, break free, start over? Are we really going to turn it into financial therapy?"
"I'm just saying, if we order dessert, we'll split it," Elphaba said with a half-smile. "And don't even think about getting one with glitter."
From the counter, the waitress watched them while leisurely wiping a cup. Leaning on one elbow, she murmured something barely audible to the chef, who was still peering through the small kitchen window. He, a broad man with a stained apron and a gray beard like dirty cotton, let out a low, cutting laugh.
"What do we bet?" the waitress said with amusement. "A couple in crisis mode on vacation, or friends escaping a wedding they didn't want to attend?"
"A couple, for sure," the chef replied. They have that "I love you but I want to throw you out the window" energy. And you saw how one grabbed the other's hand at first. Friends don't do that, not like that. There's history there.
"So what are they doing here?" the waitress muttered, turning around slightly to peer unnoticed. "None of them has a backpack, and with those shoes... they're not traveling for sport. I bet they're running away. From someone, or from themselves."
"What are you going to bet if you always win?" the chef grunted, going back to slowly chopping onions.
"My thing is observation, dear," she replied, and took two glasses to bring them water.
Several more minutes passed between glances at the menu, theatrical sighs, and the impatient tapping of perfectly manicured nails on the Formica tabletop. Elphaba, now resigned, amused herself by looking at the other diners as if she were on a human safari, while her companion remained in precision gastronomic operation mode.
"I got it!" Glinda suddenly exclaimed, enlightened like someone who'd just solved an ancient mystery. "I'll have the Southwest salad... but without the cheese, the croutons, or the chipotle dressing, which is surely full of lactose. Oh, and instead of chicken, do you think they could put avocado? And maybe some hummus... if they have it."
Elphaba slowly turned her head toward her as if she'd just heard her order a unicorn delivery.
"Glinda... this place's signature dish is a 'three-meat omelet' served in a cast-iron skillet. The last time someone ordered something 'light' at a place like this, they brought tap water and a napkin."
"But I have hope!" Glinda replied, excited, as if that held some real power. "Besides, don't you find it liberating? We're away from everything, from everyone. No one knows us. We can be whoever we want! We're not in the city, Elphie. There are no cameras. No followers." There are no photographers hiding in the bushes.
"And yet here you are, putting on a show with a salad." Elphaba took a sip of her now-cold coffee and sighed. "Look, I'm not saying you can't order whatever you want, just... manage your expectations. Here, 'hummus' is probably code for 'sorry, what did you say, miss?'"
Glinda pouted, but her eyes sparkled.
"That's exactly what excites me. If no one knows who we are... why not play a little?"
"Because 'play a little' is your way of saying, 'this is going to end in a ludicrous lie that will get me embarrassed and possibly expelled from the establishment.'"
"Exactly. Isn't that exciting?"
Before Elphaba could answer with a resounding "no," the waitress approached, ready with her notepad, a tired smile, and an attitude that clearly said, 'I have three kids, a mortgage, and zero time for your nonsense.'" "Ready to order?"
Glinda straightened her back and gave her a smile as charming as it was suspicious.
"Yes, thank you, dear. I'll have the southwest salad, but without the cheese, without croutons, without chipotle, without chicken... if you can put avocado in its place, wonderful. And if there's hummus, that too. But not too much. Just... just enough."
The waitress raised an eyebrow. She didn't answer. She just wrote it down, with an economy of movement worthy of a sniper. Then she looked at Elphaba.
"Double burger, no pickles. And fries. Plenty," Elphaba answered effortlessly. Then, resigned, she added, "And a glass of patience for her, if you have any left."
"I'll see what I can do," the waitress replied, tersely but with a slight curl at the corner of her lips.
But just as she turned to leave, Glinda didn't miss the opportunity to add the finishing touch.
"Oh! And excuse me..." she said charmingly. "My name is Anastasia Von Glitterberg, an ambassador for sustainable wellness and an activist promoting women's voices around the world. And this," she said, pointing at Elphaba, "is my retired Russian bodyguard, Svetlana."
The waitress turned slowly.
"Uh-huh. Of course."
"We're just passing through. Traveling in search of inspiration. And gluten-free bread, but that's a different story."
"I understand." The waitress nodded neutrally, trained enough not to ask anything else. "Would you like sparkling water or tap water?"
And without another word, she walked away as if what she'd just heard wasn't the most absurd thing she'd heard that week... which, probably, was. Behind the counter, Chuck raised his eyebrows as she watched her walk by.
"So?" he asked.
"One says she's an ambassador of the feminine soul or something, and the other is... a Russian bodyguard," the waitress said without changing her tone. "Pass me the vodka."
Chuck chuckled and went back to flipping a pancake.
"I like them now."
Back at the table, Elphaba sank into her seat, with that expression somewhere between defeat and loving resignation that is only reserved for people worth putting up with this kind of madness for.
"Anastasia Von Glitterberg? Really?"
"She sounds important. And mysterious," Glinda responded proudly.
"She sounds like cheap perfume."
"And you should be more fun!"
"I can't. I'm too busy being Svetlana."
The minutes passed, and while Elphaba flipped through the menu for the third time as if she would discover the cure for boredom within its pages, Glinda couldn't stay still. She shifted in her seat as if the seams of her clothes were made of caffeine and spices. Her eyes, large and bright like a curious cat's, darted from table to table, with the excitement of someone who thinks they're surrounded by characters straight out of an adventure novel.
"Look, look, look, Elphie," she whispered urgently, leaning toward her as if they were spies on an undercover mission. "Do you see those three over there? The ones with the leather jackets, the piercings, and the 'I hate my family' aura? Don't you find them absolutely fascinating?"
Elphaba barely looked up.
"The teenagers who look like they've been kicked out of an indie band for being too sad?"
"Exactly!" Glinda clapped silently, beaming. "Don't they give you vibes of a... creative trio? They probably travel the roads together, writing songs about pain, love, the weather, I don't know. She's clearly the lead singer. Look at those desperately lined eyes." He—she pointed at the taller one, with a dowdy pompadour and oversized boots—probably plays bass and is secretly in love with the other guy, who clearly writes destructive poetry and accidentally breaks everyone's hearts. They must be like... a walking emotional tornado!
Elphaba smiled faintly, putting the menu aside.
"And you got all that from how the fries are divided?"
"Exactly! Observe. It's all in the gestures. In the silences. In the way she looks out the window as if hiding a trauma she hasn't written a song about yet."
"Or maybe she's just tired, the poetry guy is hungry, and the bass player has been thinking about going to the bathroom since they arrived." Elphaba took a sip of coffee. "Not everyone is on her dramatic arc, Glinda."
But Glinda wouldn't give up.
"It's just... no one is as simple as they seem. I'm sure everyone here is hiding secrets." Maybe that truck driver on the corner is actually a frustrated writer running away from his novel. Or that lady with the impeccable hairdo is a former criminal rehabilitated by baking. Elphie, we're surrounded by stories!
—And you're seconds away from writing fanfiction on your napkin.
But just then, as if the universe decided to intervene to keep things interesting, something happened. One of the boys in the trio—the one with the blank stare but the excessive style—took the pepper that came with his burger, scooped it out with two fingers, placed it on a napkin, crushed it with disproportionate fury using what was clearly a guitar pick or something equally useless for that matter… and then, without further ado, snorted it through his nose.
Glinda froze, her lips parted in a perfect “o” of horror and fascination.
And then, as if the pepper had been the key to some secret pact, the three teenagers began kissing each other. Without order. Without explanation. As if they had made a mental agreement. The girl kissed the one with the pompadour, then the other, then the two of them. All with the ease of someone sharing fries.
Elphaba let out a dry, genuine, and surprising laugh as her fork fell onto the tablecloth.
"Well, well... definitely not what I thought, eh, Anastasia Von Glitterberg?"
Glinda couldn't stop staring, like a witness to a slow-motion accident. Her expression oscillated between fascination, scandal, and a hint of envy.
"I... they... that's not healthy!" she stammered, still in shock.
"Or it is, depending on the pepper," Elphaba murmured, wiping away a tear of laughter.
"This changes everything," Glinda murmured, looking around again, but without the excited smile she'd had before. Suddenly, the faces of the other diners were no longer potential protagonists of inspiring stories, but rather suspects of eccentric or downright illegal behavior. "What if that gentleman who seemed so calm is adding names to his list of future crimes? What if that elderly couple actually can't stand each other and have been at war for years with fake smiles?" "What if the waitress has a basement full of stolen goods and fake names?" Elphaba played with her spoon, amused. "What if the chef is a fugitive who only cooks because he was accused of political treason in his homeland and now hides his plans in the special order instructions?"
Glinda blinked.
"Are you... joking, or was that real?"
"Who knows? Maybe I'm Svetlana, the Russian bodyguard."
Glinda looked at her for a second. Then she laughed, a little nervous, but more relaxed.
"I guess after the pepper thing, nothing surprises me anymore. I think I needed this. A reminder that... even the weirdest things aren't as magical as you think. They're just weird."
"Welcome to the world, Glitterberg."
Glinda fell back in her chair, her eyes wide open, but no longer with the excitement of someone who wants to absorb everything, but with the frozen stare of someone who just remembered leaving the stove on… in her entire life.
“Elphie,” she said, without blinking. “What are we doing?”
“Waiting for food?” Elphaba replied, flipping through the menu as if she hadn’t just watched three teenagers perform a scene straight out of an experimental French film.
“No. No. What are we doing with our lives?”
Elphaba raised an eyebrow without even looking up.
“Oh, right. Existential collapse comes before the entrance. Punctual, as always.”
Glinda put a hand to her forehead, as if the interior lighting suddenly weighed more than her false eyelashes.
“We left without a plan. Without work. Without hotel reservations. Without knowing if we’ll come home with anything but ridiculous anecdotes and debts.” What kind of idiot goes on an adventure without fully planning it?!
"The kind of idiot who needed to do it."
"What if... if everything goes wrong. If we can't find our way. If we end up selling bracelets on the beach, with our hair covered in salt, and talking in empty motivational phrases..." She covered her mouth in horror. "What if we become those people who say 'the universe conspires in your favor'!?"
"I don't think the universe has time to conspire in anyone's favor. It has enough to do just keeping spinning without throwing up."
Glinda looked at her with a mixture of pleading and despair.
"What if we're wasting our potential? What if this isn't the great adventure that will change our lives, but just a pointless detour, a silly interlude before everything gets worse?"
Elphaba finally looked at her. Her eyes, tired but clear, held not a hint of mockery now.
"What if it doesn't have to be a great adventure, Glinda?" What if it's just... this? You and me. Doing what we said we would. Traveling, eating bad food, sleeping in sketchy places, and laughing at the world like it didn't hurt. Maybe that's enough.
Glinda was silent. She took a deep breath. For a second, she seemed to be trying to stop the tears... but then she simply sighed.
"I've never done anything like this. The craziest thing I ever did was when I moved away for college and decided to live on my own. But until then... there was always a plan. A scholarship, a goal, an itinerary... a lifeline."
"And now you only have me," Elphaba said, with a half-smile. “Which, I admit, isn't the most reliable lifeline. I'm more of a sarcastic buoy”
—A sarcastic buoy that always floats.
—Was that a compliment or an accidental metaphor?
—A bit of both.
They looked at each other in silence, for the first time on the entire trip without useless words, without embellishment. Just two girls, tired, hungry, and a little lost... but together.
Glinda smiled weakly.
"What if instead of searching for a great story... we just let this be what it is?"
"Then I reserve the right to make fun of everything along the way."
"Done."
The silence that stretched between them wasn't awkward, but one of those rare moments when time softens, where the outside world hangs suspended on the other side of the glass and there are only two people sharing a table. Outside, the lanterns flickered with that decadent, urbane flicker, while inside the murmurs of the other diners were barely a muffled murmur, as if the place were floating in a bubble.
Glinda played with a napkin, folding it without paying attention, and suddenly, without looking up, she asked the question:
"What do you think our ending will be?"
Elphaba looked at her, tilting her head, confused.
"Our what?"
"Our ending," Glinda repeated, looking up with a calm but curious expression. "You know... like in fairy tales. What do you think our happily ever after will be?"
Elphaba frowned, half in mockery, half in bewilderment.
"Are you serious?"
"Yes," Glinda replied, still in her casual tone. "When I was a little girl, I used to imagine how my story was going to end."
Elphaba snorted a sarcastic laugh.
"Glinda... we're not even thirty yet. Isn't it a bit early to be thinking about the movie's ending?"
"I know!" she exclaimed, waving her hands. "I don't mean that as a fatalistic thing, it's just... a silly question. When I was a kid, I used to make up a new ending every week. First I wanted a castle, then to be president, then to have a puppy-themed café. Things like that."
"It sounds like a coherent progression."
"And you? You never thought about that?"
"No," Elphaba replied, without hesitation, without drama. As if I'd asked her about the weather.
"My perfect ending was having a stable job, a heated house, a stocked bookshelf, and no one asking me when I was going to 'grow out of my rebellious phase.'"
Glinda frowned in obvious disappointment.
"Ugh. That was boring. You sound like a depressed accountant."
"Thanks. That's both an insult and a compliment."
"No, no, no. Try again. But with the two of us. What would happen at the end of our story?"
Elphaba watched her, lips pursed, fighting the urge to respond with a practical joke. But then she sighed, slumped a little further into her seat, and, in a flat tone, blurted out,
"Our ending will probably be the two of us sharing a tiny apartment, scraping by with jobs we hate, arguing over who left the tap running, and feeding a stray cat that isn't even ours."
Glinda glared at her, her lips pursed in pure disappointment.
"Really? That's your happy ending... Someone else's cat and unpaid bills?"
Elphaba smiled with a raised eyebrow.
"You asked me to be honest."
Glinda crossed her arms, feigning offense.
"I take it back. Be charming, please. Just this once."
"Okay. Let's see... in my perfect ending, you and I buy an old house with too many stairs and a terrace where we can drink coffee undisturbed."
"And a garden?" —Glinda asked, excited as if she were already looking at flowerpot catalogs.
—Sure, a huge one. You fill it with flowers that don't survive because you forget to water them, and I pretend I don't care but end up secretly taking care of them at night.
—And we adopted a dog! An ugly one, with a face like it hates the world but only loves us.
—Of course. We named him Sartre.
—And you write philosophical essays that no one understands, and I open a small organic cosmetics shop with ridiculously poetic names.
—Yes, and every weekend we fight because you organize dinners with strangers to "break the routine" and I want to stay reading.
—But in the end you always join in and end up dancing!
—Only if you sing badly at karaoke.
They both looked at each other for a second. Glinda smiled as if she couldn't contain it, and so did Elphaba, though hers was more like the beginning of a smile that's still deciding whether it's going to stay or not.
"You know," Glinda said softly, "I like that ending. Even if we still have time to write a better one."
"Sure," Elphaba replied. "Or a worse one. You never know."
"Don't be so you."
"Impossible. I came that way naturally."
Just at that moment, the waitress appeared with the plates, interrupting the little universe they had created between them. She placed the plates in front of them without much ceremony. They still didn't know exactly what was inside—one looked suspiciously brown, the other was more shiny than food should be—but for some reason they didn't mind that much.
"Well," Elphaba said, eyeing her plate cautiously. "If this is the dinner for the first chapter of our happily ever after, I think we need to check the destiny menu."
"Or just order dessert."
"You know you're going to order it anyway, right?"
"Shhh. Let the illusion last a little longer."
With their cutlery ready and the first bite finally on its way to their mouths, Elphaba looked up and, like someone making a toast with a spoon, declared, "Well, it's officially forbidden to ask any more existentialist questions for the rest of the evening. I'm starving, and if I think any longer, I'll eat my own anxiety."
Glinda nodded solemnly, as if signing a peace treaty with a roasted carrot.
They both tasted their dishes at the same time. Elphaba frowned slightly: it wasn't bad, but she wasn't sure it wasn't plastic either. She was considering whether to swallow when Glinda, very calmly, asked, "Do you like my breasts?"
Elphaba choked.
She coughed, thumped her chest, and looked at her as if she'd just spoken to her in Aramaic.
"What? What? Where did that come from?"
"I don't know," Glinda replied, shrugging as if she'd just asked the time. "It just popped into my head." "And you decided this was the time to spill the beans? Just like that, without any anesthetic? After a speech about destiny and homes with adopted cats?"
"What's so bad about it?" Glinda insisted. "We're traveling, free, in some godforsaken café. If I can't ask you that here, where can I?"
Elphaba looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and resignation. Glinda meant it. Of course she meant it.
"You're crazy," she muttered, picking up her burger again.
"Yeah, and you love me anyway," Glinda replied with a nervous smile, though her tone lowered a bit. "It's just that sometimes I have doubts, okay? I grew up with everyone telling me how I should look, how I should behave, what parts of me other people should like... and you get used to keeping those things to yourself so you don't seem insecure. But sometimes... I don't know. I wonder what it is you see in me."
Elphaba sighed. He lowered his fork. He looked at her with a mixture of tenderness and exasperation that was so typical of him.
"I see someone good. Generous. Fun. Able to fill a room with energy without even trying."
"Not that!" Glinda snorted, pushing her plate away. "I don't want the 'you're a great person' speech! I want you to be honest! Tell me you find me attractive, that you like me physically, that... I don't know, that I turn you on even a little."
Elphaba looked down at her plate. She cut a piece of hamburger, put it in her mouth, and chewed slowly. Then she swallowed, took a deep breath, and murmured with her mouth still half full:
"Your breasts are fine."
Glinda burst out laughing.
"'Fine'? Fine? Is that all you have to say after such an emotionally vulnerable and honest moment from me?" "I'm eating, Glinda," Elphaba said, wiping her lips with her napkin. "I'm not going to give a speech about your tits with a mouthful of potatoes."
"Say it properly, then!" Glinda demanded with a half-smile. "Say it like you're watching me walk onto a red carpet in slow motion."
Elphaba rolled her eyes, but her smile finally slipped away.
"Very well," she said, leaning her elbows on the table and looking at her as if she were about to tell her a secret. "I like your breasts. They're round, balanced, and seem to have a personality of their own. Sometimes they say hello to me before you do."
Glinda laughed immediately, bringing a hand to her chest theatrically.
"That's it! That's what I wanted. A little passion."
"And your thighs," Elphaba added without pause, her tone lower. "Your thighs when you're in your pajamas and you sit on your lap as if you weren't worth millions in a cover photo."
Glinda fell silent, surprised by this change in tone.
"And your neck. Right behind your ear. That little hollow where it bothers you when someone breathes close to you and you get nervous."
"That's enough," Glinda said softly, as if she were beginning to blush.
"And your fingers," Elphaba continued, almost as if she were speaking to herself. "They're always trembling a little when you're excited. And you use them to touch everything you love as if you could absorb it through your skin."
A silence filled with unspoken things enveloped them. Glinda swallowed. In the distance, a cheesy '90s song played over the restaurant's speakers.
"...That's what I meant," Glinda whispered, not looking at her.
Elphaba took another bite of her burger.
"Yeah, well... now shut up. I've got half a slice left, and I'm not going to ruin it by crying."
Glinda giggled and threw a fry at her. Then she leaned her elbow on the table, chin in her hand, and said with a radiant smile, "Well, if you can say nice things about my breasts in the middle of dinner, I also have the right to say what drives me crazy about you."
"Glinda, you don't have to..." Elphaba began, slightly uncomfortable but clearly amused.
"Shhh, yes it is," Glinda interrupted with a dramatic wave of her hand. "Because if I don't say it, my breasts are going to explode. Besides, you're gorgeous."
Elphaba rolled her eyes, but couldn't help but smile.
"I love your voice when you're about to laugh but hide it. That half-smile you give when you're about to say something sarcastic and you know it. Your hair has a life of its own, but in the best possible way. And your eyes... your eyes have that sparkle like you know a secret no one else understands. And when you get excited about something, and you speak quickly, and you gesture like you're fighting with thin air... I love it. You fascinate me."
"You're exaggerating," Elphaba said, raising an eyebrow, though a faint blush crept into her cheeks.
"No! I'm just being honest with the intensity of an emotional storm."
"That does sound like you."
Glinda laughed and sat up in her chair, picking at her food as she asked, in a challenging tone, "All right, since we're in confession mode, let's see who knows each other best. First question: what's my favorite movie?" “Do you really think I remember the names of all those rom-coms you watch on repeat?” Elphaba snorted.
“Try it!”
“The one with the blonde lawyer?”
“Legally Blonde, correct. Ten points to you. Your turn.”
“What’s my favorite book?”
“Pfff, easy… Persuasion by Jane Austen… you have, like, three different editions of the same book gathering dust on your bookshelf.”
“Well played, blonde, now… What was your first fictional crush?”
“Oh… Princess Jupiter from Sailor Moon. She was so powerful! And she had that hair… wow. Yours?”
“Hmm… fictional? I think Vampira. Or Zorro. Maybe both. I don’t know which came first, but clearly something was happening with me.”
They both burst out laughing.
“Okay, next,” Glinda said, excited. “Your musical guilty pleasure?”
“…2000s Swedish pop. But don’t make me name names.”
“You too?!” Glinda yelled. “You judged me for having a whole t.A.T.u. playlist!”
“I didn’t judge you. I just acted self-righteously.”
They laughed again, until Glinda asked another mischievous question:
“What naughty thing did you do as a child that you never confessed?”
Elphaba raised her eyebrow with a mischievous smile.
“I once put salt in a nasty teacher’s coffee… and then blamed one of my classmates. I never got caught.”
"That's horrible!" said Glinda, half fascinated and half indignant.
"And you, little saint?"
"I tore my cousin's dress on purpose and pretended it had only torn when we were playing. I hated it. It was beautiful, and I was dying of envy."
"Wow, Miss Perfection wasn't such a saint!"
They both burst into laughter until Glinda, in one of those moments of pure, genuine curiosity, asked innocently, "What were you like as a child, Elphie?"
Elphaba's smile softened. She lowered her gaze for a few seconds, her tone changing slightly. It wasn't sadness, exactly... it was something more diffuse. A thread of nostalgia tucked badly away in the drawer of memories.
"Silent. Weird. I read a lot, spoke little. Sometimes I got into trouble for saying things I shouldn't have, or for asking awkward questions. I didn't have many friends, but I liked spending time alone. I didn't understand why that bothered the adults."
Glinda watched her closely, without interrupting.
"My sister was... well, different. So many times I had to be the strong one, the odd one out, the difficult one. Sometimes I still feel like I'm that little girl waiting for someone to understand without having to explain."
Glinda looked at her tenderly, as if every word Elphaba said was a sacred piece of a puzzle she'd been wanting to complete for a long time. She didn't want to pressure her, didn't want to force anything... but the simple fact that Elphaba was speaking was already an act of enormous trust.
So, carefully, she asked one more question, almost like someone caressing a wound without fully touching it.
"And what was she like? Your sister?"
Elphaba lowered her gaze slightly, as if in her thoughts she was still sorting out which parts to share and which to keep hidden. Then she spoke softly, as if speaking more to the past than to Glinda.
"Nessa... she was sweet. She was always more fragile than me." She had that soft way of speaking that made everyone want to protect her. And well, with the chair... you know what my father was like. She was his angel. And I... well, I was the shadow that didn't fit in.
"Did you get along with her?"
"I tried. Many times. I told her stories when I couldn't sleep, pushed her in her chair around the garden, sang her silly songs... but my father always found a way to make me feel unnecessary. As if even loving her too much was a fault. So over time... I learned to love her from afar."
Glinda squeezed her hand gently, saying nothing, giving her space to continue if she wanted, and Elphaba continued, as if little by little the weight of the memory became lighter with the sharing.
"Sometimes I would sneak out of the house at night. I would go up to the roof and spend hours gazing at the stars. It was the only place where I felt no one could reach me, or yell at me, or correct me. I wrote there." Horrible things sometimes, other times just bad poems. But it was mine. My place.
"And you never got in trouble for that?"
"Once. My father found me. He said I was dishonoring the family with my rebellion. He made me pray all night. But I knew that, deep down, what bothered him most was that I didn't need him to find peace."
Glinda looked at her as if she wanted to hug that little girl from long ago, lost on the rooftop, staring at the stars in the cold and alone. Her voice barely trembled as she spoke.
"I don't know how anyone can look at what you are now and not feel proud. Honestly."
Elphaba shrugged, lowering her gaze. The weight of not saying those things for so long still clung to her chest, but Glinda was there, holding her in a way that wasn't physical, but just as real.
"There were good times too," Elphaba added, as if she needed to say it, lest she get caught up in the bitterness. "I once won a science competition, and they let me go up on stage to explain my experiment. I thought no one would listen, but a woman—my nanny, actually, the only one in my family who attended the event—came up to me afterward and told me I was brilliant. I've never forgotten that."
"I want to say thank you," Glinda whispered.
"To whom?"
"To that woman. Because what she saw in you that day is what I see every day."
Elphaba looked up, surprised by the disarming sincerity in Glinda's eyes. They were silent for a moment. There were no tears, but a thick emotion floating in the air, like a soft song that no one dared interrupt.
Glinda leaned in slightly, resting her forehead against hers.
"It doesn't matter where you come from, Elphie." No matter how many times they made you feel out of place. You're here. With me. And I'm not leaving you alone on some rooftop.
Elphaba looked at her tenderly for a moment, as if her eyes could express everything words couldn't. Then, with a sly smile, she tried to lighten the moment.
"My father wanted me to be a nun, you know."
Glinda looked at her in bewilderment for a second, until laughter won.
"You? A nun? With that temperament? That's an image I'll never be able to erase from my mind."
Elphaba laughed too, shrugging her shoulders.
"I meant it. Not because I thought it would make him proud, of course... but because I thought it would at least make him less embarrassed."
"How thoughtful of him," Glinda murmured, rolling her eyes.
"For a while... I considered it." Not because I wanted to dedicate my life to faith, exactly, but because I thought maybe... maybe there I'd find a place. Where silence would be mistaken for obedience. Where no one would look at me strangely. Where no one would expect me to be anything other than invisible.
"So what happened?"
Elphaba looked at her with a crooked smile, that mischievous glint in her eyes that Glinda adored so much.
"I discovered leather."
Glinda choked slightly on her drink, letting out a laugh somewhere between surprised and scandalized.
"What?! Just like that, out of nowhere?"
"Well, it wasn't like I woke up one day saying, 'Today I'm going to replace my habit with a leather corset,'" Elphaba laughed. "It was... gradual. I discovered things. Sensations. The power of being seen differently. Of choosing how I showed myself, of deciding how I used my body, not as punishment or sin, but as affirmation. As freedom."
Glinda looked at her, fascinated, with a mixture of tenderness and pride.
"It sounds... powerful."
"It was. For the first time, I felt like there was a space where rules were spoken, agreed upon, where everything was based on trust. Where I could be vulnerable or strong. Or both at the same time. It helped me understand that I didn't have to fit others' idea of me. That I could invent my own mold."
"And it didn't scare you?"
"Of course it did. But I was more afraid of continuing to be the shadow everyone wanted to ignore. This... this gave me back control. And as strange as it sounds, it gave me a different kind of faith. Not in gods. In myself."
Glinda smiled, that warm smile that always seemed to envelop everything.
"Now the image of you as a nun seems even more impossible."
"Why? I would have been a very... intense nun."
"More than that! You'd be a revolution in habit and boots. The Mother Superior would have exorcised you in the first month."
They both laughed together, feeling the weight of the past lighten between confidences and jokes. Glinda played with her fork for a moment and mischievously asked:
"So... why don't you tell me more about those 'discoveries'?"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow with a slow, dangerous smile.
"Glinda, are you flirting with me right after asking me if I like your breasts?"
"Maybe..." she replied, theatrically shrugging her shoulders with false innocence. "It's just that I like complex women. Those who once wanted to be nuns and ended up dominating their destiny." And... other things.
Elphaba burst into a loud, liberated laugh. She couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed so hard, and with such relief.
"Glinda, you're definitely crazy."
"And you're just as upset for still being here."
"That's exactly why," Elphaba said, taking her hand. "Because I finally found a place where I fit in. And it's with you."
The two of them stood like that for a moment, silent, hands clasped across the half-empty table, as if this corner of the restaurant were a refuge from the chaos of the world. A failed nun. A perfectionist princess.
With a mischievous but gentle smile, Elphaba tilted her head as she played with her spoon.
"Well, since we're being honest... what about you? When did you discover you liked... that?"
Glinda blushed instantly, as if she hadn't expected it, although the truth was, she'd been anticipating it ever since Elphaba mentioned leather.
"Oh, no..." she murmured, raising her hands to her face.
"Oh, yes!" Elphaba replied with mock enthusiasm. "You gave me the full lecture on how societal expectations repress female sexuality, and how your entire journey was like a flower opening between tulle chains. But now I want the details. Unfiltered."
Glinda sighed in resignation, though a small smile escaped her lips. She settled back in her chair, somewhere between embarrassed and determined.
"Fine. But if you make me feel too silly, I'll go sleep in the car."
"I solemnly promise to only laugh with love."
Glinda rolled her eyes.
"Well... you know that anything related to sexuality was taboo in my house. My parents were the kind who wouldn't even let you watch a kiss scene without flipping the channel as if someone were summoning Satan. And the circles I moved in... worse." Everyone pretended sex didn't exist, but they still judged you by how you dressed, how you sat, how you talked...
"...And how you breathed, probably," Elphaba interrupted, making a theatrical gesture.
"Exactly. So... I convinced myself it was best not to think about it. But at the same time, it gave me a lot of insecurities. About how I looked. About what was wrong with me for not being like the others. And one day, after cheerleading practice, one of the most obnoxious girls on the squad made fun of me in front of everyone. She called me a 'sanctimonious, clueless virgin.'"
“Ugh. Classic attack from someone else’s insecurity,” Elphaba grunted.
“I… didn’t say anything. I laughed like I didn’t care, but that night… something stung my pride. So I grabbed my computer, closed my bedroom door, and searched for… “stuff.”
Elphaba choked on her drink.
“Just like that, no filter?!”
“Don’t judge me!” It was a mix of defiance and curiosity. But as soon as I opened one of the pages, I ran away as if the laptop had screamed at me.
Elphaba burst out laughing.
“Gods, I wish I had been there to see your face!”
“It was traumatic. But a few days later I tried it again. Headphones in. Lights off. Nervous as if I were committing a federal crime. And… I hated it. It was all ugly, grotesque, super-masculine. Unnecessary shouting. Absurd posing.” As if someone had made a list of my dislikes and turned it into content.
"Yeah, that sounds like the internet."
"But then... amidst all the clicking, I found a different page. Everything was more aesthetic, more curated. Dark but suggestive. With rules. With respect. A community. BDSM..." she murmured, as if she still remembered the exact moment the word had stuck in her head. "And that's when... it all began."
Elphaba remained silent, listening to her with absolute attention.
"It wasn't just the physical," Glinda continued, lowering her voice a little, becoming more introspective. "It was how they talked about trust, about communication. About giving up control, yes, but also about choosing to do it. About setting your boundaries. About knowing your desires and naming them without fear. I... had never felt I had that right."
"Glinda..."
"I started reading. To learn. To question myself. To imagine myself differently. Not as the perfect daughter, the cover girlfriend, Miss Etiquette." I imagined myself... in control of my body. Of my pleasures. Of what I wanted. Even if I didn't yet know how to put it into words. I just... felt it.
Elphaba leaned toward her, resting her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand, with a soft, almost proud smile.
"I like that Glinda. The one who lets herself feel. Ask. Challenge. And run away like crazy after seeing her first porn page."
"Elphaba!" Glinda said, pushing her with her hand while laughing. "I told you not to laugh!"
"I said I would laugh with love! And I'm keeping my word."
They both laughed for a moment, until Elphaba gently took her hand.
"Thank you for telling me that."
"Thank you for wanting to hear it," Glinda replied, stroking her finger with her thumb.
Just as the atmosphere between them became more intimate, the waitress appeared with a friendly smile, gently breaking the bubble of confidences.
"Is everything okay here? Would you like anything else?"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow and looked at her empty plate.
"I think I'm fine like this, thank you."
"Oh, no, no!" Glinda chimed in, shaking her head. "We can't leave without dessert. There's a chocolate volcano and caramelized petals. It sounds ridiculously decadent."
Elphaba chuckled.
"Do you really read the menu like it's poetry?"
"Of course. Food can also be art. Besides, we need something sweet to close out this revealing conversation."
Elphaba made a theatrical face, but her eyes shone with affection.
"Okay, okay. But we'll share it. I don't want you to blame me later if you're feeling too 'decadent.'"
"I'll accept the deal," Glinda replied with a triumphant smile.
The waitress took their order and left. Elphaba sighed softly, as if she'd just remembered something from a distant memory.
"I don't know how you convinced me. This is almost a sin."
"And what do you know about sins, Miss 'I was going to be a nun'?"
"Too much. Believe me."
Glinda smiled, but something in that sigh made her recall the earlier stories. She rested her chin on her hand and, with the same tenderness with which she had listened before, dared to ask one more question.
"And... now? I mean... after everything you went through with your family... what do you really think about faith? About God?"
Elphaba lowered her gaze for a moment. She didn't seem uncomfortable, more as if she needed to think carefully about every word.
"You know I'm an atheist. That hasn't changed. I don't believe in a bearded God who looks down from heaven and takes note of every single thing you do wrong." She looked up and smiled somewhat ironically. If that guy existed, he would have had a very serious talk with my father a long time ago.
Glinda nodded slowly, knowing there was more.
"But…" Elphaba continued, shrugging. "I'm open to the possibility that there's something beyond all this. I don't know what. Energy. Consciousness. Maybe love, in its purest form. Something that connects us. Something that doesn't need temples or books or commandments, but manifests itself in how we treat others. In how we learn to forgive ourselves."
Glinda looked at her with soft, admiring eyes. Elphaba looked away and added,
"And even if there isn't… I like to think we can live as if there is. Because of what it inspires us to be. Not out of fear, but out of choice."
At that moment, the waitress returned with dessert: a small, steaming volcano of warm chocolate, decorated with sugar petals. Glinda thanked her with a charming smile.
"And you?" Elphaba asked, taking a spoonful. "What do you think?"
Glinda seemed to consider this honestly. "I... do believe. Not in everything I was taught, but in something. That there's a force that guides us, even if it doesn't intervene directly. Something that gives us clues, signs, magical moments. Not a being that punishes or rewards, but a presence. Something warm."
"Like some kind of cosmic fairy godmother?"
"Sort of," Glinda laughed, taking her own spoonful of dessert. "But I also believe there's faith in other things. Faith in oneself. In people. In love. I have faith in you, for example."
Elphaba paused, her spoon in midair, not knowing exactly how to respond to that. But a soft, almost shy smile touched her lips.
"I think that's the most sacred thing anyone has ever said to me."
Glinda winked at her.
"And you haven't even tasted the center of the chocolate volcano yet. Prepare for a divine revelation."
As they both savored the first spoonful of dessert, their eyes lit up.
"Gods..." Elphaba murmured. "This is obscenely good."
"I know," Glinda said with a proud smile, as if she'd baked it herself. "I'm about to propose to the chef."
"I'll take care of the vows. 'I promise to love you in sickness, in health, and through excess of chocolate.'"
They both laughed, and it was Glinda who, after another heavenly spoonful, asked a casual question that marked a new beginning:
"So... where do we go first?"
Elphaba slowly licked her spoon, feigning deep contemplation.
"By that, do you mean after devouring this dessert or escaping the capitalist system?"
"From the journey, Elphie," Glinda said with a giggle and a light kick under the table. "We have a whole world to cover and weeks without responsibilities. It's time to dream."
Elphaba nodded, her smile curling into a mischievous expression.
"Hmm... How about the middle of nowhere?" Something very windy, with little Wi-Fi, and zero tourists. I imagine us sitting on a hill watching the sky turn violet.
"Wow, you sound so romantic," Glinda replied, taking a sip of her drink. "But if you can ask for a hill, then I want a magical town. One with silly little shops, charming old people, and bakeries that smell of butter and dreams."
"Bakeries?" Elphaba looked at her with mock indignation. "Again with the food?"
"You're devouring dessert like the apocalypse is tomorrow!"
"Touché."
They laughed again, between bites of shared dessert and peals of laughter that mingled with the muffled conversations in the restaurant. Soon the rain of suggestions began:
"A nude beach?"
"Too much sun."
"An abandoned underground city?"
"What if the roof collapses?"
"A festival of lights in the middle of the forest?"
"Do they have electrical outlets?"
"An alpaca farm?"
"What? No! The alpacas look at me strangely!"
"A small town where only cats live?"
"...Okay, that one."
They continued to tossing proposals into the air, each accompanied by a sarcastic comment from Elphaba and an enthusiastic defense of Glinda, amid laughter, exaggerated imitations of accents, and more spoonfuls of the dessert that was almost disappearing by the minute.
"What if we just close our eyes and choose with our fingers on a map?" Elphaba finally suggested, chocolate dripping from her lips.
"Only if the destination is beautiful and has good Wi-Fi," Glinda replied with a mischievous smile.
"Sure, because losing yourself spiritually is fine, but not losing yourself completely."
"Exactly. I need to document our adventure. And you need to stop acting cynical. I know you're as excited as I am."
Elphaba looked at her for a second, then looked down at her empty plate and murmured, "Maybe more than I thought."
Glinda smiled. She said nothing. She just reached under the table and gently squeezed Elphaba's hand.
Finally, they both leaned back in their chairs, as if they'd just climbed a mountain.
"I'm officially in a sugar coma," Elphaba murmured, letting out a satisfied sigh.
"That was one of the craziest things I've ever done!" Glinda exclaimed, looking at her empty plate with a mixture of pride and regret. "What the hell was in that? Chocolate, cream, cookie, pure evil?"
"And whipped cream flavored with remorse," Elphaba added, giggling.
"Oh, shut up," Glinda giggled, gently kicking her under the table. "Like you've never done anything crazy!"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, amused.
"Are you challenging me?"
"I'm asking for a story. Come on, tell me something really crazy you've done in your life. Something really wild."
Elphaba crossed her arms, thoughtful.
"Are you sure?" I don't want to shatter your image of me as a mysterious, imperturbable creature…
"Too late for that, after watching you fight with a fork over the last piece of chocolate."
Elphaba gave a short laugh, then narrowed her eyes as if delving into dangerous memories.
"Okay… you asked for it."
She leaned forward, lowering her voice a little with unnecessary drama.
"I was eighteen. I'd run away from home—literally escaped—and ended up in an arts commune on the outskirts of town. It was… chaotic. People painting nude murals, poetry readings at three in the morning, cheap wine served in jam jars. On one particularly absurd night, I ended up at a bonfire where someone proposed an 'emotional release ritual.'"
"Oh, by the gods…" Glinda murmured, already breathless.
“Someone brought out feathers, another brought drums, and I, in a moment of delirium or enlightenment, climbed onto a table and yelled at the moon everything I hated about myself. I cried. I laughed. Someone applauded me. Another tried to recruit me into a cult. And that was the night I decided to dye my hair blue-black with squid ink. Literally.”
Glinda was silent for a few seconds, her eyes wide open, her expression stunned.
“...That. That was way wilder than I expected.”
“I warned you.”
“Squid ink?”
“Peak of emotional intensity, what can I say?”
“And you yelled at the moon?!”
“Yes. The moon was very receptive.”
Glinda let out a long laugh that made her hold her stomach. Then she straightened as if preparing for a duel.
“Well, now I have to outdo you!”
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah. College. Freshman year. Costume party. I was dressed as an angel, which is joke enough," Glinda began dramatically. "Some senior girl challenged me to infiltrate an all-boys fraternity with a list of ridiculous dares. I ended up kissing three strangers, stealing a tankard of beer brewed since 1984—they called it "the cursed chalice"—and giving an impromptu speech about feminism to twenty drunk men wearing only my angel robe!"
Elphaba put her hand to her mouth, surprised.
"And what happened next?"
"They applauded me! One cried. I think he became a therapist."
"So you basically led a mini-drunken revolution with wings?"
"Exactly!"
They both burst into laughter again, feeling the dessert, the confessions, and the warmth of the night blend into something gloriously absurd.
"Gosh..." Elphaba said finally, taking a deep breath. "We're going to end this trip full of stories like that, aren't we?"
Glinda winked at her, still smiling.
"If we don't end up exiled from at least one country, we're doing it wrong."
Elphaba laughed softly and looked toward the window, where the night had already settled in, warm and peaceful.
"Then I guess we need to start planning our first scandal."
Both of them were leaning against the table, now almost empty except for the remains of the dessert that barely survived their appetite and enthusiasm. The warm light of the restaurant gave a soft glow to their faces, and although the murmur of the people around them continued, for them only the small universe they shared between absurd anecdotes, knowing glances, and laughter that arose easily existed.
As the echo of their last laughs faded and dessert was almost consumed, Elphaba, her head resting lazily on her hand, looked at Glinda with a mixture of sweetness and happy tiredness. That kind of tiredness that comes not from the body, but from a satisfied soul.
"Do you know what the strangest thing about all this is?" Elphaba murmured, drawing invisible shapes with her fork on the table.
"Besides the fact that we ate a mountain of sugar as if it were the apocalypse?" Glinda answered without thinking.
They both laughed.
"I mean... we're here. Traveling, doing this with no plan other than to be together." She paused, searching for the words. "And I don't know... I just think there's something deeply romantic about that."
Glinda tilted her head, smiling curiously.
"Are you getting all sentimental?"
"No, no. God, don't make me regret it," Elphaba said, though her smile betrayed her. "But I am saying that maybe... for the first time I understand why people get a little silly about this love thing."
"A little?" Glinda mocked. "I've seen friends pretend to be fans of a football team just to get some idiot who didn't even know their name to like them. Not silly, the next best thing."
Elphaba laughed, then nodded.
"Yeah, I guess love can bring out the worst... or the most ridiculous in you."
"And the best, too?" Glinda asked, suddenly more serious, her gaze slightly lowered, as if she didn't want her vulnerability to be so evident.
Elphaba looked at her carefully. She didn't answer right away.
"Sometimes, yes," she said honestly. "But not always. Love isn't a guarantee of anything. It doesn't automatically make you a better person. Sometimes it only amplifies what's already inside. If you're broken, it can make you more fragile. If you're whole, it can make you stronger. If you're angry… it can burn you."
"Wow," Glinda whispered. "That was beautiful and depressing at the same time. Very you."
"Thank you, I guess."
"And you think you're broken?" Glinda asked cautiously.
Elphaba shrugged.
"Not as much as before." And after a brief pause, "Maybe that's why this... us... works. Because I'm not looking for someone to fix me anymore. Just someone to be broken with without shame, you know?" Glinda didn't respond immediately. She just looked at her with deep tenderness, as if that phrase had struck a chord she hadn't heard in a long time. She stroked her finger along the edge of her plate, thoughtful.
"I grew up believing that love was something you earned," she said finally. "That you had to be good enough, pretty enough, perfect enough for someone to choose you."
Elphaba watched her silently.
"But that wasn't love, it was... marketing. It was anxiety wrapped in a pink ribbon."
"And now?"
Glinda took a deep breath.
"Now I believe that love is... choosing to stay. Even when you don't know how to do any of this. It's like, 'I don't quite understand what I'm feeling, or what's happening to me, or how this is done... but I still choose to be here with you, every day.'"
Elphaba gently squeezed her hand.
"See? And you were worried about sounding foolish."
"I'm not worried about sounding silly, I'm worried about sounding like one of those influencers who cries on camera and says she's healing her inner child," Glinda joked, though her eyes were slightly moist.
Elphaba still had a lazy smile on her lips at Glinda's comment. She was about to make a sarcastic, light comment, but stopped when she noticed Glinda still staring at the table, as if the urge to laugh had gotten stuck in her chest.
"Glinda?" she asked quietly.
"Can I tell you something?" the blonde murmured, not looking at her.
Elphaba nodded immediately, letting her guard down.
"Do you know what the scariest moment of my life was?" she asked suddenly, without looking up.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, surprised by the change in tone.
"More terrifying than speaking in front of the entire town at the hearing? Or when we made a mess of breakfast in your parents' kitchen and your nanny caught us?"
Glinda didn't laugh. She just gently shook her head.
"First, she wasn't my nanny... and second, it was months after we... broke up." "She said it as if the words hurt as they came out. "When you decided to leave and I... stayed."
Elphaba felt a small knot in her chest. Her body tensed, but she forced herself not to interrupt.
"At first, I kept telling myself it was for the best. That it would only be temporary. That when it was all over—the senator scandal, the renovation project, the political noise, the media chaos—we would simply be reunited. We would be us again." She paused, swallowing. "But one day I realized that maybe not. That maybe this wasn't a pause. That maybe... this was the end."
"Glinda..." Elphaba murmured guiltily, but Glinda held up a hand, asking her to let her continue.
"I've never felt so alone. Not because I had no one, because yes, there were people, there always are. But no one was you." Her tone cracked slightly, vulnerable and serene at the same time. "I would wake up and stare at my phone like an idiot. I would go to bed and do the same thing. Every time the phone rang, my heart would stop for a second, hoping it was you."
Elphaba looked away. She felt her stomach clench.
"And every day that passed and you didn't call... I got more scared that maybe you never would." She laughed bitterly. "Do you know how many times I thought about calling you? But I was so afraid that you wouldn't listen, that you'd moved on, that you had nothing more to say to me..."
Elphaba took a breath, her eyes glassy.
"I didn't move on, Glinda. I told myself it was only for a while, too. That I needed space. That you needed to stay and fight your battle, and I needed to breathe without everything feeling like a war. But it was never goodbye. Not for me." "And why didn't you call me?" Glinda asked softly, almost like a child who doesn't understand why she was left behind.
"Because I was afraid. Afraid that you had already closed that door. That calling you would open a wound that was just beginning to heal. And because... because I felt guilty." Elphaba gently clenched her fists on the table. "I felt like I'd run away. That I didn't deserve to come back if I didn't have anything good to give you."
Glinda reached out and laced her fingers through hers.
"Everything you are is already good to me, Elphie."
There was a long silence. The kind of silence that doesn't bother. The kind that embraces.
And then Glinda smiled, a little sad, a little bright.
"I propose another game... If you could talk to anyone, living or dead, real or fictional, who would you choose?"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow thoughtfully.
"Does that include, like, writers, celebrities, former world leaders, or even made-up characters?"
"It includes everything. Even your future self, if you want. Or the moon, if you still want to yell things at it," Glinda joked with a slight, playful laugh.
Elphaba gave a short laugh, then nodded slowly.
"Hmm... that requires some thought."
"I already know my answer," Glinda said, her eyes a mixture of excitement and nostalgia. "I'd talk to my younger self."
Elphaba sat up a little, smiling curiously.
"Yes?"
Glinda nodded, her tone softer again, more intimate.
"I would tell her so many things... I would talk to her about love, about strength, about giving up trying to be what others expect her to be. I would tell her that she doesn't have to prove anything to anyone to deserve love."
Elphaba stopped smiling, looking at her now with complete attention.
"I would tell her to allow herself to be clumsy, confused, human. That she isn't broken or flawed. That all the things she feels but can't say, the things she's afraid of... one day they will be the most beautiful things she has."
Elphaba felt a lump in her throat as she looked at her with a mixture of tenderness and admiration.
Glinda smiled with a hint of mischief, but also with disarming honesty.
"And I would tell her that, as soon as she's old enough to drive, she should steal her parents' car and find the girl who will make her feel happiest and most real for the rest of her life... so she wouldn't waste another second without her."
Elphaba couldn't help it: she smiled, her eyes shining, somewhere between moved and amused.
"Are you suggesting I should have watched out for a preteen Glinda with a Bonnie and Clyde complex?"
"Exactly. The smaller version of me, with braids and a squeaky voice, and with one very clear mission: to find you."
They both laughed softly, but there was a sweet stillness between them, a silent pause where hearts understood each other better than words. Elphaba reached across the table and gently took Glinda's hand, squeezing it lovingly.
"I guess I'm glad I waited then. Because now that I have you, I wouldn't trade a second of who I am to get there faster."
Glinda squeezed her hand back, her smile softer than ever.
"I know... but I can't help wishing I'd had you longer."
The laughter began to ebb slowly, like a wave gently receding, leaving only relaxed smiles and the lingering glimmer of excitement in their eyes. Still with her fingers intertwined on the table, Glinda tilted her head curiously, her expression transformed by a genuine, deep, tender interest.
"And you?" she asked softly. "Who would you talk to if you could?"
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. Her gaze shifted slightly toward the window next to their table, where night had already completely settled in, bathing the streets in soft light and long shadows. She thought for a moment, then looked back at Glinda with a serene expression, though there was a slight strain in her voice, as if the words were only just coming out.
"With my mother," she said simply.
Glinda said nothing at first. She just looked at her, her hand tightening in hers.
Elphaba didn't seem sad. There was a strange calm about her, a quiet maturity that weighed more than it appeared. She took a deep breath, her gaze fixed on some point beyond the visible.
"I never really got to talk to her," Elphaba continued, her tone calm but heavy with suppressed emotion. "She died when I was very young. I barely have any memories... only feelings. The smell of her clothes. The warmth of her hands. The way she would softly sing me to sleep."
Glinda gently squeezed Elphaba's hand, but she didn't let go.
"I always felt that, had she lived, many things would have been different," she continued. "My father... he never knew what to do with me. I think he was afraid of everything he didn't understand about me. And without her, I ended up fearing myself too."
Pause. Elphaba took a deep breath, like someone opening an antique box filled with dust and memories. Then she continued, "I wish I could look her in the eyes... ask her if she was ashamed of me. If she would have feared me too. If she would have rejected me for being different. But more than that, I wish I knew if she would have loved me... as I am."
Glinda's eyes were slightly moist, but she didn't take them off Elphaba's. She didn't say "of course," or that it was obvious, or any clichés. Instead, she stroked the back of her hand with her thumb, silently giving her space.
"Sometimes I think about what it would have been like to have a mother who taught me that I didn't have to hide. That being strong wasn't the same as toughening up. That what I feel... that I am not a mistake."
Elphaba looked away, not out of shame, but to sustain what was coming.
"And if I could talk to her now, I wouldn't ask for explanations or miracles. I would just tell her... that I'm okay. That I survived. And that I found someone who sees me."
Elphaba stared into space for a few more seconds, as if clinging to a memory so distant she could barely touch it. Then, in a low, cracking voice, she blurted out what she'd been holding back for so long:
"But... more than anything, if I could talk to her... I'd ask her if she forgives me."
Glinda tensed immediately. Her smile faded as if time had stopped. Her heart sank, and her voice was almost gone as she asked, barely above a whisper, "Forgive you... for what?"
Elphaba swallowed. Her eyes, usually so steady, so sharp, clouded with doubt.
"My father..." she began, with obvious effort. "He always told me that... that her death was my fault. That she died of complications while giving birth to my sister... but that if I hadn't been so complicated, so... difficult from the start, everything would have been different. That the anguish, the depression, and the weight of dealing with me... all of it weakened her."
Glinda paled. Not from doubt, but from horror. Not out of fear, but out of suppressed rage toward the man who dared to plant such guilt in a child. But he didn't interrupt her. He only gripped her hand tighter, as if refusing to let go even if the world fell apart.
"And part of me," he continued in a faint voice, "always believed it. Or at least... never dared to fully question it. What if it was true? What if I was already a burden before I was born? What if...?"
He didn't finish the sentence.
It was then that Glinda, without hesitating for a second, took Elphaba's hand with both hands, firmly, with a warmth that trembled with pure emotion. He looked into her eyes, directly, with a deep but unquestionable tenderness. And with the soft but firm voice of someone who has chosen to believe, he said:
"No. That's not true, Elphaba. That was never your fault."
Elphaba tried to look away, vulnerable as she rarely is, but Glinda didn't let her escape.
“You didn't kill your mother. You don't bear any guilt. What your father told you... it's cruel, a lie that someone broken chose to project onto you because they didn't know how to deal with their pain. But it's not your burden. It never was.”
“Glinda... you don't know,” Elphaba whispered, almost pleadingly, as if she still needed to bear the weight of that doubt.
Glinda leaned toward her, forcing her to look at her. Her eyes were steady, full of conviction, not pity.
“Yes, I know. Because I believe in you. And because there are things that don't need scientific proof or dogma. There are things that are simply known, Elphaba. And I know it wasn't your fault. You can't blame a baby for something like that. No one can.”
Elphaba caught her breath. Glinda continued, more gently now, stroking Elphaba's hand with her thumb.
“Maybe you don't believe in gods or miracles.” But I do believe in people. And more than anyone, I believe in you. And I'm sure, more sure than I am of anything else in my life, that your mother would never blame you. She would have loved you. She would have defended you. And she would be as proud of you as I am.
Elphaba felt an impossible lump form in her throat, and for a moment she could only breathe heavily, without speaking, holding back something that had been there for years. Finally, in a raspy, barely audible voice, she whispered:
"And you think... that my mother would see it that way too?"
Glinda gently caressed her cheek, as if holding the key to heal those invisible cracks in her fingers.
"I'm sure she does," she replied with a trembling but convincing smile. "Because if I can see how wonderful, strong, brilliant, and brave you are... how could a mother who brought you into this world not? And if there truly is something beyond that, I am convinced that she loves you. Without guilt. Without conditions. Just for being you."
Elphaba closed her eyes, and a tear escaped without resistance, falling down her cheek. She said nothing. There was no need to. In the silence between them, something was released, something that had been locked away for a long, long time.
Glinda didn't let go for a second.
And although the restaurant continued with its usual noise, for them the world had stopped… just to allow them to heal, together, a little longer.
To Elphaba's relief, just as Glinda's words were still echoing like a trembling sound in her chest, her cell phone vibrated and broke the moment with an insistent buzz. The screen lit up, revealing a familiar name: Tibbett. Upon seeing the name, a nervous laugh escaped her lips before she could contain it.
"Oh, just in time… I was wondering why the most dramatic duo of all hadn't called demanding an explanation…"
They both laughed because they knew exactly why he was calling. The impromptu note they had both left taped to their apartment door hadn't been, let's say, the most explanatory in the world. It said something like, "We're gone, we need some fresh air. Water my plants. Don't ask. We love you. Don't die." —E. Signed with a hastily scribbled phrase.
With the same mixture of anxiety and relief someone feels when they wake up from a deep sleep and find an excuse to return to the real world, Elphaba got up from the table, mumbled, "I'll be right back," and walked toward the café door, swiping to answer the call.
Glinda sat motionless for a moment. The dessert spoon still hung in her hand, unmoving. Through the large window, fogged by the contrast between the heat inside and the damp cold outside, she saw her: Elphaba, standing by the road, barely covered by the small roof of the café, as the rain began to fall in soft, timid drops, as if they too felt out of place in the middle of the night. The streetlight above her head flickered with a melancholic flicker, bathing Elphaba in a faint, almost golden halo. Elphaba spoke, gesturing with one hand, the other holding the phone to her ear, her profile silhouetted by the night like a figure from another time.
And Glinda couldn't stop looking at her.
Something inside her burned. As if an ancient fire, one that had always been there but until now had only glowed in embers, was ignited with a calm fury. It was rage. It was sadness. It was love. A love so deep and absolute it felt almost painful. Glinda wasn't just moved by what Elphaba had confessed... she was devastated. How was it possible that someone so wonderful, so immense, so brilliant, had lived believing that her very existence had been a guilt, a burden?
The song playing through the café's speakers was soft, melancholic, with a female voice singing slowly about loss, hope, and the promise that love can heal what the world breaks. It wasn't a song Glinda knew, but its chords seemed to have been written just for that moment. The dim lights in the café, the distant murmur of the other diners, the steady sound of the rain beginning to pound harder against the glass—it all created an intimate atmosphere, suspended in a time that no longer obeyed the clock.
Glinda rested her forehead against the palm of her hand and closed her eyes for a second. In her mind, the image of Elphaba as a child, alone in that house that seemed more like a guilt training camp, making decisions out of fear, repressing herself since childhood, trying to find solace even in absurd ideas like becoming a nun just so her existence would hurt others less. And yet, there she was now: ironic, strong, defiant, intelligent, yearning, alive. A survivor. A woman who had reinvented herself a thousand times to be able to love without being destroyed by it.
When she looked up again, Elphaba was still talking. The tone of her voice, though muffled by the distance and the glass, denoted annoyance mixed with resignation. Glinda could perfectly guess Tibbett's mocking tone on the other end of the line: some absurd joke about abandonment, a dramatic complaint about not knowing which floor was which, probably accusing them of having run away together for "a spiritual lesbian honeymoon." And Elphaba, surely, throwing sarcasm like darts and trying to sound annoyed when in reality, she was amused that someone cared about her.
Elphaba looked up at the sky for a second, her hair whipping around in the breeze, her lips curving into a tired smile. Glinda felt then that if there was any definition of beauty, this had to be it: a woman who has suffered through hell and can still smile at the rain. The song on the speakers faded with one last note suspended in the air, and the silence that followed didn't feel awkward. It felt necessary. As if the universe itself had paused, just to allow Glinda to admire that scene, understand its depth, and etch it into her memory forever.
In that moment, she knew.
She loved Elphaba with every fiber of her body. But beyond romantic love, beyond desire or passion, she felt something much stronger, more essential: a fierce urge to protect her. Not just from the world, but from all the voices that still spoke inside her mind, telling her she wasn't enough, that she must carry other people's guilt. She wanted to hold her, not as a lover, but as a refuge. As a shield. As a living promise that she would no longer have to fight alone.
Before Elphaba finished speaking on the phone, Glinda stood up resolutely. Her body still felt the tremors of what she had just experienced, but there was something she needed to do before the moment evaporated, like warm steam on a fogged-up window. She walked to the counter with a serene gait, though her heart pounded as if she were crossing a minefield.
The cashier, absorbed in a crossword puzzle book, looked up only when Glinda arrived in front of her and gave her a friendly, tired smile.
"Ready to pay?" she asked, reaching for the old cash register with its clanking keys.
Glinda nodded, but didn't smile back. Instead, she exhaled deeply, as if she were shedding an invisible disguise she had worn for too long.
"I have a confession to make," she said, her voice clear, as if she were making a vow in a secret ceremony.
The cashier raised an eyebrow, her coolness intact.
"Are you going to run away without paying?" Because I have a cow-shaped flashlight, and I won't hesitate to use it.
Glinda let out a small laugh. She liked that answer. Not because of its comic relief, but because of how irrelevant it made her feel. For the first time in a long time, no one expected more of her than she was.
"I'm not Anastasia Von Glitterberg," she said gently, as if the name had left a bitter taste on her tongue. "I'm not an ambassador for sustainable wellness or an international activist."
The cashier blinked once. Then she looked back down at her crossword puzzle.
"I thought as much," she said without surprise, marking a word on the paper. "No one with that level of glamour orders a cholesterol bomb in the form of a chocolate pudding at midnight in a highway cafe."
Glinda laughed, now with a hint of relief, as she took her card out of her wallet and placed it on the counter.
“Nor is she Svetlana, the retired Russian bodyguard,” she added, her words now spilling out like a raging river. “We made up those names when we arrived. I thought it would be fun. That it would make us feel… out of place. Like we were someone else for one night. But the truth is… I don’t want to be someone else anymore.”
The cashier, for the first time, looked up with something more than routine in her eyes. It wasn’t judgment they reflected. It was recognition. She’d heard confessions before. Maybe not from fake diplomats or fake bodyguards, but from people with souls full of things they no longer knew how to carry.
Glinda swallowed. Now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop.
“I… was a lot of things I didn’t want to be. For years. The perfect girl. The model daughter. The leader who doesn’t make mistakes, who doesn’t muss her hair, who doesn’t say the wrong thing.” I was so busy being what everyone expected that I didn't realize how far from myself I was falling. Until I met her.
Her fingers caressed the surface of the counter without realizing it. Her gaze wandered for a moment to the window, where she could see Elphaba still on the phone, the rain kissing her hair.
"She looks at me like I can be everything and nothing at once. Like I don't have to prove anything. And that... that's scarier than anything I've ever confronted. Because for the first time I want to be brave not for others, but for myself. For her.”
The cashier, after a moment of silence, slid the card into the slot. The beep finalized the transaction with a sharp click.
"And what's her name, if not Anastasia?" she asked, handing the card back to her.
Glinda took it thoughtfully. And for the first time in a long time, she said her name without embellishment, without titles, without masks.
"Glinda."
Outside, night had begun to fully close in. Raindrops fell timidly but steadily, as if the sky couldn't decide between crying loudly or simply whispering its sadness onto the asphalt. Elphaba, still slightly tense in her shoulders, ended the call with Tibbett, who had bombarded her with a mix of passive-aggressive reproaches and logistical questions about the penthouse floor plans. With a resigned smile, she hung up and stood there for a moment, at the edge of the parking lot, letting the cool air caress her face and the wet drops take away the heat from the previous conversation.
It was then that the cafeteria door creaked open, and the trio of teenagers—the two boys and the girl who'd been at the corner table—leapt out amid murmurs and knowing giggles. Elphaba paid them no attention at first, but as they passed her, one of the boys stopped and, without much ceremony, asked, "Do you have a light?"
Elphaba looked at him for a second. She was seventeen at most, with the clumsy confidence of someone who thinks she rules the world just because she hasn't yet collided head-on with it. She hesitated. It wasn't exactly her custom to help minors light cigarettes—much less marijuana—but something about the moment disarmed her. Maybe the weather. Maybe the night. Maybe the weight of the words still floating in her chest. "Yeah..." he murmured, taking his lighter out of his jacket pocket and holding it to the end of the joint with the calmness of someone who's been in more absurd situations.
The boy inhaled enthusiastically. The flame sputtered for a second before steadying. Once he had it lit, he passed it to his friend, and then to the other boy. As a sign of thanks, one of them handed the joint to Elphaba, like someone offering part of an ancient rite.
"Want some? It's good," he said with a crooked smile, his eyes shining with a mixture of daring and nerves.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow. It's been so long... She crossed her arms, uncertain, but the night had taken over, and Glinda's face kept floating in her mind like a warm light that was impossible to extinguish. Maybe just one pull, she thought. Just one.
"It's been ages since I touched one of these," she murmured. "It's never too late to be young again," the second boy commented, with a burst of laughter that made the others laugh.
Elphaba accepted it. She lit it. She coughed as if she'd been hit in the chest with a burning feather pillow. The boys laughed and offered her water. She waved them away as she composed herself, and then, strangely, she felt good. Light. As if that moment existed outside of time.
"Is that blonde inside your friend?" the girl asked curiously between puffs. "I mean... they're so different, it doesn't look like it."
Elphaba looked at them, the joint still smoking between her fingers.
"Friend?" she repeated thoughtfully, then let a real, small, and sincere smile spread across her face. "No. She's not my friend."
The three boys fell silent, expectant. She looked at them, her eyes narrowed, as if the answer would reveal itself to her as she spoke it.
"She's my girl." She paused. "My girlfriend."
One of the teenagers let out a gasp somewhere between surprise and excitement. The boys exchanged impressed glances, and one even gave a knowing thumbs-up.
"Wow. It doesn't look like it. They're so... different," one of the boys commented.
Elphaba gave a short, dry but not malicious laugh.
"Yes. We are." In almost everything. But we still love each other in our own strange way. Although sometimes neither of us knows how to show it without breaking something in the process.
The joint finished burning. She handed it back carefully, her fingers still trembling a little from the smoke or from what she'd just said out loud. It had been a long time since she'd used that word to refer to someone. And now she'd said it. Naturally. Truthfully. With a warm pang in her chest.
"That's true love, I think," the girl added, taking one last drag on the cigarette before throwing it to the ground and putting it out with the toe of her shoe. "The kind that makes a mess of you and at the same time fixes you."
They laughed together. Not sarcastically, but with the kind of laughter that comes when you find complicity in strangers.
"Good luck with everything, old lady," said the boy with the cap, patting Elphaba on the shoulder. "And if you ever write a book or something, let us know."
"Only if you promise not to grow up to be idiots," she replied, returning a crooked half-smile.
The young men retreated toward their car, and she watched them drive off along the wet sidewalk, amid friendly shoves and hollow laughter. When they were far enough away, she decisively regrounded her crushed cigarette in the wax. The smoke no longer meant anything to her. But the words she'd spoken... yes. They had come so easily. So honest.
She took a deep breath and turned toward the cafe door. Elphaba entered the café with a calm gait, almost floating in the thick, warm air inside. The rain had intensified slightly, marking her silhouette with small drops that glistened on her dark jacket, but she barely noticed. Her face, once tense, now wore a more relaxed expression, with slightly lowered eyelids and the faint smile of someone who has just found—even momentarily—some respite. The scene before her caused a mixture of surprise and tenderness: Glinda, standing at the counter, gesticulating passionately while speaking, probably without pausing, to the waitress who seemed to be on the verge of an emotional breakdown... or simply wanting to go home.
"...and then right there on the office floor, during the middle of the night shift, Elphaba tied my wrists just like I asked and..." Glinda recounted, unaware that the poor woman across the counter was barely nodding, her elbows on the register, holding her head with one hand while waving the receipt with the other in barely contained annoyance.
Elphaba tilted her head in amusement and quietly approached her from behind. With a mischievous smile, she gave her a light slap on the bottom, just enough to distract her from her speech without attracting too much attention. Glinda immediately straightened, letting out a small, very restrained "ah!" stifled by dignity, as she turned to look at her with a mixture of bewilderment and mock indignation.
"What are you doing?" she whispered through her teeth, blushing. "Catching up on the soap opera you're making here," Elphaba replied in her usual sarcastic tone, leaning an elbow on the counter. "Did I miss the episode where I become a UN ranger or a street wrestling champion?"
"Shut up," Glinda replied, still blushing but smiling. She turned to take the receipt from the waitress's hand. "I already paid for everything. I had to do it before you insisted on doing it alone."
"You took away the pleasure of my financial monopoly," Elphaba snorted as she took out a folded bill and left it on the counter as a tip. "At least let me leave a trail of guilt in the form of bills."
"Oh, how generous," Glinda replied, but her voice no longer had that provocative tone it had before. It seemed lighter, more conspiratorial.
The waitress, seeing that they were finally leaving, seemed to regain hope in humanity. She smiled at them with the kind of smile you give at the end of a long day, a mix of courtesy and exhaustion. When they asked about a nearby place to stay, the woman gave a thumbs-up, pointing in the opposite direction they'd been coming from.
"About two miles ahead. Blue Sky Motel. It's not the Ritz, but at least it has a roof over your head and free coffee in the morning."
They both nodded gratefully.
"Thanks for the free therapy," Glinda added with a giggle as she picked up her bag.
"You're welcome, Diplomat Barbie," the waitress murmured, more relaxed now.
As they were about to leave, the woman threw one last question over her shoulder:
"So? Are you on vacation... or are you on the run? It's to win a bet with the chef."
The two stopped dead in their tracks. Glinda looked at Elphaba. Elphaba looked at Glinda. In that pause, as full of meaning as a song without lyrics, they said more to each other than they could have articulated in words. Elphaba's eyes still had that strange gleam, brought on by the rain, the smoke, or the vertigo of feeling, for the first time in a long time, part of something that didn't hurt. Glinda's lips trembled slightly, as if struggling not to laugh or cry.
"Vacation or elopement?" the woman repeated, already amused by the uncertainty.
Finally, Glinda was the one who answered, with a smile that seemed straight out of a novel:
"Why not both?"
And Elphaba, with one hand on the door, nodded without looking back.
"Romantic elopement and spiritual self-exile. Make the chef pay double."
And with that, they left the café, through the already thickening rain, headed for a motel lost on the highway, to a place they didn't know if it would be their destination or a simple stopover. But that night, that didn't matter.
The café doors closed behind them with the soft jingle of the rusty bell, and the murmur of the interior was left behind, like a scene that no longer belonged to them. Outside, the night greeted them with the kind of rain that doesn't completely wet, but insists on reminding you it's there: light, constant, as if the sky were sighing above them.
Glinda gently put her arm around Elphaba's, tangling her fingers in the sleeve of her jacket, and leaned her head against her shoulder, saying nothing for a moment. They walked slowly, as if they had no fixed destination, knowing that the car was just steps away, but that this short walk still gave them a sense of intimacy they didn't want to let go of.
It was Glinda who broke the silence, her voice wrapped in a smile that tried to seem casual but couldn't hide the emotional weight behind it:
"After everything we talked about tonight... I still have one question."
Elphaba rolled her eyes, not with real impatience, but with the dramatic resignation of someone already expecting the impact.
"Another existential doubt?" she said with a crooked smile, raising an eyebrow.
"Not exactly," Glinda replied, raising her face slightly, with a softer, almost nostalgic expression. "I was wondering... if we had met as teenagers, what would it have been like?"
Elphaba stopped dead in her tracks. She looked ahead, as if the path hidden among the trees held the answer written in the shadows. Then she let out a long, theatrical sigh, ran her hand over her face, and replied in her best sarcastic tone, the one she always used when she didn't want emotion to show on the edges of her voice:
"Well..." she began, with that acidic tone she used when she wanted to protect herself with sarcasm. "We would have met at the worst private school in the district. I would have been the girl in the back of the classroom with smudged eyeliner and a torn jacket. You, clearly, the head cheerleader with your family crest embroidered on the collar of your uniform. I would have written existentialist poetry on the pages of your chemistry textbook, while you sang in the high school choir with your hair up and a catalog-worthy smile. You would have dated the captain of the football team, and I would have dated a girl who sold leather bracelets during recess and believed in the power of crystals. You would have secretly made fun of me with your friends, and I would have vehemently detested you with a certain degree of silent obsession. The End.
Glinda gaped at her, halfway between horror and disbelief.
"Elphaba! That was horrendous!" she exclaimed. "You didn't even try to make it cute. That was like... an episode of a teen sitcom, but with no budget and unresolved trauma."
Elphaba shrugged, laughing with the effects still floating in her voice.
"Yeah, well. You asked me to be honest."
"No, I asked you to imagine. To dream a little."
"Well, I dream realistically. A harsh, but honest version. An indie movie with melancholic music and an open ending."
"I don't like that version. Try again. But better." Glinda crossed her arms dramatically, though she couldn't help but smile.
Elphaba snorted. She took a moment. She looked up at the sky as if negotiating with the stars, then looked back at her. This time with less mockery and more tenderness. She walked a few steps in silence, and then spoke, in a lower, slower voice, like someone drawing something they never thought they'd want to see.
"Okay... Let's say we're in the same school. I sit in the back row because I don't like to be seen, and you, as always, sit in the front because you love being seen. They both hate us for different reasons. And one day we would have run into each other in a library. You would have wandered in by mistake, looking for the music room. I would be there, sitting by the window, reading something no one else wants to read. You would have approached because you'd be lost, and I would have pretended to be bothering me... but in reality, I would have appreciated someone noticing my existence. You would have asked what book I was reading, and I would have explained it to you with a mixture of arrogance and enthusiasm. And for some reason, you wouldn't have run away. You would have come back the next day. And the next. With increasingly lame excuses.”
Her voice softened as she spoke, as if that impossible story became tangible in her mind.
"We discovered we hate the same things, but you confront them with lip gloss and motivational speeches, and I with cynicism and sarcasm. But somehow, it fits. We started walking the halls together; the others don't understand, but we don't care either. You teach me how to dance without looking like a rusty post. I teach you to question everything, even the things you love most. And one day, when no one is looking, you take my hand... and for the first time in my life, I feel like the world has shut up to let me breathe."
Glinda was no longer smiling. She was as still as the night, as attentive as if she were listening to a song she didn't want to end.
"And then?" she whispered.
"Then..." Elphaba swallowed, looking at her with those eyes that rarely opened like that, fully, without masks. Maybe we would have fallen in love slowly. In secret. With fear. With those small touches of hands that last too long. With hidden letters. With promises we didn't know if we could keep. But still... it still would have been worth it.
"Would you have wanted that?" Glinda asked, her eyes shining.
Elphaba was silent for a second. Then she shook her head softly.
"No." And seeing the surprise on Glinda's face, she added, "Because if we had lived through that, maybe we wouldn't be who we are today. Maybe you wouldn't be this incredibly strong, compassionate, ridiculously stubborn woman... nor would I have learned to see beyond my own shadows. Maybe we would have broken before we even blossomed. And, the truth..."
She took his hand gently and squeezed it.
"I wouldn't trade this reality for any other. Because this... this gave me you. And that's the only perfect thing I know."
Glinda didn't answer. She didn't need to. She simply raised a trembling hand and placed it on Elphaba's cheek, as if she needed reassurance that it was real. Then she kissed her. In the rain. In the middle of nowhere. Certain that, although the past would never change, the present could be absolutely wonderful.
Finally, with the echo of their laughter still floating in the air and the warmth of their recent confession throbbing between them like a shared heart, they both walked toward the car. Elphaba, still feeling the faint sweet dizziness from the cigarette the teenagers had offered her—the one that tasted of nostalgia, youthful rebellion, and questionable decisions—paused to stop before getting in and tossed the keys to Glinda with a lazy movement and a knowing gesture that crossed her face like a half-moon.
"You drive," she murmured, half jokingly, half resignedly.
Glinda caught the keys with surprising reflexes for someone who wore high-end perfume like a battle shield. She looked at her with raised eyebrows, not quite understanding why Elphaba didn't want to drive, but she didn't ask either. She'd already learned that with Elphaba, some answers were better hidden between the lines or bided their time.
They both settled into the car as if the cabin were their own personal capsule in the midst of a noisy world. They fastened their seatbelts with an involuntary synchronicity that brought a smile to their faces. Glinda placed her hands on the steering wheel with the solemnity of someone facing an impromptu adventure, started the engine, and they left the flickering heat of the café behind.
Raindrops fell gently on the windshield, dragged by the wiper blades that moved back and forth in an almost hypnotic rhythm. Outside, the world seemed asleep: the wet road, the distant neon signs, the streetlights creating golden reflections on the asphalt as if someone were scattering memories.
Inside the car, they said nothing to each other. But they didn't need to.
Elphaba glanced at Glinda with a mixture of tenderness and surprise. How had it come to this? How had someone like her, who had spent half her life running away from herself and others, ended up next to a woman who seemed built of light, courage, and stubbornness in equal parts? And yet, there was Glinda, driving with determination, without smeared makeup or rehearsed speech, just her, raw and present.
Glinda, for her part, also watched her out of the corner of her eye between turns, wondering how it was possible that her heart could feel so full in the middle of nowhere, in a car that smelled of old leather, damp air... and something else. Elphaba seemed to her simultaneously the most complex and simplest creature she had ever met. A contradiction with long legs, a sharp gaze, and hands that couldn't caress without trembling a little. And now she was there, sitting beside her, her head resting on the seat as if, finally, she were allowing herself to rest. Elphaba closed her eyes, and for a moment everything was silent. Peaceful.
Until Glinda sniffed the air. A… strange, sharp note, half-sweet, half-scorched. She wrinkled her nose and tilted her head, puzzled.
"What's that smell?" she asked, sounding somewhere between curious and annoyed.
Elphaba's eyes flew open.
They opened with a speed that could only mean one thing: she'd been discovered.
"Oh, shit..."
Notes:
Hello! I'm back from my hiatus between seasons to post this special episode. I thought Pride Day would be the perfect day to publish it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, and I also hope it serves as a sneak peek into what's coming up next season, which I promise will start soon. Until then, I wish all Gelphie fans a great Pride Day!
Chapter 21: SEASON 3: JUST FOR THIS MOMENT
Notes:
Season 3 begins, warning... these episodes are going to be long.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Prologue to Chapter 13 – “On the Places Where We Were Once Happy”
from “Invisible Bonds – Reflections on Her and Me” (working title)
(Note: I'll probably reorder this later. Does it come before the ruins chapter? Check.)
There are places she loved.
—"Loved" or "idolized"? Too strongly?
Not for what they were, but for what they represented: moments suspended in time, small eternities where she hadn't been judged, where someone—perhaps just for a moment—had looked at her with eyes full of possibility.
—This image resembles what I said in Chapter 1. Repetitive? But I like it too much to cut it.
She returned to those places like someone searching for a mirror that still remembers her as beautiful. But the reflection was never the same. Sometimes she smiled, other times she pretended not to see that the beauty was cracked. I watched her silently, not knowing whether to accompany her in this reconstruction of memory… or leave her alone with her golden ghosts.
What took me a while to understand is that loving someone also means accepting the architecture of their nostalgia.
— Underline this. It could be the chapter's epigraph.
Even when they're not ours. Even when we feel like strangers in them.
Not all shelters are made for two. But if you're lucky, someone will make room for you.
— “shelters”… use another metaphor? Too many houses in this book?
Even if it's in the most elegant room of the coldest hotel in the world.
CHAPTER 21: Just for this moment
IN THE FUTURE...
The night shone with that kind of serene darkness that seems brand new. A deep sky, dotted with cold, distant stars, stretched above the frosted asphalt of the private landing strip, where a soft frost coated everything with a crystalline glaze. The dull roar of the engines began to diminish as a sleek, minimalist jet descended with surgical precision, barely breaking the silence of the early morning. Upon touching the ground, the aircraft produced a brief metallic screech, an almost imperceptible tremor that ran through her skeleton like a suppressed exhalation.
Inside the cockpit, enveloped in a dim light, was she. Sitting by the window, her face bathed in the pale blue glow of her laptop screen, Elphaba Thropp looked like a sculpture of shadow and determination. Her dark hair, shorter than before, tied back in a loose braid, fell over one shoulder as her fingers moved with almost obsessive precision across the keyboard. From time to time, she paused. Reread. Sighed. Erased. The words, the ideas, the concepts formed and dissolved on her forehead like a constant mental surge, a silent symphony that only she could hear.
Beside her, reclining with carefree elegance and a satiny eye mask, Glinda slept. Her body wrapped in a beige wool coat, her lips slightly parted, and her head resting sweetly against the backrest. The only thing moving was her right hand, entwined with Elphaba's with an ancient, domestic, necessary ease. On her finger shone a simple but perfectly crafted ring, white gold with a faint amber stone that captured the dim cabin light as if it contained an encapsulated sunrise. Elphaba looked away from the screen for a moment, her sharp eyes softening as she observed Glinda's sleeping face. With her other hand, free for a moment, she lightly brushed her cheek, brushing a golden lock of hair away from her face. Then, without a word, she returned her gaze to the screen. She typed a line:
"There are gestures that don't need to be explained. The way someone holds your hand in the midst of silence is sometimes the clearest way of saying, 'I'm with you.'"
A soft tapping, almost a whisper of reality knocking again, was felt beneath her feet. The jet began its descent with the softness of a confident caress. Elphaba closed the laptop with a minimal click, without looking at the text, as if she knew she wouldn't be writing anything else that night. She looked up at the sleeping figure beside her and, for a moment, simply contemplated it.
"Glin... we're here."
A faint murmur escaped the blonde's lips, followed by an inaudible protest as she lazily removed the mask. Her eyelashes fluttered against the dim light, and her nose wrinkled gently.
"Can't we land somewhere where we're already asleep?" she murmured, in a husky, still sleepy voice. "That way we'll skip this part."
Elphaba smiled sideways, with that characteristic mix of patience and sarcasm.
"I'll propose it for my next book: 'Impossible Technologies for Impossible Women.'"
"If there's no chapter on self-regulating heels, I'm not going to read it," Glinda snorted, stretching slowly, lowering her feet from the chair like a diva descending from a throne. She arranged her golden hair, now styled in softer, more natural waves than before, and stepped into discreet but perfectly polished heels. Have you been writing the entire flight?
"More erasing than writing, actually. But something came up," she replied as she picked up her laptop and carefully put it away. "I couldn't sleep."
"Always so dramatic. As if being brilliant didn't give you insomnia from the factory." Glinda adjusted the lapel of his coat with an unconscious, almost maternal gesture. Elphaba looked down and kissed his fingers.
They both stood up as the door opened and the icy air filtered like a sharp sigh through the cabin. Before getting out, they looked at each other. Wordless. A slow, shared glance. A gesture of complicity that needed no translation other than memory. And then, without fuss, Elphaba leaned toward her, and Glinda rose slightly on her toes, and their lips met in a brief but serene kiss. It wasn't fiery or urgent. It was a renewed promise.
Once in the hangar, they walked in silence along the gray carpet toward the airport's private entrance. The place was almost deserted, save for a couple of yawning employees and a driver waiting next to a shiny black car. While they waited for the arrival of their suitcases—seven in total, all Glinda's, as always—they settled on a metal bench overlooking the tarmac, under the dim industrial lighting.
Elphaba took out her black leather notebook—worn at the edges, lined with notes, colored Post-its, and signs of everyday use—opened it, and began reviewing her schedule with almost religious meticulousness. Her eyes scanned each line as if looking for inconsistencies in a mathematical formula.
"Are you really going to keep doing that?" Glinda commented, letting out a giggle as she pulled out her latest generation phone and waved it in front of her like a technological offering. "I swear, the day you deign to accept my gift and use a digital planner, the universe will breathe a sigh of relief."
"And lose the pleasure of crossing things out with a pen? Never." Elphaba didn't even deign to look at the device, but her tone was dry enough to sound definitive. "Besides, when your phone freezes due to some hellish update, my old paper friend will still work."
Glinda rolled her eyes with a resigned smile.
"So romantic. I'd almost say you're from the last century."
"Almost?" Elphaba raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure you have files of me on papyrus."
They both let out a laugh, soft but sincere, which was lost amid the distant whir of the switched-off turbines and the mechanical click of the still-empty tape. For a moment, they said nothing else. They just glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes, as if sharing an invisible anecdote.
Glinda, her legs crossed and her elegant coat neatly buttoned, took a folded brochure for the hotel they were headed to from her bag. She examined it with a faint frown, as if struggling to reconcile the polished images on the paper with a hazy memory that just wouldn't quite align.
"When was the last time we went to a hotel like this?" she asked suddenly, with genuine curiosity. "Was it in Chicago? Or was it the retreat in Vermont?"
"It was before that. In Baltimore, when you pretended to be on a 'diplomatic tour' and were actually escaping the cameras after that gold pin scandal," Elphaba said without looking up from her notebook.
"No! That was afterward," Glinda protested. "Before that, it was in San Francisco. We stayed at that hotel overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge... remember?"
Elphaba, for the first time, looked up from her schedule and took the brochure from Glinda's hands. She studied it carefully for a couple of seconds, and then, as if a piece had finally fallen into place, raised her eyebrows.
"Oh." "This hotel," she said, her voice heavy with gentle irony. "Of course. We've been here before."
"Yes?" Glinda narrowed her eyes. "When?"
Elphaba leaned back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other with all the deliberation of someone preparing to savor a memory like someone savoring a sip of hard liquor.
"During that trip. You know... the one of 'personal discovery,' the 'let's walk without a GPS, Glinda, so we'll get lost together and find our purpose' trip." She made quotation marks with her fingers, her tone sarcastic but not entirely hiding the affection behind it.
Glinda blinked once. Then again.
"Oh... oh. Was it really during 'that' trip?"
Elphaba nodded as she settled more comfortably on the bench.
"In our defense, the only thing I recognized was the logo. But yes. It was here. Of course, we didn't arrive by private jet that time." If I recall correctly, we were traveling in a car that smelled of vinegar and despair.
Glinda put her hand to her forehead with a loud sigh.
"It wasn't that bad!"
"Please." We stayed in motels where the sheets had personalities of their own, the Wi-Fi was more urban legend than actual service, and there was a sign that said "No Satanic Rituals"... for reasons I never cared to investigate.
Glinda laughed out loud, shaking her head.
"You made a fuss every time you had to choose a room. 'I want one with a window,' you said. As if that guaranteed anything more than a view of the dumpster."
"Yeah, but at least it had a window. Remember that place in Ohio? The one with the mirror on the ceiling?"
"Don't remember that! Please don't... oh, no. You're already laughing."
"And you were like, 'Elphie, you have to experience it.'" You even turned on the colored lights."
"I was trying to create atmosphere."
"And you succeeded. The atmosphere of a low-budget adult film."
They both burst out laughing with a sound that still resonated in their memories, like the echo of an old vinyl record spinning in an empty room. And with that echo... we return to the present.
" PRESENT:
The motel room where they had stayed that night was everything a tourist brochure would never describe: beige walls faded by age, a lamp leaning on the edge of the nightstand, and a rug whose original pattern was buried beneath suspicious coffee stains and years of neglect. The bed sheets hung off one side like an exhausted tongue, revealing the jumble of bodies barely distinguishable beneath them.
There, amidst knotted legs, scattered pillows, and a tangle of hair—dark on one side, golden on the other—Elphaba and Glinda slept, each other more out of inertia than consciousness. A soft snore escaped Glinda's parted lips, while Elphaba slept with a furrowed brow, even in repose, as if arguing with her own dreams.
The phone, barely recharging in the only functional outlet in the room, decided it was time. A shrill, metallic alarm broke the stillness like a drill in a cathedral. Elphaba, without fully opening her eyes, reached out and swatted it away with her palm as if silencing a pesky insect.
Glinda moaned in the sheets, moving with dramatic slowness, curling deeper into the blanket as if she could escape the day. Elphaba let out a low sigh, a mixture of resignation and routine, and sat up in bed with a clumsy movement. Her back creaked. She rubbed her face, then her neck, and with her fingers ruffled her already tangled, unevenly braided hair even further.
"Gods, who let me drink three glasses of that liquor with the unpronounceable name?" she muttered, more to herself than anyone else.
Beside her, Glinda thrashed about, with no intention of resuscitating.
With a small, sly smile, Elphaba leaned toward her and with a finger began playfully ruffling her partner's golden curls. Glinda grunted something unintelligible and buried her face deeper into the pillow. Then Elphaba stood up, naked and unsteady, walking barefoot among the scattered underwear, misplaced boots, a corset hanging off the back of a chair, and an empty bottle of cheap alcohol rolling on the floor.
She reached the window, covered by heavy curtains that smelled vaguely of dust and cheap disinfectant. She paused for a second, took a breath, and opened them just enough for a sliver of morning light to sneak in and illuminate part of the room. The sky was clear, with that blue that only exists when you've slept badly. Day awaited them.
"Glinda," she said, her voice still hoarse but firm. "Come on. Upstairs. The world won't travel by itself."
"Mmmmpf... I don't care about the world... I want to die here, warm and loved," Glinda replied from somewhere between the sheets and self-pity.
Elphaba rolled her eyes. With a wicked smile, she threw open the curtains and let the full light pour in like a solar spear straight into her partner's face.
"Treason!" Glinda cried, rolling out of bed with a theatrical shriek... but she didn't get far. She fell to the floor with a thud, dragging part of the sheet with her. Her right leg, still tied to the headboard with a pale pink leather lace and deliberately ornamental knots, stopped her in her tracks.
"Oh, right," Elphaba said, turning back to face her. "You had 'ideas' last night."
"That was your fault!" Glinda protested from the floor, tugging at her ankle like a luxurious prisoner. “You said ‘the tying ritual’ was part of the spiritual journey of reconnection.”
“And it was. It still is. But now it’s part of the ritual of getting up and getting coffee,” Elphaba replied, already walking toward the bathroom. “Today you buy it. I’ll fuel up and get the car ready.”
Glinda groaned from the floor, but began to untangle herself.
“You’re trying to punish me because I broke the ‘no triple-chocolate dessert’ rule last night.”
“I’m trying to survive your rude awakening,” Elphaba retorted from inside the bathroom. “And your five suitcases. Didn’t you say this was ‘a light getaway’?”
“Who knew how many climates we’d be through?” Glinda grumbled as she searched for her underwear among a pile of disorganized garments. “This is an ordeal. One must be prepared!” The shower water began to run with an old-fashioned squeak. Outside, Glinda had already stood up, tying her hair in a crooked bun, the pillow mark still on her cheek. She walked to the mirror, looked at herself, and sighed.
"You know what?" she said aloud as she slipped on her wrinkled silk robe. "Despite everything... I like it this way. This chaos. Us."
From the shower, Elphaba nodded, though she couldn't see her. Glinda smiled. She grabbed her purse, slipped a pair of sunglasses over her still-sleepy face, and, with the confident gait of someone who has walked runways and corridors of power, headed to get the coffee.
Steam still danced in the bathroom air when Elphaba emerged with a towel wrapped around her torso and another drying her already undone braids. Despite the modest location, there was something revitalizing about the hot water and the almost meditative routine of getting moving. By then, Glinda had returned with two steaming coffees and a small package of croissants, still dressed in a pink robe that clearly didn't belong to the hotel.
"Guess what," she announced as she placed the coffee on the nightstand. "The barista there thinks I'm an actress!"
"And what did you tell him?"
"Obviously you did," she said, offended by the doubt. "I wasn't going to break his heart so early."
Elphaba took the glass of coffee with a lazy smile, silently thanking him for that habit of hers: even in the worst of circumstances, Glinda always knew where to find a good espresso.
Before long, the two were in the midst of their departure ritual. Elphaba, more pragmatic, dressed in less than ten minutes in her black slacks, a wrinkled linen shirt, and a jacket that had seen better days. Glinda, on the other hand, took longer to decide whether or not her “travel casual” outfit should include the heart-shaped sunglasses.
“We’re not going to Cannes, Glin.”
“You never know, Elphie. We might run into a red carpet. Or the press!”
“If we run into the press at this motel, it’s not because we won an award.”
While Glinda sorted her makeup and carefully packed each item into its respective suitcase—because, of course, the five were organized by category and purpose—Elphaba went down to the parking lot to take care of her end of the deal. She checked the tank, adjusted the tire pressure, loaded basic supplies: water, some food, a new flashlight, and another set of tourist brochures, despite Glinda’s insistence that all of that was “already on her phone.”
By the time she returned, Glinda had already unloaded her bags and was searching the trunk of the car as if she were conducting a military inspection.
"Where are the snacks?" she asked, arms crossed.
"Good morning first, and then I'll tell you how I bought you your lemon cookies," Elphaba replied, tossing her a bag.
"I adore you," Glinda said, catching it with a smile.
Finally, the doors closed with a sharp click, and the engine purred with a certain tired nobility. The car, their faithful vehicle on this uncharted journey, hit the road with them as its favorite passengers.
For the first few miles, they remained silent, listening to a playlist Glinda had titled "Spiritual Glamour Journey," where Fleetwood Mac and Florence + the Machine took turns playing songs with raspy voices and mystical energy.
But then, the inevitable question arose:
"So where to now?" —Elphaba asked, without taking her eyes off the road.
—Well, since you ask…—Glinda replied, taking an old fold-out paper map out of her bag, like someone taking out a museum piece,—I decided to do this the old-fashioned way!
Elphaba looked at her sideways, as if she couldn't believe it.
—Is that… paper?
—Real cartography, darling,—Glinda said, unfolding the map on her lap with a mixture of pride and discomfort. —I thought it was fun. Romantic. Like in the movies.
—You don't know how to read that, do you?
—Please! Of course I do. This symbol here is a road… or a mountain?
—That's the map manufacturer's logo.
Glinda frowned, but didn't give up. She straightened the map, turned it over a couple of times, and then smiled as if she'd discovered a secret constellation.
—Here! Look, this little town has a quaint name. Hazelridge. Sounds lovely. We could stop there, find a local cafe, take some photos...
"What if it turns out to be a cult?" Elphaba asked.
"Then we make friends!" Glinda replied without thinking. "You need to socialize more."
"I need us not to end up trapped in a commune that believes blueberries cure cancer."
"Then let them choose other fruits!" she retorted triumphantly.
The midday sun beat down hard against the windshield, painting golden reflections on the car's dashboard. The wind, fierce and playful, ruffled the loose strands of Glinda's hair, as she kept the window ajar to let the air caress her face. Elphaba, at the wheel, frowned slightly, concentrating. Her sunglasses gave her an almost intimidating air, although it was easy to guess that she was silently enjoying that moment on the road, that floating space between one place and another, with no sound other than the tires sliding on the asphalt and their voices filling the vehicle.
"We haven't even been here a week, and we've already had this conversation a thousand times, Glinda."
"One hundred and twenty! Don't exaggerate," she replied from the passenger seat, unfolding the map clumsily again, as if it were a stubborn sheet that wouldn't quite fit the mattress.
"I chose the first stop, yes, but it wasn't that terrible," Elphaba protested, keeping her eyes fixed on the road, with the tone of someone who already knows she won't win the argument. "It had a river. Trees. Nature. You said you wanted to reconnect with the simple."
"The river was brown, Elphie!" "And the 'trees' were three dead sticks next to a sign that said 'municipal forest'!" Glinda retorted indignantly. "We were greeted by a stray dog who stole one of my slippers!"
"And I'm still grateful for that dog. That slipper was offensive."
Glinda glanced at him, swallowing her laughter.
"Well, now it's my turn. But I reserve the right not to tell you until we're halfway there. To maintain the mystery."
"No, no," Elphaba raised an eyebrow. "You mentioned the 'mystery' thing last time, and we ended up at a nudist fair."
"Oh come on! It was cultural."
"It was unsanitary."
Glinda laughed, twirling her fingers on the map until something caught her eye. Her light blue eyes lit up as if she'd just seen a shooting star.
"Here!" she exclaimed, gently tapping the unfolded paper. "Here, I found it. Royal Coralé."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow without taking her eyes off the road.
"What's that? A brand of yogurt?"
“Don’t be silly! Royal Coralé. I used to go there as a little girl with my parents! We had a summer house nearby, and this particular hotel was like paradise to me. Crystal gardens, fountains with fish, sheets so soft they felt like whipped cream…”
“Whipped cream?”
“Literally! And they served the best lavender mint tea I’ve ever tasted. I always dreamed of going back. And now…” She turned to her, excited, like a child begging for five more minutes in the park. “Now we can do it together. What do you say?”
Elphaba didn’t respond immediately. She lightly gripped the wheel, letting the silence settle for a moment. From her window, the fields passed by like a tapestry of vivid watercolors. Then, without looking at Glinda, she sharply swerved toward the exit marked by the dusty sign that marked the turnoff to Royal Coralé.
"I say if this ends up being another vegan temazcal spa, I'll make you sleep in the backseat," she murmured.
Glinda, far from being offended, giggled delightedly, folded the map with dramatic satisfaction, and settled into her seat.
"I promise it'll be different this time. You'll like it, you'll see."
"That's what you said about the karaoke bar and goats."
"The goats were singing in tune!"
"The goats ate my notebook."
"Details."
And so, amid jokes, knowing reproaches, and memories that seemed taken from a shared diary written in ink of madness and affection, the car moved forward along the secondary road that would take them to Royal Coralé. As they entered greener, tree-lined roads, where the noise of the city was already a distant echo, Elphaba glanced at Glinda out of the corner of her eye.
Despite the ridiculousness of her anecdotes, there was something sincere in the emotion with which she spoke about that place. Something that connected her to a part of herself that perhaps had yet to fully heal. And silently, Elphaba gently gripped the wheel. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
After another half hour of driving, the coastal road opened up with a slow, revealing turn. As if a curtain of trees had been deliberately parted for the big show, the sea appeared on the horizon with its endless blueness, and beside it, rising like a golden temple among palm trees and decorative fountains, stood the hotel complex. A gleaming white structure that looked less like a palace straight out of the fantasy of a millionaire with bad taste and an over-budget.
Elphaba gently hit the brakes, unable to suppress a sigh of resignation.
"What is this..." she murmured, frowning behind her sunglasses. "An embassy from Olympus?" A vanity showroom? And why... why does it sparkle so much?
"Oh my goodness!" Glinda exclaimed, practically bouncing in her seat, her pupils dilating with excitement. "It's the same! Look at those columns! And the flowers! Oh, even the fountains have colored lights, Elphie! Colored lights!"
"Perfect," Elphaba replied, turning off the engine with a heavier sigh. "I hope they accept blood as payment, because this room is going to cost us a lung, a kidney, and probably my dignity."
"You already left your dignity at the previous motel, when you asked for two extra sheets to sleep on 'because the mattress smelled of existential panic.'"
"It smelled of hopelessness! It's not the same."
They parked in front of the main entrance, where a bellboy in a perfectly pressed uniform and a rehearsed smile was already waiting for them with a discreet bow. Elphaba, naturally, froze.
"I can park," he said, hugging the steering wheel like it was his shield.
"Oh, please," Glinda said with a soft laugh, pushing up her sunglasses as if the conversation had already been decided. "Let him earn his tip, don't be stingy."
"Tip? Glinda, he earns more than I do."
Glinda took the keys from her with commanding sweetness, handed them to the young bellboy, and gave her a smile that could have lit up the entire lobby. Elphaba reluctantly got out of the car, casting one last wary glance in the rearview mirror as if she suspected her vehicle was about to be sold in pieces.
They passed through the revolving doors, and the lobby unfolded before them like a baroque opera set: white marble, chandeliers hanging from the ceiling like frozen wreaths, piano music floating in the air with not a pianist in sight. Fresh flowers dotted every corner, and the scent was an exotic blend of lavender, eucalyptus, and... organic vanilla?
Elphaba paused for a second, staring at the scene with suppressed terror.
"This smells of bank debt and impulsive decisions."
"Shh," Glinda whispered, taking her arm soothingly. "Trust me. I'll take care of it. This is part of the journey, remember?" Elphie... I want this to be one of the places where we experience something special. Not just a hotel, a memory.
"A memory with white-gloved waiters and bottled water with aristocratic surnames?"
"Exactly."
And so, they walked together to the reception desk, where, as if carved from marble and sarcasm, the most exquisitely insufferable receptionist Elphaba had ever had the pleasure of detesting at first sight was waiting for them. A perfectly tailored suit, a black bow tie as black as a lawyer's divinity, and an expression that oscillated between discreet contempt and professional condescension.
"Welcome to the Royal Coralé, ladies," he said in a nasal, perfectly modulated voice. "Do you have a reservation, or are you spontaneously seeking a room?"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow. The tone she'd given that last word was as if she'd said "fleas" or "middle class."
Glinda, ever the diplomat, took the lead with her ambassador-of-peace smile.
"We're just passing through, but I was wondering if you had availability for a double room, with an ocean view, if possible."
The receptionist typed something without really looking at the screen, assessing them with an arched eyebrow.
"Name?"
"Glinda Upland. And this is my..." he looked at Elphaba with a small smile, "traveling partner."
"Pleased to meet you." He said this as if he'd just bitten into a lemon. "Let's see what we can do for you... although during high season, our suites with views tend to book up months in advance."
"We have a tent in the trunk if necessary," Elphaba murmured dryly.
The receptionist didn't even blink, but his smile narrowed.
"Very bohemian. I assure you we'll do our best to accommodate you... within our means, of course."
Elphaba narrowed her eyes, already calculating how many passive-aggressive words she could use to destroy him before Glinda kicked her under the counter. But Glinda, skilled as a diplomat in a crisis room, took her hand and squeezed gently.
"I'm sure we'll find the perfect match. After all," she said, looking directly at the receptionist with the sharp sweetness of someone who knows her power, "there's always room for two determined women."
And with that charming smile that only Glinda could muster without sounding fake, she sealed the deal. The receptionist, resigned, issued the magnetic card and meticulously reviewed the reservation and availability list.
Elphaba murmured under her breath:
"One of these days you're going to take me to a hotel where I won't feel like I need an offshore account to breathe."
Glinda, satisfied, winked at her.
"And one day you're going to admit that all this amuses you more than you pretend."
While they waited for the receptionist with the monumental ego to announce availability, the two women looked for ways to distract themselves. Elphaba noticed a newspaper, the headline of which announced political unrest in the foreign nation of Maracoor Abiding. She briefly considered buying it, but quickly realized that, like everything else in this place, it would surely cost more than all her clothes, and gave up.
Glinda, on the other hand, flipped through a colorful tourist brochure with an enthusiasm that bordered on the absurd. Her eyes shone as if each activity promised an epiphany.
"Look at this, Elphie! Sunrise yoga class on floating platforms, volcanic mud spa, horseback riding on the beach, wine tasting, foot painting workshop..."
"Is that last one art or torture?" Elphaba snarled, not bothering to hide her skepticism as she cast a critical eye over the shiny marble floor as if she could sell it piecemeal to pay for her stay.
"What if we take a couples paddleboarding lesson? Oh, that would be so much fun! Imagine, you and I paddling together like synchronized souls..."
"Glinda. We can barely sync up when deciding which playlist to use in the car. And besides, how the hell are we going to pay for all this? Are you going to prostitute yourself on the beach for cocktails with umbrellas?"
Glinda gave her a wounded princess look, though her smile betrayed her amusement.
"Of course not. I have my savings. Besides, just worry about surviving this experience without making homicidal comments to the staff."
"Fine. But enjoy every inch of this place, because we won't be coming back. At least not with my card. Not with me, probably."
"Dramatic."
"Realistic."
Before the discussion could get any further, the receptionist, still smiling petrifiedly, announced:
"Ladies, your room is ready." Top floor, partial ocean view, decor inspired by native flora. Have a... delightful stay.
They both thanked each other (one with genuine courtesy, the other with a grimace that was almost a grunt) and set off down the glittering hallway, their figures a stark contrast to the polished perfection of the hotel. Elphaba dragged her suitcase like someone carrying a sentence. Glinda, on the other hand, walked as if floating, absolutely happy.
"Just promise me we won't end up painting with our feet."
"I'm not promising you anything," Glinda replied with a radiant smile. "But I do promise you, you'll laugh about this... someday."
IN THE FUTURE:
Night enveloped the coast with a warm, salty wind, while the hotel lights glowed with a more subdued, almost routine tone. There was no piano music floating in the air, no fresh flowers in every corner. The marble was still there, but the wax on it no longer gleamed with the same arrogance. Elphaba stepped off the transport vehicle first, buttoning her long coat while carrying her trusty backpack. Behind her, with a more relaxed gait and a look of tiredness mixed with curiosity, Glinda stepped out, adjusting her scarf with almost automatic elegance.
They both stopped in front of the lobby doors, where a sign discreetly announced an "upcoming" renovation. Elphaba glanced at her and, still walking, blurted out, "Where are the fountains with colored lights? The perfumes that smell like minimum wage? The unnecessary opulence?"
Glinda looked around the interior with a bittersweet expression, recognizing the traces of the place she had loved and feeling, with some disappointment, how the years had caught up with it as well.
"It's changed..." she murmured. "This was all so much more magical."
"It was expensive. Now it seems... affordable. I like it better. It feels like a hotel for humans."
They entered the lobby together. A younger receptionist with a bored expression and round glasses looked up from his screen, and instantly, his body seemed to straighten with a mixture of surprise and undisguised reverence.
"Mrs. Thropp-Upland? Mrs. Thropp?" he asked, as if he didn't quite believe who he was standing before.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow as she placed her backpack on the counter with a soft thump.
"I guess we're still in the database as 'those who requested extra pillows and left a complaint about the air freshener smell.'" The young man smiled nervously and nodded, tapping something on his computer.
"Your room's almost ready. Fifth floor. Ocean view. The director wanted to make sure everything was... spotless for your arrival."
"Are we celebrities now?" Elphaba whispered sarcastically as Glinda giggled quietly.
"Technically... you're the celebrity. I'm just your decorative wife," Glinda replied with a mocking smile.
"You're much more than decorative. But if you ever want to be a Scandinavian design vase, I won't complain."
As they waited on the plush sofas in the reception area, surrounded by a setting that was desperately trying to look elegant even though it was already showing signs of wear, Glinda sighed and pulled out her phone, holding it up like someone waiting for a sign from God. After a few seconds, her face lit up with childlike excitement.
"I've got a signal!" she announced, as if she'd just discovered water on Mars. Finally! I'm going to call Fiyero, just to make sure they didn't set fire to anything or adopt another hedgehog without asking.
"No." Elphaba's curt reply came before Glinda could even swipe.
"What?"
"We promised, Glinda. One weekend. No interruptions. No work. No... No strange pets with ridiculous names. Just you and me. Remember?"
Glinda slowly lowered her phone, pouting exaggeratedly, even though deep down she knew Elphaba was right. She laid the device on her lap in resignation.
"Yes, yes, I know... but what if the cat eats the hedgehog?"
"Fiyero is perfectly capable. It's his lot. Let him take care of it. It's his weekend."
"Always so loving..." Glinda muttered with a hint of mockery.
"Always so suspicious," Elphaba retorted, crossing her legs as she scanned the lobby.
There was a brief silence as they both looked around, as if trying to decide if the air conditioning was more pretentious than effective. In one corner, an extravagantly shaped vase sat on a table of uncertain design. Glinda tilted her head curiously.
"Was that vase there last time?"
"Clearly not. They used to put out those ridiculous things with fruit floating in water. Remember? Fake grapes and dried lemon slices..."
"No, no, Elphie, I'm sure it was this one. With those flowers that look like something out of a botanical nightmare."
"Want to bet?" Elphaba smiled, knowing this conversation could last for hours if they wanted to.
Glinda was about to retort when her eyes suddenly locked on something across the lobby. She straightened, letting out a sharp gasp.
"Elphie!"
"What?" she asked, alarmed.
"Look!"
Elphaba turned her head slowly, fearing the worst. And the worst was exactly that: hanging on one of the lobby's central columns, framed by dim lights and gold lettering, a giant poster showing her face, her hair pulled back, and a promotional tagline in cursive:
"Control and Consent: Ethics, Power, and Love; Author Elphaba Thropp-Upland lays bare the truths of power and love." — Friday, 8:30 p.m. Main Hall.
Elphaba's eyes widened and she sank into the chair as if she could become invisible.
"Why the hell are they using that photo?"
"You look gorgeous!" Glinda exclaimed, immediately standing up and snapping a picture of the poster with her cell phone. "That's the one we took for the interview in The Atlantic, isn't it? I love it. It has that 'I'm going to rip your skin off with my words, but with style' vibe."
"It wasn't meant for giant posters, Glinda. I had no idea they were going to put that up. Does it lay bare the truth? What's that, an academic burlesque show?"
Glinda let out a wide, vibrant laugh, unashamed, as she sat back down next to her.
"You're adorable when you're uncomfortable. And besides... I'm so proud. You're going to talk about your book at an important event, in a beautiful place, with a wonderful view. And I'm going to be there, front row, clapping like crazy."
"What if I get tongue-tied?" What if I forget everything and end up talking about... chinchillas?
"Then you're going to give me the best moment of the weekend."
Before Elphaba could reply with another ironic response, the young receptionist returned to the counter with a cordial smile.
"Ladies, your room is ready. Fifth floor, west wing. Here are your key cards. If you need anything, don't hesitate to dial zero."
They both stood up. Elphaba grabbed her backpack, and Glinda arranged her purse with almost surgical precision. As she took the key cards, Glinda couldn't help but glance at the poster again.
"You know what?" she whispered to Elphaba as they walked toward the elevator. "I hope that giant poster stays there forever. Next time we'll bring your mother and show her that her daughter-in-law is a damn legend... I'm sure she'll love it."
"Please don't use 'damn legend' as a polite phrase."
"Too late."
And with that last exchange of smiles, the elevator doors closed, carrying them toward that room that was now not only a pause in their journey, but also a reunion with what they had been... and with what, five years later, they still were: two women who, despite everything, continued to choose each other every day.
IN THE PRESENT...
The elevator opened with a metallic sigh on the top floor of the east wing, revealing a hallway carpeted in shades of cream and gold, with crystal chandeliers hanging like frozen drops from the ceiling. Elphaba and Glinda emerged, dragging their cargo of suitcases, backpacks, handbags, and, in Glinda's case, a ridiculous but charming little hat wrapped in a box that she insisted on carrying herself. Behind them came the bellboy, young, upright, and professional, though with a smile that tightened slightly every time Elphaba's gaze pierced him like a sharp knife. “Breakfast is served from seven to ten, spa activities must be booked at least twelve hours in advance, drones are not allowed on balconies, and minibar drinks will be charged directly to the room,” he recited with automated perfection as they walked.
“What if I take a drink but leave it half finished? Will I still be charged?” Elphaba asked with an innocent smile.
“Each item opened will be considered consumed.” The bellboy’s smile remained, though his left eye twitched barely perceptibly.
“Fascinating.”
“In addition, we ask guests not to hang wet clothes on the balcony, to keep the volume down after eleven at night, and to respect the privacy of other rooms,” he added, this time staring directly at Elphaba, as if he’d smelled the chaos.
"I'm not promising anything."
Glinda chuckled, gently bumping her shoulder as they reached the room. The bellboy opened it skillfully and let them in with a slight bow, after which Elphaba handed him a small tip while he tried not to be offended by the amount.
Once they were alone, Elphaba closed the door with her foot and dropped her suitcases with a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of her soul.
"Good heavens, this weighs more than my morale."
"It's perfect!" Glinda exclaimed, twirling like a ballerina in the spacious and elegantly decorated living room. A hand-woven rug, soft ivory furniture, a bed that seemed to float on clouds. But the best was yet to come.
"Look at this," she said, running to a wall that opened to a huge window covered with translucent curtains. "Elphie, come here!"
Reluctantly but curiously, Elphaba approached. Glinda drew the curtains with a theatrical tug. The view that unfolded before them was simply… immense. An endless stretch of dark blue sea stretched to the horizon, lapped by a breeze that made the waves sparkle in the distance. From the balcony, they could hear the rhythmic lap of the tide, the distant call of seagulls, the elegant murmur of the world Glinda once inhabited.
"This was my favorite place," Glinda said softly, resting her arms on the railing. "We came here every summer with my parents. I would sneak out with a book and sit right there, in that corner. And now…"
She turned to look at her, and for a moment her expression wasn't that of a nostalgic woman or an excited girl, but something deeper. Something Elphaba understood all too well: the desire to share a piece of the past with someone who mattered.
"Now you can see it with me."
Elphaba crossed her arms, pursing her lips in a gesture that wasn't exactly a smile, but wasn't exactly a denial either.
"Yes. Nice. Very nice. Very... affordable."
Glinda giggled and went back inside, dragging Elphaba with her.
"Come on, don't be like that. We deserve it. Besides, we're only staying for a couple of days."
"Yes, because otherwise, we'll have to scrub bathrooms on night shifts to pay for this. Glinda, I'm not kidding. This is going to cost us more than our entire trip budget."
"So what?" Glinda replied nonchalantly as she unzipped her handbag and began sorting through some clothes. "You paid for the first stop. That musty-smelling cabin with two cats that followed us everywhere. Now it's my turn to choose. And this place has history."
"It has fees, that's what it does," Elphaba grumbled as she began to pull out a couple of changes of clothes and her old notebook. "And we don't have the history for such luxury."
"We do," Glinda whispered, more to herself than to her.
Elphaba pretended not to hear her. Instead, she glanced at the clock on the wall and closed her suitcase with a single slap of her palm.
"Well. If we're going to stay, I need something hot, caffeinated, and probably fried in questionable oil. Let's get something to eat."
"Yes! Let's go!" Glinda exclaimed, tossing her hat on the bed and gathering her bag like someone embarking on an adventure.
As they left the room, Elphaba couldn't help but glance at the sea once more. Just for a moment. Then she closed the door behind her.
"But tomorrow, promise me no water yoga or hot stone massages. Nothing unusual."
"We'll see," Glinda said, smiling. After all, the journey has just begun.
Elphaba and Glinda descended the elevator together to the buffet restaurant level. As soon as the doors opened, a cool, spice- and citrus-scented air enveloped them, along with a constant murmur of dishes, soft laughter, and the clinking of glasses. Elphaba frowned at the sheer size of the place. It was immense. More than a dining room, it felt like a culinary palace, with islands of food so well lit that each salad looked like a jewel in a glass case.
"Is all this included?" Elphaba murmured, picking up a metal tray with an expression as if she were lifting a sacred object.
"Of course it is," Glinda replied with a radiant smile. "And look! They have vegan options. Finally, a place that understands that not everyone wants dead protein for breakfast."
"Or mystery protein for breakfast," Elphaba countered, pointing to a tray of something that looked like tofu... but with a suspiciously gelatinous texture.
"I lived a little!" "Glinda laughed, and she danced between the food stations, pointing out exotic fruits and artisanal-looking breads as if she were on a gourmet catwalk.
Elphaba, for her part, hung back, peering at a sign with the word "quinoa" spelled five different ways and trying to decipher whether the dish in front of her was soup or dessert. The chef behind the counter—a thin, pale man in a too-clean apron—helpfully explained that the dish was a "fermented barley foam on a freeze-dried fennel nest."
"Is that food?" Elphaba asked, her eyes narrowed.
"It is," the chef replied solemnly.
"Is it cooked?"
"No, it's raw, dehydrated, and then emulsified."
"Perfect. Textured horror."
While trying to decide between four varieties of risotto that all looked exactly the same except for their overly poetic names, Elphaba turned to look for Glinda… and she was gone. Elphaba scanned the living room like a falcon searching for its lost chick. It was an instant, barely a blink, and she'd lost her.
A microsecond of panic coursed through her, ridiculous but visceral. Until, in the corner closest to the window, she found her: Glinda, standing, surrounded by at least five people, all smiling and listening to her as if she'd just descended from heaven. An elderly lady in a sunhat laughed with one hand to her chest, while a young man with an influencer look nodded fervently. Glinda, of course, livened up the conversation with charming gestures and a clear laugh that pierced the living room like a luminous bell.
Elphaba, still clutching her tray, couldn't help it. She stood still, watching her from afar. That was Glinda. Her Glinda. A woman who could light up a room without even trying, who made friends without even trying, and who could make even the most stuffy waitress laugh heartily in less than a minute. Sometimes she found it disconcerting, even irritating. But that laughter, that effortless joy… it was contagious. She was beautiful.
But then the line moved forward, and Elphaba was pushed forward by a hungry couple behind her, and had to choose between four versions of the infernal risotto. The chef explained that one was with black truffle, another with lavender essence, another with beet reduction, and the last with "a touch of nostalgia."
"How am I supposed to try that without crying?" Elphaba snarled, pointing at the last one.
"It depends on the palate," the chef replied, without irony.
Finally, with resignation, she chose one at random and added two more things to her plate without looking at them much, then slunk to a secluded table near the bay window, where the noise was quieter. She sat heavily in the gray velvet-upholstered chair, dropping her tray onto the table as if the weight of the unfamiliar dishes were both physical and metaphorical. In front of her, the ingredients of her dinner challenged her: something that looked like rice but wasn't, a sauce too bright to be natural, and a sprig of dill that, according to the chef, should be "eaten whole to activate the sensory experience."
"The only sensory experience I'm having is fear," she muttered to herself through gritted teeth, pushing a suspiciously colored gelatinous portion with her fork. "This feels like the revenge of a traumatized carrot."
A soft but unmistakable burst of laughter interrupted her. Elphaba looked up, instinctively on the defensive, and saw a tall man with graying, somewhat disheveled hair, reading glasses dangling from his neck and a navy blue shirt rolled up in a casual yet elegant manner. He held his tray in one hand and, with the other, somewhat awkwardly, pointed to a neighboring table.
"Excuse me... would you mind if I asked for a napkin? It seems the culinary enthusiasm overcame them here."
Elphaba, still frustrated, took a paper napkin from her table and extended it to him without looking up.
"Sure. You can take them all, if you need to soften any of these experimental dishes," she said sarcastically.
The man laughed again, this time with genuine warmth.
"Now I'm even more curious to try that nostalgia risotto they offered me. Did you cry at the first bite?" "I don't know... I think he's doing a passive-aggressive psychological evaluation on me," she replied, almost without thinking.
He accepted the napkin with a slight nod, and in that gesture—that voice, that nonchalant yet thoughtful air—Elphaba saw him.
Her eyes widened a little, and for a moment her thoughts froze, as if someone had hit the pause button inside her.
It was him.
Grayce Greyling.
A man in his fifties, with wavy, slightly graying hair, a subtle beard, and round, wooden-framed glasses. He was wearing a wrinkled linen shirt that looked as if he'd just taken it out of a duffel bag, and a black-covered notebook tucked under his arm. Everything about him screamed bohemian intellectual on his second glass of wine.
Elphaba had recognized him immediately. Not just because of his picture on the back of all his books—the same one she studied like a secret map—but because of the way his words sounded as if she'd read them before, as if his tone came from an audiobook she'd devoured three times. He was the author of The Language of Shadows, Cartographies of the Soul, and her personal favorite, The Places We Haven't Been.
And now, he was standing in front of her, smiling at her, holding a napkin of his own.
"Are you okay?" he asked, noticing Elphaba's sudden silence.
She stood up abruptly, her chair creaking, and held out her hand with an awkward stiffness that wasn't her usual.
"Yes. I mean. Sorry. My name is Elphaba. Elphaba Thropp. I'm a huge fan. Like... huge. I've read all your books." Well, not all of them, because there's one that was never translated, and literary English gives me a headache sometimes, but… but I have a copy anyway. I didn't know you were going to be here. I mean… not until now. And—
"Nice to meet you, Elphaba," Grayce said, shaking her hand warmly, though his expression was already filled with an amused smile at her unbridled enthusiasm. "Thank you. I'm so honored to know my books reached you."
Elphaba nodded quickly, nervously, fighting her natural impulse to hide behind a joke or a biting critique. But she couldn't. Her fingers trembled slightly, and her throat was dry.
“I’m here to give a talk on my new essay, ‘Topographies of Memory.’ I assume you already know that?”
“Yes. Yes, yes, of course,” Elphaba lied without hesitation, her smile frozen. “That’s why I’m here. I came specifically to hear you. Your talk. Exactly.”
“Excellent. I’ll see you there, then. I hope I don’t disappoint you,” he said, winking gently.
And with that, Grayce Greyling gave her a final smile, bowed elegantly, and walked off to another table. Elphaba stood absolutely still for several seconds.
A drop of unfamiliar sauce slid down the edge of her plate and onto her napkin.
Elphaba barely noticed.
She was in shock. Her mind was still reliving the moment in slow motion, every word, every gesture, every wrinkle in Grayce’s shirt. When she sat back down, she did so without looking at her plate. She leaned her elbows on the table, her hands clasped in front of her face, and muttered to herself, "Good heavens... I just lied to Grayce Greyling's face. And I don't know if I want to die... or write a book about it."
And just seconds later, Elphaba came barreling out of the dining room, the world moving fast, her heart pounding in her throat, and everything in her screaming to find Glinda as soon as possible. She dashed through the aisle between tables, dodging trays, children, and tanned adults who were talking too loudly, and just as she turned a corner, she saw her.
Glinda, standing among a group of older guests and a few young couples, was laughing like she was at a gala. Her golden hair shone in the warm light of the hall, and her smile was as magnetic as ever. When Elphaba came running up, waving her arms as if she were wearing an alarm clock, Glinda jumped at the sight and ran over.
"There you are! I've been looking for you!"
"Me too!" Elphaba said at the same time, panting a little. "I have to tell you something."
"No, me first!"
"No, me!"
"Let's flip a coin!"
"I don't have any coins!"
"Perfect! Then I'll go first!" Glinda exclaimed with a laugh and a twinkle in her eyes.
Elphaba rolled hers, but smiled back.
"Go on, tell me."
"See that lovely group I was talking to?! Well, it turns out they came here because of a special hotel member package," she said, lowering her voice as if it were some elegant conspiracy, "and they invited me to join them for the weekend's activities. Cooking classes, boating, spa, tango show...! And when I told them I was with you, they said of course you could come too. Free! Free, Elphaba!" —he repeated emphatically, as if that word were a sacred offering.
Elphaba blinked.
"For free? How did you manage that?"
"My darling, obviously," Glinda said with false modesty.
Elphaba gave a dry, though genuinely amused, laugh. But she wasted no time.
"Well, listen to this, because you won't believe this. I was alone at the table, trying not to be poisoned by whatever I poured myself, when someone asked me for a napkin. And I... well, I gave it to him, obviously, without looking. But when I did... it was him. Him, Glinda. Grayce Greyling. Get it? Grayce Greyling!"
"... Isn't that the author of those sad books with existential titles you have stacked on your shelf?" Glinda asked, genuinely trying to remember.
"They're not sad! They're thoughtful. Profound. Brilliant." Elphaba was almost offended, but her emotion was stronger. "And he recognized me, well... not literally, but we talked." And she's giving a talk here at the hotel tomorrow. And she invited me! She said she wanted to see me there.
"Oh..." Glinda replied, her smile wavering only slightly. A second of tension was barely perceptible. Like a note that doesn't fit the perfect melody.
"I know what you're going to say..." Elphaba began. "That we had plans and all. But think about it... maybe it's not so bad. I can go to the talk, and you can do those activities you wanted to do, like when you were a kid. Didn't you say you loved pottery workshops and dance classes on the beach?"
Glinda nodded slowly. Her smile reappeared, but it wasn't as bright. It was a smile of commitment, the kind you practice in the mirror so as not to worry someone.
"Yeah, sure. It's perfect. This way we both enjoy ourselves," she said, even patting Elphaba on the arm. "You with your depressing writer, and me... well, with my spa." "It's not depressing," Elphaba replied, crossing her arms, though she was also smiling. Then, softly, "We'll be together anyway. We'll see each other tonight. We'll talk about everything. It'll only be one day. I promise I'm not going to fall in love with some bohemian intellectual."
Glinda gave a forced laugh.
"You better be, because if you do, you'll have to divide that library of yours."
They both laughed. But when Elphaba looked back at the dining room, already lost in the thought of chatter and excitement, Glinda allowed herself a small exhalation.
And in that exhalation, lay the truth: she didn't like the idea. She didn't want to spend the day alone. But she couldn't ask Elphaba not to go, either.
So she smiled, nodded... and began planning her best version of a pretend-perfect day.
Because sometimes, when you love someone, you smile even when your chest is knotted.
IN THE FUTURE...
In the dimly lit hotel room, the sea breeze made the curtains move with a gentle rhythm, like bated breaths. In front of the wardrobe mirror, Elphaba stood in her bathrobe, barefoot, her legs tense, her glasses sliding down the end of her nose. In one hand, she held her guide cards, in the other a pen with which she had underlined and crossed out more than she had read.
"The language of silence can become an abyss..." An abyss? What kind of cheap cliché is that? she muttered, her mouth twisting in contempt at her own words.
She tried again:
"Sometimes... silence... is more damaging than a lie..." She paused, exhaled slowly, and dropped the cards onto the nightstand with a thud.
"Great. A mountain of self-help philosophy at five in the afternoon in a bathrobe. No one's going to take you seriously, Elphaba."
She massaged the bridge of her nose, then looked at herself in the mirror again.
"Why can't I write like I speak? Why do I talk like I'm trying to get someone who's no longer here to like me?"
Elphaba was about to try again when she heard a clear shout from the other side of the door.
"No! I'm not signing anything until they send me a copy of the report! And the security closures had better be legal this time, or this is going straight to the prosecutor's office, okay?"
She recognized her immediately. She went out into the hallway, opening the door without thinking, and found her.
Glinda. In her classic political uniform: a fitted suit, stilettos, and phone in hand, she paced back and forth as if the hotel carpet were Congress. Her hair was perfectly styled, though her expression was pure fire. She had three assistants on call, one more waiting for a response on WhatsApp, and at least two people receiving contradictory orders by email.
"And don't send me those poor-quality scanned PDFs. If you want me to sign something, read it. I don't work blindly. Not during a campaign, not on vacation," she concluded sharply, before hanging up with an elegant flourish.
When she looked up and saw Elphaba in the doorway, there was a brief moment of suspension. Then she smoothed her blazer with one hand as if nothing had happened.
"Hi, honey..." she said with a guilty smile.
"Is this your idea of a weekend off?" Elphaba raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms, her olive-green robe barely containing the slight tremble of her frustration.
"Sorry." I swear it was just a quick call. But there was a problem with the environmental permits for the new community center in District 4 and...
"...and the world would burn if you don't intervene personally, I know it," Elphaba interrupted, walking slowly toward her, a half-smile on her lips.
"It wouldn't burn... but it would be unnecessarily delayed, and clean water doesn't wait," Glinda said, shrugging. Then she looked down, noticing the robe, the glasses, and the way Elphaba was anxiously rubbing her fingers together. "Is everything okay with your talk?"
"Perfect. I only ran out of the bathroom to interrupt you because everything's going wonderfully," she replied with dry sarcasm.
Glinda smiled, walking toward her.
"Do you want me to help you? Shall we rehearse?"
Elphaba shook her head, but not harshly.
"I don't want to turn this into another committee meeting."
"Then let's not do it," Glinda said, leaning against the doorframe, lowering her voice a little. "Talk to me. What's wrong?"
Elphaba sighed.
"I don't know... I feel like a fraud. Like I have to convince all these people that I understand something that... I can barely explain to you."
"And don't you think that's exactly what makes your book so powerful?" Glinda said, her voice softer now, like the way she used to talk at night before she fell asleep, when there was no audience and no promises. "People don't need a polished answer. They need someone who dares to share the doubt."
Elphaba looked at her in silence for a moment. Then she smiled faintly and shook her head.
"You always know what to say."
"And you always know when I'm drowning in work," Glinda said. "We make a good pair."
"Kind of like a marriage."
"Kind of like a political marriage."
They both laughed. And in the midst of her laughter, Elphaba pulled her by the hand and gave her a slow, warm kiss, as if the hallway might forget it was a hotel. As if it were her home.
"So many years and you still know how…"
BEEEP!!!!
Suddenly, Elphaba's grateful and affectionate comment was interrupted by Glinda's phone ringing once more. Glinda gritted her teeth in frustration.
"Shit… I'm sorry, I promise this will be quick," Glinda stated, taking out her phone again and going to another room to talk.
Elphaba only gave her another sympathetic smile, but as soon as Glinda left, that smile turned… into doubt.
BACK IN THE PRESENT…
The ice in the glass clinked softly as Glinda stirred her margarita, without tasting it. She was sitting in one of the armchairs in the room's breakfast nook, her legs crossed, a light robe open over her linen suit, and a perfectly studied expression of calm… or at least, that's what she wanted to pretend. Because behind that serene facade, her lips were tense, and her eyes flashed with that unmistakable mix of annoyance and frustration that only Elphaba could provoke in her.
In the center of the room, sitting on the floor, Elphaba was completely absorbed, frowning behind her glasses, a notebook open on her knees, and a pencil bitten into the corner of her mouth. She had the latest Greyce Greyling book open to a marked page, and while she jotted down questions, underlined passages, and murmured thoughts, she seemed to have completely forgotten her surroundings. Glinda, especially.
And that was the real problem.
Glinda took a short sip of her margarita, leaned back exaggeratedly in her armchair, and, without looking directly at her, said in a carefully indifferent tone,
"I didn't know you married that book."
Silence.
Elphaba let out a thoughtful "hmmm," without looking up.
Glinda raised an eyebrow. It was the kind of response a woman accustomed to having one's undivided attention found unacceptable. She leaned forward, placed her glass on the table with a clack louder than necessary, and stood up, walking to the small armoire where she'd hung her bag.
"I thought this weekend was for us. But I suppose the great Greyling is much more entertaining," she said, with a smile so sweet it was almost jarring.
Elphaba barely turned her head, just enough to respond:
"What did you say? Sorry, I was just thinking about this passage..."
"Nothing. I'm going to the pool."
That did make Elphaba look at her. Barely a second, with a brief, relaxed smile.
"Bring sunscreen. And please don't try to 're-educate' the lifeguard if he won't let you float with a cocktail in your hand."
Glinda narrowed her eyes. Very well. Did she want to play? Well, they would play.
With a perfectly choreographed gesture, she pulled from her bag a bikini that was clearly not made for swimming, but for causing traffic accidents, which Elphaba had once described as "an insult to the law of gravity." She held it up in the air like someone not seeking to provoke, but knowing full well the effect it can have.
"I'll go to the pool, the sauna... Then maybe I'll sign up for that yoga class on the sand. And maybe I'll have a daiquiri with those instructors who offered to teach me paddleboarding... They were very attentive. And young."
She looked back at Elphaba, expecting at least a raised eyebrow. A sarcastic remark. A jealous sigh.
But Elphaba just smiled, this time without looking up from her book:
"Sounds like you're going to have a great day. Enjoy. And don't break a rib paddleboarding, I didn't bring a full first-aid kit this time."
That was the final straw.
Glinda pressed her lips together, grabbed her purse, sunglasses, bikini, and half-full margarita glass. When she reached the door, she paused for a second, as if waiting for a plea, an excuse, a magic phrase.
But Elphaba was already underlining a line with her pencil again. She muttered something about "inverted narrative structure" and turned the page.
"Perfect," Glinda muttered softly. "Let him marry the notes, then."
And without further ado, she left the room with the wounded elegance and determination of a dethroned queen, leaving behind the soft scent of her perfume and a thick tension hanging in the air.
Inside, Elphaba barely noticed the door had closed. But a page later, she stopped her pencil, sighed... and slowly turned her head toward the emptiness Glinda had left.
"...Oh, Glinda."
But it was too late.
Elphaba remained alone in the room, Greyce's book open on the desk, the notes neatly arranged in front of her. But she wasn't reading. Not really. She kept scanning the same paragraphs, trying to focus, trying to convince herself that Glinda's reaction hadn't been a big deal. That she was overreacting. That, as always, Glinda would put on a show and then it would pass. That's what her mind told her.
But every few minutes, her gaze drifted to the window, as if she could see her down there among the people, walking through the palm trees with that smile she used as a shield. And though she tried not to, she wondered if anyone else was watching her the way she was. If those "instructors" were noticing the way her eyes lit up when she talked about her childhood or how much she loved colorful umbrellas. She slammed the book shut. Damn.
Meanwhile, Glinda was at the resort's main pool, sitting on a lounge chair with a towel neatly spread out, surrounded by laughter and music. She had huge sunglasses on, a piña colada in her hand, and four different people trying to chat her up. She responded with her most charming smile, the one that could close deals or win elections, but her mind was elsewhere.
Every so often, she turned her head in the absurd hope that Elphaba would appear unexpectedly, perhaps in that dark bikini she refused to wear, muttering that the chlorine in the water was probably toxic. She wouldn't, of course. But Glinda couldn't help it. Between conversations, as one of the instructors explained how to hold the paddle correctly, she thought about how Elphaba would laughingly correct her. How she would critique her poses, help her clumsily but sweetly apply sunscreen. And how, secretly, she would blush watching her walk on the sand. She smiled at the thought… and the next second, she frowned. Why did she have to think about that now?
Back in the room, Elphaba had forced herself to change position. She sat cross-legged on the rug, her notebook in her lap, marking questions for the nightly Q&A. But the phrase "what were your most contradictory literary references?" It morphed into, “Would Glinda like the spa or the walks on the beach more?” before she could stop herself. She closed her notebook. She stood up, washed her face, and looked at her reflection.
“You’re not in high school, Elphie…” she whispered to herself.
In yoga class, Glinda tried to clear her mind. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and let the sound of the waves wash over her. But thirty seconds in, she was already wondering if Elphaba was finally wearing that loose dress she liked or if she was still wearing that T-shirt that looked like a spilled ink test. She tried to refocus, but ended up falling into a position that almost made her lose her balance.
Back in her room, Elphaba had her book open again, but instead of reading, she was writing in the margin in small ink: “Things Glinda would say if she were here: 1. This chair is so ugly. 2. Why does everything in hotels smell like old wood? 3. Where is the bar?”
She sighed. She closed the book. She ran her hand over her face. She fell silent.
Meanwhile, Glinda, in the sauna, surrounded by steam and silence, closed her eyes… and murmured:
"I wish you were here, stubborn witch."
Both of them, unknowingly, at the same time, let out the same resigned sigh. The kind of sigh that can't be faked.
Glinda walked slowly through the hotel's wide, lightly scented hallways, her sandals echoing softly on the polished marble. She had spent the last few hours stringing together activities like beads on a necklace she had once adored. Paddleboarding. A handmade soap-making workshop. Team games with other guests. All things that, as a child, had seemed magical. Even as a teenager, she had proudly defended them.
And it wasn't that they were terrible now... they were just missing something. Or rather, someone.
On more than one occasion, she found herself laughing to herself as she imagined what Elphaba would have said if she saw her trying to paddle with a tiny surfboard: “Are you sure that’s not a cheese board?” Or during soapmaking class: “Yeah, right. Because if the world needs anything, it’s more scents with pretentious names like ‘mandarin soul.’”
She pressed her lips into a tight smile. Despite her anger... she missed her. And the worst part was, she hated herself for it. She was upset. She had to be upset. And yet, here she was, remembering how Elphaba looked at her whenever she did something “unnecessarily adorable.” As she put it.
Glinda stopped. She looked around. The hallway was long, lined with warm lights, with paintings of faux-rustic landscapes that tastefully screamed tourism. For a second, she thought about going back to the room. Maybe surprise her. Maybe apologize. Maybe... but then she stumbled upon it.
The giant photograph.
A cardboard tower, illuminated by a soft spotlight, showed the face of Grayce Greyling, that gray-haired man with a melancholic look and a wrinkled shirt strategically open at the neck. He smiled with one hand under his chin, as if he had just said something too intelligent for ordinary mortals. Beside him, the sign read:
“EXCLUSIVE TALK: Time, Guilt, and the Margins of the Soul.
A conversation with Grayce Greyling about his latest book.”
“Of course…” Glinda whispered, her eyes rolling back, a sigh coming from the depths of her stomach.
That slight warm knot she'd felt a few minutes ago dissolved as easily as someone crumpling a napkin after dessert. Because of course that talk, that author, that kind of evening mattered more to her than a double-bike ride or a pillow fight in the playroom. Of course Elphaba had to shine. She had to be brilliant and charming and analytical and perfectly intense. As always.
And the worst part was that Glinda admired her for it. But in that moment, she couldn't help but feel... displaced.
She took out her phone, looked at it... and put it back. She wasn't going to text her. She wasn't going to call her. She wasn't going to run back to that room like she had no pride. Not this time.
"I need a drink," she muttered. And with her head held high, she turned on her heel, her bracelets clinking on her wrists, and headed straight for the pool bar, determined to drown her annoyance in a large, colorful, and dangerously sweet drink.
Meanwhile, in the bedroom, Elphaba stood in front of the mirror, arms crossed, as if that simple gesture could help her decide what the hell to wear. She'd laid out her options on the bed like a forensic exhibit: two almost identical black shirts, a dark green jacket that smelled of intellectual mothballs, and a dress that wasn't technically hers but Glinda had once told her looked "interestingly elegant" on her—which could mean anything coming from her.
"What does a person wear to a talk with their favorite author?" she murmured.
The last time she'd gone to a literary talk, she'd been in college. She'd gone in jeans, with dark circles under her eyes, a bun in her hair, and a cold coffee in her hand. And since everyone else looked the same, it didn't matter. But now... now it was different. This had a different weight. This was... well, important. Not just because Greyling would be there. But because Glinda wouldn't be.
She looked at the reflection of her face. The same as always. Greenish skin, a little dull from fatigue, eyebrows that seemed to have gone on strike against symmetry, and that wry, tired look she used to protect herself from everything.
She sighed. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw it. The kit.
The gleaming box, as pink and tidy as Glinda's heart on her most methodical days. It sat there, on the dresser, as if waiting to be summoned. It gleamed in the dim light of the room like a forbidden treasure. Elphaba approached slowly, as if it were a magical trap. She stopped in front of it and stretched out a finger.
“I’m just looking. No one’s going to say I gave in to the system,” she told herself, like someone apologizing to her five-year-old self.
She touched a button. The kit clicked with mechanical precision and opened like an artificial flower. A choreographed display of sections, compartments, brushes, palettes, glosses, powders with names that were probably copyrighted. It was, in a way, terrifying.
“Holy hell…” she muttered. “This isn’t a makeup kit, it’s a weapon of mass ego-building.”
The temptation was too much. She sat down. She looked at each section as if trying to defuse a bomb. The blushes came in gradients. The foundations had gold labels. What was the order? What came first? Why was there a sponge that looked like an alien egg? And then, like a soft reflex, the image of Glinda came to her.
“No, not like that, Elphie. Like that. You have to blend it, not look like you threw yourself into an art palette.”
A smile escaped her. She remembered perfectly those Saturday afternoons when Glinda insisted on doing her makeup “just for fun,” while Elphaba complained and kicked, then let it happen like a resigned cat. They always ended up laughing, even if Elphaba feigned horror when she saw herself in the mirror. She would never admit how good those sour cherry lips looked on her.
Now, alone, she felt a small hollow in her chest. Not from the makeup. From not having her there.
“Well…” she said, resignedly, holding a brush with two fingers as if she were handling a dangerous insect. “If Glinda can learn to read legal briefs, I can learn not to look like a circus clown in glitter.”
She applied the first powder. She coughed.
“How can she smell like vanilla and industrial spray at the same time?! What kind of alchemy is this?”
She looked at herself. It wasn’t so bad. The eyeliner was a different story. She ended up with one eye more dramatic than the other and a couple of eyelashes accidentally torn off. But oddly enough… she didn't look so bad. She looked… different. As if someone had smoothed out her sharp edges a bit. As if that part of herself she used to reject—the “looking pretty” part—could exist without being ashamed of it.
She looked at herself again. And murmured,
"You're getting soft, Thropp..."
And yet, she smiled… She smiled, thinking of "her."
Back at the outdoor pool bar, the sun was beginning to set, and the orange reflection of the sunset danced on the turquoise water. Everything around them looked like something out of a perfect vacation catalog, except for Glinda's expression, who, sitting upright with a half-finished drink, looked nothing like a relaxed woman. She played with the tiny parasol of her margarita, twirling it between her fingers while looking at her phone without actually touching it. Every time the screen turned on by itself, she looked away as if it were a challenge to resist.
Her gaze shifted when she noticed movement a few feet away. Two teenagers had settled into one of the padded seats beyond the bar. They stood out like shadows in a daisy garden. They were tall, thin, with almost ceremonial black eyeliner, and boots that weighed more than anything else. One of them had her hair cut into jagged spikes as if she'd done it as part of a nightly ritual. The other, wearing a T-shirt that said "I bite" in Gothic letters, spoke with the indifference of someone who'd already hated everything before breakfast.
Glinda looked at them for a moment with a sideways smile. They were... so young. So cynical. And so utterly familiar.
That must have been you, Elphie, she thought fondly. The acidic stare, the "I hate everything but books" attitude, the lack of color... and that inexplicable way of seeming out of place yet so rooted in herself.
But her thoughtful pause didn't go unnoticed. One of the girls noticed Glinda's gaze and returned her expression heavy with distrust.
"What are you looking at, Beach Barbie? Have you never seen anyone with style?" spat the one with the eyeliner.
"Do you have a formal complaint about black, or are you just intolerant of good taste?" added the other, as if they had rehearsed their grand entrance.
Glinda's eyes widened in surprise. Not because of the tone, but because... what had just happened? She was admiring them. But apparently, even that could be interpreted as a provocation.
"Oh, please," she finally said, her composure intact. "Not all well-dressed blondes are agents of the oppressive system, you know? Some of us are just trying to have a drink in peace without being dragged into a Tim Burton fan film."
The girls were momentarily silent, assessing whether that had been an insult or a compliment. Glinda met their gaze. She'd survived hidden cameras, Senate debates, her mother. Two cynical teenagers weren't going to intimidate her.
"Wow," the redhead murmured, "she talks like she'd swallowed a thesaurus and then smiled on reflex."
"But... she's got guts," the other conceded, and they both laughed with that shared dark humor.
Glinda sighed, leaning her elbow on the bar in resignation.
"Well," she said, turning slightly in her chair, "at least it'll be interesting to see you at Grayce Greyling's talk tonight. Or am I mistaken? Isn't that why you're here?"
The two girls froze for a split second. Then they laughed with a shared grimace of disgust.
"That pretentious dinosaur?" one said. "The guy who writes as if he's in love with his own sentences?"
"Grayce Greyling is a fraud with pretensions of profundity," the other added. "She writes as if she wants everyone to think she's brilliant, when in reality she's just spouting platitudes wrapped in cheap metaphors."
"Literally. I don't know what's worse, her books or the people who idolize them as enlightened philosophy," her friend added, rolling her eyes so dramatically that they nearly fell out of her head.
Glinda initially gave a dry, almost automatic giggle. She was going to enjoy the idea that they were insulting intense, dramatic fans... like Elphaba. But then, something went wrong inside her. Because when one of them finished, "And I'm sure all her fans are depressed, with the same "I read because I don't get invited to parties" expression."
Something inside Glinda hurt. No... she thought. Don't mess with her.
Glinda was about to verbally launch herself at the two girls like a lioness in Louboutin when something happened that sidetracked her... or rather, provoked her even more.
"Hey, graveyard witches," a drawling male voice drawled, its tone a mockery disguised as seduction.
Two teenage boys in swimsuits, muscular as if from a cheap catalog, had approached the goths. One of them had sunglasses on his head even though the sun had already set, the other was chewing gum as if timing his own chewing. Both smiled as if they were doing humanity a favor with their presence.
"Why are you so lonely, huh?" said the first, nodding at his pale legs. "We could give you a tour of the adults-only area. If you behave."
"Or if you misbehave," added the other with a crooked smile, as if he'd just uttered the wittiest line of the century.
The girls, visibly uncomfortable, tried to dissuade them with sarcasm, but that only emboldened them further. One of them mumbled something about having pepper spray in her backpack, and the other rolled her eyes, visibly fed up.
Glinda slowly turned in her seat, crossing one leg over the other with the precision of a scalpel. She surveyed the scene with that look she used in business discussions when someone dared to interrupt her.
"Really?" she finally said, raising her voice just enough to cut through the atmosphere like a razor. "Is that your idea of flirting? 'Hey, witches'? Who taught you that, your parents at a sexist barbecue?"
Both boys turned to her, confused.
"And who are you?" the one with the gum said mockingly. "Their mother?"
A thick silence fell over the pool.
Glinda's eyes blinked once. Just once. Then she stood up with all the grace a woman in a designer bikini and sarong could muster, as if she were about to give a speech at the United Nations. “Look, dysfunctional Ken,” she said with an angelic smile. “I’m not their mother. But if I were, I’d be even more ashamed that my daughters had to deal with two such pathetic displays of mismanaged testosterone as you two.”
“What?” the other said, bewildered. “We were just trying to be nice…”
“Oh, no. What you guys were trying to do,” he said, storming toward them in heels, “was exerting your condescending masculinity, hoping two girls would thank you for your unsolicited attention. That’s not nice. That’s annoyance with sit-ups.”
The guys didn’t know whether to stay or leave. One tried to mutter something about “just joking,” but Glinda interrupted him without losing her smile.
“No, you weren’t. But don’t worry, you’ll get over it. Eventually. Maybe when you figure out that women aren’t prizes for doing push-ups in front of the mirror.”
The guys, now visibly uncomfortable, trailed off. One of them let out a half-stifled insult that Glinda completely ignored, while the other left, muttering that they'd better go "check out what's going on in the other pool."
When they disappeared from sight, Glinda sighed. Then she noticed the two girls staring at her as if they'd just seen a unicorn with a PhD.
"Good heavens," said the eyeliner girl, amazed. "How did you do that?"
"It's simple," said Glinda, adorning her sarong gracefully. "You look at the idiot, recognize their pattern, and pick out the weak spot with laser-like precision."
"God, that was... epic," said the other, still impressed. "We thought you were going to scream or something, but no... you calmly destroyed them."
Glinda smiled with mock modesty.
"Let's just say I've had practice." Never underestimate a woman who has spent more than a decade surviving unwanted flirtations, hidden cameras, and macho suit-and-tie committees.
The girls looked at each other, as if reconsidering everything they thought they knew.
"Do you want to come to the bonfire on the beach tonight?" the one with the eyeliner asked, suddenly much softer. "Some people from the hotel are going to be playing live music, and... well, it would be interesting to have you there. If you want, of course."
Glinda blinked. It wasn't a polite invitation. It was genuine. She recognized that kind of earned respect, which didn't come easily in the alternative worlds of girls like these.
"I'll think about it," she said with a genuine smile.
When the girls walked away, Glinda sighed deeply and sat back down. It took her a second to pick up her phone, and when she did, she already knew who she would call, but then she hesitated... What would she say?
IN THE FUTURE...
"Yeah, yeah, no problem. They already gave me access to the hotel computer." Mail me the papers and...' Glinda shouldered open the room door as she continued on the phone, her tone gentle but impatient, as if each call were an extension of her natural breathing. 'Yes, of course, as soon as I sign it, I'll return it. Thanks.'
She closed the door with her foot, placed the phone on the nightstand, and kicked off her heels without looking. She walked easily across the five-star hotel carpet, impeccably dressed in a cream dress with an elegant, flowing cut, as if she'd just stepped out of a private gala. As she chattered vaguely to the air about permit and licensing issues, she turned with an automatic smile.
'But anyway, now I can help you get ready. I promise I won't get distracted anymore, I'm all yours for the rest of the...'
She stopped.
The silence was so abrupt that for a second she thought she'd entered the wrong room. The warm light was still on, the bed still unmade from the afternoon's chaos, but... she was alone. Completely alone.
Then her eyes saw it.
On the small table, an open bottle of champagne, still damp from the cold. Two glasses, one barely touched and the other... empty. Very empty. Beside them, a small, folded, unsigned handwritten card. Glinda didn't need to open it. She knew what it was for. She knew it with every twisting fiber of her stomach.
The celebration Elphaba had planned. A toast. With her. Before their talk. An intimate, almost shy gesture. Something that, in Elphaba language, amounted to a cry of emotional need.
"No..." Glinda whispered, inching across the room as if she could reverse time simply by wishing it.
Then she saw it: the trash can, barely visible next to the desk. Inside, carelessly crumpled, were Elphaba's guide cards. Glinda knelt without thinking, digging her hands into the taut, wrinkled paper. She read. One. Two. Three.
Her heart sank.
“The way people mark our writing isn't always obvious. Sometimes it's the sound of their laughter in the background of a scene. Sometimes it's an entire line we steal from their words without them even realizing it. And sometimes… they're the reason we started writing at all.”
Another card:
“This book wouldn't exist if she hadn't pushed me, with her stubbornness, her faith, her absurd need for me to believe in myself. This book is my love letter disguised as an analysis.”
Glinda swallowed.
“God… Elphie…”
She bolted to her feet, papers still in hand. She ran from the room as if she could reach her if she only wanted to.
In the hallway, a bellboy rolled past on a service cart.
“Dr. Thropp? Did you see her? Where is she?”
“Oh, yes, she left a while ago. She was heading toward the auditorium. She said she wanted to get ready before her presentation.”
"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."
Glinda didn't walk. She ran. Barefoot. Her dress bunched in her hands, her loose hair bouncing behind her. She walked halfway through the hotel, down the side stairs, through a hallway filled with tourists still wearing sunglasses. She didn't see anyone with green skin in the auditorium's lobby, or on the stage, or backstage.
She thinks like Elphaba, she thinks like Elphaba... Where would she be if she didn't want to be seen...?
She knew.
She turned down the hallway that led to the restrooms. She pushed open the women's door, the one that led to the private dressing room next to the stage. In front of the closed door, she paused. She breathed. She listened.
Silence. But on the other side, she knew she was there.
She knocked softly.
"Elphie..."
BACK IN THE PRESENT…
Glinda stood in front of the door to the room, her hands balled into tight fists on either side of her light outfit. She took a breath, swallowed, and knocked gently.
Tap, tap, tap.
For a second, she doubted whether Elphaba was still there or had gone straight to the auditorium. But then the door burst open, and Glinda was already beginning to speak, her voice soft and determined:
"Elphie, I wanted to tell you that..."
But she didn't finish the sentence.
"Good heavens!" she squealed, raising both hands to her mouth as if she had witnessed a crime.
Elphaba, standing in front of her, was wearing one of her finest outfits: subtly cut black trousers, a dark green silk blouse, and low heels, perfectly coordinated... if not for the horror on her face. Uneven eyeshadow, crooked eyeliner, smudged lips, poorly blended foundation, too-dark eyebrows. She looked like someone had done her makeup in the back of a moving train car.
"Not a word!" Elphaba snarled, raising her finger.
Glinda took a step inside, clutching her chest, trying to control her expression, but when her eyes fell on the bed, she understood everything.
The kit.
Her beloved, sacred makeup kit, spread out as if a hurricane had passed through it. Scattered brushes, open palettes, wet sponges.
"No..." Glinda muttered, bringing her hand to her forehead. "Don't tell me you tried to use that... without me!"
"I told you, not a word," Elphaba snarled through gritted teeth.
But Glinda was already trembling. Her lips twisted. A silent laugh began to build in her throat like a suppressed explosion. She took a step back, tried to cover her mouth, but it was no use.
"Oh dear RuPaul, I can't..." she finally burst out, with a laugh that shook her torso.
"Glinda!" Elphaba exclaimed, her arms crossed, but her lips were already beginning to tremble as well, betraying her.
"You look like you were made up by a hyperactive raccoon with attention deficit disorder!"
"I let your stupid kit convince me! It was like a damn carnival trap!" Elphaba yelled, pointing at the open case as if it were a war machine.
Glinda's laughter became contagious. Elphaba tried to stand firm... for two more seconds. But then her shoulders shook, and she let out a bitter laugh.
"I'm an idiot," she said, wiping her eyes. "I wanted... to look good. For the talk. With Greyling."
That stopped Glinda. Their laughter subsided, and their expressions grew more serious.
"For Greyling? That self-important snob who only writes about himself and quotes Nietzsche every three sentences?"
"It's not quite like that!" Elphaba tried to defend him, but then snorted, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I wanted to... I don't know. I thought that's what you'd do. That if you were nervous, you'd look divine, perfect. Like always."
Glinda frowned.
"But I'm not the one you're trying to impress, am I?"
Elphaba immediately looked up, alarmed.
"No! I didn't mean it like that. It's not like... It's not like he means anything like that... I just thought, for once, I could look more... more... presentable. Polished. Like you."
Glinda crossed her arms.
"You never did 'that' for me. Not even when I introduced you to my parents."
Elphaba lowered her head.
"I know. I guess it was a stupid idea."
Silence.
Glinda looked at her for a moment. And then, with a sigh, she approached her and sat down next to her. She tenderly took her face in her hands and said softly, "Elphaba, you don't need to be 'presentable.' You just need to be yourself. But... that doesn't mean I can't help you shine a little more."
Elphaba rolled her eyes, but let it happen.
Glinda took a damp washcloth, gently removed the mess of makeup, and then was an artist in her element. Dedicated, thorough, loving. Meanwhile, Elphaba allowed herself to be pampered, her eyes half-closed, like a cat that pretends to be indifferent but purrs inside.
"So?" Elphaba asked softly. "How was your big day without me?"
Glinda smiled.
"Mmm... full of surprises." I saw two goth teenagers insult your beloved Greyling and almost killed them for it. Then I saved their asses from a couple of hormonal jerks. They invited me to a bonfire tonight. I'm starting to think I have a second adolescence coming up.
"And did you have fun?"
Glinda shrugged.
"Not as much as I expected. I was missing... the one person I really wanted to share all of that with."
Elphaba's eyes widened in surprise.
"Me?"
"No, the barmaid. She made spectacular drinks." They both laughed.
Glinda put the final touch of gloss on Elphaba's green lips. Then she pulled back slightly and looked at her with a proud smile.
"There you are. Now you're ready to impress Professor Greyling and leave him speechless. Although I might prefer it if you didn't talk to him too much."
Elphaba looked at herself in the mirror. For once, she didn't feel like she was in costume. She felt... like herself, but polished. Cared for. Seen.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome, Elphie. Although you owe me a drink for making me laugh so much with that attempted look."
"I can buy you two, if you promise never to tell anyone what you saw."
"That... I can't promise that."
The room fell into an almost awkward silence again, though their hands were still clasped on the bedspread. The makeup was done, the laughter had slowly faded, and now all that remained was the space between them, the space that couldn't be covered with blush or eyeliner.
They looked at each other.
One, with hope. The other, with fear.
Both opened their mouths at the same time.
"Glinda, I..."
"Elphaba, do you want me to..."
They stopped, smiled awkwardly. A small, nervous laugh escaped between them, like a bubble rising to the surface and bursting as soon as it appears.
Finally, Elphaba took a deep breath, lowered her gaze, and raised it again with trembling gentleness.
"Do you want to join me for Greyling's talk tonight?"
Glinda froze.
The hope that had been slowly blossoming on her face collapsed like a flower cut short.
"I didn't invite you before because I thought... well, you wanted to do your own thing. The spa, the pool, the beach... I didn't want to drag you into something you were sure to find boring," Elphaba explained awkwardly, like someone trying to save a boat already full of water.
Glinda blinked once.
Twice.
And then she jumped up, abruptly letting go of her hands.
"Really?! Really, Elphaba?!"
"What?" Elphaba stood up too, confused.
"I don't care about any damn excuses!" Glinda bellowed, pacing around the room with her arms in the air as if trying to get rid of her anger. "Do you really think this is all about whether or not I want to go listen to that... cheap intellectual rant about himself for an hour?"
"You don't have to come with me if you don't want to! What do you want me to do, beg you?!"
"No!" Glinda screamed. "What I want is for you to express yourself openly for once! For you to tell me 'I want you with me' without hiding it behind excuses or assumptions. Because even if I'm not interested, even if I hate it, even if it bores me to death, if you're there, I want to be with you!"
Elphaba stiffened. Her face hardened with that expression she used as a shield.
"Well, I'm sorry if I'm not that good with theatrical gestures." Some of us weren't born with that ability to... make a soap opera out of every moment.
Glinda let out a humorless laugh.
"You know what? Go on alone to your damn talk. Enjoy Greyling's inflated ego, his anecdotes redolent of expensive wine and Nietzsche books. I'm going to get drunk with a bunch of goth teenagers on the beach. It's probably more fun than this."
"Perfect. Have fun with your new friends with smudged eyeliner," Elphaba shot back, her jaw clenched.
"And you enjoy the fact that, for once, someone listens to your ideas without interrupting," Glinda countered.
The two of them looked at each other.
And for a moment, what they weren't saying hung between them like a suspended beam, about to strike.
But it didn't.
They just turned around, each in opposite directions, as if it were easier to break from a distance.
Glinda grabbed her bag and strode out, slamming the door so hard the doorframe rattled. Elphaba stood there, motionless, her hands balled into fists at her sides.
IN THE FUTURE...
The hotel hallway was strangely quiet for an evening event. Glinda sat on the carpeted floor, right next to the bathroom door. She'd been there for several minutes, legs crossed, cell phone abandoned at her side, mind spinning in circles.
"I know I was late. Again. I know. But I saw... I saw the notes. And the glass. And... well, I saw everything." She paused and swallowed. "I saw you too. In those words. More than I think I deserve."
Silence from the other end. But she didn't care anymore.
"You don't have to go out. I just... wanted to say I'm proud. So proud. Even if I'm being an idiot about this. Even if I screw up. Even if I never know how to be on time. I'm proud of you. Always."
She placed her hand gently against the door.
"And I still have time to toast. If you want. If not... I understand that too."
There was eternal silence for a moment, until she finally heard the click of the doorknob, and Glinda stood up immediately.
The door slowly opened a crack, and Elphaba appeared, pale, her cheeks slightly damp, her eyes glassy behind her glasses. Seeing her, Glinda stopped, swallowed, and looked down with a mixture of guilt and tenderness.
Elphaba, however, said nothing. She just looked at her. There was a pang of resentment in that look—not furious, but the kind that settles in the chest and stays there. Glinda immediately noticed the signs: the faint smell of mouthwash, the damp hair at her temples, the slight trembling in her hands.
"I threw up," Elphaba said, with a bitter smile, like someone trying to make a joke that wasn't funny.
Glinda managed a small smile. She remembered her the same way before her wedding, running to the bathroom, her dress half-dressed, sick with fear and love.
"I know," she whispered. "You always do it when you care too much."
Elphaba lowered her gaze.
Glinda approached slowly, without intruding. Elphaba didn't move away, but she didn't give in completely either. There was still a half-built wall between them.
"I'm sorry I left this afternoon. I got distracted with work," Glinda said honestly, without making excuses.
Elphaba nodded, but with that bitter expression that isn't approval, but resignation.
"I know your work is important, Glinda. It's not that. It's just... this is important to me too. This trip was important. I thought we could be together, without things getting in the way." No agendas, no screens, no absences.
"I know," Glinda said, taking a step closer. "And you're right. I've been an idiot."
"I didn't want to fight," Elphaba whispered. "But I needed you today. Not as a politician. Not as an event planner. You."
Glinda lowered her head, regretful.
"For a long time, I thought I could keep things from you," she said quietly. "Little things, so you wouldn't worry, so it wouldn't show how much all this was costing me. But... you always know. You always know."
Elphaba looked up. And for the first time since she left the bathroom, the wall gave a little.
"I just want you to be there tonight. I don't need you to save me. Or to introduce me. Just... for you to be there."
"And I will be," Glinda affirmed, taking her hands firmly. "In the front row. Attentive. Proud. With my heart completely yours."
Elphaba took a deep breath and finally smiled.
"Thank you."
Glinda hugged her, holding her as if it could make up for every distraction, every afternoon she wasn't there.
"You're going to be amazing," she whispered in her ear. "You're the best part of all this, Elphaba."
Elphaba laughed softly, swallowing back the tears that were almost emerging.
"You know, I can't believe I'm about to talk about myself in front of that many people?"
"Well, you're going to talk about your book. But everyone is going to see the woman I see every day. And there's no better way for them to get to know you."
They kissed, slowly, firmly, like people who have shared difficult mornings and endless nights for years. When they broke apart, Elphaba nodded with renewed strength.
"Then let's go."
"Let's go," Glinda repeated.
And so, hand in hand, they walked toward the auditorium.
BACK IN THE PRESENT…
Elphaba arrived at the auditorium just in time.
The golden light of the sunset filtered through the high windows, tinted by the heavy linen curtains. The room bustled with that soft but constant murmur that precedes every important event. Well-dressed guests, glasses in hand, assistants arranging folders, microphones, and lights.
Elphaba crossed the threshold with the discreet and elegant bearing she had perfected over the years. Her slim figure moved with determination, dressed with a sober elegance that didn't go unnoticed, and her face—with the makeup perfectly applied by Glinda hours before—looked serene, almost imperturbable.
But inside, she was burning.
She walked along one side of the room, between the rows of occupied chairs, looking for an empty spot without attracting attention. Finally, she found one and sank into it stiffly, arranging her bag on her lap with unnecessary precision, as if the exactness of that gesture could stem the emotional chaos simmering beneath the surface.
The murmur gradually died away, and the lights dimmed. Then, with measured punctuality, Grayce Greyling appeared on stage.
Applause erupted.
Some people stood. Elphaba didn't.
Elphaba stared at the stage with the same intensity she usually regarded a book that challenged her. Grayling was everything she'd expected: tall, imposing, with that imperturbable intellectual gaze and a deep voice that shaped the words as if they were finely sculpted pieces.
"In my books," she began, "I've always looked for more than stories. I've looked for maps. Maps to return to oneself. Maps to the silence that says more than words."
Elphaba tilted her head slightly, listening intently.
"The Reverse Shore or Unsent Letters... are attempts to engage in dialogue with that which cannot be spoken. With that which can only be felt and which, when expressed, changes the listener... and the one who dares to speak it."
The audience was fascinated.
And so was Elphaba.
But something didn't fit. A shadow wouldn't allow her to fully surrender. The thought of Glinda was still there, like a sweet thorn under her skin. The argument, the harsh words, the way they had parted. The way Glinda had yelled... "I'm going to get drunk with teenagers, at least it will be more fun than this."
And yet, here she was, at the event she had dreamed of, in front of the writer she admired so much. Why then did she feel she was only halfway there?
Greyling spoke of how one must bare one's soul to find the echo in another human being. And Elphaba couldn't help but think of Glinda.
Of how her soul had been intertwined with hers for years.
Of how she hadn't felt that echo in the auditorium, but in the shared laughter, in the silence as they applied makeup together, in the stupid fights over writers Glinda didn't care about, in how Glinda made her feel as if she existed even when they didn't understand each other.
IN THE FUTURE...
The room erupted in applause.
It wasn't a violent burst, but a profound one, full of respect. Of recognition. As if everyone knew they were witnessing something important.
Elphaba stepped onto the stage.
Her gait was firm, yet elegant. The lights bathed her figure in warm amber as she approached the lectern with her characteristically restrained poise. She wore a sober dress with clean lines and a faint twinkle in her eyes that betrayed more than just nerves. Something intimate. Alive.
She acknowledged the applause with a brief nod, then her eyes scanned the room… until they found her.
Glinda.
Sitting at one of the middle tables, a glass of wine in her hand and a smile that needed no words. The smile of someone who not only believes in you, but has seen you at your worst and continues to choose you.
Elphaba smiled back, soft, vulnerable, luminous.
"Thank you," she said into the microphone, her voice with the measured cadence of someone who no longer has to prove anything. "Tonight I'm here to share something that began as a series of rehearsals, but ended up becoming something more intimate. Control and Consent: Ethics, Power, and Love… is, above all, a search."
IN THE PRESENT…
Grayce Greyling paced back and forth across the stage with that elegant arrogance that so many applauded and so many feared. Her voice echoed between the columns of the room.
—…the idea of love as a pure, selfless act is a bourgeois fantasy. What we have, in reality, is a negotiation of interests. All consent is tainted by the power that surrounds it—he declared, with the conviction of an oracle.
The audience nodded, fascinated.
Elphaba, sitting between them, didn't move. But something stirred inside her. An old discomfort. An echo.
IN THE FUTURE…
“…you can't talk about consent without talking about power,” Elphaba continued. “But you also can't talk about power without considering the desire to be seen. To be understood. To be accepted, even on the margins. Especially on the margins.”
Her voice was softer than Greyling's had been, but no less firm.
“For years I wrote from fear. From a distance. Using theories to avoid the personal. But this book…” she glanced briefly at Glinda, “…forced me to do the opposite. To face what I couldn't explain, what could only be experienced.
IN THE PRESENT…
“Intimacy, as we understand it today, is a transaction,” Greyling continued. “A game of mirrors. A theater in which everyone acts.” Whoever doesn't understand that is doomed to be devoured.
Elphaba felt a lump in her throat.
She remembered the fight with Glinda. The cross words. The way they had hurt each other. And the desperate wish that this wouldn't be the last thing between them.
IN THE FUTURE…
"My partner taught me something no academic text could," Elphaba said, unafraid of tenderness. "He taught me that the greatest power lies not in control, but in trust. That the most radical act is choosing to open up... even knowing the other can hurt you."
There was a profound silence in the room. A silence that wasn't empty, but reverent.
"This book isn't a conclusion. It's an invitation. To think of love not as a refuge from power, but as a space where power is transformed into care."
Elphaba spoke passionately. Her body no longer trembled. Her voice didn't break. On the contrary, each word glided like fresh ink on newly laid paper. The audience was rapt.
"...and it was precisely in a game of surrender, of yielding and holding the other, that I discovered something more powerful than control or theory," she continued, with that serene fire that only appears when one speaks something true. "I discovered that desire is a form of truth. And that the fear of revealing oneself completely, without defenses, is the last bastion of power."
Then she saw her.
An attendant was approaching Glinda, crouching discreetly to whisper something to her. Glinda listened, nodded, rose from her seat.
And left.
Elphaba felt the dull sound of the door that never slammed.
The sharp blow not in the air, but in her chest.
Her rhythm stopped for a fraction of a second, barely a perceptible instant, but it was enough to break the music. Her tone changed, barely. Just enough for her words, which had been tinged with love and redemption, to begin to take on a different texture. Harder. More bitter.
“Consent, like love, isn't eternal. It's renewed or it withers. And sometimes it's disguised,” she continued, with a new edge. “I've been in relationships where mutual care seemed obvious, but there were gestures, absences, priorities that spoke louder than promises.”
The murmurs in the room disappeared. No one dared to move.
“And it was in BDSM that I understood that there is no contract more sincere than one that admits desire, pain, and abandonment. Because that's where what we truly are is revealed.”
Her gaze hardened. But if anyone had been very, very close, they would have seen her eyes blinking slightly faster. As if searching for someone who was no longer there.
IN THE PRESENT…
The talk had ended.
The audience was beginning to leave the room in gentle waves, chatting amid murmurs, carrying empty glasses and dubbed programs. Elphaba, stiffer than usual, walked slowly toward the stage, her bag hanging from her shoulder like a heavy burden.
Grayce was still there, like a star surrounded by small satellites. She smiled with that studied charm, signed books, and answered questions with phrases already polished by use.
Then he saw her.
"Ah!" he exclaimed with automatic but effective warmth. "The woman from lunch. Elphaba, right?"
She smiled awkwardly.
"Yes. Thanks for remembering me."
"Impossible to forget you after that conversation," he replied, his smile widening. "Did you enjoy the talk?"
Elphaba nodded, though she hadn't really paid attention to half of it. Not since Glinda had left. But that didn't matter now.
"It was... interesting," she replied carefully. "Especially your part about how intimacy can be a distorting mirror."
Greyling studied her more closely. She was no longer the woman from lunch. There was something different about his posture, about his eyes. Something vaguely familiar: restrained passion, ill-disguised disappointment.
"Do you come from the academic world?" he asked curiously. "Because your gaze has a sharp edge."
Elphaba smiled, this time with a genuine touch.
"Something like that. I was a professor and business analyst... But I'd love to write a book like you, although of course I never found the time for it..."
"Ah, but that's the mistake, my dear," he said, lowering his tone, approaching with measured confidence. "Time isn't found. It's created. At the expense of other things, of course. But if you don't sacrifice the trivial, you never access the essential."
"The trivial..."
Elphaba thought of the beach. Of that room for two. Of Glinda's gesture, invisible but monumental, of wanting to share something simple with her. Something intimate.
"The trivial..."
Greyling continued speaking.
With that even, well-modulated voice that sounded like something out of a pop philosophy audiobook, Elphaba nodded politely, though each word felt hollower than the last.
"...because of course, writing a book isn't simply sitting down and typing ideas," he said, resting his hand on the high table next to the stage as if it were a lectern. "It requires a separation from the world, a certain voluntary death to the everyday. Distractions, work, even relationships... you have to cut all that out."
Elphaba frowned slightly.
Five minutes ago, she herself would have repeated that phrase like a mantra. But now... it sounded different. More like an excuse cloaked in elitism. A fancy way of saying "the world bothers me and I'm above it."
Greyling leaned slightly toward her, as if confiding a secret:
"Sometimes, you have to let go of the burden of emotions in order to write clearly. Emotions are necessary, yes, but they're also noise. Do I make myself clear?"
Elphaba swallowed.
The phrase echoed in her head, like a toxic echo. Was that what she had done? Allowed herself to be seduced by the idea that her relationship was a distraction rather than her driving force? Was that what she had tried to rationalize every time she prioritized her solitude, her analysis, her structures?
Greyling smiled, pleased with himself.
"If you want to continue chatting more calmly, I have a decent bottle of wine in my room," he said, with a casual smile that was meant to be innocent, but left no room for doubt. "You can tell me more about your opinions of my books."
And that was when everything fell into place.
Elphaba lowered her gaze. Her body, which until that moment had been held upright by a mixture of admiration and tension, relaxed. She saw him through different eyes. He wasn't a monster or a fraud... but a man trapped in his own narrative. In love with his echo. And in that reflection, painfully, she saw part of herself as well.
"Thank you," she said, her voice low but firm. "But I have to go."
"Are you sure?" he asked, not insistently but with that hint of arrogance of someone who believes they're always being told yes.
"Completely," she replied. And with a brief nod, she turned and walked away.
Elphaba crossed the empty auditorium, each step faster than the last. The breeze from the hotel lobby greeted her like a slap of reality. The air was thick with perfumes, distant music from the pool, and the murmur of a resort that continued to spin as if its world hadn't been shaken.
And in the midst of it all, she knew: Glinda.
She was the reason for all of this. For all of her ideas. For all the courage she'd ever had. Not Greyling. Not her theories. Not the intellectual silence of a tidy room. But the perfect chaos of a woman who could laugh in her face while lining her eyes with glitter.
She took out her phone. Dialed.
One, two, three rings... Nothing.
Elphaba cursed under her breath. Then she remembered what Glinda had said earlier: that she planned to go to the beach bonfire with some goth teenagers who "at least wouldn't bore her to sleep."
She looked down the hall. Toward the shore.
Elphaba ran like she'd never run before.
The salty wind hit her face, her heels dug into the wet sand, and finally, fed up, she took them off without stopping, clutching them in her hand like makeshift weapons. The music grew clearer, the crackling of the fire warmer, the echo of teenage laughter louder with every step.
There it was. A huge bonfire, improvised with dry branches and youthful euphoria, surrounded by dancing silhouettes, bodies swaying between gulps and off-key shouts. Elphaba stopped just before crossing the circle. She was breathing heavily, her bare feet sinking into the warm sand.
She scanned the commotion.
Faces were indistinct, voices overlapping. Until she saw her.
A head of blonde hair, perfectly combed despite the wind, illuminated by the fire from an angle that made her almost unreal. She was sitting on a log, accompanied by another woman. They were laughing at something Elphaba couldn't hear.
And then they kissed.
Elphaba saw red.
Without a second thought, she strode forward, pushing people aside, spilling glasses, until she reached them. Her voice was a suppressed roar:
"Glinda!"
And, roughly, she separated the two women.
"What are you...?!"
But it wasn't Glinda.
"What the fuck...?!"
The two girls, barely of age, stared at her with wide eyes. One of them instinctively raised her hands, as if she were about to be arrested.
"Don't tell our parents!" the other begged, almost on the verge of tears.
"Your...? No! God...!" Elphaba backed away, horrified by the scene she had just caused. She put a hand to her forehead, trying to regain her breath and dignity.
"Sorry... sorry," she muttered, taking clumsy steps back as the music swelled again around her.
It was then that a nasal, somewhat drunken voice reached her from the side.
"Hey, elegant witch! Are you looking for Glinda?"
Elphaba turned around.
The goth teen—the taller of the two Glinda had seen at the bar—was staggering around with a beer bottle in one hand and a mocking smile on her dark lips.
"Do you know her? Where is she?"
"She left a while ago. After we'd drained half a supply of vodka and cherry liqueur. She said something about 'having better things to do than emotionally babysitting people in crisis.' Or something like that. She was... very inspired."
The goth chuckled, but Elphaba wasn't listening anymore.
"Where did she go?"
"Toward the parking lot, I think. Or the hotel. Or the ocean. I don't know, she seemed dramatic."
Elphaba turned and started running again. She left the campfire, the music, the teenagers, and the wrong kisses behind. She stepped on rocks, branches, wet sand, but she didn't stop.
Because if someone she knew at that moment was that Glinda couldn't go to sleep believing she hadn't chosen her.
That she hadn't chased her across the damned beach, barefoot, her heart on fire, just so she could say, "Sorry. I choose you. Again. Always."
Elphaba ran without feeling her legs.
The beach was barely a rippling silhouette against the inky black sea. The lapping of the waves mingled with the distant echo of the campfire, but all that vanished when she saw her.
Glinda.
A few feet away, standing with her feet on the shore, the water barely touching her toes. The moon reflected silvery glints off her figure, and Elphaba could just make out her dropping something onto the sand. Was it...?
"No, no, no, no!" Elphaba muttered, quickening her pace as she took in the scene.
Yes. It was her swimsuit.
And yes. Glinda was completely drunk, staggering while giggling to herself, preparing to dive into the sea like it was the final scene of a crazy romantic comedy.
"Glinda!" Elphaba shouted, but the blonde was already running toward the water, her arms open as if the ocean were about to embrace her back.
Elphaba caught her at the last second, wrapping both arms around her torso and dragging her back.
"What are you doing?!" she growled, panting.
"Let me go! This is something I've always wanted to do!" Glinda screamed, moving like an angry blond seal, trying to wriggle free while flailing in the air.
"But of course, you'd never understand that! You're so... SO boring!"
"Glinda, you're drunk! And topless!"
"SO WHAT?! Maybe I want to be free! Maybe I want to feel something other than a damn squeeze in my chest every time you tell me how I should be!"
"That's not fair!" Elphaba struggled to keep her still, but Glinda kicked like a spoiled teenager.
"None of this is fair! I always do EVERYTHING for you, and you only do what suits you!" Her eyes glittered, a mixture of alcohol and tears. "You put on makeup for that pretentious idiot, but you never do it for me!"
"THAT MAKES NO SENSE!"
"NOTHING MAKES SENSE!"
"Then DON'T YOU JUMP INTO THE SEA NAKED!"
The scream was so absurd that they both remained silent for a second... just a second.
Until Glinda, with a determination worthy of a wedding toast, pushed Elphaba with both hands. Elphaba stumbled backward, trying to maintain her balance on the wet sand, but Glinda followed her, and in a clumsy and symbolically perfect act of chaos, the two tangled, pushed, and finally...
—AAAH!
—NO, NO, NO!!
...fell into the water together.
The wave met them with an icy slap.
They both emerged like two mythological figures fed up with the world. Elphaba spitting water. Glinda laughing hysterically. Elphaba wanted to scream at her. Glinda wanted to hug her. Neither of them knew what to do.
—You're crazy! —. Elphaba screamed, pushing back her hair as her teeth chattered.
—And you're a bitter piece of shit! —. Glinda retorted through stifled laughter, her makeup smeared and her soul disarmed.
The two of them floated shallow, panting, soaked, their makeup smeared, and their spirits shattered. And then, like two springs completely snapped, they started yelling at each other again.
"You ruined the vacation!" Glinda exclaimed, splashing around like a wayward child, her teeth chattering.
"Me?! ME?! I didn't even want to come to this damn, shitty elitist resort!" Elphaba retorted furiously, tossing her soaked hair like a witch under a spell. "But I did it for you! Because you wanted to relive your magical childhood memories and the stupid nostalgia of your family smelling of sunscreen and privilege!"
"I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT MY MEMORIES!" Glinda screamed, breaking down in the water. Her hands were shaking. "I just wanted to be with you! To share this with you! Even if you hated every second of it!" Because you're the only thing that matters to me, Elphaba!
Elphaba remained silent. Only the sound of her labored breathing, of the waves gently crashing around them.
They both slowly emerged from the water, stumbling a little on the damp sand. Their feet were cold, their lips shivering, their clothes clinging to their bodies like a second skin that no longer protected them from anything.
They sat together on the sand, silent. There was nothing more to say. Or so they thought.
Elphaba took off her soaked jacket and, without a word, wrapped it around Glinda's shoulders. Glinda didn't say thank you, but huddled under the fabric as if she were being given back a part of the world that had slipped away.
The two of them stared out at the sea. Just that.
Until Glinda broke the silence, her voice low and trembling.
"I'm scared, Elphie..."
Elphaba slowly turned her head toward her.
"Scared of what?"
"Of everything." Glinda swallowed. "That everything will change." Of not being ready. Of... if we keep growing, changing, moving, at some point... I'll lose you.
Elphaba pressed her lips together, feeling something inside her crumble.
"I'm not opposed to changing, really. I know it's worth it if it's to be with you. But... this place was my way of holding onto even a memory, something small from before, and sharing it with you. Not so you'd understand, just so you'd have it with me. So it wouldn't be mine alone."
Elphaba felt the sand beneath her hands grow heavier, as if it were trying to anchor her in that moment.
"Glinda... I..."
She took a breath.
"I don't know how to fit into your world. I never knew. And it terrifies me. Everything about you intimidates me. The way you talk to people, your confidence, your laugh, your story. I feel like I'm always one step away from hindering you, from letting you down."
"You don't have to fit in." Glinda turned to her, her eyes wide open like beacons in the night. "I never asked you. And I never would."
"I know. But sometimes I feel it just the same. That barrier. Not because of you. Because of me. Because I grew up believing I had no place in anything. And the worst part... is that I was starting to look like him."
"Who?"
"Greyling," Elphaba responded with disgust. "Locked up in his own ego, his false lucidity, believing that viewing the world from a distance is a virtue. I was becoming that. When I listened to him speak, I realized. I was losing the only thing that saved me from all of that."
"Which?"
"You."
The silence was different now. Warmer. More real. Heavier and more necessary.
Glinda let out a sigh, long, deep, as if releasing five years of pent-up anxiety. She rested her head on Elphaba's shoulder, and they both remained like that. The jacket dripping, the sea lapping softly, the distant embers of the hearth barely flickering like fireflies.
"I don't want you to be like him," Glinda murmured. "I want you to be you. The Elphie who challenges me, irritates me, and saves me every day without knowing it."
Elphaba took her hand, her fingers cold, but the touch firm.
"Then that's what I'm going to be. Even if it costs me. Even if I don't understand your world or your vacation rituals. But if you're there... I can try."
"And I'm going to try not to drag you into the sea without your clothes," Glinda added with a half-smile.
IN THE FUTURE...
The almost empty auditorium echoed with the soft echo of distant footsteps, scattered conversations, and the rearranging of chairs. Elphaba stood by the lectern, calmly gathering her papers, her eyes lowered and a polite smile still plastered on her face as the last few people approached to congratulate her.
"A brilliant talk, Dr. Thropp."
"Incredible honesty, and what writing!"
"Let us know if you're coming to New York; we'd be delighted to have you as our professor."
Elphaba offered her thanks with measured gestures, shaking hands firmly, accepting business cards with careful fingers. She'd done it. And she knew it. But when she finished, when the murmur subsided and the silence became almost total, she looked down at the front-row seat, the one Glinda had occupied... and which was now empty.
She felt a lump form in her throat, more bothered by what it symbolized than by what it literally meant. She knew it. Another important thing. Another urgent message. Alone again.
She sighed, took a few steps toward the stage, and sat at the edge, letting her legs dangle like a child after a school play. She looked at the floor. She thought of her book, her talk, the applause. And she didn't care. Not without her there.
"Are you alone, or just focused on silently hating me?"
The familiar voice made her turn slowly. Glinda was there, standing in the hallway with a huge smile, her hair shining under the dim lights, elegantly dressed... and her eyes moist with suppressed emotion.
Elphaba didn't respond. She just looked straight ahead again, crossing her arms.
Glinda, still smiling—although a little more cautiously now—approached.
"That talk was wonderful, Elphie. Honestly. I couldn't stop listening. You were..."
"Enlightened," Elphaba murmured ironically, staring at the floor. "Yeah, they told me that."
Glinda blinked, immediately understanding.
"I didn't leave for work, if that's what you think. Well... not exactly."
Elphaba turned her head slightly, incredulous.
"No?"
"No." They told me something had arrived... and I had to sign for it in person for it. No choice. And when I came back, I couldn't get to my seat, so I watched the rest of the talk from the side of the stage. But it was worth it.
With that, Glinda stepped forward and revealed what she was hiding behind her back: a small, rectangular, dark velvet box.
Elphaba blinked.
"What's that?"
Glinda sat down next to her at the edge of the stage, her knees barely touching Elphaba's, and tenderly placed the small box on her nervously wet legs.
"A gift. A congratulatory gift. For your talk, for the book, for everything you accomplished."
Elphaba hesitated. Then she slowly opened the box. Inside, Elphaba's old black leather notebook, reinforced with a shiny new cover, looks brand new, and with an inscription engraved on the inside of the cover: "So you can keep writing, with all my love. G."
Elphaba held it between her fingers as if it were a sacred artifact. Not for its material value. But for what it meant.
Glinda looked at her silently.
"I know I haven't been as present as I should have been lately," she whispered. "I've missed dinners, I've interrupted you a thousand times... And you're right to be angry. But I never stop thinking about you. I never stop being proud of who you are. Of what you do. Of what you continue to be to me."
Elphaba slowly looked up, her green eyes boring into Glinda's brown. The resentment was beginning to melt, like frost in the first light.
"It wasn't because of the notebook," she murmured, a small smile opening like a healed wound. "It was because of you."
"And now you have both," Glinda replied, tilting her head sweetly. "But I'm more interested in you not hating me."
Elphaba looked at her for a few more seconds. Then, she set the box aside and laced her fingers through hers.
"I couldn't hate you if I tried. But I can be unbearably resentful for at least two hours."
"Two? Phew! I was afraid it would take at least a month."
They both laughed, now, honestly. The kind of laughter that only two wives who know each other through and through can share. The laughter that comes after a thousand fights, a thousand reconciliations, and a love that endured even on the most selfish, hardest, clumsiest days.
Glinda leaned over and kissed Elphaba's cheek. Then her forehead. And finally, her lips. They shared a moment just for the two of them.
"You know what I just remembered?" Glinda said suddenly, as if the memory had struck her without warning. The last time we were at this hotel...
Elphaba turned her head toward her, curious.
"Oh? When was it?"
Glinda made a charming face.
"When we fell into the ocean."
Elphaba stopped dead in her tracks, frowning as she processed it. Then her eyes narrowed.
"Was it that time you tried to run naked straight into the sea?"
Glinda's eyes widened.
"No! I mean yes, but you didn't have to remember that part!"
Elphaba let out a genuine laugh, the kind that would bring tears to her eyes if she didn't hold them back.
"Glinda... that was the hardest part to forget. You ran like you were going to conquer Poseidon."
Glinda covered her face with her hands, even though she was laughing with her.
"Gods... and I thought it had been a collective nightmare. But no, you have a selective memory only for my most embarrassing moments." "And even more adorable."
Glinda glanced at her, raising an eyebrow, but smiling like a lovesick teenager.
At that moment, the music from the hotel bar, somewhat distant, began to drift through the open doors. A soft, somewhat retro melody, a ballad with a rhythm slow enough to allow for a perfect excuse.
They both looked at each other at the same time. The question floated unspoken.
And then, without saying anything, Glinda took Elphaba's hand, and the two of them began to dance right there, amid quiet laughter and clumsy steps, twirling slowly on the polished marble of the empty auditorium. The dim hotel lights made everything feel unreal. Like a dream shared for the second time.
IN THE PRESENT...
The sand still rasped their legs. Elphaba walked in her soaked clothes, clinging to her body, and Glinda carried her heels in her hand, dangling like trophies from an absurd battle. The salty ocean air surrounded them, warm and sticky. In the distance, the echoes of the teenage campfire could still be heard: laughter, clinking bottles, and a summer pop song floating over the sea.
They both stopped. They turned their heads at the same time toward the source of the sound.
"Are you thinking the same thing I am?" Glinda said. "If what you're thinking includes embarrassment, sand in awkward places, and a possible sprain... then yes."
But Glinda didn't wait for a formal invitation. She approached Elphaba, rested her head on her shoulder, and began to move to the music, her steps tiny and out of sync.
"Come on, Professor. Don't be shy. We're already soaked... what more could we possibly ruin?"
Elphaba snorted, but her arms automatically went around Glinda's waist. And then, there, under the moon and to music stolen from someone else's camp, they danced again. Close, clumsy, sweet. As they always had: in their own way.
Between the strains of that distant song, their soft laughter, their breaths ragged with emotion, and the crunch of the sand beneath their bare feet could be heard. The place, the time, the crises, or the reconciliations didn't matter.
Only they mattered.
And that, against all odds, they still chose each other. Again and again.
The next morning, the sun filtered through the bedroom windows like a promise, warm, golden, almost too perfect to be real. Even with the distant sound of waves gently lapping the shore, Glinda opened her eyes slowly, blinking to adjust to the light, until she felt the weight of an arm firmly around her. Elphaba was breathing slowly, still asleep, with a serenity she rarely displayed while awake. Glinda watched her for a long moment, her head buried in the pillow, some damp strands still tangled with sea salt. Her green skin seemed softer in the light of dawn, as if the night had swept away her guilt and resentment, now returning them wrapped in a patina of calm.
She didn't want to wake her right away. She simply gently stroked the forearm wrapped around her, and then, as if Elphaba could sense her even when she was asleep, she grunted softly and murmured, "Is it daylight yet? Tell me it's not as early as it seems..." "It's not that early," Glinda replied with a smile, though it was.
Elphaba opened one eye lazily, and seeing Glinda so close, smiled with a touch of resignation and a touch of tenderness. She stretched out without letting go of her, and then said in a raspy voice, "Is it morning?"
“We still have one more day at the hotel, and I promised myself we’d do whatever you wanted. And I’m going to keep that promise. So…” she yawned, “what tourist delusion do you have in mind first?”
Glinda laughed softly and leaned her forehead against hers.
“I want everything. I want the ridiculously over-the-top breakfast buffet, I want the oceanfront yoga class even if my thighs hurt afterward, I want to go to the spa and get a clay mask that makes us look like aliens, I want to drink colorful daiquiris by the pool with paper umbrellas…” She looked at her with a bright expression, “and I want to do it with you. It doesn’t matter if you laugh or if you complain the whole time. Just… with you.”
Elphaba looked at her, let those words sink into her chest like sweet anchors, and then simply nodded. She sat up and reached for one of the hotel robes.
“Daiquiris with umbrellas. Okay.” But if we order one with sparklers, I'll refuse.
The day unfolded like a well-planned dream, an unexpected choreography between the two. They began in the oceanfront dining room, with plates piled high with sliced fruit, pancakes, croissants, scrambled eggs, and a variety of juices ridiculous even for Glinda. Elphaba sneered at the amount of food, and Glinda told her she was making up for years of miserable office breakfasts.
Then came swimsuits and yoga class. Elphaba, standing on a mat next to a group of overly flexible twenty-somethings, muttered under her breath that this wasn't a natural position for any human with vertebrae, while Glinda, next to her, swayed in tree pose with her eyes closed and a beatific smile. Every so often she opened one eye and watched her, amused, and Elphaba covered up her clumsiness just to avoid indulging her.
The spa was a different story. Both with their faces covered in a thick olive-green mask, they glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes while they waited for the clay to take its "miraculous" effect. When an employee tried to offer them hot stones for their backs, Elphaba raised a skeptical eyebrow and mumbled, "I'll pass," while Glinda, delighted, accepted everything on the menu.
Next came the kayak ride, which was Elphaba's idea, a rarity in itself.
"Since we're on the cliché tour, I want to at least do some paddling," she said. "You can sit in the back and shout directions like you're the captain of a pirate ship."
"Only if I can wear a pink bandana!"
And so they did. In the middle of the calm sea, with their palms wet, their hair tousled by the wind, and the sun slowly setting, they both found themselves giggling like teenagers, paddling in circles until they collided with another couple who insulted them in French. Glinda apologized in perfect French. Elphaba replied something in Latin just to confuse them.
Dusk found them by the pool, sipping daiquiris of impossible colors. Elphaba had tried to order something sober, but Glinda had intercepted the order and ordered the most colorful and ridiculous one on the menu. When the drink arrived with two straws, a plastic flower, and a sparkler sparkling down the side, Elphaba looked at her out of the corner of her eye.
"Is this revenge for not wanting to dance salsa in the group class?"
Glinda laughed, her head resting on her shoulder.
"This is happiness, darling. Sometimes it comes with sparklers."
And so, as the sky turned into a purple canvas and the hotel lights began to turn on one by one, Glinda and Elphaba walked barefoot along the veranda toward their room. They didn't talk much. They just held hands, their fingers intertwined, the soft smiles of those who had had a perfect day. Not a day without mistakes or missteps, but one where everything was worth it. One where the company was more important than the itinerary.
Upon entering the room, Glinda sank down onto the bed, unconcerned about tidiness. Elphaba, for her part, walked over to the window and looked out at the beach.
"Will we ever come back here?" she asked quietly.
Glinda turned to look at her.
"I don't know. Maybe we will. Maybe we won't. But I don't care."
Elphaba looked at her over her shoulder, an eyebrow raised.
"No?"
Glinda shook her head with a smile.
"Because if it's not here, it'll be somewhere else. Because what matters isn't the resort, or the activities, or the ridiculous drinks... it's you. It was always you."
Elphaba approached slowly, sat next to her, and took her hand.
"Promise me, wherever we are, we'll still dance like idiots from time to time."
Glinda laughed, leaned closer, and kissed her softly.
"Promised."
And that night, without grand promises or dramatic endings, they simply fell asleep in each other's arms, secure in the knowledge that they had chosen well.
IN THE FUTURE...
The hotel room was wrapped in an intimate calm, with the soft sea breeze blowing through the half-open balcony door and the distant murmur of waves caressing the shore. The lights were dim, just a couple of low-lit lamps, just enough to avoid being completely plunged into darkness. Elphaba was lying in bed, her back against the headboard and a pillow behind her neck. She was wearing her thin-framed glasses—a gift from Glinda, who insisted they made her look like an intellectual writer from the last century—and was typing with meticulous precision on her laptop, so focused that she hadn't noticed the faint creak of the bathroom door opening.
Glinda appeared with a clean face, her hair tied back in a loose braid, and a light cotton nightgown. She looked relaxed, warm, and very much herself, walking barefoot while drying her hands with a small towel.
"Guess what," she announced softly as she climbed into bed, "tomorrow's flight was delayed, so... we have the whole day to ourselves."
Elphaba didn't even look up from her screen, though a crooked smile spread across her face.
"So? Have you called to find out if the world has collapsed in our absence?" she asked in that sarcastic tone Glinda knew all too well.
Glinda shrugged, feigning indifference for exactly two seconds as she settled in next to her.
"Maybe. A quick call. Brief. Informative. Almost a sigh. As it should be."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Uh-huh."
Glinda gave up, rolling her eyes.
"Okay! Yes. I called. But it was purely an overprotective reflex. It can't be turned off that easily."
"So?"
"Surprisingly, everything seems to be in order. No one died, the house didn't explode, and Fiyero said they even cooked without the smoke alarm going off.”
Elphaba nodded with false solemnity.
"I told you we could trust him. If it weren't for that, we wouldn't have a night off for, what... eighteen years at least?"
"If we're lucky."
Glinda shifted closer, tangling her legs with Elphaba's under the covers, and squinted at the computer screen.
"Is that from the new book?"
Elphaba slammed the screen down as if she were hiding a state secret.
"No."
"Come on!" Glinda protested, gently pinching her arm. "You've been writing this for over a year. Not a clue?"
"It's private. It's in its... embryonic stage."
"You've been saying that since day one."
"And I'll keep saying it until the final day."
Glinda flopped back onto the bed, exaggeratedly offended, crossing her arms.
"I don't understand why you won't let me see it. I'm your wife. Your unofficial editor. Your number one fan. Not a paragraph?"
Elphaba looked at her over her glasses, an amused sparkle in her eyes.
"That's exactly why. If I show it to you and you don't like it, I'll have to pretend I'm not devastated. I'm not ready for that performance."
"Of course I'm going to like it! When have I not liked anything of yours?"
"Hmm... The time I wrote that essay on queer epistemology and you told me you thought it was 'conceptually elegant but somewhat soulless.'"
"That was constructive criticism! And I was right."
"The worst part is, I was," Elphaba admitted, laughing softly.
Glinda turned on her side to face her, more serene now, and brushed her fingers along her arm, making lazy circles.
"I like watching you write. You have that intense way of biting your lip when you're concentrating. As if words hurt a little before they were born."
"Because sometimes they hurt," Elphaba replied softly, closing the computer completely and setting it aside.
Glinda said nothing; she simply leaned closer and rested her forehead against hers. They remained like that, breathing together in that intimacy suspended between their shared past and the future yet to be written.
"What would you do tomorrow if you didn't have to write anything?" Glinda asked after a few seconds.
"Spend the whole day with you," Elphaba replied without thinking. "Walking, having a leisurely breakfast, criticizing the hotel's decorating choices, reading something aloud, taking a nap together... those revolutionary things."
Glinda smiled.
"So that's what we're going to do."
"Does that include criticizing the font on the menus?"
"Obviously." Sacred tradition.
They laughed together, soft and confident. Elphaba turned off the lamp, Glinda snuggled into her chest, and the sea outside continued to repeat its song.
Notes:
And so we begin the new season! As you may have noticed, the episodes are going to be a bit long, as I'll be playing with an episodic structure... although there will be a larger plot later on. This is why updates will probably be once a week, but from now on, this season will feature tender and tense moments, new characters, crossovers, and revelations from the past.
Finally, your comments are the main motivation and reward for writing this story, so I always appreciate it when you share your thoughts on the story.
Chapter 22: I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHICH TRICK I OUGHTS TO TRY
Notes:
Warning: This chapter includes references to family trauma and harassment; discretion is advised.
Chapter Text
Prologue to Chapter 27 – “On Ridicule and Truth”
from “Invisible Bonds – Reflections on Her and Me” (working title)
(Note: Check if this contradicts Chapter 6 on exposition. Or perhaps it works as a counterpoint.)
Desire—the real kind, the kind that isn't spoken aloud—is rarely elegant.
It often presents itself disguised as clumsiness, appears in awkward contexts, reveals itself amid laughter, or ridicule.
—This sounds too solemn. Perhaps an anecdote will soften it. Thinking about the time of the masks…
For a long time, I confused control with dignity. I believed that if I managed to remain intact—untouchable—I could also preserve something sacred. But she… she was a carnival. A creature made of brilliance, of exposed desire, of grand gestures and outrageous laughter.
Being with her was like sitting front row for a show that can't be paused. Sometimes she irritated me. Sometimes she excited me.
But over time, I understood that her way of displaying herself wasn't superficial, but brave.
There are those who undress in silence, and those who do so by dancing on stage. Both ways require courage.
— Or does that sound condescending? I don't want to seem like I've "forgiven" her for being extroverted.
The important thing isn't how you undress, but who's willing to see you... and stay.
CHAPTER 22: I don't even know which trick I ought to try
The afternoon sun tinged the green fields that stretched out on either side of a winding road with gold, where the world seemed to stand still for a few long, balmy minutes. The only disturbance in that idyllic landscape was a car stopped next to an ancient tree, its windows barely steamed up, and the slight sway of the vehicle, which made it look like a sleeping animal sighing with labored breath.
But inside the car, there was no calm at all. On the contrary, the tension was almost palpable, as if the temperature had risen twenty degrees above that outside.
"Elphaba, I'm telling you to put your leg there, not on the brake!" Glinda exclaimed between frustrated gasps, pushing a sweaty blond lock of hair from her forehead.
"Where the hell do you want me to put it? I'm not double-jointed, Glinda!" Elphaba snapped, her voice strained, her glasses askew, her arm twisted against the steering wheel, and her shirt half open.
The scene was a tragicomic portrait of what had once been a fantasy. What had begun as Glinda's seductive idea—a spontaneous, sexy, outdoor adventure, "just like in the movies"—had become a kind of impossible contortion on leather seats, with the handbrake as her sworn enemy and the seatbelt constantly snagging in unwanted places.
"This was a terrible idea," Elphaba snarled, sliding with a thud onto the driver's seat as she tried to extricate herself from her half-unzipped jeans.
"Of course it is now! Because you're not cooperating at all," Glinda snapped, exasperated, as she pulled Elphaba's jacket over her chest, then pushed open the door and dramatically exited the car.
The cool evening air hit her in the face as she took a few steps through the tall grass, barefoot and furious. The jacket was too big for her, and the wind was whipping her hair around disastrously. "Me?! What do you mean I'm not cooperating?!" Elphaba followed her, adjusting her pants, her green cheeks flushed with something that wasn't exactly embarrassment. "Glinda, you had me with my legs trapped between the handbrake and the gearshift for ten minutes!"
"We haven't had sex in days, Elphaba! Days!" Glinda bellowed, unconcerned about the echoing words that carried into the open field. "And when we're finally alone, you're either too tired or have a sore back or too busy complaining."
Elphaba ran a hand over her face and snorted.
"Because I'm the one driving all damn day! You planned this road trip, and then didn't even bother with accommodations! Do you know what it's like to drive in the sun for eight hours straight? You want me to magically turn into a sex goddess in a rural parking lot?"
Glinda crossed her arms, clutching the jacket against her body, and her face took on that offended queen expression Elphaba knew so well.
"I don't want a sex goddess," Glinda protested, her voice high-pitched, somewhere between complaining and hurt. "But could you at least try without looking like you're solving an advanced algebra problem while touching me!"
"You know what?!" Elphaba exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. "I'm sick of arguing. I'm sick of having this conversation half-dressed in the middle of a field with cows staring at us in the background. And most of all, I'm sick of you yelling at me like it's all my fault."
"Is it my fault you don't want to have sex with me?" Glinda had that look in her eyes, the perfect mix of hurt and wounded pride, which was her personal kryptonite.
And that's when something funny happened. Amid all the pent-up fury, the reproaches, the recriminations, and the pent-up frustrations, there was a space. A flicker of silence. A gaze held longer than necessary. Elphaba studied her: her blond hair disheveled, her jacket misplaced, her lips still slightly trembling with anger... and she wanted her.
"Gods, you're unbearable," Elphaba murmured.
"Forgive me?" Glinda retorted defiantly.
"But you're also beautiful. And when you yell at me like that..." she said, taking a step toward her with a crooked smile, "it's very hard for me not to rip your clothes off and eat you alive."
Glinda's mouth fell open, surprised by the twist, but she barely had time to respond. Elphaba had already wrapped her arms around her, lifted her in a clumsy but determined movement, and placed her on the hot hood of the car, eliciting a metallic groan under her weight.
"Are you crazy?" "Glinda whispered, her voice more agitated than she cared to admit.
"Absolutely," Elphaba said before kissing her, with the accumulated intensity of days of tension, arguments, silences, and suspended caresses.
The sun was slowly setting, gilding everything in its path, and for a few minutes, they both let themselves go. Their hands met again with the trembling familiarity of physical reconciliation, their lips searching comfort and confirmation, and for the first time in days, they both felt that maybe, just maybe, they still knew how to touch each other.
Elphaba murmured something unintelligible as her mouth descended to Glinda's neck, who laughed between moans and clutched the hot metal, her jacket slipping to the side. For a moment, everything seemed right.
Until...
"OH MY GOD!" Glinda screamed, interrupting the rhythm with a scream worthy of a thriller.
Elphaba froze, in the middle of the action.
"WHAT?! WHAT HAPPENED?!"
"A bus!" Glinda squealed, pointing behind her.
And sure enough, a huge tour bus passed slowly along the road, just a few feet away, its windows crowded with curious, elderly faces staring out in utter fascination. Some even held up their phones. A woman clapped.
Elphaba, still half-undressed, slowly turned her head and paled. They both froze, paralyzed by a shame so intense it seemed to wash over them like a wave.
"DON'T LOOK!" Glinda yelled, covering her face and rolling down the side of the bus, landing backward in the grass. "Oh, by the gods, they'll recognize me! Someone must have recorded this! I'm a public figure, Elphaba!" "Well, now you're a little more so," Elphaba replied, stumbling as she climbed off the hood and buckled herself in as best she could, laughter beginning to bubble up from the pit of her chest like an uncontrollable gush.
"It's not funny!" Glinda shrieked from the grass, red-faced to the roots of her hair.
"It is a little funny," Elphaba admitted, helping her up.
Seconds later they were inside the car, sitting upright, seatbelts fastened, breathing heavily in complete silence. Neither of them said a word. The engine roared to life.
A few miles further on, when there was no sign of the bus or its involuntary audience, Elphaba spoke, her gaze fixed straight ahead:
"We never speak of this again."
"Never," Glinda replied without hesitation.
They both nodded, as if signing a blood pact, and the car continued on its way through green fields and open skies, leaving behind a story they would inevitably remember every time they saw a tour bus or a gleaming hood.
The sun was already beginning to set, casting long shadows on the asphalt that stretched like fingers reaching for the horizon. The car moved along a lonely road flanked by rolling fields, occasionally interrupted by solitary trees and rusty signs. Inside the car, however, the air was thick. Not from the heat, but from embarrassment, discomfort, and that tension that can only exist between two people who love each other as much as they frustrate each other.
Elphaba kept both hands on the wheel, knuckles tense, jaw clenched, brow furrowed in what was probably her most focused expression since leaving the consulting firm. Beside her, Glinda crossed and uncrossed her legs, still red as a tomato, biting her lip as she thought about how to break the silence without making everything worse. Finally, after several miles of cautious silence, she took a chance.
"Can I say something?"
"No," Elphaba replied without looking at her.
"But it's important."
"Glinda, please," Elphaba sighed. "I beg you, let's not go back to this. We already made fools of ourselves on a car hood like we were in a nineties movie, and on top of that, we were watched by what appeared to be a Christian retirement club. Can we just... no?"
"It's not about that," Glinda sighed, though it was clearly about that too. "Well, yes, but not only that. It's just..." She was silent for a second. "Have you noticed that we haven't even been together for half a year and it seems we can't be... 'together' anymore?"
Elphaba gripped the wheel even tighter. She took a deep breath.
“Glinda… we’ve been on the road for two weeks. We’ve slept in shared cabins, hostels with paper walls, and now in motels where if you take off your shoes you’ll get fungus. Sorry if I’m not in “role-playing” mode when I have to be watching out for car theft,” she muttered tiredly.
“But that was the point of the trip!” Glinda threw up her arms, desperate. “Get away from all that! Get away! To be able to be together without pressure, without structure, without everything depending on schedules and emails and bills and calendars. Just you and me. Us. But we haven’t had a private moment in days. And our games? Not a word. It’s like that part of us has… disappeared.”
Elphaba swallowed, her eyes fixed on the road.
“So what do you want me to do? Improvise a dungeon in the back of the car?” she spat ironically. We're in the middle of the road. I'm sorry if I'm not "spiritually available" to collar you or tell me I'm your kinky teacher.
"Don't make fun of you!" Glinda protested in the wounded tone she rarely used.
"I can't believe we're fighting over... sex."
"We're not fighting over sex," Elphaba corrected, still staring straight ahead. "We're discussing the impractical logistics of sex in the context of constant travel and hostile conditions. There's a difference."
"Oh, yes! Of course. Everything is logistics with you!" Glinda snorted. "What about spontaneity? Passion? Desire? The 'I look at you and you take my breath away' thing?"
"I tried looking at you like that and we literally fell off the hood."
An awkward silence. And then, suddenly, Elphaba sighed and spoke in a softer, almost resigned voice:
"Okay. Let's try something different..... You say nothing works anymore… well, tell me a fantasy. Any one you want. And I'll narrate it. Like a story. What do you think?"
Glinda blinked, surprised.
"Really?"
"I'm giving you the emotional wheel of the trip, yes. Don't waste it."
Glinda turned slowly toward her, her expression a mixture of suspicion and excitement.
"Well… there's a fantasy I've had for a while," she said, lowering her voice slightly, her cheeks faintly tinging pink. "I'm your assistant. The clumsy one, desperate to please you. You're my boss. Cold. Cruel. Very, very demanding. And one day, after too many mistakes… you finally decide to discipline me."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"That sounds suspiciously like the description of our real life, but hotter."
"Exactly!" Glinda smiled. Only this time, you're not giving me passive-aggressive lectures about work efficiency. You're pinning me against the desk.
Elphaba gave a brief laugh, but immediately straightened her posture, adjusted the rearview mirror, and lowered her voice.
"Close your eyes," she said, back in character. "And listen."
Glinda obeyed enthusiastically. She settled back in her seat, tilted her head, and let Elphaba's deep, silky voice lull her.
"You're in my office," Elphaba began, lowering her voice a little, deep and slow. "You just came in with the wrong reports. For the third time this week. I'm getting up from my desk. I'm walking over to you. I'm not saying anything yet. I'm just looking at you. Until you realize the mistake. And you look down. You know what's coming."
Glinda swallowed. Her lips parted slightly.
"I approach behind you. I place one hand on your waist, the other on the back of your neck. I force you to bend over the desk. Slowly, obediently, knowing you deserve it..."
Glinda smiled, lost in the scene. She squeezed her legs together and let herself be carried away by the voice, the tone, the meticulous construction of that secret world.
"Miss Glinda..." Elphaba continued, feigning natural authority, "...what you just did is unacceptable. This report is poorly written, it arrived late, and to top it all off, it has coffee stains on it. What kind of assistant are you?"
Glinda took a deep breath, already immersed in the scene.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Thropp. I'll do whatever it takes to correct my mistake…"
"Anything, okay?" Elphaba said, her smile barely audible. "Very well. Then come here. Get on your knees. And don't you dare look me in the eyes."
Glinda murmured "yes, ma'am" while smiling as if savoring a sweet secret. Her body tensed slightly, and she gripped the edge of her seat, completely immersed in the situation.
Elphaba glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. For a moment, she considered continuing the scene, letting Glinda lose herself in that illusion and feel desired again. But then, like an inevitable impulse, her sarcastic witchy streak won out.
"And now, Miss Glinda…" she said, lowering her voice a little, "…start quacking like a duck."
Glinda frowned, but even with her eyes closed, she obeyed, half-confused.
—Quack?
—Louder. Let it be heard throughout the entire office.
—Quack-quack?
—That's it! Oh, yes, you look so sorry now... look at you, an obedient duckling for your cruel boss...
Then Glinda opened her eyes.
—What?!
Elphaba let out a hearty laugh and, without taking one hand off the wheel, lifted her phone with the other and showed her the lit screen. She'd been recording.
—You're filming this! —Glinda screamed, completely horrified.
—For posterity! —Elphaba laughed. —Confidential report: Executive assistant seduces boss with avian choreography.
—Elphaba Thropp, I swear—!
But at that precise moment, they both took their eyes off the road for just a second too long. When they looked back ahead, a sign appeared like a monster out of nowhere. Elphaba screamed, swerved, and the car skidded slightly before coming to a screeching halt on the side of the road, kicking up a cloud of dirt and dry leaves.
They both fell silent. Elphaba, her hands clenched on the wheel. Glinda, her face frozen in a mixture of anger and shock.
"I'm alive," Glinda said after a few seconds.
"Me too."
"That doesn't save you."
Elphaba lowered her head against the steering wheel and laughed like a madwoman, gently tapping it with her forehead.
“Gods. I’m sorry. It was stupid.”
“It was beyond stupid. It was… it was Elphaba-stupid. There are levels, you know?”
“But you admit you were in character?”
Glinda couldn’t help but laugh, though she tried to hold it in.
“I was! And I was enjoying it! And suddenly I’m a duck in an amateur video!”
“Do you realize?” Elphaba said, turning to her with a smile that couldn’t hide its affection. “It’s things like this that I love you.”
Glinda looked at her, exasperated, but also amused. Her chest was still rising and falling with adrenaline, but her heart softened.
“You’re a nightmare. A delicious nightmare.”
“I know. And now I promise… to let you dominate the next scene. No ducks. I swear on my books.”
“Then… maybe I’ll forgive you. But only if you let me be the boss next time.”
"Gods, that really scares me."
The car remained motionless on the side of the road, surrounded by tall trees that seemed to have closed in around it like an enchanted forest. Elphaba still held the wheel with both hands, rigid, while Glinda stared at the GPS, which had clearly decided to give up miles ago. An awkward silence hung in the air. Until Glinda, very slowly, spoke again.
"Did we take a detour?"
Elphaba turned her face just a bit, just enough for Glinda to see one of her eyes narrow with suppressed fury.
"You mean?"
"Well, I don't want to sound like I'm blaming anyone, but the sign was, like... very visible."
"Very visible? Was that sarcasm? Now you're blaming me?"
"I'm just saying, it wasn't necessary to narrate my entire fantasy while you were driving. It was a mental trap!"
"You started talking about bosses with strict rules!" How could you expect me not to grip the wheel like a metaphorical whip?
They both looked at each other, exasperated. And then, almost in unison, they hissed at the sky. Glinda looked around and frowned.
"Where are we?"
Elphaba rolled down the window and peeked out. Only forest. Spiky trees, rustling branches, and the distant call of a crow. The air had that thick, damp scent that only appears when you stray too far from civilization.
"I have no idea," she finally answered. "This wasn't on the map."
"Great. Lost. In the middle of nowhere. Probably haunted."
"Why would it be haunted?"
"Because there's fog, crooked trees, and deathly silence. Of course it's haunted."
"That's called nature, Glinda."
"I love nature! On postcards."
Elphaba restarted the engine with a resigned grunt and put the car in gear, moving along the dirt road that wound through the trees. For a long stretch, only the sound of the wheels on the gravel accompanied their thoughts. Neither of them wanted to admit it, but they were completely adrift. And something about that feeling was unsettling. Until finally, around a sharp bend where the trees began to part, a worn wooden sign appeared before them, bordered by wild daisies: "Welcome to Winter River."
They both read the sign silently.
"Winter River," Glinda repeated softly. "Does it sound familiar?"
"No. And I'd be worried if it did."
Beyond the sign, the road turned into a cobblestone street that descended gently into a small town nestled in a valley. The houses were charming, classically styled with gabled roofs, white picket fences, and wrought-iron lanterns. Everything had a quaint, almost too perfect aesthetic, like a movie set that had never stopped rolling.
"Is this... New England?" Glinda asked with a mixture of fascination and distrust.
"I have no idea. But if a woman with braids appears offering us pastries and calls us 'strangers,' we'll run."
"Or if someone says, 'We were wondering when you'd arrive...'"
"Yes, even worse."
They entered the town. The few people walking down the street looked at them with a mixture of curiosity and silent welcome, as if they already knew them. There was a bookstore, a cafe with a red awning, a plaza with a fountain that looked like something out of a fairy tale.
"Okay," Glinda said, looking back at the receding sign in the rearview mirror. "This is officially weird."
Elphaba kept her gaze on the street.
"Well, weird or not... looks like we're going to have to stay a while."
Glinda let out a long sigh. She settled back in her seat, undid her seatbelt, and glanced at her girlfriend out of the corner of her eye.
"You know what? Maybe this is what we needed. Fresh air. A quiet place. No distractions."
"Does that include sex in the middle of the woods?"
"No way."
They both smiled. Despite the tiredness, the anger, the tension, there they were again. Together, lost, ready for the unexpected.
Elphaba drove with the deepest frown Glinda had seen in days, which was saying something. The car moved slowly along the cobblestone streets, past immaculate colonial houses, porches with empty rocking chairs, and streetlights that flickered even though it wasn't dark yet. They had circled the same square three times now. Every corner seemed to lead to the same place. It was like being trapped in a beautiful but circular model.
"We're going around in circles," Elphaba grumbled, without taking her eyes off the road.
"What if it's a beautiful circle?" Glinda replied, trying to keep the peace. "A circle with personality."
"That was the most useless excuse I've ever heard. And I heard a lot."
Finally, they pulled over to the side of the road, right in front of a dark storefront with antique gold-painted letters that read: "Midnight Gallery — Contemporary and Paranormal Photography."
"Paranormal?" Glinda read, raising an eyebrow.
"It's either this or ask that dog in a sweater we saw two blocks ago."
"Fair point."
They decided who would get out of the car with a quick—and predictably heated—rock, paper, scissors. Since neither of them wanted to lose, they both ended up getting out together. They crossed the sidewalk and pushed open the porch door. A faint jingle of a bell announced their entry.
The place was... strange. Not in a bad way. In a deliciously uncomfortable way. The walls were covered with photographs, but they weren't the kind you see in travel magazines or at fancy salons. Some were stunning: desert landscapes with thunderstorms, portraits of people with gazes that pierced the paper. But others... were different. A figure covered by a sheet, floating in the middle of a Victorian room. An elegant party with everyone staring at their reflection in a mirror... except for one who had no reflection.
"Is this... a conceptual art gallery?" Glinda asked quietly.
"Or for spirits with an aesthetic sense," Elphaba murmured.
They stopped in front of a black and white photograph. Two sheets hung in the air, seemingly floating, with the clear shapes of human figures beneath them. But there were no feet, no shadows. Only the shapes beneath the fabric and an open window in the background, as if something invisible had just entered or left.
"What... is this?" Glinda whispered.
"Photoshop... or very well-lit paranormal activity."
They were both still watching when a clear, enveloping voice emerged from behind them.
"It's one of my favorites, although people usually laugh or leave when they see it. Congratulations: you stayed."
They both turned immediately. In front of them stood a woman in her forties, thin and pale, with a dark elegance that didn't seem affected but a way of breathing. She was dressed in black, with a lace jacket, tight pants, and high boots. Her dark hair contrasted with her porcelain skin, and her eyes... those eyes looked like they'd seen too much.
"Are you lost tourists or enthusiasts from the other side?" she asked with a slight, crooked smile.
It took Glinda a second to find her voice.
"Uh... can't you be both?"
"Correct answer," the woman replied, crossing her arms. "Lydia Deetz. Owner. Medium. Photographer. Curator. Keeper of Mystery, according to my business card."
"Elphaba Thropp," she replied, a little taken aback but intrigued.
"Glinda Upland," Glinda said quickly, extending a hand with her best diplomatic ambassador of good taste smile.
Lydia didn't shake hands. Instead, she inclined her head slightly, as if acknowledging another unusual creature.
"How can this humble residence of the unusual help you?"
Elphaba and Glinda exchanged a look. Then Elphaba took a step forward.
"We got lost. We took a wrong turn and ended up here."
"Lost?" Lydia repeated with a curious air, as if the word didn't make sense in her personal dictionary. "No one gets to Winter River by accident. But if you want directions, I can help."
There was a brief silence. Glinda smiled, but Elphaba frowned. Lydia seemed friendly, yes… but there was something about her presence. A familiarity with the strange, the unusual. As if she were more comfortable talking about ghosts than real estate prices.
"What is this place exactly?" Elphaba asked.
Lydia smiled faintly, her teeth bared.
"An old town. With even older stories. Some buried. Others… not so much."
"Well, that's reassuring," Glinda murmured.
As Glinda fanned out her charm like a golden fan—soft voice, measured smile, perfectly straight posture—and explained to Lydia how she and her wife had "become briefly disoriented amid a delightful geographical misunderstanding," Elphaba had already tuned out halfway through the speech. Not out of lack of habit—God knew she'd heard it many times at various receptions, formal dinners, impromptu embassies, or even supermarket lines—but because something in the gallery was unexpectedly beginning to capture her attention.
She took a few steps back, hands clasped behind her back, walking slowly across the creaking wooden floor as her gaze lingered on each image. Unlike Glinda, Elphaba didn't consider herself a "visual" person. Her pleasure had always been in words, in the structure of ideas, in the music made by tightly woven sentences. But there was something about those photographs that seemed to touch right on that most private part of her perception. They weren't just images: they were moments captured with an invisible edge. There was an underlying sensitivity, an irony that didn't fall back on the obvious. One photo showed a ballerina in a tulle dress, against the backdrop of an empty room with papers flying around her, but the papers bore no text; they were blank sheets. Another was a simple open window with curtains billowing in the wind, but the shadows cast didn't match the objects in the room.
"That one's called The Others' Room," Lydia said from behind her, noticing the way Elphaba was watching her with unusual attention. "Some people swear there's something else in the photo if you look at it closely enough."
Elphaba turned her head slowly, a little uncomfortable at being watched, but also fascinated.
"Something else?"
"Or someone else," Lydia added with a hint of mystery, without exaggeration.
Elphaba tilted her head. Her natural skepticism was struggling to prevail, but something in her chest felt... curious. Like a fine-tuned string resonating to the invisible touch of a distant note.
"Your photos... they have a very particular aesthetic," Elphaba commented, turning her gaze to another image, this time of a girl with her back turned staring at a dead tree, whose shadow seemed to form the silhouette of another girl, this one in profile.
"Thank you. My life too," Lydia replied with a discreet smile. "Are you interested in them?"
Elphaba hesitated. Then she nodded.
"I don't usually admit it, but yes. These do. I like them when they're not explained. When they're not intended as an answer, but rather as a crack in the question."
Lydia narrowed her eyes, as if she'd just confirmed something she'd already suspected.
"I like the way you said that."
At that moment, Glinda approached, still smiling but with a hint of bewilderment.
"Well... Lydia has kindly offered us the use of her internet to find our way. Although, frankly, I'm not convinced that such an elegant woman lives in a place with working Wi-Fi."
Lydia raised an eyebrow humorously.
"I have my contacts in the digital underworld. Come. My office is this way."
She led them down a dimly lit hallway adorned with old portraits, framed negatives, and a strange bat-shaped lamp. The office was at the far end, right on the corner of the building, with a large panoramic window overlooking the heart of town: the main square, a cemetery in the background, and what appeared to be an abandoned church, decorated with vines.
The room was everything you'd expect from Lydia Deetz. Tastefully repurposed antique furniture, dark, oriental-inspired rugs, a collection of vintage cameras, jars with labels that said things like "midnight mist" or "ink of heavy dreams," and a shelf with what appeared to be a collection of Gothic figurines and small family mementos. Black and white photos, some somewhat faded, showed a young Lydia standing next to figures Elphaba vaguely recognized from…some documentary? A biography?
As Glinda gingerly sat down in one of the upholstered chairs, Elphaba approached the window, surveying the town from there. Everything seemed too still, as if time had slowed slightly in that corner. Yet it wasn't unsettling. It was... restrained.
Lydia poured two cups of tea—black, with a hint of lavender—and one for herself, while Glinda checked her phone in frustration.
"Dead network?" Elphaba asked without turning around.
"Dead, buried, and with a tombstone," Glinda snorted.
"My network works," Lydia said, turning on her laptop. "But it's... special. Let's see if it can help."
But while Glinda pounded the keyboard with the energy of a noblewoman in the midst of a diplomatic battle against a soulless network, Elphaba leaned back easily in her chair, turned slightly toward Lydia, who spoke with enveloping calm and delicious irony. The most disconcerting, and perhaps most charming, thing was that Lydia Deetz, despite her wardrobe that looked like something out of a collaboration between an occult museum and a Parisian runway, was... surprisingly normal. More than that: she was genuine, sharp, and had that kind of humor that seeped into her sentences like a faint shadow, perceptible only to those who knew how to observe.
"So... a photo gallery in a town that looks like something out of a Stephen King novel?" Elphaba commented with a crooked smile, sipping her tea.
"Exactly," Lydia shrugged. "The creepy touch sells better than butterflies and wheat fields. Plus, it has less competition."
They both laughed knowingly.
"And you said you came back after being in New York?" Elphaba asked, genuinely interested.
"Yes," Lydia nodded. "I moved here when I was little, with my dad and... my stepmother." Then I went to New York with my husband. I worked for a while for a TV show about mediums and the like. It was interesting, but exhausting. Some time after my husband passed away, I decided to come back. This place is calling me. And now… I'm here with my daughter. A teenager, unfortunately for me, which means I have two supernatural entities living in my house: her and the Wi-Fi.
"Quite a combination," Elphaba said, amused. "And she helps you with the gallery?"
"Sort of. Sometimes she poses, sometimes she protests. But she has a good eye. Sarcasm is clearly hereditary. And it doesn't help that I'm now dating someone, although he's some kind of alien disguised as an unemployed musician, but he tries hard."
"He looks familiar," Elphaba murmured, glancing maliciously at Glinda, who was clearly listening despite pretending otherwise.
Lydia laughed and stood up when her phone rang. She apologized with a gentle nod and disappeared down the hall. Elphaba stood for a moment contemplating the place, feeling that for the first time in days she wasn't in transit but grounded. She took a deep breath; the tea tasted good. She allowed herself that small moment of absolute presence.
"Really?" Glinda exclaimed without looking at her. "Do you like him?"
"Lydia? I really like her," Elphaba replied nonchalantly. "She reminds me a bit of me, but cooler. And with a gallery."
"Sure, and with her mysterious gothic aura and her raspy, nail-smoking voice," Glinda exaggerated, without taking her eyes off the screen.
"You're jealous," Elphaba crooned, stretching like a contented cat.
"I'm not jealous," Glinda refuted with a snort. "I just find it a little odd that you're so smitten with a complete stranger dressed like Morticia Addams at a carnival."
"Admit it, she's a goth MILF," Elphaba said with a crooked smile. "You know I have a type."
"I'm your type," Glinda snarled, crossing her arms.
"You are." But that doesn't mean I can't admire the emotional and aesthetic flair of another functioning adult woman who probably knows what a safe word is and isn't afraid to use it.
"Elphaba!"
"What?! You started role-playing in the middle of the woods," Elphaba whispered between stifled giggles. "I'm just socializing with the queen of Ghost Town."
At that moment, they both heard a soft door slam and Lydia's returning footsteps. The photographer reappeared, her expression somewhere between amused and resigned.
"Sorry, that was my idiot boyfriend. He lost the remote again."
Glinda blinked.
"The TV?"
Lydia shook her head with a sly smile.
"No, not that remote."
Elphaba nearly choked on the last sip of tea. Glinda blushed up to her ears.
"What... does that mean exactly?" Glinda asked tensely.
"It means I have an enthusiastic but clumsy boyfriend," Lydia shrugged. "And if you ever want advice on how to hide a box of adult toys from a very curious teenage daughter, I have a list of foolproof strategies."
Elphaba burst into laughter. Glinda, face a tomato and dignity hanging by a thread, slammed her laptop shut and crossed her arms.
"Well," she said. "Maybe we should start thinking about... finding an inn or something."
"Why? Are you afraid Lydia also has a secret dungeon under the gallery?" Elphaba joked.
"NO!" Glinda said, standing up with an almost theatrical gesture.
"Just in case, I have it under the cemetery," Lydia added dryly, with a barely hinted smile.
Glinda opened her mouth to protest but couldn't get it out. Elphaba simply leaned back in her seat and said, amused, "I definitely like this place." And for the next few minutes, Glinda tried to find a plausible excuse to leave the gallery without seeming ungrateful. The problem was, she couldn't think of one that didn't sound like a cliché straight out of an etiquette manual for frigid wives from the last century. "We have to go because... we have an engagement" wouldn't do. What engagement could a couple possibly have, stranded in the middle of a town that seemed trapped in a perpetual October calendar?
Meanwhile, Elphaba was taking great delight in ruining any escape attempt. She remained comfortably ensconced on the sofa, her teacup gone, but with a restrained smile on her face, while Lydia, with the carefree elegance of a woman who has lived more lives than she can count, spoke with renewed enthusiasm.
"So I have to close early today," Lydia commented, shuffling through some messy folders on her desk with one hand. "My boyfriend is hosting one of his parties at the house... and well, I have to be there in case he tries to set something on fire." Or summon things.
Elphaba tilted her head in interest.
"Summon things?"
Lydia raised an eyebrow without even looking at Elphaba.
"That's one way of putting it. Let's just say... she has a particular take on entertainment. It's not your typical party. And I'd rather make sure it doesn't end with someone chained to the ceiling or something. Although sometimes that's part of the plan. It depends."
Glinda blinked twice, her face frozen, as if her brain had paused the tape for a second to restart.
"Chained up?" she repeated with a tight smile. "Are we talking... themed parties or..."
"Performative eroticism? Postmortem cathartic expression? Weird people doing weird things with signed consent forms?" Lydia paused dramatically, looked at Glinda with amusement, and then simply said, "Yes."
"I'm interested!" Elphaba said immediately, a little too enthusiastically for Glinda's liking.
"No, we're not interested!" Glinda retorted quickly, before realizing how her plural had sounded.
Elphaba slowly turned to her with a smile that could only be described as devilish.
"Oh, no? And what about all that about rekindling the spark, exploring new things, getting out of the routine...?"
"I didn't say 'get into an orgy of Satanic witches and horny Goths'!" Glinda lowered her voice at the end, nervous that someone might be listening from the street. "That's not what I meant!"
"Glinda," Elphaba said, crossing her arms and approaching her with feline slowness. You're on a journey with no direction, saying you want to rekindle the sexual spark in our relationship... and you're being invited to a party probably filled with wine, red lights, weird art, and people with more tattoos than prejudices. Do you want to say no?
Glinda opened her mouth, indignant, but stopped. She knew exactly what Elphaba was doing: provoking her, challenging her, putting her in that place where saying no meant being boring and saying yes meant... well, walking into a house where someone was probably playing the theremin in leather and fishnets. Her pride and her libido were at war.
And that made her even more furious.
"All right," Glinda declared, squaring her shoulders like someone launching into a war she doesn't fully understand but doesn't want to lose.
Excited like a teenager before a Bauhaus concert, Lydia flashed them a wide smile, adjusted her black velvet jacket over her shoulders, and announced, "Give me just a few minutes to lock up, and then we can go. The house isn't far away. If you're lucky, Beetlejuice hasn't started annoying the guests with his Bowie impression yet. Although that would be very lucky."
Elphaba nodded with an almost childlike smile, excited as if they'd just said the magic word. Glinda, on the other hand, only managed to stretch her lips into a tight grimace that tried to resemble a polite smile. Lydia disappeared through a back door, leaving them alone.
As soon as they were out of sight, Glinda turned on Elphaba like a cauldron about to explode.
"You're completely crazy!" she spat in a low but venomous voice. What part of “I’m not ready for this” didn’t you understand?
Elphaba crossed her arms, leaning against one of the gallery’s interior columns with an air of amused superiority.
“Come on, Glinda. Don’t tell me part of you doesn’t want to see what’s behind the curtain. This doesn’t have to be so… dramatic.”
“Of course it is dramatic!” Glinda held her temples, as if Elphaba were deliberately trying to give her a migraine with her words. “This isn’t like our role-playing games in the playroom. That had structure! A code, safe words, lists of limits and protocols. This sounds like an orgiastic party with people dressed as zombies summoning spirits between whiplashes.”
“And that’s exactly what makes it interesting,” Elphaba countered with that half-smile Glinda learned to fear as much as love. “Besides, it’s not my first party of this kind.”
Glinda blinked. Twice.
"What?"
"What what?"
"What do you mean this isn't your first party of this kind?"
"Well, not exactly this kind." Elphaba raised her hand as if to reassure her, though the ambiguity only made things worse. "It was years ago. When I lived in Chicago. It wasn't much. Lots of people in costumes, cheap wine, a guy dressed as Pluto in a loincloth... in retrospect, it was more ridiculous than sexy. But interesting."
Glinda frowned. Elphaba could see the storm in her blue eyes slowly forming, like pink clouds turning gray.
"I didn't know you... went to things like this."
"I never hid it," Elphaba said, though with a certain playful tone that clearly indicated she had. "It just... didn't come up in conversation. It's not like you say, 'Pass the salt, and by the way, I once went to a pagan bondage ceremony in an abandoned theater.'"
Glinda snorted, hugging herself as if suddenly cold.
"This is different. This isn't a role-playing game where I can say, 'Mistress Elphaba, I misbehaved,' and you respond with a scowl and a low voice that I'm a disobedient bitch. This is... is..."
"Real life?"
"Chaos!"
Elphaba approached her slowly, lowering her voice.
"Listen to me." We make a deal. We go for a few minutes. We explore. If you don't like it or feel uncomfortable, we'll leave. No questions. No complaints. Just say so and we'll leave the same way we came in. But... if it turns out to be fun... well, then we have a story to remember.
Glinda hesitated. The words "a story to remember" echoed in her mind. What if this was it? That's what the trip was for, wasn't it? To reconnect. To lose control, just a little. To step outside the perfect lines she used to paint her life. Like a summer night where no one knows their names.
Finally, she swallowed and stated quietly,
"Fine. But if there's some kind of performance involving fire, I'm leaving."
"I'll protect you from flamethrowers," Elphaba replied, taking her chin in her hand with a mocking smile.
"And I'm not a child who needs protecting," Glinda retorted instantly. "I can take care of myself in... in this. I've done crazy things, too." Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Crazy things like... playing the evil librarian and the wayward student?"
"Those were very creative things, thank you!"
"Of course they were, my love."
At that moment, Lydia returned. She had a small backpack over her shoulder, a wide-brimmed hat in her hand, and the same casual air as someone on her way to pick up a pizza, not preside over a modern coven.
"Ready?"
Glinda and Elphaba looked at each other. A mixture of terror and desire crossed their faces like reflections in a cracked mirror.
"Readier than ever," Elphaba said, taking her wife's hand.
Glinda held it tightly, not tenderly, but like someone clinging to the rope that separates her from the abyss.
And so, the three women left the gallery for a night that, as far as Glinda could imagine, would surely mark them forever.
The three women left the porch as the sun slowly set, tinting the gray edges of the sky a dull orange. Lydia turned to make sure the lock clicked firmly before slipping the key into the inside pocket of her velvety black coat. Wasting no time, they walked toward the car parked at the edge of the main road, still warm from the sun.
"Well, let's go in yours. I'll give you the address," Lydia announced confidently.
Elphaba unlocked the car and headed to her usual spot behind the wheel. Lydia casually took the lead into the passenger seat, and without much room for protest, Glinda was forced into the back seat. With a gesture worthy of a dethroned queen, she crossed her arms and glared at the back of the seat in front of her.
"I just want to say," Glinda muttered sourly, "that this is literally the first time I've ever been made to sit in the back of my own car."
"It's actually both of our cars now, technically," Elphaba clarified, adjusting the mirrors. "But tell us how you feel, Princess."
"Silence in the back row, please," Lydia chimed in with a sharp smile as she took a piece of candy from her pocket and raised it to her mouth like a cigar.
The road wound through the narrow streets of Winter River, and little by little, a small universe of curious places unfolded before them. Lydia couldn't help but play tour guide, elegantly pointing out the old private girls' school with its melancholy neoclassical facade.
"Miss Shannon still teaches there, I think. She's about 105 by now, but she still has that same sweet voice and that gaze that can spot a lesbian within a two-mile radius."
Elphaba laughed. Glinda didn't know whether to laugh or shudder.
"That bridge over there," Lydia continued, indicating a wooden structure spanning a small, dark river, "is the Bridge of the Dead. Don't ask why it's called that; no one wants to say."
Then they passed by the town cemetery. In the distance, the Gothic statues seemed to bow in greeting, stone figures embraced by the mist.
"I lost my virginity there," Lydia said in a completely casual tone, as if she were talking about the nearest supermarket.
Elphaba burst out laughing, turning her face slightly in delight.
"Really?"
"Over the grave of a guy named Barnabas. I swear. He had a beautiful epitaph, something about 'sleeping in the arms of eternity.' Very poetic. The dust wasn't much, but the atmosphere was everything."
Glinda sank further into her seat.
"I think I need to disinfect my ears," she murmured, too quietly for Lydia to hear but not quiet enough to stop Elphaba from smiling.
The last visual stop was a small Gothic chapel with stained-glass windows that looked as if they were tinted by the sunset itself. Lydia jerked her thumb toward it.
"I almost got married there once." It was actually my second failed wedding. The guy was an idiot... but I'm still in a relationship with him, so there must be something to it.
Glinda, red to the roots of her scalp, buried her face in her hands.
"Oh my God, I don't want to know this!"
"Why not?" Lydia retorted, brazenly turning around in her seat to look back. "You have stories too, perfect princess. I can read it right in your face. What? Dormitory? Library detention? Gym teacher?"
"I've never been with a gym teacher!" Glinda defended herself indignantly, as if that were the offensive part.
"Don't deny it so strongly, it looks suspicious," Elphaba murmured, smiling as she kept her eyes on the road.
They continued up a winding hill flanked by twisted trees that looked like something out of a 1970s horror movie. At the bottom, like a mansion forgotten by time and cursed by good taste, stood Lydia's house.
It was a huge house, with gargoyles on the edges of the roof, glass fogged by age, black and gray walls covered in dying ivy, and a rusty crow-shaped weather vane spinning aimlessly. From the front entrance, strobe lights and the unmistakable bass beat of electronic music fused with something that could have been yodeling or wailing from beyond the grave drifted in. There was laughter, screaming, and someone—or something—howling like a wolf.
Lydia surveyed the scene and let out a long sigh.
"Great. The party's started. I hope that idiot didn't decorate with fake blood again." The last time, she ruined a 19th-century chandelier.
Glinda opened the door slowly, as if the very act of getting out of the car brought her one step closer to doom.
"Can we... still regret?"
"No," Elphaba said with a savage smile.
Glinda glared at her, but when her hand closed around Elphaba's as she stepped out of the car, it was tight. It was a warning, an anchor, and a plea all at once.
"Just a few minutes," she murmured. "If there are rituals with candles and dead toads, we're leaving."
"Witch's word," Elphaba whispered, and the three figures—the witch, the princess, and the queen of the underworld—passed through the gate and up the stairs into a night that promised anything but normalcy.
Just as the night breeze, heavy with Gothic humidity, caressed her skin, Lydia stopped in front of the front door. She placed a gloved hand on the gargoyle-shaped bronze doorknob, turned to her companions, and regarded them with a performative gravity that seemed plucked from an experimental theater rehearsal.
"A warning," she said, lowering her voice just enough to make it sound like a conspiratorial confidence. "Whatever happens in there... never say her name three times. Understood?"
Glinda opened her mouth to ask who she was talking about, but Lydia's steady gaze stopped her. That dramatic pause was enough for her entire body to scream: this is a bad idea, this is a very bad idea, but her pride and the sudden squeeze of Elphaba's hand were stronger.
"Well," Lydia added with a disturbing smile as she opened the door, "have fun."
And with that unspoken incantation, they crossed the threshold.
Glinda had to hold back a scream. Not of horror... exactly. But what she saw was unlike any party she'd ever been invited to, not even in her wildest youth.
The house... wasn't a house. It was a profane cathedral of pleasure, a living labyrinth of neon lights, velvet curtains, distorting mirrors, and artificial fog that crawled across the floor like a creature with a hunger of its own. The air smelled of expensive incense mixed with leather, sweat, and desire. And throughout the main hall—a vast vaulted room that could have been the nave of a church converted into a fetish club—dozens, if not hundreds, of bodies slithered about.
Bodies in latex, in corsets, with wings, horns, fake tails, and glowing tattoos that pulsed to the music. Masked people participated in rituals in circles drawn with fluorescent chalk; Others danced in a trance, and some simply knelt like devotees in front of half-naked performers doing things with candles, chains, and... a deer head?
“Tragedy” by the Bee Gees played in a remixed version, distorted like a disco mantra summoned from the depths of a cursed dance floor. Green and purple lights bathed everything in a spectral glow. Every corner held a story, a provocation, or a fantasy that dissolved at the touch of it.
Glinda held tightly to Elphaba's hand, whose expression combined fascination, wry delight, and the purest, quietest curiosity. As Glinda giggled nervously, looking around, Elphaba murmured:
"You wanted to rekindle the spark? I think we just stepped into Satan's furnace."
"This is... this is illegal in some states," Glinda whispered, shaking a finger at a couple doing something with body paint and a mini confetti cannon.
"The illegality is what makes it work," Elphaba countered, winking at her.
Finally, past a pair of submissives dressed as fallen angels and a carved wooden throne covered with velvet cushions, they reached the center of the room. There, Lydia stood waiting for them, sipping from a gothic chalice like a hostess from another plane.
"So? What do you think?" Lydia asked in the same voice someone might use to ask if the wedding buffet was acceptable.
All Glinda could manage was a sound. Something between a hysterical laugh and a suppressed moan.
"Just out of curiosity," Elphaba said, in her usual dry tone but filled with hidden fire. "Who exactly is your boyfriend?"
Lydia smiled. That smile... that smile was dangerous.
"Oh, him..." she replied, and raised her finger as if pointing at a comet crossing the sky, "there he is."
And there he was.
In the exact center of the house, like the black sun around which all the bodies and chaos revolved, stood a man. If you could call him that.
He was wearing a black and white striped suit that looked like something out of a Halloween designer's worst dream and a Satanic clown's best orgasm. His hair was sticking up like he'd fought with electricity, his teeth were too white, his smile too wide, his eyes glowing like a lit match.
He stood on a podium, surrounded by rings of fire, black ribbons, and dancers in animal masks and whips. The crowd clapped, cheered, laughed, and surrendered to him as if he were the messiah of some demented, erotic cult.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
Glinda swallowed.
Lydia crossed her arms and, still smiling, murmured, "His name is Beetlejuice. But remember: don't say it three times."
Beetlejuice rose in the center of the room like a delirious comet made of green smoke, impossible costumes, and laughter that echoed like tribal drums in the heart of the house. He waved his arms with performative violence, whipping the air with nonsensical phrases, obscene rhymes, and euphoric exclamations that made his audience roar as if each word were a spark thrown into a keg of gunpowder.
"IT'S SHOWTIME, DIMENSIONAL BASTARDS!" "—he bellowed, while somersaulting on a trapeze that, for unknown reasons, hung over the room with no apparent structure to support it.
There were cheers, applause, a burst of confetti, and then laughter erupted as Beetlejuice magically reappeared on the floor, howling like a wolf in the midst of a cosmic orgasm.
"Tonight there are no rules, no modesty, no... taxes!" he shouted with a laugh that seemed to have drunk from the River Styx itself.
But suddenly his gaze, as if he'd smelled a perfume in the air—that of his beloved, perhaps mixed with gunpowder, whiskey, and sarcasm—stopped. And then, like a feline from beyond the grave, he launched himself into the crowd.
"Ba-Ba-Ba-BABEEEEES!" he shrieked as he ran toward her, arms outstretched like a theatrically besotted predator.
Before Glinda could even form a coherent expression, Beetlejuice had lifted Lydia off her feet, spinning her through the air like a blasphemous goddess descending from the heavens. He kissed her as if he were devouring her, then insulted her with violent tenderness.
"You escaped from the cemetery without me, you heart-stealing witch?" he muttered with a rotten smile and glittering eyes.
"And you're wearing that cologne that smells like formaldehyde again!" Lydia replied, cackling as she punched him in the chest. "Put me down, you degenerate!"
"Never!" he cried with childlike joy, before kissing her again and finally setting her down. "You abandoned me, my muse of the underworld."
Elphaba and Glinda, still holding hands, watched the scene like someone witnessing a romantic exorcism. Glinda blinked in confusion. Elphaba, on the other hand, was completely fascinated.
"Ah, this explains a lot," Elphaba murmured, half amused and half scared.
Beetlejuice seemed to recognize then that they weren't alone.
"And our little larva?" he asked with exaggerated sweetness. "Where is the mini-babes?"
"She's at a friend's house watching movies with death," Lydia replied matter-of-factly. "Don't look at me like that, you were the one who made her watch movies with 'fake blood.'"
"And she turned out divine!" —he stated proudly.
It was then that Lydia, taking her mad lover's hand and still catching her breath from the whirlwind, turned him toward their guests.
"Darling, I brought guests. Lost on the road... and curious."
Beetlejuice turned with an exaggerated twist and laid eyes on the couple. The moment his gaze touched Glinda, his pupils widened with the sound of an imaginary bugle. Then he slowly lowered himself to Elphaba, his face mutating into a mixture of lascivious fascination, mocking admiration, and a disturbing desire to provoke.
"Well, well, well... and what do we have here?" he said, approaching like a fairground vendor from an enchanted carnival. "Two beauties freshly baked from the oven of sexual repression? I love it! The catalog blonde and the existentialist witch! AH, WHAT A FEAST!"
Glinda tried to extend a polite hand.
"Glinda." This is Elphaba. We're a couple.
Beetlejuice took her hand like a trophy, gave her a kiss that sounded like a sticky suction cup, and then spun around with overacted energy.
"Charmed, delighted, delighted of life and death! I am Beetlejuice, host, agent of chaos, compulsive lover, and, in case you're asking... the only licensed interdimensional exorcist of the living."
"We didn't ask," Elphaba said, crossing her arms.
Beetlejuice leaned closer to her, as if her cynicism were the best aphrodisiac.
"Ahhh, I like this one," he said in a husky, theatrical whisper. "Can I call you a wicked witch?"
"You can call me 'no,'" Elphaba replied, not moving an inch.
Glinda, visibly uncomfortable, tried to save the day:
"Lydia said the party was... different."
Beetlejuice grinned like a shark that just smelled blood in the water.
"Different. Oh, baby, you have no idea! But don't worry... no one is forced to do anything here. Although if you want to watch, participate, lose your dignity, sell your soul, or just have a drink and a laugh, it's your night!"
Lydia, who had watched the scene with a mixture of resignation and tenderness, finally interceded.
"Don't scare them. They're... new."
Beetlejuice made a sweeping gesture, as if he'd been wounded.
"Me? Scare? Never! I make you fall in love. Right, love from beyond the grave?"
"So..." Elphaba began, with that mixture of forced diplomacy and morbid curiosity one adopts when one finds oneself, unbidden, in a surreal situation. "How did you two meet?"
It was like flipping a hidden switch.
"Ohhh, what a story!" Beetlejuice crooned, bringing his hand to his chest with a fake blush and winking an eye that seemed to glow with will-o'-the-wisp.
"She was sixteen," he and Lydia said in unison, though each spoke in a very different tone: he with outrageous enthusiasm, she with ironic resignation.
Glinda choked on her drink, causing a dry cough and a small spill on her dress.
"Excuse me?!" she exclaimed, wiping it with a napkin as she looked at Lydia with wide eyes.
"It was a phase. Demonic, yes, but... a phase," Lydia replied with the tone of someone who has told that story more times than she'd like.
"Love at first summoning!" Beetlejuice laughed, letting out a nasal chuckle that made one of the lamps wobble.
"He tried to marry me during a séance," Lydia explained. "A shotgun marriage to a supernatural entity. Nothing that hasn't happened before, right?" Glinda just stared at her, speechless, while Elphaba blinked slowly, as if she needed to reboot her brain.
"But I survived, I grew up, I left... and he, well, he didn't go anywhere," Lydia continued with a sigh that was half annoyance, half tenderness.
"And then 30 years passed!" BJ interrupted, gesturing with his arms like a soap opera narrator.
"Thirty-two," Lydia corrected him dryly.
"And when I came back... he still wanted to marry me!"
"Again without asking. I sent him to hell. Literally," Lydia added.
"And I came back!" Beetlejuice crooned proudly. "I won his heart through perseverance, stolen grave flowers, and a couple of well-executed exorcisms."
"And because he saved me from marrying a damn con man," Lydia finished. Which was, let's face it, the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me.
Elphaba couldn't help but laugh. There was something about that grotesque and absurd dynamic that, oddly enough, made sense. They had a language of their own, an impossible balance between one's madness and the other's sarcasm, between Beetlejuice's unbridled instincts and Lydia's sharp, weary gaze.
"It may be... basic, but sometimes it's effective," Lydia commented, and before anyone could stop them, they both began laughingly recounting some of their favorite "adventures."
"Did I tell you about the time we cosplayed as exorcists and ended up trapped in a hellish chastity cell for a day?"
"And do you remember the time you put your face on a pillow so I could insult you while I slept? That was bizarre," Lydia laughed, more amused than embarrassed.
Glinda watched them like someone watching an out-of-print show. Part of her couldn't believe what she was hearing... and yet, there was something... sweet. Or at least honest. In that strange way, they understood each other. They loved each other in a twisted, yet completely unique way.
And in the midst of that confusing feeling, Glinda felt something swirl inside her. She looked at Elphaba, who was also watching the scene with a crooked half-smile, her eyes shining with a mixture of fascination and respect.
Then Glinda thought:
Is this how others see us? Two opposites who shouldn't fit together, who speak different languages, who argue and fight, and yet... still choose each other?
And if so... what was wrong with it?
Maybe there was no need to be "normal." Maybe all it took was being honest. Like these two, in their swamp of bizarre debauchery and interdimensional love.
Glinda took Elphaba's hand tightly, squeezing it. Elphaba looked at her with silent complicity, and although they said nothing, they both understood that they had just discovered a new kind of mirror. A completely distorted one, but a reflection nonetheless.
The moment had been almost tender, like a small island of calm floating amidst an ocean of green and purple lights, dancing bodies, and incense-scented lust. Glinda's hand was still intertwined with Elphaba's when Beetlejuice's voice boomed like mischievous thunder overhead.
"What are you doing standing there, dolls? This isn't a funeral!... well, not yet." With a laugh that sounded like a slammed door in hell, BJ stepped between them and took them both by the shoulders. "Come on, come on, you can't come to MY party and stand there like statues in a Gothic museum! This is a living party!... and sometimes dead too, but never boring!"
Lydia, who had been leaning against a pillar with a glass in her hand, raised an eyebrow with her classic elegant disdain.
"BJ, don't start. We said if you wanted to leave, you could leave."
“I’m not pressuring you, Babes, I just want you to get acclimated. And you’ll never achieve that by dressing like you’re going to a charity dinner for depressed orphans.” She shot Elphaba a knowing look. “Although I admit the ‘apocalyptic librarian’ look has its charm.”
Before Glinda could respond, they were being gently but firmly shoved away by the host, like two tourists caught on an unwanted excursion.
“Jacques!” BJ suddenly shouted, snapping two fingers in the air.
From a column decorated with skulls emerged an extravagant figure: tall, skinny, covered in translucent black fabric, with skeleton makeup covering his entire face except for perfectly defined red lips. Jacques LaLean, the party’s personal designer, appeared as if he’d been waiting in the shadows.
“Ooh la la, mon cher Beetlejuice, what do we have here?” "He said in affected French, inspecting Glinda and Elphaba with a scandalized expression. "Mais non, non, non! These beauties are wasted on such... domesticated clothes!"
"Take them to the costume room. Let them loosen up a little," BJ ordered with a smile that showed too many teeth.
Jacques nodded enthusiastically and, without wasting a second, bowed exaggeratedly.
"My dear ladies, follow me if you wish to find your true selves... or at least a sexier one."
Glinda hesitated. Elphaba gave a nasal laugh.
"Is this really happening?"
"Don't answer that," Glinda whispered, as they followed Jacques through a black curtain that separated the heart of the party from a more secluded and reserved, though equally strange, area.
Upon crossing the threshold, they found themselves in a room that looked like a cross between a decadent theater dressing room, a cursed cabaret dressing room, and a nightmarish Parisian boutique. Shelves filled with corsets, capes, feather necklaces, latex suits, impossible hats, and jewelry made from bones and velvet. All bathed in a dim reddish lighting that made the forbidden shine.
Jacques turned dramatically.
"This is it. The desire. The costume. The drama. Be whoever you want to be tonight!"
And with that declaration, he left them alone, disappearing through the curtain with the grace of a theatrical specter.
Elphaba crossed her arms, surveying the space.
"So what now?"
"I don't know," said Glinda, barely able to decide whether to flee or immerse herself in the experience. "This feels like a cross between a fetish shop and a Halloween museum."
Elphaba walked over to a rack of tulle and shiny leather trains.
"Is that bad?"
And without another word, the two of them entered this new playground, examining pieces with a mixture of mockery, curiosity, and growing excitement. They were no longer just two women caught up in a strange party.
They were two accomplices on the verge of a small transformation.
Elphaba scanned each rack, each bust decorated with impossible necklaces, while Glinda, at her side, could barely decide between a midnight-blue velvet corset or a feathered cape that seemed straight out of a baroque dream. She bit her lower lip, uncertain. It wasn't out of modesty—or at least not entirely—but rather from that feeling of not knowing if she was ready to completely let go of control.
Elphaba watched her out of the corner of her eye. She knew her too well not to notice how her finger ran over the pearls of a choker without ever touching them.
"Hey," she said gently, and Glinda looked up as if awakened. "We can go, if you want. You don't have to do this for me."
Glinda hesitated. Barely a second. Then she stood up with that proud expression Elphaba loved so much.
"We're here now, aren't we?" she said, trying to sound more determined than she was. "So let's enjoy it."
Elphaba smiled. Not mockingly, not sarcastically. Tenderly, even.
"Very well. Then... let's make it familiar," she said, narrowing her eyes maliciously.
Before Glinda could ask what she meant, she felt Elphaba's fingers brush the back of her neck, slowly rise to her cheek, and caress it with the pad of her finger. A shiver ran through her. Then Elphaba turned her face toward the large mirror at the far end, where they were both reflected in the dim red lighting of the dressing room.
"Look at yourself," Elphaba whispered, her tone both venomous and silky. "Do you see that? A doll confused by masks, waiting for someone to wake her..."
Glinda froze. Her breath became shorter, and her traitorous heart began to pound.
"Do you want me to choose for you?" "Elphaba asked as she stroked her back, her tone brooking no denial. "Do you want me to decide how you'll shine tonight?"
Glinda nodded silently. There was no other possible answer.
"Then sit down. Legs together. Hands on your knees. Like a good girl."
Glinda obeyed without protest, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks. Elphaba stepped away and began scouring the room like a graceful predator, gliding among the costumes and accessories, carefully selecting each piece, but with a distinctly mischievous intent. She would touch a garment, raise an eyebrow, dismiss it with disdain, until finally she assembled an ensemble. A tight-fitting pearl-colored corset with black embroidered details, a short, ruffled, translucent tulle skirt, garters decorated with pink ribbons, and, to top it all off, unusually high heels and a silver mask that barely covered her eyes.
Glinda, seeing the mountain of pieces, opened her eyes wide.
"Are you kidding?"
Elphaba smiled as she crouched down in front of her.
"No. And it's non-negotiable. If you protest..." He leaned in, his lips barely grazing her earlobe, "...I'm not going to like you at all."
Glinda swallowed.
"That's not fair."
"No," Elphaba admitted with a feline smile. "But you love it."
Glinda changed behind a screen while Elphaba waited, sitting cross-legged, sipping slowly from a goblet Jacques had left within her reach. With every passing minute, she could hear Glinda's murmurs, her soft complaints, the surrendered sigh of someone who knew she was being molded... to look beautiful.
When Glinda stepped out, it was like seeing a vision from another world.
The corset outlined her figure with almost murderous precision, lifting and contouring every curve. The skirt barely covered enough, and the garters peeked out boldly between the ruffles. Her heels forced her to maintain a haughty, almost theatrical posture, and the mask gave her an air of mystery that contrasted deliciously with the embarrassment still visible in the flush on her face.
Elphaba was speechless. Literally.
Glinda, uncertain at first, crossed her arms.
"What? Too much?"
Elphaba stood slowly. She walked toward her. Circled her. Stopped behind her.
"No. It's perfect." She leaned into her neck and murmured. "You're perfect."
Despite the obvious blush staining her cheeks, Glinda's eyes betrayed her. An unmistakable spark burned in them: desire, enjoyment, and absolute adoration. Not just because of her reflection—the impossible figure looming in the mirror, dressed like a twisted Victorian fantasy—but because of the way Elphaba looked at her. With hunger, with affection, with power.
Elphaba forced herself to regain her composure. Astonishment transformed into that feline smile Glinda knew so well, melting her with barely a turn. She took a step forward, slowly, as if the ground itself bowed before her. She began circling her, slowly, her fingers barely grazing her shoulder, then trailing down the exposed line of her corset, silently admiring her.
"Look at you, doll," she whispered in that tone laced with venom and silk that Elphaba only used when she deeply desired her. "A little cake of perversion. No wonder everyone's waiting for you out there."
Glinda was barely breathing.
"Aren't you going to say anything?"
Glinda swallowed, her lips parted.
"Thank you, mistress..."
Elphaba smiled.
"Good girl."
She kissed her briefly on the cheek, then turned, her back to him as she unzipped the side of her leather jacket. The sound was electric. She turned to Glinda with a determined look.
"Now, act like the obedient servant you pretend not to be and help me with this. But do it like you love it... because I know you do."
Glinda lowered her gaze, but her smile didn't fade. With slow movements, choreographed like an intimate dance, she approached Elphaba. She slid her hands up her arms, up to her shoulders. She unzipped Elphaba's fitted bodice with the reverence of someone unwrapping a sacred gift. The garment fell to the floor with a subtle whisper, revealing skin taut and marked by the tension of the leather.
As she did so, Elphaba didn't remain silent. She leaned down and whispered in her ear:
"Are your hands shaking, doll?" Elphaba whispered, placing a hand on her neck. "Or are you just too excited to take off my clothes?"
Glinda smirked, biting her lip.
"Both... ma'am."
"Mmmm... so obedient today. I wonder how long you'll last."
Glinda let out a shaky sigh, but her hands didn't stop. She continued with the fitted trousers, slowly lowering them over her lover's hips, feeling the warmth beneath the fabric. Elphaba stood tall, commanding even the vulnerability of undressing. Even that she did with absolute control.
Once freed, Elphaba stepped back, fully in her role now, and walked to the clothing rack from which she decisively took the outfit she'd chosen. A black leather ensemble with geometric cuts that left little to the imagination but evoked more power than any armor. Thigh-high boots, laced with interlacing, completed the ensemble, along with an asymmetrical corset with metal buckles that clanged as it was fastened.
Glinda stared at her in disbelief.
Elphaba turned around, chin high and a dangerous half-smile.
"Now then? Are we going to have fun?" Glinda, entranced, barely nodded. She approached slowly, taking her hand.
"You're incredible."
"I know," Elphaba replied, kissing her forehead mockingly.
The dressing room curtains opened like a theater curtain, and the two emerged, side by side. The music continued to resonate throughout the room, an industrial remix of something that sounded like Madonna under demonic possession. Green and purple lights bounced off the walls filled with symbols and absurd paintings, and people stopped their dancing and games just to watch them pass.
Glinda walked with the grace of a celestial courtesan, each step accentuated by her revealing yet majestic attire, while her gaze struggled to remain steady. At her side, Elphaba was the queen of shadows: haughty, confident, her riding crop dangling as if she could decide at any moment whether to tame or punish the world.
The murmurs grew louder. Some people clapped, others ducked instinctively, and even BJ, in the corner, theatrically brought his hand to his chest.
"My Swamp Goddess and her Underworld Barbie!" he shouted enthusiastically. "This party just got a whole new level!"
Lydia smiled with a raised eyebrow, as if everything had gone exactly as planned. And the two women, hand in hand—a heavenly blonde and an indomitable witch—walked into the darkness of the party to rejoin BJ and Lydia, who were waiting for them near the makeshift throne Beetlejuice had fashioned from coffins, velvet curtains, and probably a stuffed mannequin.
Glinda was about to say hello, her charming, diplomatic smile at the ready, but just as she opened her mouth, she felt the subtle but firm pressure of a hand on her waist. Elphaba, her gaze narrowed, whispered in her ear in that raspy, elegant, and authoritarian tone she only used when her dom side came to light.
"Don't talk, doll. Remember your place. Just obey."
The blonde froze for a moment. Her eyes widened, surprised not so much by the order, but by how her body responded to it. It was as if an electric current ran down her spine. Her role... of course. That intimate, personal game between them, woven with unspoken rules and a secret language of glances and tones. She had forgotten for a second what position she was in. But now she remembered. And she felt it in every inch of bare skin beneath her provocative outfit.
BJ burst out laughing at the sight.
"Wow! Look at that, Babes. And I thought you were just two sweet girls on a couple's trip!" he squealed in amusement, a mixture of surprise and admiration. "Turns out you brought fire in your suitcase."
Lydia narrowed her eyes, curious. She crossed her arms with a crooked smile.
"Well, I didn't expect that... Although I guess you should never underestimate a blonde with the face of an angel."
Elphaba didn't take her gaze off Glinda. She slowly spun her around on her feet, as if she were showing her off to the world. With a firm hand at the small of her back, she guided her, controlled her, and at the same time, celebrated her.
"Show them how well you're doing," she said with a venomous smile. "Get on your knees. Just for a moment."
Glinda swallowed. Elphaba wasn't usually so bold outside the bedroom... but here, in this erotic chaos, that boldness felt... liberating. She knelt slowly, never taking her eyes off her partner, with an elegance and dignity that contrasted deliciously with her submissive posture.
BJ clapped like a kid at Christmas.
"Holy hell! Look at that, darling. And you thought we were weird!"
Lydia couldn't help but laugh.
"I didn't say they weren't... just that they're weird with style."
Elphaba crouched down in front of Glinda, took her chin gently but firmly, and made her look into her eyes.
"You're perfect," she whispered only to her, out of character for a second. "If it makes you uncomfortable, just give me a sign, okay?"
Glinda shook her head with a tiny smile, her eyes sparkling. She didn't need to say anything.
Elphaba, without losing her composure for a second, spun on her heels and began to walk, and Glinda, without hesitation, dropped to all fours on the polished, gleaming floor as if that had always been her natural position. She walked gracefully beside her, without losing her dignity for a moment. That gesture, which in any other couple would have seemed a ridiculous parody or a spectacle in bad taste, became a majestic choreography when they performed it.
They advanced like a ritual parade: Elphaba haughty, feline, with her leather coat billowing behind her, and Glinda behind her, obedient and ardent, as if each step on her knees were part of a secret offering.
BJ followed them amused, as if he had found his new idols, and Lydia walked beside Elphaba with a raised eyebrow and a genuine respect that she didn't hide.
"And since when have you practiced this level of... synchronicity?" Lydia asked in a friendly tone, just a little ironic. Elphaba took a glass of red wine from a nearby tray and brought it to her lips before answering with elegant smugness.
"Since we stopped pretending we could be a normal couple. We got bored. So... we decided to be exceptional."
They stopped at the snack table, an extravagant spread of dark fruits, petal-wrapped sweets, and bites that seemed designed more for temptation than nourishment. Elphaba snapped her fingers without looking back.
Lydia followed them with her arms crossed, not hiding her astonishment.
"I didn't think you were so... theatrical," she commented, half-amused and half-intrigued.
"It's not theater if you really believe it," Elphaba replied with a half-smile.
She snapped her fingers again, and Glinda, without being asked twice, knelt like a perfectly trained puppy, her hands on her thighs, her back straight, and her tongue barely peeking out in a mixture of provocation and obedience.
Elphaba took a strawberry from the plate, slowly brought it to Glinda's mouth, and Glinda took it with her lips, without using her hands. Elphaba gently stroked her cheek.
"That's how I like it. Well-behaved," she murmured.
Lydia, who had stopped next to Elphaba, crossed her arms and smiled with a mixture of respect and interest.
“This is art,” she said sincerely. “People think BDSM is all leather and chains. But you… you have storytelling. You have drama, precision, desire… and fucking impeccable staging.”
“Thank you,” Elphaba replied with a nod. “And most importantly… consent, humor, and many hours of practice.”
“You two really have this down.”
“More than down,” Elphaba said as she selected another piece of fruit. “We know each other. We know what the other needs, even when it’s not said. Actually… especially when it’s not said.”
“And are you always like this?” Lydia asked with a hint of honest curiosity.
“No,” Elphaba admitted. “Sometimes we switch roles. Or sometimes we just talk, cry, or watch bad movies in bathrobes. But this… this is part of us too. Because it’s not about what you see, it’s about what connects us.” When she obeys me, she doesn't do it because I force her to. She does it because she trusts. And I... I would never do anything to make her feel less than adored," Elphaba added, giving Glinda another grape with a light brush against her lips that made her shudder.
Glinda, from the floor, looked up at Elphaba with eyes that shone not only with desire, but with palpable love.
Lydia nodded slowly, touched in a way she hadn't expected.
"I take it back," she said. "They're not theatrical. They're performance art with heart."
Lydia stepped forward, her heels clicking authoritatively on the polished stone floor. The expression on her face was a perfect blend of pride and playful defiance. She crossed her arms with measured elegance and glared intensely at Elphaba, as if wordlessly challenging her. Then, without looking away, she raised her voice.
"BJ!"
In the distance, among the crowd of dancing bodies, violet lights, and incense smoke, Beetlejuice was in the middle of a semi-improvised monologue about the superiority of top hats over caps when he heard his name. He stopped like a bloodhound sniffing out danger and turned with theatrical swiftness.
"Did you call me, my infernal queen?"
"At my feet!"
And without further ado, Beetlejuice literally leaped among the guests, crossing the room with exaggerated strides until he was sliding to his knees in front of Lydia, sparks flying from the floor like a cartoon character too committed to its role.
Elphaba, still with Glinda kneeling beside her, raised an eyebrow. Glinda, for her part, let out a small, stifled moan that was unclear whether it was laughter or horror.
Lydia turned slightly toward them.
"If you can make art, I can... do mine."
And she did. With a precision that could only come from years of living with incarnate chaos, Lydia began ordering BJ around as if she were conducting a Satanic opera. But of course, the result wasn't an elegant symphony like the one Elphaba had orchestrated with Glinda. No. This was something else. This was… a live macabre comedy.
"Straighten your back, you ectoplasmic scum!" Lydia shouted as she threw him a decorative riding crop, which BJ caught in his mouth like an obedient dog.
"Yes, ma'am! With pleasure, ma'am! Do you want me to roll on the floor while I do the Tarzan yell, or better yet, tap dance while reciting Edgar Allan Poe?!"
"Do both, you useless fool!"
And BJ did. He rolled, screamed, stomped his feet, and recited "The Raven" while shaking his hips to the beat. The audience around him cheered with laughter and applause. It was ridiculous. It was absurd. It was… brilliant.
Elphaba and Glinda, still in character, couldn't contain themselves. Elphaba pressed her lips together to keep from laughing, but Glinda snorted and ended up burying her head against her dom's leg, shaking with laughter.
"Is this BDSM too?" Glinda murmured between peals of laughter.
"I don't know," Elphaba whispered, holding back. "But if it is… I think I just discovered a new kink: 'domination by mutual stage humiliation.'"
"Shut up, you're going to make me break character!"
Elphaba smiled affectionately as she stroked Glinda's head, and seeing how Lydia and BJ, in their madness, found a clumsy and comical way to love each other, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of admiration.
Because yes, they were different. Grotesque, loud, theatrical to a fault. But they also respected each other. They understood each other. They gave each other permission to be themselves without filters or shame. And that, ultimately, wasn't so far from what Elphaba and Glinda had built. Only their stage was different. Their melody was different. But the music… was the same.
When the improvised act ended, BJ knelt in front of Lydia, panting as if he'd just run a marathon, a stupidly satisfied smile on his face.
"Did I do well, my velvet whip?"
Lydia slapped him lightly and leaned down to kiss his forehead.
"You're out of practice. But I love you just the same, you idiot ghost."
Elphaba and Glinda clapped softly, then exchanged a look. A mixture of mockery and complicity.
"Do you think we'll ever be like that?" Glinda asked softly, with a mischievous smile.
"What, shouting Poe poems while tapping your feet in your underwear?"
"No. So... shamelessly in love."
Elphaba sighed and stroked her chin.
"Too late for that, doll. We already are."
Elphaba and Glinda raised two glasses, which they took from a tray at the same time. The green liquid inside shone with an unnatural glow, as if it had a life of its own. Elphaba frowned with mild suspicion, but Glinda—with that pride that wouldn't let her shrink from her girlfriend even in hell itself—had already begun the toast.
"To us," she said with a crooked smile.
"To survive this night without summoning any more demons."
They clinked glasses. They drank. The taste was strong, minty, sweet, and spicy all at the same time. A flash of liquid fire running down their throats.
BJ, still laughing, clutching Lydia and talking to some hybrid of a minotaur and a drag queen, turned his head at the sight.
"HA! They did it! Ladies and gentlemen, the special guests just drank the drink of chaos!" he announced theatrically to the air, as if he were a master of ceremonies for the apocalypse.
Elphaba stilled. Glinda swallowed hard.
"What the...?" Glinda stammered, staring into her empty glass.
Lydia quickly leaned closer, her expression a mixture of nerves and resignation.
"It's not that bad. It just... heightens the senses. Everything feels stronger, more vivid. More... everything. But stay together." That's the important thing. If they're separated... it can get confusing.
"How confusing?" Elphaba asked, already starting to feel the floor had more texture than usual.
BJ couldn't stop laughing.
"I once saw a guy fall in love with a lamp for three hours! And serenade it with an invisible ukulele!"
"Beetle!" Lydia yelled.
But it was too late. The reaction was starting.
Glinda blinked. The lights in the room seemed to have slowed down. The music floated, expanding in waves as if time were breathing. Elphaba felt her skin vibrate with every note of the song. They turned toward each other... and it was as if they were looking at each other for the first time in their lives.
Glinda gasped.
"You're... you're beautiful. Brilliant. Like... like everything good in the world had been concentrated in your eyes. Shit! Were you always like this?"
Elphaba blinked in surprise, then laughed.
"I don't know if I'm beautiful or drunk on pixie juice."
"What if it's both?"
Elphaba took her hand.
"Come on. Before you fall in love with a lamp."
She led her to the dance floor. The bodies around them moved as if dancing underwater. Elphaba and Glinda began to dance, first timidly, then with abandon. They laughed. They touched. Every touch of skin was an electric shock. Every twirl, a hurricane of euphoria.
And then... everything dissolved.
The music became liquid, the colors elongated as if they were being painted in the air with brushes of light. Elphaba felt Glinda's heart beating in her own throat. Glinda saw Elphaba's laughter rise in spirals of golden smoke. Elphaba twirled... and suddenly her feet were floating a few inches off the ground. Glinda joined in, dancing in zero gravity amid purple flashes and other people's laughter.
"Are we flying...?" Glinda asked, unsure if she was scared or having fun.
"I don't know..." Elphaba whispered, her eyes wide. "But I promise not to let go."
BJ appeared in the middle of the dance floor, riding an inflatable unicorn with bat wings.
"That's how I like it! Long live queer love, you kinky sorceresses!"
They both shouted. Lydia, from the bar, let out a resigned laugh.
"Don't worry! They'll be down in a few hours!"
"Hours?" Glinda moaned, clinging to Elphaba as if reality depended on it.
"Relax," Elphaba murmured, cupping her face with absolute tenderness. "Look at me. Just me."
Reality stopped being a straight line and became a neon spiral. Time no longer moved forward, it danced. And Glinda and Elphaba were at the exact center of its vortex.
First came the lights: bursts of green and violet burst like paper fireworks over their bodies. Each flash felt like an electric pulse on their skin, awakening forgotten corners of desire. Elphaba held Glinda in her arms, holding her by the waist, and as they twirled on the floating dance floor, their eyes met as if they were reading each other, line by line, to the very end of the last page.
Elphaba whispered something in Glinda's ear. The blonde laughed a genuine laugh, as if she'd been told the secret of the universe. It wasn't clear what she was saying, but it didn't matter. The words were excuses. The looks spoke an older language.
A group of androgynous creatures in leather suits, black feathers, and porcelain masks began to surround them, dancing in circles around them like a ritual invocation. Elphaba, feeling challenged, gently tugged at the leash Glinda now wore as part of her outfit, bringing her to her knees in front of her. The audience applauded, the electronic drums pounded louder. With a slow, almost theatrical bow, Glinda kissed the toe of Elphaba's shoe. Not out of submission, but out of adoration. And when she looked up, Elphaba returned her a smile so radiant it would have melted any inhibitions.
Then came the rope. No one knew where it came from, only that a being dressed entirely in red had brought it, wrapped in velvet. With the experience of an expert and the grace of a witch, Elphaba tied Glinda's wrists firmly but tenderly, held them above her head, and twirled her around, revealing her figure to the onlookers. But it wasn't for them. It was for her. Only her. Just so Glinda could feel that warmth in her chest, that mixture of embarrassment and ecstasy that Elphaba knew how to evoke in her like no one else.
In a corner of the room, Lydia and BJ watched. Lydia with a glass in her hand and a raised eyebrow; BJ howling with laughter and throwing black rose petals from a portable fan.
"Do you think they're okay?" Lydia asked, amused and a little impressed.
"'Okay' is an understatement, doll. Those two are building a religion with looks and ropes."
In the blink of an eye, Elphaba was tying Glinda's torso to an ancient column with satin ribbons, both laughing, while Glinda shouted, "More! This is living art!" Elphaba stroked her with a feather she stole from some hanging costume, tracing every golden line of her skin with disciplined tenderness. Her every gesture was an unspoken confession.
Once again, the scene changed from one second to the next. Suddenly, they were in a room draped in blue velvet, filled with mirrors. In each reflection, Elphaba and Glinda were different versions of themselves: in one, they were queens with bone crowns, in another, ancient warriors, in another, simple lovers embracing. Glinda laughed, and Elphaba gently pushed her against the glass, where she kissed her furiously. The reflection repeated the scene endlessly, as if the universe needed to preserve that exact image forever. Later, they stood on a rotating platform, where the event's attendees, dressed as operetta judges, gave them absurd scores for every sensual pose, every shameless caress. Elphaba guided Glinda as if they were presenting a perverse contemporary ballet choreography. Glinda followed each command with parted lips, goosebumps rising, and that latent love that, even amid all the theatrics and delirium, never stopped shining in her eyes.
Then, in a darker corner, they sat arm in arm, giggling uncontrollably. Glinda had traces of glitter on her cheeks, Elphaba had a ridiculous paper crown someone had placed on her. They touched each other's faces, as if rediscovering every inch of each other.
"Are you okay?" Elphaba asked, her voice hoarse, almost fearful.
"I am... whole," Glinda said with an emotional sigh. "Whole in a way I didn't know one could be."
Elphaba hugged her tightly. The music continued, the world spun, but in that instant, within that embrace, chaos was a distant whisper.
The two danced in the center of delirium. Everything was light and shadow, bodies contorting to the rhythm of a music that no longer seemed human, but the living breath of a mystical creature. Elphaba's lips curved in an unusually open smile, without cynicism, without filters. Glinda laughed with half-closed eyes, her skin heated, her mind floating between desire and love, her body surrendered without reservation.
They hugged, twirled, one in the other's arms like two leaves in a storm of black flowers.
"Do you realize how much I love you?" Glinda laughed. "We could stay here forever... dancing, being ridiculous, queens of our own hell."
But she didn't finish the sentence.
She stopped abruptly, her smile still frozen in half. Elphaba noticed the stiffness. The laughter fell silent. Glinda's heart pounded hard, without joy. Because in the reflection of Elphaba's eyes, there in the moist curve of her pupil, enlarged by liquor and ecstasy... something appeared. Something impossible.
A silhouette. No, not just that. A familiar figure. A face she hadn't seen in weeks, but one her memory couldn't bury. The face that still visited her in dreams. Or nightmares.
Elphaba noticed Glinda jerk away from her awkwardly, terrified, as if she had just been pushed into an electric current. Glinda spun around violently, her breath labored, her gaze lost but focused on something invisible to everyone else. A shiver ran down her bare arms.
Elphaba, still dazed from the tainted liquor, tried to reach out her hand.
"Glinda...? What's wrong?"
But there was no response. Glinda fled like a gust of wind, as if her soul had left her body and was running ahead of her. She tore through the crowd, carelessly pushing past men with devil's tails, women in crystal corsets, ambiguous figures merging with the smoke and lights. She passed through a cloud of incense and laughter. A kiss not hers. A cry of pleasure. Nothing stopped her.
"Glinda!" Elphaba cried, taking a step back, staggering. The whole world seemed to melt into a liquid paint, a mix of green, purple, and neon. She could barely walk straight, and her body still throbbed with the drug from the drink, but her soul trembled harder than her knees.
Glinda kept running. Searching.
It can't be. It can't be here. It can't be her. No. No. No.
The echo of her heart was a drumbeat in the Gothic cathedral of her mind. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and the air tasted of ash. She crossed another room, a hallway with melted candles, and saw a figure. That figure. A shadow with her hair pulled back the way she remembered. The hard eyes. The perfect posture. It couldn't be. But it was.
She ran with everything she had left. With rage. With confusion. With fear. She pushed through a door at the far end, a dark gate covered in plastic ivy and black Christmas lights.
And then...
Nothing.
The cold of the backyard hit her like a violent whisper. Outside there was only darkness, dry branches moving in the wind, an old pergola decorated with paper skulls, and the sky like a moonless roof.
Empty. Complete.
Glinda stood still. The world had abandoned her for a moment. Her body trembled without knowing why. She hugged her bare arms, pressing her skin together as if that would prevent something more important from slipping away.
"Mom..." she whispered.
And the word faded into the night like a confession torn from the heart, as soft as a silk thread cut in the middle of a dream.
The thin, icy wind slid like fingers down Glinda's bare arms as she hugged herself, her body huddled beneath the silent blackness of the sky. The hum of the music still vibrated from the house, distant and muffled, as if coming from another world, one she no longer felt hers. She took a step, and then another, crossing the damp grass clumsily, barefoot, unsure exactly what she was looking for. She didn't want to go back inside, she couldn't.
Her breathing was ragged, her thoughts diffuse but painful. The liquor still made reality seem stretched, blurred, emotionally amplified. Everything throbbed in her chest. Every memory was a wailing siren. The party lights were no longer magical, they were an echo. The taste of Elphaba's kiss still on her lips seemed more distant than ever.
And then her body gave up. She fell to her knees beside a tree in the middle of the garden, hugging herself tighter as if she could keep her soul from spilling out of her mouth. She was shivering, but it wasn't just the cold. It was something else. That memory that had been crawling up from the shadows of her mind, the one she'd buried tight, layer upon layer of routine, affection, and distractions. A fight. An argument she'd had weeks ago. She didn't want to think about it. She refused. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Not now. Not like this.
But then she heard it.
A voice.
"Hello...?" someone said from the darkness.
Glinda flinched as if attacked. Her eyes widened. For a moment, she thought the unthinkable.
Milla.
Her heart lurched so violently she gagged in her chest. Was he there? Had he come for her? Or was it just a hallucination from the damn green drink?
"Are you okay?" —the voice repeated, clearer this time.
And no. It wasn't Milla.
Glinda looked up, breathing heavily, and then she saw her: a young girl, no more than seventeen, hanging halfway out of a small treehouse, her eyes lined and her hair in a messy braid. She was wearing an oversized leather jacket over an old bat-themed T-shirt.
"Are you crying?" the young woman asked, her tone lacking judgment, more curiosity than pity.
Glinda shook her head, quickly wiping her eyes even though there were no tears. Just that thick, sticky feeling of being on the verge of breaking.
"No... no, I'm fine. I just... needed air."
"And that's why you decided to die of hypothermia under my tree?"
Glinda let out an involuntary laugh. Small. Sincere. It was like a spark in a storm.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to invade your space."
"Relax. In this house, 80% of the people show up uninvited. You at least have the decency to suffer in silence."
The young woman slid nimbly from the cottage to a low branch, then climbed down the rope ladder and landed next to Glinda without ceremony. She sat down beside her, legs crossed.
"I'm Astrid," she said simply. "Are you a friend of Mother's?"
Glinda blinked at her.
"Is Lydia your mother?"
"Yes. Disappointed?"
"No, not at all. It's just... we weren't introduced."
"Not all ghosts come with advance warnings."
Glinda laughed again, this time with a little more sincerity. Astrid studied her closely.
"You look like you've seen one."
"Maybe. Or worse. Maybe I saw someone I thought I'd left behind."
Astrid didn't respond immediately. She let the silence do its work. The leaves swayed above them. A distant lantern hanging from a branch swayed in the breeze, casting dancing shadows across Glinda's face.
"Here," Astrid said without much thought, taking off her oversized leather jacket and handing it to Glinda with an almost indifferent but firm gesture.
Glinda hesitated for a moment, still shivering, before accepting it with a grateful murmur. The inner lining was warm, impregnated with a mixture of cheap perfume, incense, and damp forest. She put it on as if she had just covered herself with makeshift armor against the world.
Astrid had already begun to climb the rope toward her tree house.
"Do you want to go up?" she asked from halfway up the trunk, as if offering a way out to the rest of humanity.
Glinda nodded and followed somewhat awkwardly, trying not to catch the torn skirt of her outfit. Once inside, the little house was larger than it appeared from below. The interior was decorated like a postmodern teenage sanctuary: walls covered in underground magazine clippings, black-and-white photographs of cemeteries, wild animals, and punk women in various defiant poses. There were plants in recycled jars, a small heat lamp casting a warm orange glow, an old blanket spread out on the wooden floor, and, in the background, a portable speaker playing what sounded like an instrumental mix of indie and darkwave.
Glinda sat down carefully, letting out a long sigh. Astrid, on the other hand, slumped with the weight of those accustomed to the world being uncomfortable.
"What are you doing up here alone?" Glinda asked, still processing everything.
"Every time Mom and her idiot boyfriend have one of their 'parties,' they tell me to crash at a friend's house," Astrid replied, pouring herself lukewarm tea from a thermos hidden under a quilt. "But all my 'friends' are a bunch of idiots who only think about Instagram filters and whether their boyfriends pay enough attention to them. So I come here. They don't seek me out. They don't even notice."
Glinda looked at her, noticing that behind the teenage sarcasm lay a very precise, very contained sadness.
"I can understand that," she said softly. "Sometimes being with people makes you feel lonelier than being alone."
Astrid nodded like someone who had come to that conclusion too soon.
“Besides, who wants to see Beetlejuice dancing half-naked on top of a prop goat while yelling about ancient genitalia?”
Glinda burst out laughing, unexpected and liberating.
“Did that really happen?”
“Twice. And caught on video, unfortunately. It’s on a sealed USB flash drive that I plan to use to my advantage before I come of age.”
They both laughed for a moment. The music continued in the background, slow and almost spacey. Glinda snuggled up under Astrid’s jacket, color beginning to return to her cheeks.
“You have a very… unique style here,” she commented, looking at the details with genuine curiosity.
Astrid raised an eyebrow.
“Translation: ‘You have an alternatively designed emotional apocalypse bunker.’”
“Well, yes,” Glinda admitted through a laugh. “But it’s… cozy. Really.”
“It’s the only place I feel like I own. Not even my room.” Every time I get angry, Mom comes in and starts with that whole “when I was your age, I literally talked to dead people” thing. How do you compete with that?
“And did I really talk?”
“Yeah, I think so. And you saw who she ended up dating. So imagine.”
There was a pause. The laughter faded. The night seemed quieter up there, as if the tree was protecting its tenants. Glinda hugged her knees for a moment.
“I… I’m sorry if I bothered you by coming up here,” she finally said, looking down. “I just… needed a place away from the noise.”
“You didn’t bother me. Actually… it’s nice to have someone who doesn’t just want to talk about social media or their TikTok crush. Besides, you needed a jacket. If you froze to death, I’d have to explain it to Beetlejuice. And I’m not giving him that pleasure.”
Glinda laughed, but soon her gaze was lost again.
“Can I ask you something?” "Astrid said, almost in a whisper.
"Of course."
"Why were you crying?"
Glinda hesitated. The liquor was still swirling in her system, and her mind was still racing, sensitive, exposed.
"I saw someone... or thought I saw someone. Someone who hurt me a long time ago. Or maybe I hurt myself by letting it happen. It was like a blow. A shock. And now it feels like everything I thought I had under control suddenly crumbled."
Astrid nodded. She didn't ask any more questions. She just walked over and, without saying a word, handed her a cup with the rest of the hot tea. Glinda took it in her hands and felt them tremble less.
"Do you want to stay a while?" Astrid asked. "You can come back when you feel ready. Mom and the jerk won't notice if you take a few more minutes."
Glinda smiled, soft and touched.
"Thank you, Astrid. Seriously. You're amazing."
"I know," Astrid replied without hesitation, as she leaned back on a pile of messy pillows and put on another song. "But don't tell anyone. I have a reputation as a misanthrope to uphold."
Glinda settled into the opposite corner, pulling her jacket over her and taking a deep breath. For the first time all night, her body seemed to truly relax. The fire of her anxiety was beginning to die down.
Meanwhile, inside the house, Elphaba ran as if the ground was shaking beneath her feet—and in a way, it was. The walls shrank and stretched, the hallways seemed to stretch into infinity, and the music echoed as if coming from inside her own body. The green liquor still clouded her senses; every movement felt like a fight against the tide. She clutched the banister as she climbed the stairs, feeling each step tilt like a swing beneath her feet. Around them, half-naked figures danced, laughed, howled, hung from door frames, and disappeared behind curtains that seemed to breathe on their own.
"Glinda..." she whispered, her voice cracking, unsure whether she was shouting or thinking.
Amid the chaos, a door in the hallway abruptly opened. A bright red light burst from within. Something in her instinct told her to run for it, that there was a way out, a clue, a sign.
And then she saw it.
The figure emerging from the doorway was tall, angular, wearing a jacket as black as night and an antique top hat on his head. He had thinning hair, a well-groomed white beard, eyes as hard as knives, and a cane he didn't need to walk, but used as a symbol. His face... it was unmistakable.
Elphaba froze. Her heart stopped for a second, then rumbled like a bomb beneath her chest.
"No..." she murmured, taking a step back. "It can't be..."
The man's figure moved forward, slowly but surely, as if he knew exactly where he was and why. Every step she took made the wooden floor creak like broken bones.
"Are you going to run away again?" he said, his voice deep and reverberating, like an echo coming not from the hallway, but from inside her head. "Are you going to fail again, like you failed your mother? Like you failed Nessarose?"
Elphaba clapped her hands over her ears, staggering backward. The ceiling seemed to spin, the wallpaper melting. Every word seeped like poison through her skin.
"No... you're not here... I ran away... this isn't real..."
"You failed everyone," the voice continued, louder, more unbearable. "You failed Gale. You failed Glinda. Always running away. Always letting people down. No one needs you. You're just pretending to be strong."
The figure raised a hand, as if to touch her.
"NO!" "Elphaba screamed, falling to her knees, shaking, panting, covered in sweat and tears, her body completely tense. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
And then, a sharp blow to the air. The so-called father slumped to the side, falling against the wall with a grunt.
Elphaba was still breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling in irregular spasms, as if the air had to fight with every thought that passed through her. She was still trembling. Beside her, Beetlejuice stood, completely serene, his body hunched but firm, as if the madness that engulfed him gave him a different kind of authority, a power born not of sanity, but of knowing extremes.
Elphaba looked away. The man's figure was still lying on the floor, cowering like a cowardly animal, moaning. He no longer resembled her father in any way, not even remotely. He was just another idiot in a cheap costume with bad intentions. But for a few seconds… Elphaba had been fifteen again. She'd gone back to that corner of her mind where everything she did was wrong, where everything about her was insufficient. And that man, that now-whimpering moron, had tried to take advantage of it.
Beetlejuice grabbed him by the collar, lifted him with insulting ease, and held him against the wall. His eyes were two demonic lanterns.
"Do you know what the only rule in this house is, genius?" he spat, with a dangerous calm. "Consent. Is. Sacred. Or do I need to write it on your forehead with fire?"
The guy was trembling, babbling something that no one was hearing. But BJ, instead of hitting him, stopped. He slowly lowered his gaze to Elphaba.
"Do you want to do it?" he said quietly, without mockery, without sarcasm. Only with a strangely human understanding. "It's your time. Not mine."
Elphaba froze. It was an invitation, an open door. And for the first time in a long time, she wasn't afraid to walk through it. She approached, her boots thumping heavily on the wooden floor, her steps gaining steadiness with each beat.
The man looked at her with pleading eyes, but said nothing. And that was fine, because Elphaba didn't need words. She just needed to feel her own body taking action.
Without further hesitation, she raised her fist and with perfect precision—no rage, no hysteria, just certainty—struck him square in the face. The impact was sharp and resounding. The man fell to his side with a muffled groan.
"For all the times I couldn't do this before," he murmured.
BJ whistled in admiration.
"Wooooo! Green goddess, straight to hell in style!" He laughed with delight. "That right hand is pure poetry, witch."
Elphaba shook her hand, feeling the vibration still running through her fingers, and unable to help it... she smiled. A real smile. Tired, but true. Not one of revenge, but of recovery.
Beetlejuice, surprised, offered her a hand. She took it. They sat together on one of the stairs while the unconscious idiot was dragged by two anonymous shadows toward some back exit.
"Are you okay?" BJ asked, his tone rare: genuine.
Elphaba was slow to respond. She looked down at the floor, then at the psychedelic ceiling still spinning above them, then down at her own hands.
"I don't know. But... I don't feel as broken as I did ten minutes ago."
BJ looked at her, his head tilted, as if he were a scientist observing a strange phenomenon.
"That's a start. No one is ever completely whole, witch. We just learn not to cut ourselves with the pieces."
Elphaba gave a dry laugh.
"Do you always talk like that after someone hits a pervert?"
"Only when it's well deserved." BJ smiled that crooked grin that looked more like a scar than a gesture. "Besides, Lydia told me to look after you if the night got bad. So, consider it a favor. I don't usually do many."
"Thanks... for letting me do it."
BJ shrugged.
"Personal demons aren't exorcised with a speech. Sometimes you just need to see them bleed a little. After that... they can't scare you the same."
Elphaba nodded. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, took a deep breath, and stood up again. Something inside her had settled. Maybe not completely. But at least it didn't hurt to breathe anymore.
The night breeze gently moved the tree branches, making the little house creak with a soft, almost maternal whisper. Inside, the heat lamp cast a dim light that covered the floor with an orange warmth. Glinda and Astrid were lying on their backs on blankets, eating candy and chocolates that Astrid had "rescued" from the party. The chaos of lights and sounds coming from the house seemed like a distant galaxy. Up here, the world was much smaller... and quieter.
"I can't believe you stole this," Glinda said with a mischievous smile, examining a bag of gummy candy shaped like fluorescent skulls.
"Please..." Astrid snorted, chewing another of hers. "Those people didn't even notice; they were too busy tying each other up like sausages. Literally."
They both burst into laughter. Glinda couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed like that with someone younger. Astrid had such a cynical yet sincere way of speaking, it was impossible not to get attached.
"Is this absinthe marzipan or just a chocolate in a gothic wrapper?" Glinda asked, examining a black chocolate shaped like a raven.
"Legend says that if you eat three, you'll see your soulmate in the mirror," Astrid replied with complete solemnity.
"What if you've already seen her?" Glinda replied, amused. "Then you see your worst ex," Astrid declared, fearlessly popping one into her mouth. "I did it once. It was so awful it broke the mirror."
Glinda burst out laughing and flopped back onto the blanket.
"How come you're so young and already so cynical?"
"I spent my entire teenage years surrounded by haunted artifacts, malicious ghosts, and a guy who tries to turn every breakfast into a comical striptease," Astrid said, rolling her eyes. "Cynicism is self-defense."
"And the candy-stealing thing?" Glinda asked, holding up a box of bat-shaped jelly beans.
"That's just for kicks," Astrid replied, shrugging. "Have you never done anything illegal?"
"Me?" Glinda pretended to be shocked. "Never!" Well... maybe I once ran away from the Gala because I refused to share a bathroom with a bathroom aesthetic influencer. Does that count?
"Only if there were security cameras," Astrid said. "But still, that sounds iconic."
The two of them laughed again until the conversation slowly slowed down.
"You know, sometimes I wish I had her safety," Astrid murmured suddenly, staring at the wooden ceiling. "My mom's, I mean. Walking through life like she doesn't care what anyone thinks. Like I'm... invincible. But I don't know... I feel like every step I take is an experiment that could explode."
Glinda turned her face toward her, feeling the honest vibration of those words.
"I think your mom feels that way sometimes too," she replied softly. "It's just that over the years you learn to walk knowing everything could explode... and yet you still keep going."
Astrid sighed, hugging the jacket Glinda had half-returned to her.
"I miss my dad," she said suddenly, without looking at her. "He left a long time ago. They separated when I was little... but then he died. And I don't know... there are still times when I wake up hoping to hear his voice."
Glinda was silent for a moment. Then she reached out and placed her hand near Astrid's, not touching it, just offering it like an anchor.
"I don't think that will ever go away," she said. "But that doesn't mean it's wrong to feel it."
Astrid nodded slowly, her voice barely a whisper.
"And then there's BJ," she added. "I don't dislike him. I mean, yes, I dislike him. He's a mess. But he loves her too. And she loves him. And that's... hard to look at sometimes."
"Because he's not your dad?" Glinda asked carefully.
"Because I never wanted anyone to take that place," Astrid answered honestly. "But at the same time... I feel bad for not accepting that she could be happy again."
There was a long silence. Glinda watched her and felt something deep in her chest. An understanding that came not from empathy but from experience. Because, although they weren't the same, Glinda had also had to watch a maternal figure break, rebuild, become someone else. And she'd had to learn to accept it.
"You know," she said with a soft smile, "when I was your age... I wished someone would tell me it was okay not to have everything figured out. That it was okay not to know how to feel. That it was okay to be angry, confused, sad, or even happy for no reason. No one told me that. So I'm telling you."
Astrid looked at her. Her eyes were shining slightly, not from unshed tears but from intense, adolescent, raw emotion.
"Are you being a responsible adult right now?"
"Yes," Glinda said proudly. Isn't that horrible?
"Horrible. But... also kind of great."
They both smiled. Then Astrid settled deeper into the blankets and let her head rest on Glinda's shoulder.
"Thanks for listening," she whispered.
"Always," Glinda replied tenderly. "Besides, I needed a break. You'd be surprised how exhausting a BDSM rave is when you're with your S&M girlfriend."
Astrid laughed.
"That sounds like the title of an indie album."
Glinda laughed too. The cold felt less now. So did the world.
And for a moment, amid the laughter and the stolen candy, amid the fears of yesterday and the doubts of tomorrow, two generations of women found a safe space to simply be.
Elphaba's heels echoed softly on the still-wobbly wooden stairs inside the party as she descended alongside Beetlejuice. The festive chaos continued alive below, but in that moment everything seemed muffled, as if the air knew she needed a few minutes of silence before returning to the eye of the storm.
BJ walked beside her, hands in his pockets, whistling a tune that changed pitch every two seconds. Elphaba, her heart still beating like an anxious drum, glanced at him. It wasn't easy to thank someone like him. Not because he didn't deserve it, but because you never knew if he was going to laugh in your face or throw his leg around yours. But she tried.
"Thanks again," she said simply, not looking at him directly. "For... what you did. For letting me take care of it."
Beetlejuice clicked his tongue and raised his eyebrows as if he didn't know what she was talking about.
"Me? Did I do something? Nah, I just watched a witch kick some idiot's ass. The honor was mine, sister."
Elphaba smiled, more relaxed. There was a comfortable pause as they continued down. And then, without knowing why exactly, with a hint of shyness in her voice, she asked,
"And you... How do you manage to... to be with someone like Lydia?"
BJ blinked, as if the question had taken him by surprise. He scratched his beard with one of his pointy nails and let out a thoughtful grunt.
"Be with someone like her?" he repeated. "I guess... I learned to stay still when it matters. Which doesn't seem like much, but for someone like me... it's a damn miracle."
Elphaba looked at him curiously.
"Stay still?"
"Yeah." —BJ shrugged. —Not talking, not trying to be the center of attention, not making a fuss. Just... staying, listening, letting Lydia be Lydia without having to become an enhanced version of myself. And when she gets angry, not flying away. Not disappearing. And that's sometimes harder than vomiting snakes out of your mouth, I assure you.
Elphaba laughed, taking a step slower.
—That sounds... pretty healthy. Which is the weirdest thing coming from you.
—Ha! I know. It makes me sick. —BJ put a hand to his chest. —But as much as she tolerates me being a nightmare of flesh, the least I can do is stay when things get dark. Everyone has ghosts. Me literally.
Elphaba nodded slowly.
—And you never... feel like you don't fit into her world? —she asked, barely above a whisper.
BJ looked at her sideways, a strange gleam in his eyes. "All the time," she said without hesitation. "But I learned something... important. When someone truly loves you, they're not asking you to fit in. They're letting you in. And you have to decide if it's worth staying, even with the fear of breaking everything."
Elphaba was silent, processing those words. She paused on the bottom step. BJ did too.
"You're not as stupid as you look," she finally admitted.
"Thanks! That's the sexiest compliment I've received today!"
They both laughed. Elphaba took a deep breath, steadier, more centered.
"I think that weird drink has worn off," she said, stretching her shoulders. "I feel... more like myself."
BJ looked at her with a wolfish grin.
"That drink? The one you had half an hour ago?"
"Yes."
"Yeah, no." BJ shrugged with a low chuckle. That was the preamble, the halftime. Now comes the fun part.
Elphaba frowned at him.
"What?"
BJ winked at her, placed a finger on her lips as if they shared a cosmic secret, and simply said, "Don't worry. When it starts... you'll know."
The night breeze had changed slightly. It was no longer the dry, sharp wind of the beginning, but something warmer, like a breath from the forest after having laughed with them. Glinda and Astrid walked barefoot across the lawn, illuminated by the dim, distant lights of the party. Each step on the damp grass produced a slight tingling, as if the earth, too, were participating in that strange night.
"Okay, last round," Glinda said, with a mischievous smile as she swung with her arms outstretched as if walking an invisible tightrope. "Eternal teen crush: David Bowie from Labyrinth, or Spike from Buffy."
"Pfft, that one's not a question: David Bowie," Astrid replied without hesitation. "That look, that power, that tight package... I mean, that charisma."
Glinda chuckled.
"Okay, your turn."
"Good," Astrid said, dramatizing as if she were announcing a verdict. "Marry, kiss, kill: Raven from the Teen Titans, the lead singer of the Hex Girls, or..."
"I'll choose Elphaba," Glinda answered without hesitation.
Astrid stopped in her tracks and rolled her eyes.
"Ugh, same answer again! Don't you ever get tired?"
"No," Glinda replied, completely serious. And I don't understand why it bothers you so much. What did Elphaba do to you?
"It's not that she did anything to me, I don't even know her," Astrid grumbled, crossing her arms. "But you just put her on such a pedestal. Like she's some mystical goddess of sarcasm and leather pants. No one's that cool."
Glinda burst out laughing.
"Do you want me to give you the list of reasons or just the executive summary?"
"Summary," Astrid said with resignation.
"Okay: she's smarter than anyone I've ever met, she's intense, honest, funny when she wants to be, lethal when she doesn't, she's got the best ass I've ever seen, and when she looks at you like you're the only thing that matters in the universe... you feel invincible."
Astrid wrinkled her nose, as if she'd just bitten into a lemon.
"God. You're going to make me throw up rainbows."
"You'll understand when you grow up, dear," Glinda said, imitating her most condescending and maternal tone as she patted her head.
Astrid stuck her tongue out at her, but not without laughing.
In front of them rose the enormous Gothic house again, its violet lights dancing in the windows like neon ghosts. The music was still loud, deeper, stranger. From a distance, they heard laughter, howls, the occasional moan... and something that sounded like an out-of-tune tuba.
Astrid stopped a few steps before the porch.
"This is as far as I go," she said, digging her hands into her pockets. "If my mother sees me in there, she'll punish me for the rest of this life and the next."
"Are you sure?" Glinda asked hesitantly. "It would do you good to dance a little. Maybe you'll meet some depressed little Gothic kid who can recite Sylvia Plath poems to you." "I'm not ready for that kind of pain," Astrid replied, grimacing exaggeratedly. "Besides, my 'hormonal suffering' playlist is still under construction."
Glinda gave her a warm smile.
"Thanks for talking to me. I needed it."
Astrid shrugged, uncomfortable with the emotional moment.
"Yeah, well... it's not like I had better plans. And you're cool, I guess. For a grown-up."
"That's the closest thing to a compliment you've given me all night!" Glinda exclaimed in mock amazement.
"Don't get used to it."
They both laughed. Glinda climbed the first steps onto the porch. As she turned to say goodbye, Astrid raised an eyebrow.
"Hey... by the way, are you sure that drink has worn off?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I don't even have butterflies in my stomach."
"Uh-huh." Astrid smiled wickedly. Then you're definitely in the middle of nowhere. The worst is yet to come.
"What do you mean, 'the worst'?" Glinda blinked, somewhat more alert.
Astrid had already turned around.
"Nothing. Have fun!" she called, disappearing into the trees.
Glinda froze for a moment, staring at the door. A mixture of intrigue, desire, nerves, and a faint tingling under her skin. She looked down. She was still wearing Astrid's jacket, which hung a little too large on her shoulders.
"Medium..." she murmured, with a half smile.
As soon as Glinda crossed the threshold, the sound hit her like a wave: loud music, laughter, jumbled footsteps, distant echoes of meaningless conversations and secret pleasures. Everything seemed exactly as she had left it... and yet, something didn't fit. She felt a tingling throughout her body, as if every cell was vibrating with the frequency of a world about to break the laws of nature.
She looked around for Elphaba, and then she saw her. Standing in the crowd, her silhouette silhouetted by the lights that swirled like drunken stars. Her posture was rigid, her nervous eyes scanning the surroundings, until suddenly… their gazes met. A suspended instant, as if the universe had stopped to take a breath.
And in that absolute silence… BOOM.
A pink explosion, bright and absurd, erupted from nowhere behind Elphaba like a cotton candy volcano. Glinda brought a hand to her face to protect herself, but the impact wasn't physical: it was pure visual delirium. The world was tinged with neon pink, as if someone had activated a filter on an eighties romantic soap opera. The room changed, transformed, the walls vanished, and suddenly they weren't in a gothic house full of perverts and ghosts… but in a floating chapel made of light and smoke.
"What the... the...?" Glinda stammered. But when she looked down, she understood even less.
She was wearing a voluminous, over-the-top pink wedding dress with lace, pearls, and a veil that looked like it was made by a designer high on sugar. She had elbow-length gloves, and on her hands... flowers! Roses. Of course.
She turned to Elphaba, who was staring at her, equally astonished. She too had changed: a perfectly tailored emerald suit with shiny lapels, a black shirt, and a skinny tie. A cross between James Bond, Morticia Addams, and a sadomasochistic fantasy from a haute couture catalog.
"What's going on?!" Glinda screamed, but her body wouldn't obey.
Without understanding how or why, her feet began to move on their own. As if riding on an invisible treadmill, she glided toward Elphaba. Caught in the same spell, Elphaba reached out and took her by the waist. The movements were stiff, theatrical, like two jointed dolls performing a choreography rehearsed by showbiz demons.
The music changed. A cheesy, slow, orchestral intro played… and then, in the center of that absurd chapel, Beetlejuice appeared. He wore a garish red tuxedo, his hair tousled and covered in glitter, and he had a rose between his teeth. He waltzed toward a lectern, where a golden microphone awaited him.
"Ladies, ladies, and everything in between!" he called out in a honeyed voice. "Welcome to the most romantic unholy union in the underworld! Elphaba and Glinda, doomed to love each other until death, desire, or shame do them part!"
The music resumed… and suddenly Elphaba began to sing.
Her face showed pure terror, but her voice was deep, sweet, full of feeling and melodrama. The words spilled out without her permission, rhymed, cloying, and worst of all: pitched.
—When I saw you in the mist, with your lemon curls…
—No! NOOO! —she tried to scream, but her body betrayed her. And then Glinda sang too.
—My heart surrendered… with utter devastation…
They held hands. They twirled. They danced an afterlife waltz while all around them the figures of the guests blurred, becoming dancing shadows who clapped and cried with emotion. A werewolf threw rice. A specter played a floating violin. Jacques LaLean wept uncontrollably in a corner.
—And now here… at the altar… with my peerless bride… —Elphaba sang, clearly fighting every note.
—I swear with all my being… I love you more than power… —Glinda responded, completely out of control.
Still caught up in that seemingly endless, insane choreography, Glinda and Elphaba twirled in the air, floating like leaves blown by a heady wind. The pink lights shone like artificial suns, the applause of the ghosts and monsters were distant echoes, and the music, though ridiculous, seemed to beat in time with their racing hearts. The absurdity of the moment merged with the beauty of the inevitable. And then, between verse and verse, note and laughter, glance and gasp…
Desire swept them away.
They could no longer pretend. In that suspended instant, Elphaba broke the “choreography” and threw herself at Glinda as if the entire universe existed only to justify that movement. Glinda responded with the same urgency, a fierce flame erupting from her chest as her hands found her lover's back. Dresses exploded into torn lace, scattered pearls, ripped tulle. Pink and green mingled like an explosion of ink on wet canvas. Their lips met with an ancient, wild eagerness, as if each kiss were an absolution, a revenge, a promise.
The world disappeared.
There was no party left, no lights, no strange chants. Just the two of them, spinning together, falling through clouds, drenched in desire, laughter, and unshed tears. Elphaba clung to Glinda like an emotional lifeline, and Glinda hugged her as if her entire body screamed, “This is where I belong.” As the sheets of fantasy slipped away, the fantasy itself transformed into something else.
Reality.
Both of them, naked and wrapped around each other, lay on a wide, soft bed in one of the guest rooms of the old house. Outside, the party was still raging, but in that room, there was only the sacred silence of true love made flesh.
Elphaba looked at her, her face barely lit by a lamp in the corner, and in her voice barely a whisper, she said:
"I have no idea how we got here..."
"Shh," Glinda replied, caressing her face tenderly, her eyes clouded with desire. "Don't ask. I just kept kissing like that."
And she did. Without stopping. Without censorship. Without the fear that sometimes shadowed their daily lives. They explored each other with the fierce delicacy of someone who recognizes the map of another's soul through their skin. The sweat, the heat, the intertwining of legs, the muffled moan against a pillow: it was all an intimate symphony, written just for the two of them. There was no Dom or sub in that moment, no roles or games, just an act of mutual surrender, complete, voracious.
Outside the room, Lydia had stopped in front of the half-open door. She peeked out, and just listening, she smiled. BJ appeared behind her, a glass of something turquoise in one hand and a flower in the other.
"My magic potion worked, huh?" he said with the pride of a mad chef. "I knew it. No one can resist BJ Special cocktail number seven."
Lydia looked at him with a mixture of affection and annoyance, but without erasing her smile.
"You're crazy."
"For you, always," he replied, before kissing her with a husky laugh.
Then, with a respectful gesture and a hint of tenderness that only someone like BJ could achieve, they both quietly closed the door, leaving the girls in their intimate universe.
Inside, Glinda and Elphaba merged once more. They didn't know if it was the drink, the music, the madness of the night, or simply themselves... but for the first time in a long time, they were together, without barriers, without irony, without excuses.
Just love.
Just skin.
Just them.
The sun shone with unnecessary cruelty that morning. The light streamed mercilessly through the trees, bouncing off the hood of the car like divine punishment for anyone with a hangover and romantic guilt. Elphaba, wearing oversized sunglasses and a deep frown, adjusted the last suitcase in the trunk while Glinda, holding a thermos of coffee as if it were her only lifeline, finished organizing the seats inside.
Both were visibly devastated. Not so much for what they'd done, but for everything it had meant. Their bodies ached, their hearts pounded with a strange calm, and their heads... well, their heads were about to explode. Elphaba made a triumphant gesture as she closed the trunk properly and murmured sarcastically, "At least we didn't forget our souls in this house."
"I'm still not sure," Glinda replied in a hoarse, worn voice. "I think a part of me married you last night. Pink dress and all."
From the front porch of the house, Lydia and BJ watched the scene with a mixture of tenderness and amusement. Lydia had her arms crossed, dressed in a black robe embroidered with skulls, while BJ, still sporting the remains of glitter in his beard, devoured some cereal straight from the box.
When the time came, the two couples met halfway down the driveway. There were hugs (quick but genuine), awkward handshakes, and humorous comments about the "peculiar" nature of the previous evening. Glinda and Lydia hugged each other like two women who, although they came from opposite worlds, had shared something very intimate, even if they couldn't explain it.
Elphaba and BJ looked at each other with the kind of complicity that only comes after surviving a shared psychedelic trip and a cathartic experience.
"So... you survived," BJ commented, chewing loudly. "Not bad, witch."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow with a half-smile.
"Thank you for not letting them crack my skull... literally."
BJ shrugged with false modesty, and for the first time, lowered her voice a little. Her tone was more serious, more... human.
"What you saw last night... what you faced," she said, with unexpected gravity. "Maybe one day it will truly touch you. And if it does... just remember this: you've already won. You are stronger than any shadow that appears to you. Even that one."
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She just nodded, once, firmly. BJ's words weren't easy to process. Not after everything she'd felt, remembered, and... forgiven. But she kept them. She treasured them.
"Thank you, BJ," she said, and she meant them. "For everything."
While Elphaba and BJ spoke with that mocking, emotional intensity that only the two of them could manage, Glinda approached Lydia with slow but determined steps. She still had her sunglasses on, more as an emotional shield than out of necessity, and one hand fiddled with the strap of her bag as she cleared her throat.
"Thank you for everything, Lydia," she said finally. "For the hospitality... and the patience."
Lydia, casually leaning against the doorframe, turned her face toward her with a half-smile laced with gentle irony.
"Patience? I'm entertained by these kinds of storms, believe me," she replied with a wink.
Glinda gave a shy smile, but quickly lowered it, turning serious.
"And... I'm sorry about how I behaved when we first met. I was a little... cold. Awkward. It wasn't personal. Just..."
She broke off, searching for the right words. Lydia tilted her head, curious.
"Alone?"
Glinda took a deep breath.
"Just that I felt... intimidated, I guess. By your presence. By the way you and Elphaba connected. I don't know. It was silly."
Lydia looked at her silently for a moment, not with judgment, just with understanding. Then she gave a short, honest laugh.
"It wasn't silly. It was human. And that's all right," she said calmly. "Elphaba is magnetic, you know that. But it's clear to anyone with eyes that she's completely crazy about you. Don't worry, Princess."
Glinda laughed somewhat embarrassedly, lowering her head and murmuring, "Thank you."
The two of them turned around when they saw BJ and Elphaba still chatting, and Lydia, with her arms crossed and her face half amused, half tired, said,
"He's a complete mess, you know? But he's my mess. And I don't know how to live without him. Even if he burns my kitchen, my patience, and my soul... I love him."
Glinda watched her for a moment and, to her own surprise, felt a pang of unexpected tenderness. At the end of the day, love didn't always have to look like hers to be real.
"I understand you more than you think," she said simply.
Then she remembered something and added, before the moment slipped away,
"Oh, and when you see Astrid... give her my regards. She was very nice to me last night."
Lydia raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
"Astrid? How do you know her?"
"Let's just say we had a little chat. Nothing serious, don't worry." "I don't want to get her in trouble," Glinda hastened to clarify with an innocent smile. "Just... she's an amazing girl. Maybe she just needs to talk to her mother a little more."
Lydia's expression softened completely. She didn't need any more details; she understood everything. A fleeting trace of old guilt crossed her gaze, but she concealed it with dignity.
"You're probably right," she said, her voice softer than usual. "We all need to do that at some point."
Glinda looked at her for a moment longer, thoughtful. And, as if speaking to the air, or perhaps to herself, she murmured, "I'll do it too. In my time."
Lydia nodded wordlessly. It was a silent pact between women who understood each other without fully knowing each other.
At that moment, BJ and Elphaba approached, finishing their exchange of advice and barbs. Glinda said goodbye to BJ with an exaggerated bow, to which he responded by placing a makeshift flower he pulled from who-knows-where behind her ear.
"Remember me fondly, Rose Queen," he said theatrically.
"I will, if you promise not to put me in another musical without my consent," Glinda replied, laughing.
Then, Elphaba approached Lydia. There were no words. Just a firm, direct handshake and a look between equals. Between survivors.
"Thank you," Elphaba murmured, not needing to explain further.
"When you want to come back, just don't say his name three times," Lydia replied with a smile.
The two couples separated. Elphaba and Glinda got into the car, exhausted but closer than ever. From the driveway, BJ and Lydia watched them drive off down the road that descended the hill. The wind stirred the grass, the sun rose listlessly, and a new calm enveloped the house.
BJ and Lydia stood in the driveway, alone for the first time in hours. The yard was quiet now, the only sounds being crickets and the distant whisper of the wind dragging dry leaves. Lydia leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms, while BJ, his jacket slung over his shoulder and his bun already undone, took out one of his magic beers (which fizzed to the music that had already faded).
"Well..." Lydia sighed, without sarcasm for once. "It was an interesting evening."
BJ looked at her with a crooked smile.
"You say that as if it wasn't absolutely perfect."
"It was. In your definition of the term," he said, but tenderly.
BJ walked over, put his arm around her, and rested his head on her shoulder like a great, lovesick crow.
"We've got a while before your darling heiress returns," he murmured, trying to sound seductive but sounding more like an old dog begging for petting.
"A while? More like seconds. She's probably hiding illegal things in the treehouse."
"Nah. She's a teenager. The illegal thing is her personality."
Lydia let out a small laugh and gently pushed him away.
"You know what we need?"
"An orgy on the astral plane?"
"A vacation. Normal. Relaxed."
BJ thought for a moment. Then his eyes lit up as if he'd just invented fire.
"I got it! A family vacation in Hawaii!"
Lydia slowly turned her head toward him, staring with just the right mix of disgust and horror.
"You... me... Astrid... on an island? With sun, tourists, and... swimsuits!"
BJ clapped his hands like an excited kid.
—Exactly! Imagine! The most dysfunctional family in the unworld, invading a resort with karaoke and themed meals! I can turn into a giant cocktail party, complete with umbrella!
—You're sick.
—And that's why you love me, right?
—No, I love you despite that.
They both laughed as BJ leaned dramatically over her shoulder, just as Astrid's high-pitched scream was heard from inside the house:
—WHO LEFT A FAKE BAT WITH A THONG IN MY BED?! LISTEN TO ME, PERVERTS!
Lydia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, with the expression of a goth mother who repeats to herself every day the phrase, "This is my life, and I chose it."
BJ was already on his way back to the house, excited.
—Teenage revenge time! I love this game!
Lydia, shuffling resignedly, followed him, muttering, "We definitely need a vacation. Urgent."
BJ looked over her shoulder and exclaimed gleefully, "I told you so! So we're the best family in the unworld!”
And with that ridiculous yet profoundly true statement, they both disappeared into the domestic chaos that only they could inhabit... or perhaps rule.
Chapter 23: ALLOWS ME TO FEEL SO PARЕNTAL
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Prologue to Chapter 15 – “How Far Are We Willing to Go in Our Happily Ever After”
from “Invisible Bonds – Reflections on Her and Me” (working title)
(Move this closer to the end? I don't know if I'm ready for you to read it so soon.)
There are questions that aren't asked at the beginning.
At first, a relationship is urgency, hunger, skin, laughter.
Then comes the architecture. And with it, doubt.
“What if one day we wanted to have a child, adopt, form a family... raise something together?”
That phrase hovered between us like a seed neither of us dared to water. I didn't want to talk about children. I didn't even know if I was a fit person for a woman, made for a person capable of mothering without repeating the violence done to me.
“Too dark? But it's the truth. Don't sugarcoat it, Thropp.”
And she... she imagined them with my gaze and her hair. Or with her hands and the way I walk. Or maybe neither of us. Maybe just a room, a plant, a dog. Something that needed us without asking for more than we could give.
It's not always about wanting the same thing. Sometimes it's about wanting to stay together even when you don't want the same thing.
— I like this, emphasize this.
Because loving isn't about agreeing. Loving is staying even when the map doesn't fit.
CHAPTER 23: Allows me to feel so parеntal
Among the countless wonders scattered across the geography of this ever-changing country we inhabit, there are places that seem to have sprung straight from the imagination of a Romantic painter in ecstasy: peaks that touch the sky, valleys that whisper ancient stories to the wind, and a solemn silence that seems to envelop everything like a sacred chant. One of those places was, without a doubt, the Kumbrisia Pass. A natural balcony hanging between the immensity of the world, from where one could see—if one's soul was open and one's eyelashes cleared—time itself pause in the form of light and stone.
Elphaba stood right at the edge of the viewing platform, her arms crossed, the breeze gently stirring her black hair, while she held in one hand a small, modest laminated tourist brochure that she had enthusiastically picked up at the nearest gas station. His tone, though solemn, had a hint of self-irony:
"The Kumbrisia Pass," he read aloud, intoning each word as if reciting a lost national anthem, "stand as guardians of the eternal, formed over two hundred million years ago by the clash of tectonic wills that sculpted not only stone, but legend, by which the ancients crossed with their chariots, guided by the stars and the will of the gods, the Kumbrisia Pass remains, eternal sentinel of the horizon, silent witness to the passing of centuries and lovers…"
A soft, very unpoetic snore interrupted the reading.
Elphaba turned her head, still without moving her body. Beside her, clutching her arm with the sleepy devotion of someone deeply asleep, Glinda rested her head on her shoulder, enormous sunglasses covering half her face and her mouth half-open. Another, louder snore echoed through the gazebo. Elphaba frowned.
"Are you... serious?" she muttered dryly. Then, her patience running out, she nudged her. "Glinda!"
"Huh? What?" Glinda bolted upright, disoriented, causing her glasses to slide down her nose and her curls to become even more disorganized. "Where's the fire? What year is it?"
"The only fire is my patience going up in flames." Elphaba snapped the pamphlet shut and waved it in front of her like a manifesto. "Did you fall asleep again during one of the country's most important natural landscapes?"
"Well, in my defense..." Glinda stretched her arms, letting out an overdramatic yawn. "It's a very beautiful landscape. Very... green. Very... mountainous."
“We spent two hours climbing the narrowest road in the universe for this. And you were asleep the whole way. Do you know how hard it was to park the car without it rolling into the abyss?”
Glinda took off her glasses and looked at her with a conciliatory smile.
“I appreciate the effort, my love, I really do. But... don't you think your choices for tourist stops tend to be... a little...?” She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “Well, instructive.”
““Instructive”?” Elphaba repeated, crossing her arms. “Is that your euphemism for “boring” today?”
“No, no. Educational. In the best way.” Glinda tapped her arm and tilted her head with her classic professional diplomat look. “Sometimes it seems like your idea of a vacation is a geography department field trip.”
“Because that's what normal people do! They learn.” They enjoy the silence. They observe. They appreciate the majesty of the natural world without having to take selfies with every damn bush.
"You say that as if there's something wrong with selfies with bushes," Glinda retorted with a mock-offended tone.
Elphaba shot her a look.
"Very well. If you're so bored with the 'natural world,' why don't you choose the next stop? But on one condition."
"What condition?"
"That it not be a spa, a cosmetics store, or a club where they serve drinks through umbrellas. I want to see your idea of wild and unpredictable fun, but without rehashing the greatest hits."
Glinda narrowed her eyes with a competitive glint.
"Are you challenging me?"
"No, Glinda. I'm praying that your sense of adventure goes beyond hot stone massages."
Defiantly, with an expression as triumphant as her freshly polished nails, Glinda walked away from the gazebo, leaving Elphaba puffing away among the ancient lichens and geological glory. She had a mission. She wasn't going to let anyone—not even her eternally cynical, eternally irresistible girlfriend—imply that she didn't know how to choose an activity. Glinda Upland wasn't one to back down from a challenge, not even one thrown from behind a tourist brochure.
A few feet from the lookout, she found what she was looking for: a local tourist shop, one of those that offer everything from bike rentals to "spiritual experiences" with spa-like names. But what caught her eye most was an old wooden noticeboard on the outside wall, with brochures stuck to them with colored tacks and titles written in Comic Sans font. Glinda inspected them with growing interest.
"Let's see… 'Extreme Rafting on the Mortal Kombat River Rapids'… no, thanks. 'Harness-Free Night Climb with Optional Flashlight'… are you crazy?! 'Bear Safari with an Armed Guide'… that's gotta be illegal. 'Scenic Balloon Flight Operated by Retired Enthusiasts'… hmm… tempting, but no.
She was about to give up, biting her lower lip in frustration, when something caught her eye: a somewhat faded poster with a drawing of a vintage bus full of smiling tourists and a flag waving in the background.
"Gillikene Civil War Historical Tour," she read aloud. Her eyes widened a little. "History!"
The connection was immediate. Elphaba had studied those conflicts passionately in college, even writing a lengthy essay—which Glinda didn't read, but listened to in the background while watching reality TV—about the sociopolitical implications of the Battle of Marrow Hill. And, on the other hand, that war had been pivotal in the Upland family's history; one of her great-great-grandfathers had been a legendary commander… or a cook who deserted, the details were debatable. But the important thing was: it was shared history!
Glinda ran back to the car, grinning like someone who'd struck gold.
"There! I've got it!" "We're going on a historical tour!" she exclaimed, waving the brochure at Elphaba like a flag.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Really? You chose that?"
"Yes! And no, it wasn't changed by mistake at the store," she replied before Elphaba could scoff. "It's perfect. It's cultural, it's educational, and there are no bears or cliffs. Plus, it's about your favorite subject!"
Elphaba looked at her with a mixture of distrust and tender surprise.
"I'm... intrigued. What are you up to?"
"Nothing, I just want to prove I can choose 'deep' things too. And this tour sounds great. Or are you afraid I'll enjoy your interests more than you?"
Elphaba crossed her arms.
"Let's get on that bus before I change my mind."
Five minutes later, they were boarding the tour bus. What Elphaba didn't know—and Glinda pretended not to have noticed—was that the bus wasn't a restored historical artifact, but an old school bus model, cheaply spray-painted pale blue and decorated with patriotic decals of dubious taste. Inside, the aesthetics were even worse: vinyl seats that stuck to the skin, floral curtains covering fogged-up windows, and distorted speakers already emitting the squeals of a nasal voice excitedly announcing, "Welcome, time travelers!"
"Is this serious?" Elphaba muttered, wrinkling her nose at the fans hanging crookedly from the ceiling.
"It's part of the charm!" Glinda replied, feigning an optimism that was already beginning to crack.
The other passengers were a colorful collection of characters: a retired couple wearing "I Survived the Eastern Route" T-shirts, a mother with six clingy children and an uncontrollable volume, a man recording everything with a GoPro while narrating every moment for his "War Stories in HD" followers, and a woman with an iguana wearing a sombrero. Literally. And many, many, many (too many for the size of the bus) passengers.
And so, as the bus started off with a rumble that didn't inspire confidence, the guide's voice sounded again, now with even more artificial enthusiasm:
"Get ready for a three-hour tour of the most exciting areas of the Gillikinese Civil War, including live reenactments, state-of-the-art sound effects, and exclusive narration by local actor Marvin Tupp, best known for his role as "Private Number 3" in the miniseries 'Bloody Gillikin'!"
Elphaba turned slowly to Glinda.
"Did you say three hours?"
"Huh? Yeah? What's three hours when you're immersed in the spirit of living history?"
"We're going to die here," Elphaba muttered, clutching the seat.
"Don't be so exaggerated," Glinda replied, as one of the children began yelling at the lady's iguana, which had gotten loose and was running down the aisle as if seeking revenge.
Fifteen minutes. It had only been fifteen minutes since the bus began its slow, creaking climb up the winding country road… and already it felt like they'd been there for years.
Elphaba, normally possessed of cool calm and razor-sharp sarcasm, was on the verge of an emotional implosion. A bead of sweat had been trickling down the back of her neck for seven and a half minutes—she'd counted—while the sticky vinyl seat clung to her pants like a vengeful octopus. Her gaze, dark and heated, was fixed on Glinda with a mixture of premeditated murder and existential supplication.
"This. Is. Hell," she spat through gritted teeth, jaw clenched, as a child ran down the aisle yelling "CANNON FIRE!" and throwing a handful of peanuts in her face.
Glinda, for her part, tried to remain optimistic. She had a tense smile plastered across her face, as if someone had stapled it there, and her eyes were wider than necessary, a nervous tic that betrayed the fact that she was on the verge of emotional collapse. She held a crumpled brochure with the “15 Must-See Stops on the Historical Tour” in her hands and was reviewing it for the tenth time, trying to convince herself that this—all of this—was worth it.
“Don’t be dramatic,” she replied in a forcedly cheerful tone. “It was just… a small bump.”
Just at that moment, the bus gave a violent jolt, as if it had fallen into a lunar crater, and the entire structure creaked with a sound that wasn’t so much mechanical as existential. The iguana in the hat, apparently named Clemente, slipped off its leash again and jumped at Elphaba’s feet, who let out a growl that could have made a lion weep.
“A bump?” Elphaba repeated with a dry laugh. This bus has war scars, Glinda. It's going to eat us alive. And that one—she pointed at the tour guide, who was currently belting out an off-key version of "Oh, Gillikin' Country" complete with tambourine—"That man is the devil."
"He's doing his job," Glinda muttered, her left eye twitching.
"He's done six songs in a row. And all with choreography!"
"Hey! You said to pick something that wasn't 'more of the same'! This isn't more of the same. This is new, educational, and... unique?"
"This is a trap. An elaborate torture device decorated with patriotic flags and the smell of reheated nuggets."
At that moment, another pothole bounced everyone in their seats. The iguana that escaped earlier scampered back down the aisle with a ribbon wrapped around its neck. The guide did an impromptu somersault in the aisle to dramatize “Captain Norwin’s fall,” and a baby started crying right behind Glinda.
“You know what’s the worst part?” Elphaba said, now sounding like the apocalyptic voice of someone who had abandoned all hope. “The historical sites aren’t even there! The last “trench” was a supermarket parking lot! And that “Sandwich Revolution”-themed restaurant was offensive on several levels.”
Glinda tried to articulate something, but was interrupted by the guide, who shouted with renewed enthusiasm:
“And now we’re heading to the famous ‘Meditation Mountain,’ where soldiers found peace amidst the chaos…! A few minutes from there, you can buy grenade-shaped cookies at the souvenir stand!”
“That’s it. I’m going to break the window with my head,” Elphaba muttered, already unbuckling her seatbelt.
“No, no! Don’t do it!” Glinda held her tightly. “Look... okay, I admit this isn't going the way I imagined. But if we survive this together, we can survive anything. Isn't that... romantic?”
Elphaba looked at her with an expression of existential defeat.
"Romantic? Glinda, I'm five minutes away from setting this bus on fire using only the hand sanitizer and a spark of my hatred."
Glinda giggled nervously as a child threw another donut at her.
"You chose it, Glinda. You chose it," Elphaba crooned with a venomous smile, as the tour guide began recounting his dramatized version of the 1847 peace treaty... complete with puppets.
Elphaba looked at her as if she could incinerate her with the sheer force of her frown. It wasn't a look of mild annoyance or passing annoyance. It was the kind of look one reserves for dictators or those responsible for massive blackouts. Glinda, in response, flashed her best diplomatic smile, that mix of "everything's fine" and "please don't kill me" that had served her so well in public relations meetings and visits to odious mothers-in-law. "It's not that bad," she murmured, her voice trying to sound cheerful but already teetering on the edge of panic.
"It's not that bad," Elphaba repeated icily. "Of course, because what I wanted today was to be trapped in an oven on wheels being splattered with melted ice cream and singing nineteenth-century ditties."
And as if to underline her point, at that precise moment, Glinda felt something cold, slimy, and sugary squirt onto her thigh. She looked down, horrified, and saw the little boy who'd been lurking in the aisle with his popsicle now staring at her with large, glassy eyes, the cone dripping onto his skirt, as he began to emit a high-pitched, alarming squeal.
"My iceeeeee!" the little boy cried, his arms raised to the heavens like a martyr to sugar.
"Oh dear!" Glinda grimaced in disgust, lifting the fabric of her pants with two fingers as she fought the urge to scream. Elphaba, at her side, didn't even have to say anything. She just looked at her. That look. That silent, lethal look that could char anyone's soul. Glinda felt her self-esteem take two steps back.
And then, as if the universe had decided to press the "absolute nightmare" button, the boy's mother appeared.
She was a large, sweaty woman, with an expression somewhere between resignation and ancestral fury. She pushed her way through the seats like a ship breaking through ice, panting as she searched for her missing offspring.
"Gavin! For the love of the motherland, I told you to stay seated!" she shrieked, and when she spotted him, she made a face that said "that's enough for today" and—without asking permission, without even looking at who she was displacing—plotted right next to Glinda.
The effect was immediate. Glinda was pushed hard against Elphaba, their bodies compressed like canned sardines, as the woman sighed with a "Whew, it's so hot!" that triggered a new burst of perspiration.
"Oh, dear, what lovely pants... although I don't know if that stain will come out, hehe," the woman said, pointing out the dairy catastrophe without the slightest subtlety.
"Thank you..." Glinda murmured with a tight smile, her teeth clenched as she felt oppressed by the thermal and physical invasion of the newcomer.
"And who are these beauties?!" the woman asked in a high-pitched, enthusiastic voice as her three remaining children mercilessly climbed Glinda's legs like little monkeys on too much sugar.
"We're... tourists. In the process of decomposition," Elphaba muttered through gritted teeth.
"How wonderful!" My name is Muriel, these are my babies: Jonah, Bea, and little Gavin. And you're a beauty, queen! You have hair like a movie star, like that... what was her name... the blonde in the floor-cleaning commercials!
"Thanks... I guess," Glinda said, with a tremor in her voice and a forced smile so tight it seemed made of glass about to shatter.
Muriel didn't stop talking. She commented on the heat. On her hemorrhoids. On what her beautician had told her that very Tuesday. On what she really thought of the Gillikinese Civil War ("A politician's invention, baby, like everything"). Meanwhile, Elphaba was trying so hard to contain her laughter that her neck seemed to be in spasm.
And then, as if hell needed one last flare, the guide turned toward the aisle, sweating excitement and wig glue.
"Well, soldiers of knowledge! Do any of you have family roots connected to the great events of the Gillikinese Civil War? It would be an honor to hear from you!"
Elphaba turned slowly toward Glinda with a cold smile.
"Oh, no," Glinda whispered, sensing the approaching malice.
"Oh, yes!" Elphaba replied, and with a theatrical twist, she raised Glinda's arm as if she had just won a wrestling match. "There she is! My dear companion has revolutionary blood in her veins! A direct descendant of Commander Glindon S. Upland!"
"Elphaba, no!" Glinda whispered in a tone that was pure desperation and threat, but it was too late. The entire bus turned with a collective "oooooh," followed by applause and the chorus of the guide shouting, "A heroine among us!" Come up here at the front, blonde of honor, and tell us your legacy!
Elphaba leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms with a triumphant smile.
"You wanted to do something fun, Glinda. Here it is. Enjoy your patriotic moment."
As she was dragged to the front of the bus amidst cheers, Glinda only managed to turn around, giving Elphaba a look that promised revenge… eternal. Elphaba responded with a calm and eloquent gesture: a small, elegant military salute.
With cautious steps, as if crossing a minefield, Glinda moved through the creaks and rattles of the bus, holding onto the backs of the seats to steady herself. The air was thick, heavy with a mix of cheap sunscreen, stale potato chips, and the inevitable sweet notes of the perfume of the large woman who, still pressed against Elphaba, was telling her about how her dog could predict earthquakes.
"Come on, Glinda! Live up to your heritage and shine like the patriotic star you are!" Elphaba shouted from the back with completely false enthusiasm, waving her arm theatrically as if encouraging a gladiator to enter the arena.
"As my… my traveling companion has rightly said, I am a direct descendant of Commander Glindon S. Upland, also known as… as the Lion of the Northern Plains." Glinda began to narrate
In the background, Elphaba raised an eyebrow, clearly amused.
"My great-great-grandfather was… a very brave war hero… who once… once hid in a dead cow during an ambush to spy on the enemy." An awkward silence hung in the air. "But not just any dead cow… a strategically placed cow."
"And what else did your brave ancestor do?" asked a voice from the crowd, one of those enthusiastic ones that never know when to stop asking questions.
Glinda blinked. She'd run out of ideas. She swallowed.
And then, like a doomsday trumpet, Elphaba's voice rose from the back row, radiant with malice:
"He also invented the famous 'Twelve Months' March to the Front'! A patriotic classic!" The bus erupted in cheers. The guide clutched his heart, imaginary tears in his eyes.
"The march! The march! We want to hear it!"
Glinda gritted her teeth. If ever she wished the ground would open up and swallow her, it was now. But no. Instead, she took a breath, looked up, and began to sing what—for lack of any alternative—was an improvised, martial-sounding melody, too similar to a Christmas carol if one paid attention.
"Twelve months, twelve paces... the battalion advances... with muddy boots and a dream in its heart..." she sang, clapping to the beat in a clumsy attempt at conviction.
The passengers began to clap along, some excitedly, others out of sheer social pressure. And in the midst of this patriotic frenzy, Glinda spun around to complete her performance with a gesture of great heroism.
And then it happened.
The boy. The boy she had been scrutinizing with the gaze of a miniature bloodhound... she found him. There he was. Her ice cream. Stuck like a mark of destiny to the back of Glinda's white pants, still melted, but still recognizable. A celestial aura seemed to illuminate the boy, his purpose regained.
"MY ICE CREAMY!" he shouted with a lung power that seemed incompatible with his size.
Glinda turned and saw him, his tiny feet pounding the aisle of the bus as he ran toward her like a sugar torpedo.
"No, no, no!" Glinda whispered, her eyes horrified.
But there was no escape.
The boy collided with her legs with the force of a stampede and knocked her completely off her feet. Glinda fell with a muffled wail, the microphone flew through the air, people screamed, some children laughed, and the guide yelled "It's part of the show!" trying to maintain control.
Elphaba hunched over in her seat, laughing like she rarely did, while the boy's mother held his shirt like a sack of potatoes and murmured with a smile, "Sorry, it's just that when she sees something sticky, she can't control herself..."
And hell ended exactly where it began: in that desolate parking lot covered in loose gravel and "Welcome to Kumbrisia Pass" signs that seemed to mock them with every gust of wind. The bathroom door opened with a crash worthy of an action scene, and Glinda emerged, beaming with suppressed fury and wearing brand-new beige pants from the souvenir shop, walking with the wounded dignity of a dethroned queen. In her left hand dangled a sticky bundle: her old pants, covered in what had once been pistachio ice cream.
"I'll never be able to look at strawberry ice cream again without shivering," she said through her teeth, without even looking back.
"Oh, come on," Elphaba replied, trailing behind her with her hands in her pockets and a crooked smile. "It was a delightful mess. I'm sure you'll be laughing about this in a few years."
Glinda stopped dead in her tracks, turned slowly toward her with a look that would have sent the Olympian gods running. Elphaba took a half step back, still smiling, though cautiously.
"You know what I find funniest?" Glinda said with poisonous sweetness. "It was your idea to offer me up as a historical sacrifice in front of that bus full of lunatics."
"Yeah, but you sang with such conviction..." Elphaba countered, unable to contain her laughter.
The two of them were about to continue a completely unnecessary but unavoidable argument when Glinda turned her head to go back to the car... and froze. Just a few feet away, in the middle of the dusty parking lot, stood him.
The boy. The ice cream boy. The boy who had run toward her like she was a living missile. The boy who had knocked her down in front of an audience of forty people and ruined her pants, her dignity, and possibly her sanity.
"You again!" Glinda exclaimed before he could stop himself.
The boy didn't respond. He just watched her with the neutral, absorbed expression of someone all too used to getting into trouble. Seconds later, his mother appeared, gently dragging him by the arm to stand in front of Glinda.
"Apologize, Brandon," she ordered in a calm but firm tone.
"I'm sorry for jumping on your ass, ma'am," the boy said, in the most rehearsed and robotic intonation possible.
Before Glinda could process this, the boy pulled a small rubber object from behind his back and handed it to her with a proud smile.
"It's a frog. I put a crown on it because it looks like you."
It was a rubber frog, with false eyelashes, a gold tiara, and, for some reason, fuchsia-painted lips. Glinda took it, completely bewildered, but offered a grateful smile.
"She's... absolutely charming," she said, trying hard to sound sincere.
The mother smiled knowingly and looked at both women curiously.
"That's how boys are. They give you gray hair, but you couldn't live without them. Do you have children?"
Elphaba gave a dry laugh that drifted into the breeze. Glinda, on the other hand, managed a diplomatic smile and replied, "No... not yet. But... maybe someday."
Elphaba turned slowly toward her, tilting her head slightly. Her smile disappeared for a split second, just long enough for Glinda not to notice. But she felt it. Like a drop of ice running down her spine. She said nothing, just looked to the side.
"You should come and have lunch with us! There's a grill on the side of the park. It's dirt cheap and serves amazing meat, and Brandon is pretty well behaved if you keep him on fries," the woman suggested cheerfully. Glinda tried to respond, but she was speechless. It only took a second for them to exchange a fleeting glance. It was enough. Elphaba activated the remote with a single click, and in less time than it takes a child to throw another ice cream cone, the car's engine roared to life.
"It was a pleasure meeting you! Thanks for the frog!" Glinda exclaimed, half climbing, half falling into the vehicle while Elphaba already had her seatbelt on and her hand firmly on the wheel.
"See you in another life!" Elphaba shouted with a forced smile and gritted teeth.
The car shot out of the parking lot, kicking up a cloud of dust, leaving the boy, his mother... and the Gillikinese Civil War behind.
The car's engine purred lazily as it continued along the winding road. Elphaba had one hand on the wheel and her head resting against the backrest, her gaze lost beyond the windshield, at that flat, eternal horizon where the sky merged with the earth. Her brow furrowed slightly, not because she was angry, but because that was her way of existing when the world seemed absurdly dull.
Beside her, Glinda leaned against the window, the sunlight caressing her golden curls as her gaze wandered among the trees that glided by like green brushstrokes. With a mixture of resignation and stubbornness, she reached into her jacket pocket and slowly pulled out the rubber frog. She examined it closely, tilting her head like someone contemplating an alien creature.
"Well," she murmured, more to herself than to Elphaba, "at least it's... original. Right? I mean, not everyone has a frog dressed as a princess. It has a certain... twisted charm."
She patted it affectionately with her fingertips, as if trying to find the artifact's soul. Then she did a little dance on her knee, as if rehearsing a puppet show.
"We could call her... Princess Croakiella. Or Madame Amphibia." She paused. "Lady Sticky? ...No, that sounds like a disease."
Silence. Elphaba didn't respond, didn't even turn her head. Glinda stared at the frog for a few more seconds... and then, without much ceremony, tossed it over her shoulder into the back seat.
"It's fine... it's horrible."
Elphaba didn't respond. She smiled faintly, like someone trying not to laugh at a ridiculous funeral. A comfortable silence settled over her for a moment.
But of course. Just for a moment.
"Hey..." Glinda said suddenly, with the subtlety of someone stepping on a landmine in sandals. "When that lady asked if we had children... did it bother you?"
Elphaba didn't even blink. She kept her gaze fixed on the road, but her jaw tensed slightly. That small detail was enough for Glinda to know she'd heard her.
"No," Elphaba said calmly, too calmly. "It bothered me when you said 'maybe someday.'"
Glinda turned her body slightly toward her.
"Why? I didn't mean it. I mean, not... completely. It was more out of politeness."
"Sure," Elphaba replied, without sarcasm, but with a neutrality that hurt. "And what part was politeness and what part was completely?"
Glinda bit her lower lip. The atmosphere inside the car became a couple of degrees thicker. Elphaba didn't turn up the air conditioning, but she would have needed to.
"I don't know," Glinda replied, somewhat defensively. "It was one of those things you say without thinking. Like when someone asks you if you like music and you say 'yes' even though you hate jazz."
"Are you comparing having children to jazz?" Elphaba turned her face slightly to glance at her. "Because, honestly, jazz scares me less."
"It doesn't scare me!" Glinda protested, crossing her arms like a spoiled child. But her voice trembled just a little. Just enough.
Elphaba inhaled slowly. Her tone changed. It wasn't hostile, but measured, restrained. The kind of tone she used when she was trying not to sound hurt.
"Then say it. Do you want children?"
Glinda blinked, visibly surprised. Not by the question... but by how much she wanted an answer.
"I don't know. Sometimes... yes." Other times I think I'd be a complete disaster. That everything I am, everything you and I have built... wouldn't survive something like this.
"And you think I'd be a decent mother?" Elphaba asked quietly, but with such a heavy voice that the question felt like a gust of wind in her face.
Glinda didn't answer immediately. Not because she was hesitant, but because she understood that what was at stake in that question wasn't about future babies, or biology, or responsibility... but about their vision of each other.
"I think," she finally said slowly, "that if there ever was a child who needed a brave, brilliant, patient mother with a strange sense of humor and the best sarcastic delivery in the world... you would be perfect for him."
Elphaba blinked. The mask of cynicism wavered.
"But that child doesn't exist. Does it?"
Glinda lowered her gaze.
"Not today. Maybe never." But if it were to exist... I don't want to have it with anyone but you.
The car continued its silent journey along the road, skirting the hills that undulated like the backs of sleeping dragons. Inside the vehicle, however, the air was thick with discomfort, as if someone had filled the car with invisible steam. Glinda kept her gaze fixed on the landscape, her lips pressed into a tense line, as if any word could be the match that ignites another argument. Elphaba, behind the wheel, watched her out of the corner of her eye with a mixture of annoyance, discomfort, and something too close to guilt for her to admit.
She sighed.
"Look," she began in a neutral, almost professional tone. "I know the historical tour wasn't exactly... ideal. At least for you."
Glinda didn't respond. She just nodded subtly, without turning around.
"So... if you want to choose the next stop, I'm open to it. But this time for real. No objections. Your decision."
Glinda blinked. She slowly turned her head toward Elphaba, first cautiously... then with surprise... and then with a sudden twinkle in her eyes. She looked like a flower opening to the sun after a storm.
"Really? No teasing? No sarcasm? No looks that say 'this is stupid'?" she enumerated in a sing-song voice.
Elphaba twisted a resigned smile.
"Not even a slight snort. You have my word."
Glinda didn't wait any longer. She whipped out her phone as if waving a magic wand and began browsing options with the enthusiasm of a child choosing her birthday present. Her fingers flew across the screen, her eyes sparkled, and she muttered things like, “No, that’s too far… Uh, what about this? No, she’d hate it… Maybe a spa… but that’s for another day…” Meanwhile, Elphaba feigned serenity, but every time Glinda murmured “Oh!” or “Oops, this!” her stomach tightened a little more.
Then it happened.
Glinda let out a high-pitched squeal that made Elphaba nearly stop dead in her tracks.
“Oh my Oz! I can’t believe this!” she exclaimed, pointing straight ahead with overwhelming excitement. “Look at that! Look at the sign!”
And there it was. A huge sign, painted in blue and gold, with the image of a ferocious feline in full roar:
“Welcome to Gillikin City – Home of the Panthers.”
Elphaba blinked. She didn't fully grasp the magnitude of the moment, but Glinda was practically jumping in her seat.
"It's the Panthers' stadium! My favorite hockey team since I was a kid! I can't believe we're just passing by!" Her voice was a whirlwind of pure emotion.
"Do you really like hockey?" Elphaba asked with a mixture of disbelief and fascination.
"I loved it! My dad used to take me to the games when I was little. We had hats with panther ears and everything," she said, gesturing as if she still had them. "And I haven't seen a live game in ages! We have to go!"
Elphaba smiled, somewhat relieved. She'd been expecting something much more exotic, or worse: something filled with sequins, glitter, and photo ops.
"I admit I thought you were going to suggest something more... extreme," she said, her tone half mocking, half honest. "Like parasailing with alpacas or underwater yoga."
“That sounds interesting too!” Glinda replied with complete seriousness, causing Elphaba to quietly regret planting that seed. “But no, no. This is perfect. The universe wants us to go. It’s a sign! A mystical coincidence!”
“Or just geography,” Elphaba replied with a smile.
Glinda completely ignored her, already frantically tapping away on her phone.
“There’s a game this afternoon. Against the Munchkin Marauders! A legendary rivalry!” she exclaimed as if narrating a Greek tragedy. “We have to go! Come on, please. Just this once. It’ll be fun!”
Elphaba burst out laughing.
“After all you did to convince me the historical tour was going to be fun, I’m not sure I trust your definition of ‘fun.’”
“I promise no ice cream up the butt this time!” Glinda retorted, giggling.
Elphaba nodded, turning the wheel toward the city.
"Okay. Let's go see your grumpy felines."
"Panthers!" Glinda corrected enthusiastically. "The queens of the ice."
The city of Gillikin was buzzing. Ever since they had crossed its borders, Glinda had been pointing out posters, decorated lampposts, and cloth banners hanging from buildings, all bearing images of the dreaded panthers: muscular, ferocious, and, oddly enough, with impeccable eyeliner. Elphaba drove with a mixture of skepticism and resignation while Glinda—sitting on the edge of her seat—sang the chorus of the team anthem with an enthusiasm that could only come from a deeply marked childhood.
"Panthers of the ice, without fear or law, roar the rink, roar the flock!" she intoned as if she were a soprano in a sports war opera. "Panther Pride!"
“I’m going to need you to breathe between verses,” Elphaba said with a lopsided smile as they parked in front of the imposing stadium.
And it was. The L. Frank Gillikin Ice Arena was a white and blue mass of concrete, tinted glass, and metal sculptures of players frozen in motion. Around it, a wave of people wearing jerseys, scarves, hats, painted faces, and off-key vuvuzelas moved like an emotional swarm, amid chants, sports insults, and the smell of nachos and cheese.
“Ahhh! We’re here!” Glinda shouted, nearly breaking the car’s suspension as she jumped out. “Elphie! Look at that place! It’s beautiful! Look at the merchandise stands! Look at the inflatable mascot thrashing around like it’s having a seizure! I’M VIBRATING!”
“That’s it just the sausage truck's subwoofer," Elphaba said with a crooked smile, closing the car door. "Though I'll admit the place has... spirit."
They walked through the crowd, swept along by a tide of screaming fans, eating indescribable things, and wearing T-shirts with phrases like “Gillikin till I die,” “Fear the Claw,” or the unfortunate but popular “Munchkins suck!” Elphaba and Glinda were attacked by a group of teenagers in blueface, then by an old man with a megaphone, and finally nearly lost their lives at the hands of a woman pushing a churro cart with the speed of a bullet train.
By the time they finally reached the ticket window, Elphaba already had the hairdo of someone who had been trapped in a centrifuge.
“So, where do you buy tickets?” she asked in a martial tone.
“There!” Glinda pointed to a tiny booth in the corner of the stadium with a sign that read “TICKETS – general public – cash only – NO CHANGES.”
And that's when the real odyssey began.
There were three lines. One that seemed to be moving, another that hadn't moved in twenty minutes, and a third where someone kept shouting, "I got here first!" Elphaba and Glinda chose the first one. Bad idea. A minute later, the line stopped because the woman in front of them had pulled out a ten-year-old discount coupon and was demanding it. Seven minutes later, a couple behind them started arguing about whether the Panthers were an overrated team. Twelve minutes in, the sun started beating down. By fifteen, Glinda was already looking like a funeral.
"Are we sure it's worth it?" Elphaba muttered, tilting her head like a crow smelling disaster.
"Yeah! Just... just be patient," Glinda replied, ironically fanning her face with a page from the Kumbrisia tourist brochure.
When they finally got to the ticket window, a woman with a face that looked like she was hanging on by a thread greeted them with a cardboard smile.
"Tickets?" Name on the reservation?
"We don't have a reservation," Glinda said, already digging through her wallet with fingers trembling with excitement. "Two tickets, please. Best seats available."
The woman typed with exasperating slowness, as if each letter were a personal effort.
"Let's see... um... we have some high-seater seats, far from the ice. Some with limited visibility behind a column. And two in the general section, without safety netting."
Elphaba frowned.
"'No safety netting'? What does that mean?"
The woman let out a tired sigh, clearly used to explaining it for the umpteenth time.
"The area without a net is closer to the ice. The experience is more... immersive. But there's also the possibility of a hockey puck flying out at 120 km/h and smashing someone in the face."
Elphaba nodded slowly, amused by the honesty.
"Oh. Just that." Well, I guess that'll make two for the no-go area—
"No!" Glinda suddenly jumped up, gripping Elphaba's wrist tightly. "No... we can't go there."
Elphaba turned around, confused.
"What?"
Glinda looked down and mumbled something. Elphaba frowned.
"What did you say?"
Glinda hesitated. She ran a hand through her hair, lowered her voice, and with a mixture of embarrassment and resignation, confessed,
"When I was six... we went to a game. My dad bought me cotton candy. I sat there all happy. I was dressed in pink with a team scarf. It was adorable! But then... boom!" She snapped her fingers with a loud thud. "A flying disc came straight at me. It hit me right in the face. In front of thousands of people. I was on the big screen... crying with my face covered in candy and blood. One of the cheerleaders fainted."
Elphaba was silent. Then she blinked.
"Are you telling me you were the victim of a killer hockey puck when you were a kid?"
Glinda nodded gravely.
"It was traumatic. And I still have a small scar..." She touched the top of her lip as if it were living proof of an epic battle.
Elphaba tried to stifle her laughter, but it was no use. She doubled over slightly with a sudden, powerful laugh.
"A puck hit you in the face?! That explains so much!"
"Don't laugh. It was horrible! I don't want to end the night with stitches and another blood-soaked scarf."
The woman at the ticket office looked at them with blank eyes. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard as if to say, "So what?"
"The only ones we have left with safety nets are the ultra-VIP ones. Priority access. Heated seats. All-you-can-eat buffet. Private parking."
"And how much do they cost?" Elphaba asked, her back turned, already sensing what was coming. The woman typed, the screen flickered, and with the coldness of a serial killer, she replied, "Four hundred and fifty each." Elphaba choked on her own breath. "What? For one ticket? They're giving us a Zeppelin with that?" "It's an important game," the woman said in a monotone. Glinda looked at her with wet puppy dog eyes. Elphaba knew she was losing. She knew it. But she refused to go down without a fight.
"We can wear helmets! Or safety glasses! Or watch from a monitor outside!" she protested.
"Or we can pay for the tickets and not think of it as wasted money, but as an investment in shared memories and a wonderful future anecdote," Glinda said with a diplomatic gesture she had used before with bankers and diplomats.
Elphaba crossed her arms.
"What if we cancel the plan and go see 'Mud and Monks 2' at the drive-in we passed a little while ago?"
"No way! Panthers or nothing!"
Then Elphaba and Glinda entered into a full-blown emotional negotiation, both tense in front of the ticket window as if the fate of the world depended on whether or not they bought those ultra-VIP tickets. Glinda muttered under her breath as she tried to convince Elphaba with a mixture of pleading and diplomacy.
"I'm just saying, if we don't die today from a killer record, it'll be thanks to these overpriced tickets," Glinda whispered, as if justifying an emergency purchase.
"Or thanks to my survival instinct and the fact that we're not paying for seats that cost as much as plastic surgery," Elphaba retorted, her arms crossed like a ruthless judge.
But just at that moment, as if the universe decided they hadn't suffered enough bureaucracy and financial stress, a boy no more than ten years old, with wild hair, a juice-soaked T-shirt, and a devilish grin, brazenly cut in front of them.
Elphaba noticed immediately and frowned as if she'd smelled sulfur.
"Hey, kiddo..." she said in a firm but restrained voice. "There's a line, you know?" The boy, far from being fazed, turned with exasperating slowness, looked into her eyes as if calculating her soul... and then took a lollipop out of his pocket to lick it while completely ignoring him.
Elphaba blinked.
"Really?"
When the boy took another step to squeeze in, Elphaba edged forward, put a hand in front of him, and, with feigned calm, said,
"No, no. Go back to the end of the line, or I'm going to force that raspberry stick down your throat."
Glinda, alarmed, turned to her.
"Elphie!"
But it was too late. The boy let out a piercing scream, high and drawn out, as if he'd been thrown into the deepest abyss of Oz. The people around him jumped, some covering their ears, others turning around in panic.
"THIS MEAN LADY WANTS TO STEAL MY ICE CREAM!" "He screamed, falling to the floor and rolling like a demonic croquette.
"What?! That's not true!" Elphaba exclaimed as she backed away, horrified. "I just..."
"Boy, please!" Glinda tried to intervene, approaching slowly with open hands. "Shhh, shhh... everything's okay... No one's going to take your... ice cream away."
The boy, between hiccups and tantrums, looked at her cautiously. Glinda crouched down to his level and gave him a sweet smile, that mix of charm and patience she used at diplomatic dinners with powerful old women.
"Do you like the team, little one?" she asked in a honeyed voice. "The Panthers?"
The boy nodded slowly, wiping his nose with his sleeve.
"I love them too," Glinda said. "They're the best, aren't they?" "...They're tough," he whispered, now calm, his voice faint as if sharing a secret.
"And you too, right?" Glinda winked at him.
The boy, now overcome by the charisma, held out his sticky hand. Glinda took it with a smile while Elphaba looked at her as if she'd just watched a lion tamer sedate a beast with a sweet voice.
An elegant but visibly agitated woman appeared running from the side, wearing dangerously high heels and a hairstyle worthy of a diplomatic gala.
"Nick! Ah, thank heavens!" the woman exclaimed, taking the boy by the hand, who had already wrapped himself in Glinda's scarf as if it were his own.
It took Glinda half a second to recognize her. The designer shoes. The brooch with the club crest. The face from a charity magazine cover. It was Flora Chopper, wife of one of the team's official sponsors.
“Oh… Mrs. Chopper,” Glinda said, standing with a certain reverence. “I’m a big fan. Your husband sponsored the stadium renovation, right?”
Flora smiled with the same energy as someone who’s smiled on contract their entire life.
“Yes, yes… we’re very committed to the team. And to the fans, of course.”
“I’m sure you’re also committed to your ticket pricing policy, aren’t you? 450 per seat, very popular.”
Flora looked at her. There was a silence, brief but electric. Then, in a flash of opportunistic brilliance, Flora narrowed her eyes as if an idea were beginning to take shape.
“You know… I just got a call from the office today. The team’s trip to Maracoor Abiding was canceled because of everything going on in that country, you know, and I have to figure it out… But I promised Nicky I’d bring him to see the game, and now I have no one to leave him with.”
"...Uh-huh," Elphaba replied, already smelling danger.
"And you guys seem... responsible. Besides, he's already calmed down around you." She looked at Glinda with a tight smile. "If you could watch him during the game... I'll give you my tickets. VIP, of course. Full access."
Elphaba opened her mouth to say something, but Glinda discreetly stepped on her foot and smiled.
"Of course! It'll be a pleasure!"
"WHAT?!" Elphaba whispered, her eyes wide.
"Just for a little while, Elphie. What could go wrong?"
While Glinda, exultant, skipped hand in hand with little Nicky to the nearest concession stand—talking about nachos, ice cream, pretzel bread, and "a balanced meal for watching a hockey game"—Elphaba stood in the middle of the stadium's outer concourse with a look that oscillated between horror and disbelief. In front of her, the elegant Flora Chopper opened her purse and, with the meticulousness of a high-ranking executive, took out a small notebook adorned with golden flowers.
"I know this is all a bit... unexpected," the woman said with a strained laugh as she began to write, "but you guys seem to have what you call... adult presence. Besides, if my husband finds out I left the child with some random babysitter, he'll kill me. This is technically better."
"Sure. Technically." Elphaba crossed her arms as she watched the woman write as if she were putting together an instruction manual for defusing a bomb.
"Here's my number. My husband's number. The driver's number. The pediatrician's number. The vet's number"—she paused for a second—"In case the cat needs anything and Nicky gets worried. And here's my secretary's number. And my psychologist's number. In case you need it."
Elphaba just blinked. Flora handed her the carefully folded slip of paper, as if it were a confidential document. Elphaba took it with two fingers, still staring at the woman, who was already turning the page and continuing as if giving a TED Talk on accelerated motherhood.
"So, Nicky doesn't like peanuts or loud noises," she said, pointing a finger at her own ears, "even though we're in a hockey arena, I know, ironic, right? He also doesn't like being ignored, or stared at, or mistaken for a child," she said, and Elphaba barely hid a giggle that was struggling to escape.
"Don't give him sugar after the second half, either. Just water with cucumber slices. It helps balance his energy... according to his therapist. Oh, and if he does get to sing the Frozen song, just pretend you're singing it too, but don't finish it. He has a meltdown if someone finishes the song before he does."
Elphaba blinked. Nothing she was hearing seemed real.
"And this... is it legal?" she dared to ask as the woman tore off the sheet of paper with a graceful movement and handed it to her.
"It's the thought that matters!" Flora exclaimed with a brilliant smile. "Seriously... I know who you are, Miss Thropp. I saw you two months ago on the news during the Emerald City public hearing. It was impressive, I admit... And that's why I know at least you won't sell my son to corrupt businessmen or something."
"If you say so..." Elphaba murmured, barely moving her lips.
Flora didn't hear her, or chose not to. She finally handed her two golden tickets that shone like lottery tickets.
"Seats 3B and 3C. Exclusive area. Individual ventilation, touchscreens, and the best chili in town. Ask for Jorgito, he's the waiter." He loves children.
"Fantastic," Elphaba said in the flattest voice in her repertoire.
Flora looked into the distance, where Glinda and Nicky had already brought out a tray that looked like a little king's feast. She walked over, planted a kiss on the boy's cheek, and stroked his hair lovingly.
"Be good to your new friends, okay?" she said softly.
"Yes, Mom," Nicky replied, so sweetly that Elphaba doubted the boy in front of her was the same one who had thrown himself to the floor minutes before, howling like a madman.
The woman gave them one last smile, waved, and walked briskly away, her heels clicking purposefully toward her next corporate appointment.
Elphaba remained silent for a second, holding the slip of paper filled with numbers and tickets, watching Glinda and the little boy laughing together while playing a game of seeing who could juggle a bag of popcorn the most.
She sighed.
"What could go wrong?" she repeated with bitter irony, and began walking toward them.
Glinda, still smiling from the kind farewell with Nicky's mother, turned on her heels toward the concession stand with renewed energy. Her golden mane of hair swayed gracefully as she imagined the perfect balance between a vegan chia smoothie and some "stadium-sized" nachos for a guilty treat. She looked down tenderly.
"So what do you want, honey?" she asked sweetly, hoping for an equally charming response.
But little Nicky wasn't the same charming little boy he'd been five minutes ago. He'd pulled his cell phone from some mysterious corner of his jacket and, with chilling efficiency for his age, was texting at top speed with his thumbs while chewing gum like he was the protagonist of a gangster movie.
"I ordered whatever you want, doll. But hurry up."
Glinda's smile froze. Her eyes widened a little. Doll? Doll?
"Excuse me?" she tried gently, as if she might have misheard.
"Are you deaf now?" the boy replied, without taking his eyes off his phone. Come on, I'm hungry. And don't give me that plant crap! I'm not a rabbit.
Glinda blinked twice. Then she looked at him. Then she looked at the menu. Then she looked at him again. What happened to the sweet little boy who had greeted her tenderly? Where was the little boy who had smiled with sparkling eyes while they were talking about nachos?
"Well, dear," she said in a sing-song voice, mentally adjusting her Zen-like maternal tone, "there's no need to be rude. Why don't you tell me what you want to eat?"
The boy lowered his cell phone with theatrical boredom, as if she'd just asked him to solve a quantum physics equation, and looked up at the menu on the stand. It was then that a smile—more fitting of a mini-villain in a horror movie—slowly spread across his face.
"I want that," he said, pointing with his tiny finger at a particularly menacing section of the sign.
Glinda narrowed her eyes. Her lips moved slowly as she read:
"Ultra Double Carnivore Apocalyptic Mega Panther Combo with Extra Explosive Cheese, Deadly Chili, Infinite Crispy Bacon, and special sauce... with a mountain of fries and... a 'paint bucket'-sized soda..." She broke off and gulped. "Oh, for Oz!"
"That one," Nicky repeated, grinning like a devil.
"My love... I don't think that's appropriate. I'm vegan, and you're so small. It's got... well, so many layers of flesh you could see the spectrum of evolution. Wouldn't you prefer some grilled vegetables?"
The boy narrowed his eyes. His smile disappeared. The phone was put away. Her little body tensed, her cheeks reddened, and her voice changed from a sarcastic murmur to an apocalyptic shriek:
"THE MEAN BLONDE WITH THE FAT ASS WANTS ME TO STARVE!"
And then she screamed.
Gods, how she screamed.
The air was cut.
The birds took flight.
The old woman at the cotton candy stand fainted.
Glinda panicked. She whipped her head around like a weather vane, her eyes bulging, searching for help. Some people were already staring at the scene with horrified expressions, others were holding their phones up, recording as if it were a circus act, and someone even started chanting: "Give him the combo! Give him the combo!"
"No, no, no! It's okay, it's okay!" Glinda exclaimed, waving her hands. "It's okay! I just... I just wanted to take care of his cardiovascular health!"
Just then, Elphaba came running, gently pushing past people as she gasped, "What happened now? What's that gremlin yelling at?!"
"I don't know! I only suggested vegetables!" Glinda moaned, gripping the stand counter with both hands.
"Are you crazy?" Elphaba muttered. "You're dealing with a prepubescent version of a perverted billionaire!"
"My mom said they wouldn't kill me! But they want to starve me to death!" Nicky howled, throwing herself on the floor, kicking like an enraged little seal.
Elphaba gave Glinda a warning look. Glinda gulped. She gave up.
"Okay! Okay, okay! One Ultra Double Carnivore Apocalyptic Mega Panther Combo with Everything, please!" she yelled desperately at the stand employee.
The boy remained silent.
He got up from the floor.
He dusted off his pants with dignity, took out his cell phone, and resumed scrolling as if nothing had happened.
"Thanks, doll," he said without looking at her.
Elphaba looked at her silently. Glinda slowly lowered her head onto the counter with a resounding thud.
Minutes later, Elphaba walked firmly down the carpeted aisle, holding the VIP tickets as if they were diplomatic documents guaranteeing her entry to paradise (or, in her case, at least a comfortable seat). Beside her, Glinda walked with less grace than usual, her arms completely occupied by the monumental Apocalyptic Mega Panther Combo, which wobbled with each step like an unstable tower of cholesterol. Behind them both, Nicky walked in complete silence, her gaze glued to her phone, her tiny fingers tapping the screen as if she were coordinating a covert military operation. Upon entering the VIP section, the change was immediate: impeccable carpeting, padded seats, a panoramic view, heavenly air conditioning. Everything glittered like a luxury advertisement, and there was even soft ambient music playing in the background that clearly no one else could hear except those who had paid a fortune for the privilege.
"Gods..." Glinda murmured under her breath as she sank into her seat. "This is better than the Glimmerwinds' spa..."
Elphaba smiled faintly. She didn't want to admit it, but the seat was delightful. She placed the tickets on her lap and leaned back with a sigh. Beside her, Glinda maneuvered to balance the combo on the folding tray tables without causing an explosion of molten cheese, while Nicky sat listlessly in her seat, without looking up from her phone.
For a few seconds... everything was peaceful.
Until the peace was shattered, as expected.
"I want that seat," Nicky declared, without even looking up.
Elphaba slowly turned her head toward him.
"Excuse me?"
"That one," Nicky repeated, pointing at Elphaba's seat with her sticky finger. "It's better. I want that one."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, her frown barely forming.
"So what's better about it?"
"It's closer to the middle," the boy replied with that mixture of authority and indifference typical of Roman emperors and spoiled brats. "And it looks better. I don't like mine."
"Well, that's a shame. But you're already seated. Don't be capricious," Elphaba replied dryly.
"I want that one," Nicky repeated, more loudly.
Glinda, who was trying to open a straw without breaking her nails, looked up, her neck straining.
"What's wrong?"
"The little prince wants to change seats," Elphaba replied with a smile so fake that even the boy noticed it.
"Because that one's better!" "Nicky shouted with a theatrical little stomp. "And she's big and ugly and takes up a lot of space!"
"Excuse me?!" Elphaba turned completely toward him, no longer feigning even a shred of friendliness. "Listen to me, you micro-demon with WiFi, we paid for this seat with the dignity we've lost in the last two hours, so—"
"Elphaba!" Glinda interrupted with a squeal.
Elphaba glared at her, and Glinda responded with a tight smile, her jaw clenched.
"Please give her the damn seat, okay?"
"Really?"
"I'm holding a calorie bomb with a life of its own. I don't want this whole thing exploding with cheese, bacon, and tears," Glinda muttered, swinging the combo on her knees.
Elphaba huffed. She abruptly stood up and changed seats with a dramatic movement, slamming her things down onto the new spot with a bang. The boy slid into the center seat with a triumphant smile and returned to his phone as if nothing had happened.
Elphaba crossed her arms. Glinda sighed. And so, the sports day began with a small, lost turf war.
"This is going to be long," Elphaba murmured.
"Shhh... don't provoke him," Glinda whispered, as if Nicky were a sleeping bear.
From the middle, Nicky raised her barrel-sized glass of soda and burped softly.
"This is a good seat," she said smugly.
Elphaba murmured something in an arcane language that probably invoked the curse of the ancients.
The roar of music filled the stadium like a wave of electricity. The lights dimmed for a moment, then shone brightly over the ice rink as the crowd rose from their seats to the team anthem. Glinda, who had already taken off her jacket and was holding a Gillikin Panthers flag in both hands, was jumping on the tips of her shoes like a child on Christmas Eve. Her eyes were shining. Her mouth sang every word of the official chant, albeit off-key and overly dramatic. Elphaba, sitting next to her—now in the “least good” seat, by Nicky’s decree—looked at her tenderly, a raised eyebrow. She said nothing. She just smiled. She was used to Glinda’s enthusiasm, even the most… intense.
“Go Panthers! Crush the Munchkins!” Glinda shouted, waving her flag.
Nicky, for his part, kept his head down, completely absorbed in his phone. He seemed to have no idea he was in a stadium. Or a city. Or the physical world. He was just scrolling.
Then the lights swung again, the spotlights focusing on a furry figure emerging from one of the side aisles. It was the team's official mascot, the legendary Gilliklaw, a cross between a panther and a bear with a touch of '80s glitter, leaping onto the ice, performing pirouettes as the crowd erupted with excitement. Clutching a microphone, Gilliklaw began waving his arms and galvanizing the arena.
"I WANNA HEAR YOU, PAN-TER FANS!" he roared in a distorted voice. "On the count of three, shout the name of your favorite player!"
The crowd roared.
"I WANNA FEEL THAT PASSION, SHOUT WITH ME!"
The crowd went wild.
Everyone was on their feet, jumping, screaming, throwing streamers. Glinda was nearly on her seat in excitement, waving her handmade sign that read "Go, GILLIPUFF #12!" and screamed like she was in a K-pop band. Elphaba held her by the waist to keep her from throwing herself onto the ice. It was a joyful, euphoric, almost cinematic scene.
And then...
"That panther has more butt hair than my grandmother!" a high-pitched voice shrieked.
A brutal silence fell over the stadium.
Elphaba blinked. Glinda slowly turned her head. The boy was still looking at his phone, albeit with a satisfied smirk. Clearly, it had been him.
Gilliklaw stopped dead in his tracks at center ice. The audience, still confused, was giggling nervously. But then, the stadium's enormous screen—the famous GillikinVision 4000™—lit up. Cameras swept across the stadium, searching for the source of the insult... until they landed right on VIP section 1-A. Exactly where they were sitting.
"No..." Glinda muttered, swallowing.
Nicky, with the subtlety of a cartoon villain, stretched out a finger and surreptitiously pointed to her right.
Right at Glinda.
The camera zoomed in. Glinda appeared full screen. Her face frozen in a perfect blend of horror, betrayal, and perfect makeup. An instant later, Gilliklaw spotted her, pointed the microphone at her, and, without missing a beat, shouted,
"LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE AN ANTI-PANTHER IN THE STADIUM!"
An explosion of boos erupted from the stands. Glinda gasped.
"WHAT?! NO, NO, NO, I DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING!" she screamed, raising her arms. "IT WAS THE KID! THE DAMN KID!"
But it was too late. The narrative had been established. The stadium needed a villain. And Glinda, with her glittering dress, doll-like face, and prime location, was the perfect target.
"War declared!" Gilliklaw shouted, rolling dramatically to the floor.
The crowd erupted in laughter. And then they began to sing an impromptu chant:
"Out, out, out with the traitor!"
Glinda sank down in her seat.
"I can't believe this! I've been a Panthers fan since I was six! I have embroidered scarves!" she muttered in panic.
"Six years? Wasn't that when you got hit in the face with a puck?" Elphaba whispered, unable to contain a smile.
Glinda glared at her.
"This is a nightmare! A public injustice! A national disgrace!"
Meanwhile, Nicky just smiled, stuffed a giant nacho into her mouth, and went back to texting with the composure of a supervillain.
The horn blared like a war alarm, and the stadium erupted with cheers, anthems, applause, drums, and digital confetti projected onto the screens. The game had begun.
And with it… Glinda had woken up.
As soon as the puck touched the ice, Glinda jumped out of her seat as if she'd been connected to a live wire. Her sunglasses bounced off the end of her nose, her white dress—impeccably pressed and totally inappropriate for a hockey arena—fluttered like a flag in a storm as she waved her arms and screamed with a fury comparable only to a mother on a clearance sale at the mall.
"GO, GILLIKIN PANTHERS! BREAK THEIR STICKS! THAT WASN'T OFFSIDE, THAT WAS MAGIC!" —she shouted, waving her flag so hard that it accidentally hit the man next to her, who barely managed to smile in respect… and fear.
Elphaba, sitting cross-legged with her mouth full of chips stolen from Nicky's, watched her with a mixture of pride, resignation, and anthropological fascination. The game was brutal, frenetic, and glorious. Every collision on the ice was like the rumble of an ancient battle. The Panthers moved like whirlwinds of fury on skates. And Glinda roared with every play.
"YES! THAT'S HOW IT'S DONE—!" OH HELL, SHE TORE HIS MASK OFF! I LOVE THIS SPORT! "She yelled, clutching the edge of her seat, her eyes wide.
Elphaba munched a nugget and muttered to herself, "And then he says my idea of fun is violent..." Then, as if the universe had remembered that Glinda had been named the "official stadium traitor," the GillikinVision 4000™ came back on and focused mercilessly on her ecstatic face. The image froze for a moment. The camera zoomed dramatically. And in the background, the Gilliklaw mascot shook his fist again in mock indignation.
Elphaba, without even thinking, raised her middle finger to the camera with the same elegance with which others raise a glass of champagne. The gesture was skillfully distorted by the stadium editors with an animated "Oh no!" sticker, but the intention was clear. Part of the audience booed; another applauded. Glinda turned to her partner and whispered proudly:
"I love you."
"I know," Elphaba replied, popping another fry into her mouth.
Everything was going—amidst the chaos—surprisingly well. Until...
Tug.
Glinda blinked. Something was tugging at the hem of her dress. She looked down. Nicky, still clutching her cell phone, was looking at her with a raised eyebrow.
"I have to go to the bathroom," she said in a nonchalant tone, as if asking for a napkin.
Glinda froze, still panting from the climax of the previous play, her heart pounding and her cheeks flushed.
"Now?" she said in a strained voice, trying to maintain control.
"Yes," Nicky replied, and added with complete impudence, "And I want you to carry me, doll."
Elphaba choked on a fry. Glinda paled like an offended marble statue.
"Look, uh... Nick, I'm just watching a crucial play. Maybe you can hold on for two minutes..."
"I want to go now!" he snapped, raising his voice, and Glinda could already imagine the camera turning on her again, the mascot declaring a new "BATHROOM WAR," and the stadium booing en masse.
It was Elphaba who intervened.
"I'll go," she said, jumping up. "Someone has to do the dirty work anyway."
"But I want the blonde to come!" the boy insisted, crossing his arms.
"And I want the sky to fall on this stadium, but you don't always get what you want," Elphaba said, taking his hand with implacable firmness.
Nicky complained. Squealed. Shuffled. But Elphaba didn't stop.
"We'll be back in five," she called back, looking over her shoulder.
Glinda nodded… and slumped back into her seat.
She looked back at the field.
"Just… five minutes of peace," she murmured with her eyes closed, while on the ice, the Panthers launched a brutal counterattack.
And, for a moment… she was happy.
With her jaw clenched and her brow furrowed as if she were dragging a sack of bricks, Elphaba led Nicky by the wrist through the aisles of the stadium. The boy walked as if he had no bones, letting himself go with a dramatic flair and theatricality that would make any soap opera actor envious. Around them, hockey fans ran by, shouted, spilled beer, cheered imaginary goals, or applied face paint with more enthusiasm than precision.
And while the world roared, Nicky kept talking.
"Why are you so tall? Do you always wear black? Are you and the blonde girlfriends? And who's in charge? Is it her, right? Because she seems bossy." Do you have powers? Can you blow things up? How did you meet? Are you old?
Elphaba closed her eyes for a second, like someone trying to concentrate on not invoking an ancient curse.
"You know there's a Guinness World Record for the world's most annoying child?" she muttered under her breath. "You should consider competing."
"What's a Guinness World Record?"
"An idea for later."
Finally, they reached the restroom area, marked by a blinking neon sign that read HYGIENIC ZONE with a picture of a broom and a star. Elphaba looked at him suspiciously.
"Okay, we're here. You come in, do your thing, and we'll get back to the game. Quick and easy," she ordered, pointing to the men's restroom.
Nicky took a step back.
"I can't go in alone. My mom won't let me," he said with the seriousness of a secret agent revealing a top-secret protocol.
Elphaba glared at him. Then she turned slowly toward the men's restroom door. She took a step. She stopped. She looked back at the door. Then back at the boy.
"...I'm not going in there," she said in the dry voice of someone on the verge of collapse.
"Then I'll go with you to the women's restroom," he said with a shrug.
"What? No! Of course not!" Elphaba raised both hands as if trying to stem a toxic gas leak. "It's a sacred space of peace and secrets. You're not going to desecrate it with your Mini Jordans and your invasive questions."
"Then you're going to have to explain to my mom why I missed the game because I had a urinary tract infection."
Elphaba looked at him. She closed her eyes. She mentally counted to 475. Then she rummaged in her purse and pulled out, without knowing how or why she had that, a huge Gillikin Panthers foam hand with a glittery "#1" painted on the palm.
She held it out solemnly.
"You enter alone. You use this as a weapon if anyone speaks to you, if anyone comes near, or if anyone breathes. Do you understand?"
Nicky gripped the foam hand as if it were Excalibur. Then she looked at it.
"Can I hit someone even if they're not speaking to me?"
"Only if they sing badly."
"Perfect."
And without further ado, the boy walked through the men's restroom doors as if on an undercover mission. Elphaba stood outside, leaning against the wall, exhaling heavily as she wondered if they still had time to leave the stadium and move to a remote forest where boys weren't allowed under any circumstances.
The bathroom door closed. Elphaba closed her eyes. And for the first time in what seemed like hours... she enjoyed a second of silence.
Just one.
Because on the other side... someone began singing the team anthem in a tenor voice.
And all Elphaba could manage was to murmur, "Oh no... not again."
Elphaba leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, letting her head fall back with a sigh that seemed to hold centuries of pent-up exhaustion. The temperature inside the stadium was far from ideal, the echoes of the game could be heard in the distance, and yet for a few brief minutes... there were no screams, no children, no insults from giant mascots. Just her. And a wall.
A wall that, oddly enough, was adorned with a timeline of perfectly framed newspaper clippings. "History of the Gillikin Panthers," the golden title read at the top, next to a miniature statue of the team's first helmet.
Elphaba tilted her head, a little more out of boredom than genuine interest, but she began to look at the clippings one by one.
"Panthers crush Evendalers 6-1," "Miracle comeback in the '92 final," "Return of the toothless goalie." Each frame seemed like a time capsule, proudly celebrating glorious deeds. And then... she saw it.
A clipping from many years ago, with the headline: “Crushing home win. Panthers claim their seventh cup.” But that wasn't what caught her attention. Right next to the story, almost as an afterthought, was a small news item with an even smaller photo.
“Little fan gets hit by puck during game, but doesn't lose her spirit.”
And next to it, in the lower right corner, a small photo, wrinkled with age and humidity. There she was: a six-year-old Glinda, with a huge band-aid on her forehead, one missing front tooth, and the most toothless, tireless smile Elphaba had ever seen. In the photo, she was giving the camera a thumbs-up as if she'd just won a war.
Elphaba smiled. She couldn't believe it. The story was real. Everything, from the trauma with the unprotected seats to the obsession with the equipment, had a lovely, slightly absurd root of truth. She felt a surge of affection and tenderness mixed with a pang of regret for having hesitated… even if it was just a little.
"Oh, Glinda... how could I not love you, you and your broken face," she murmured with a smile.
But then, a sound broke her from her moment. A thud, a soft "ouch!" and a shrill voice yelling from inside the bathroom:
"Emergency in progress! I broke protocol!! I broke protocol!"
Elphaba immediately sat up.
"Nicky!" She ran to the door, her heart in her throat.
But he'd barely pushed the handle into the men's restroom when the door swung open with unpredictable violence... and from inside, like a bolt of avenging lightning, emerged the foam hand that slammed with surgical precision directly into his groin.
Elphaba let out a muffled shriek, fell back, catching herself, and unleashed a string of unrepeatable expletives as Nicky shot out between her legs as if fleeing a zombie invasion.
"SELF-DEFENSE!! THEY TOLD ME TO USE THE WAR HAND IF ANYTHING HAPPENED!" the boy shouted with the same energy as someone who had just won a legal and moral battle at the same time.
Elphaba crawled to the side, still unable to speak, panting as if she'd just run a marathon, a tear threatening to spill from one eye. She leaned back, closed her eyes, and murmured,
"I'm raising the antichrist..."
From a distance, the second-half horn sounded. And, of course, the cheers of the stadium chanted as if nothing had happened.
Elphaba slowly sat up, vowing revenge.
"I swear by all the gods in Oz, on Earth, and in Hell, brat... you'll give me back every second of this day."
And with a staggering gait, the huntress returned to the arena.
Meanwhile, back in the VIP section, Glinda found herself in what could only be described as a kind of mystical athletic ecstasy. Arms raised, sunglasses bouncing with every jump, and her elegant white dress already somewhat wrinkled from waving her hands in the air, she shouted with a completely unique mix of passion and elegance:
"THAT WAS TRIPPING, JUDGE! YOU'RE BLIND, I'M TELLING YOU, BLIND!!!" People around her were beginning to recognize her as “the crazy villain from the VIP section,” and yet her enthusiasm was so contagious that they didn't know whether to hate her or join in the shouting. Just then, she heard a stampede behind her. She turned to see Elphaba running into the section with a look of absolute urgency on her face, her jacket askew, her hair out of place, and a foam glove dangling from her belt like a war trophy.
“Elphie!” Glinda exclaimed, running toward her with childish excitement. “You don't know what you missed! The Panthers scored a stunning goal right after an uncalled foul, and the mascot put a Munchkin fan in a wrestling hold! It was iconic!”
Elphaba, still glancing around with hawkish eyes, replied between gasps, “That sounds… incredible, really. But there's a problem.”
Glinda blinked.
“What problem?”
"The kid escaped!! He swatted me with his damn rubber hand and ran off like he was in a spy movie."
"What?" Glinda blinked, the moment of euphoria frozen on her face.
"We have to find him before he sets something on fire!" Elphaba spun around and started running.
Glinda took a second, but quickly followed her down the halls.
"But he was just going to the bathroom! What do you mean he escaped?!"
“I told you he wasn’t normal. That kid has a pact with dark forces. I’m sure I saw his eyes glow when he hit me,” Elphaba snarled.
Glinda laughed despite herself as they trotted through the stadium, dodging vendors, tourists, and a couple of fans dressed as giant discs.
“Oh, please don’t overreact. He’s just a kid. All kids are... intense,” she tried to say with a hint of hope.
“And that’s your defense? ‘All kids are intense’?” Elphaba hissed. “Glinda, that kid made me the target of his fury with a foam glove. Foam! I’ll never be able to walk into a kids’ party again without breaking out in a cold sweat.”
As they continued, they passed a souvenir booth where an inflatable replica of the team mascot had been knocked over by something... or someone... that ran by. They both saw it: Nicky. With her phone in one hand and a turkey leg in the other, she ran like she was stealing diamonds.
"There it is!" Glinda shouted, and the two of them took off after him.
As they ran, Elphaba muttered through ragged breath, "This. This is exactly why we shouldn't have children."
Glinda stopped dead in her tracks. Literally stopped, causing a soda vendor to have to sidestep her.
"Excuse me?" she asked with a glare.
Elphaba turned, but it was too late. The sentence had been said.
"I'm just saying, if this is a taste of what it's like to raise a child, I'll pass. I'd rather adopt a cactus. Or live in a cave."
"Not all children are like that!" Glinda defended herself, crossing her arms as she panted from running.
"What if we get one like that? What if he inherits your love of roller skates or buying sequined bathing suits?" "What's wrong with a good sequined swimsuit?!" she retorted, raising her voice more than advisable.
A couple of fans walking past applauded, thinking she was part of an animation.
Elphaba sighed, rubbing her temple.
"I'm not saying you'd want one tomorrow, or the day after. I just... I don't know if I can imagine raising someone. I can barely handle my traumas."
Glinda looked down, more hurt than she expected. Not because it was an immediate plan, but... knowing that Elphaba couldn't even imagine it made her sting inside.
"Well. Maybe you don't have to imagine it now. But you can avoid sounding like you hate the idea," she replied softly, turning to follow Nicky.
Elphaba watched her walk away into the crowd, feeling her chest tighten with something more complex than anger. It was guilt. Or fear. Or both. "And he's not that bad, either!" Glinda shouted from ahead. "He's only asked for three things so far! A bath, junk food, and your emotional ruin!"
"YES! That's quite an accomplishment!" Elphaba snarled, following her.
Suddenly, the tension between Glinda and Elphaba was so thick it could be sliced with a plastic razor blade from the nacho stand. Elphaba muttered under her breath, trying to keep track of the boy while Glinda stalked along, frowning, refusing to look at her directly.
"Where the hell did that little Satan go?!" Elphaba spat, dodging by inches a shower of popcorn being thrown by one fan at another.
"I saw him a second ago! He was wearing that ridiculous cap with the panther ears!" Glinda replied, panting as she pushed her sunglasses up with dramatic fury. Suddenly, a collective roar shook the ground. The fans were thrashing about like they were in a pitched battle. And there, in the center of the chaos, they saw him: Nicky Chopper, the child from hell, running through the crowd with his arms raised like a war general, shouting at the top of his lungs:
"NUMBER 22 IS A FRAUD!!! THEY SOLD OUT THE GAME!! THEIR MASCOT SMELLS LIKE CHEESE!!!"
The effect was immediate. A group of fans with team tattoos on their arms turned angrily toward others wearing opposing jerseys. Shouts. Insults. Glasses flying. One guy raised a sign like a medieval weapon. Pandemonium broke loose.
"RUN!" Elphaba shouted, grabbing Glinda's arm as they both ran, dodging overturned chairs, smoke flares, and a spontaneous fight between two old women with signs.
Glinda panted, her heels still half-bent from running, trying not to lose her dignity... or her balance.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! THIS ISN'T EVEN FUNNY ANYMORE!"
"OF COURSE IT ISN'T! IT'S A SPORTS CIVIL WAR, AND HE STARTED IT!" Elphaba roared as they climbed over a railing, falling off the other side.
But amid the shouting, they were separated. Glinda was pushed by a wave of people while Elphaba was trapped behind a line of fans who began to sing a war song to the beat of a batucada.
"GLINDA!" Elphaba shouted, craning her neck.
"ELPHABA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU! THERE'S A GUY SINGING ABOUT HIS GRANDMA AND A CARROT!" Glinda retorted as she tried to swim against the human current.
Thinking quickly, Elphaba climbed onto a half-broken plastic chair and, like a field general, shouted at the top of her lungs:
"THEY'RE GIVING AWAY BEER IN SECTION 23!"
The stampede changed direction as if obeying a spell. The crowd began to move toward another aisle, clearing just the space Glinda needed to advance.
"That was brilliant!" Glinda shouted, giving a thumbs-up.
"Thank you! Now GRAB THE DAMN GREMLIN!" Elphaba bellowed from above.
Glinda moved forward with a firm, murderous stride. Her gaze quickly scanned until she saw him: Nicky, the demon, was surrounded by cheerleaders. And not just any cheerleaders. Elite ones. The “Panther Belles,” known for their martial discipline, coordinated shouting, and inexplicable fanaticism for conspiracy theories.
Glinda pushed her way through the crowd and stood in front of the group, panting, her face red with rage and sweat, her makeup a mess, and her dress completely askew.
“Hand over the boy!” she bellowed, pointing at them like a deranged empress.
The cheerleaders looked her up and down with the kind of expression an exclusive tribe reserves for a tourist who doesn’t fit in. One of them, with a shiny bow and a venomous gaze, stepped forward.
“And who are you? The avenging nanny?”
“I’m the one watching him! And I need him out of there now!”
Another cheerleader laughed.
“And leave the poor thing with you? No way! You already made him cry once!”
"That was before he yelled at me in public and accused me of starving him because he didn't want a triple combo with bacon!" Glinda retorted.
"You're not very good with kids, are you?" another said, fixing her mascara.
"I'M LOVELY WITH KIDS!" Glinda yelled, her eyes wide.
Behind the cheerleaders, Nicky crossed his arms in satisfaction, took a jelly bean out of his pocket, and bit into it like he was watching a soap opera.
At that moment, Glinda lunged to catch him, but Nicky, as if possessed by the parkour gods, slipped between a cheerleader's legs and ran off again as the group began to scream hysterically as they watched Glinda fall to the ground.
"Nick!" "Stop right now or I swear to all the haute couture designers I'll tie you up with my velvet belt and leave you as an ornament in the souvenir shop!" Glinda shouted, immediately leaping to her feet and running after the brat.
But the boy didn't stop. On the contrary, he laughed with all the energy of someone who knew no one could control him. With a nimble leap, he climbed onto the pedestal holding the bronze statue of the giant panther, symbol of the Gillikin Panthers, and began climbing the sculpture with the grace of a spoiled stray cat.
"Get down from there right now!" Glinda ordered, already standing in front of the statue, hands on her hips, her patience as frayed as her heels.
Nick looked down at her, a cruel smile on his childish face.
"What if I don't? What are you going to do? Call your mommy?"
Glinda clenched her fists, trying not to scream. She breathed in, exhaled, and in a firmer tone than ever, retorted:
"I'm your temporary nanny, Nick. Not your servant, not your toy. You come down now, or I'll climb up."
The boy laughed, a laugh as sharp as broken glass.
"That's why they don't have children! Because they'd make terrible mothers! One always wants everything to be perfect, the other seems to hate everyone. They wouldn't last a week with a baby; it'd probably fly out the window!"
Glinda froze.
The words weren't coming from an authority figure, a therapist, or even Elphaba. They were coming from a child who had no filter, who said exactly what he thought. And without meaning to, he'd hit the mark with surgical precision. They didn't know how to take care of a child. They didn't know how to deal with this. They'd spent the whole day making mistakes, arguing, exhausting themselves. Maybe... maybe they really would be terrible mothers.
Glinda lowered her head. She no longer felt like arguing. Not even shouting. With slow steps and slumped shoulders, she turned around.
"Hey? Where are you going?" the boy asked from above, but she didn't respond.
A few seconds later, Elphaba came running from the other side of the corridor, drenched in sweat and with bits of popcorn stuck to her blouse.
"I saw it from afar! Where is the monster? Does it climb trees, roofs, the roofs of trees?" she asked, looking around.
Glinda stopped. She didn't turn around.
"It's there," she said simply, pointing a finger at the statue without turning around.
Elphaba looked at her, confused.
"What's wrong? Why aren't you yelling at it like usual?"
Glinda took a deep breath, and when she finally spoke, her voice was muffled. Sad. Broken at the corners.
"Because he's right."
Elphaba remained silent.
"Excuse me?"
"He's right." Glinda turned around, finally facing her. "We're no good at this. Look at this day! A disaster from the moment we met him. We don't know how to set boundaries, we don't know how to handle tantrums, we fight each other all the time... And I... I spend all day trying to convince myself that one day I'll be good at this. But as soon as a kid says that to my face, and... that's it! I fall apart. Do you realize? We're not meant to have children. Not now... not ever." Elphaba looked at her. The usual sarcastic expression on her face had disappeared. Her frown was no longer one of annoyance, but of genuine concern.
"Glinda..."
"No, leave it. I mean it. I thought maybe one day... with you... we could, I don't know, try. But if I can't even handle a spoiled brat for two hours..." She shook her head, defeated. "Forget it. We just accept it. You were right. End of story."
And without another word, Glinda sat down on a nearby bench, like a queen banished from her own kingdom, her gaze fixed on the ground. The stadium roared in the distance, as if the world would go on regardless of the internal meltdown she'd just had.
Elphaba didn't know what to say. And that, for someone like her, was saying something.
From the top of the statue, Nick watched them silently. And for the first time... his smile disappeared.
Elphaba carefully sat down next to Glinda on the bench. There was no more sarcasm in her body, no more tension in her shoulders. Only the fatigue of a senseless chase, the weight of what was left unsaid, and the distant sound of the game as a backdrop. For a moment, neither of them said anything. They just stood there, side by side, elbows almost touching, both of their hearts in knots.
Finally, Elphaba spoke. Her voice was barely a whisper, as if she were afraid that by saying it, something fragile might break.
"I didn't know this... meant so much to you." She kept her gaze straight ahead. "We'd never talked about it, not like this, and I guess I thought..."
"Did you think if you ignored it, it would go away?" Glinda interrupted, with an edge that wasn't aggression but pain.
Elphaba lowered her head. She didn't deny it. She didn't argue.
"You're right," she admitted. "I never asked you if you'd thought about it. And that was a mistake. A selfish one."
Glinda sighed, leaning back in her chair with a mixture of surrender and sadness.
"It's not that I'm desperate for children," she clarified softly. "We just got back together. I want to enjoy that, us. You don't see me dreaming of cribs or painting rooms in pastel colors. But... I don't know. I always liked the idea that, maybe, someday... I could. If it happened. If I found someone I truly wanted to share that responsibility with." She turned slightly toward Elphaba, her gaze heavy with honesty. "And until now, I've never felt that person could be real. Until you." Elphaba swallowed. Something tightened in her chest.
"But that doesn't matter anymore," Glinda continued, with a sad smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Because you hate the idea. And even if you didn't, today it became clear: we're no good for this. We tried for two hours and already we're destroyed."
Elphaba looked at her, feeling a pang of pain at the sadness on the face she loved so much. It wasn't just disappointment at what had happened. It was disappointment in herself. With them. With the image she had tried to build.
"Glinda..." she said finally, in a different voice. Not her usual ironic or harsh voice. It was the voice of someone finally letting down her defenses. "I don't hate the idea. I don't love it. But... I don't hate it. It's more complicated than that."
Glinda looked at him with an arched eyebrow, incredulous but still willing to listen.
"So what is it?"
Elphaba took a deep breath, searching within herself for the words she'd avoided for so long.
"It scares me. It terrifies me." She laughed humorlessly. "My childhood was a disaster, Glinda. It's not just that I didn't have good role models. It's that I lived convinced that the world is too cruel to bring anyone else into it by choice. I always thought the most ethical thing to do was not to bring anyone into this. What if I fail them like I was? What if I inherit things I don't want to look at? What if... I become the very thing I hated so much?"
There was a silence. Elphaba lowered her gaze.
"And, yes, when I hear you talk about babies with that hope in your eyes... I'm afraid I'm the one who ruins that for you. Because you are... you. And you deserve everything beautiful in the world. And sometimes, I'm afraid I can't give it to you. Not now, not ever."
Glinda said nothing for a moment. She just looked at him. Elphaba looked at her too. The intensity in her eyes met the tenderness in Glinda's, and for a moment, in the midst of that stadium filled with noise, disorder, and chaos... there was calm.
"I don't know if I'll ever love him, Glinda. But if I ever do, it will be with you. Only you."
Glinda blinked, moved. But a shadow of doubt still lingered in her eyes.
"What if we're bad at this? What if the boy was right?"
Elphaba looked down for a moment, as if replaying everything they'd experienced in those endless hours: the food combo, the screaming, the chase, the bath, the foam glove.
"I don't know," she answered with raw honesty, then raised her gaze to meet Glinda's. "But I know we'd be together. That if we ever got into that madness, you and I... we'd do the best we could. We'd learn along the way. Like everything."
"Even if we suck?"
"Glinda, we suck," Elphaba said with a crooked half-smile. "But we're also a team. And that's so much more than I've ever had."
Glinda stared at her, her heart beating slowly, gratefully. Somewhere deep inside, that was the answer she needed most. Not an idyllic promise of a perfect family or a dream motherhood. Just the certainty that she wouldn't be alone.
"What if it turns out I'm terrible at this?" Glinda whispered. "What if I don't have the patience, or the firmness, or... I don't know, what it takes?"
Elphaba chuckled.
"You? The one who endured hours on that damn historic bus without murdering anyone. The one who endured the world's biggest cholesterol combo with a smile. The one who tried to reason with that little demon in a sweet voice when I was already wanting to set him on fire." She looked at her tenderly. "You're much stronger than you give yourself credit for. You always were. And if you ever fall... I'll be there to pick you up. Or fall with you. I don't know, it depends on the day."
Glinda let out a small, but real laugh. She leaned slightly toward Elphaba, resting her head on her shoulder, as if finding a home in the gesture. Elphaba tilted her head to rest it against hers.
"I'd be there for you too, you know," Glinda murmured. "Even if you don't want me to. Even if you kick up a fuss or put on that 'I can handle myself' face. I'm not going to let you face everything alone."
"Thank you," Elphaba whispered, and for the first time in a long time, she felt less broken.
Glinda laughed again. An honest, soft laugh, with a light heart.
"Whatever comes," she said finally, "I don't want us to make that decision out of fear. Let it be because we talked about it. Because we want it. Or because we don't. But never because we're terrified."
"Done," Elphaba whispered, holding up her pinky finger.
Glinda took it with hers. A silly, solemn pact, the best kind of promise between them.
"And now," Elphaba said, getting back to her feet, "we have to catch that little monster before it gets on the local news."
"Chase him again?" Glinda protested. "Can't we just leave him and say he was abducted by a giant pet?"
"I'd be tempted... but you know: mothers don't abandon their young."
Glinda rolled her eyes, but stood up with a smile.
"You're an idiot. But you're my idiot."
"Forever," Elphaba said, gently nudging her.
And with that, the two of them set off, determined to find the demon with designer sneakers and a high-end phone. Maybe they were messed up. Maybe they weren't ready. But at least they were messed up together. And that, for now, was enough.
And so, once again, the unlikely pair of fugitives from chaos—or nannies, depending on how you look at it—set out in pursuit of the little saboteur who had ruined their day… and perhaps their future as mothers. The laughter, the screams from the stadium, and the background music enveloped the atmosphere in a frantic symphony of excitement and chaos.
"There he is!" Glinda shouted, pointing dramatically as they both made their way through the upper stands.
Elphaba squinted through the sea of flags, blue wigs, and colorfully painted faces. And yes, there he was: that little devil with his neatly tousled hair, slipping beneath the security cordon into the general area. The unprotected area. The infamous no-man's-land where the most devoted fans thronged without a net or mercy, where no puck was stopped by any barrier, and adrenaline was served without anesthesia.
Glinda froze.
Elphaba barely noticed her at first, until she turned and saw her: Glinda had stayed behind, her arms tense and her face as white as the foam that shot out over the stadium.
"Glinda?"
"I can't," she murmured, her gaze fixed on that section, like a mouth of hell gaping in the stadium. "It's that area."
Elphaba understood immediately. There was no mockery or cynicism in her tone this time, only genuine compassion.
"It's okay," she said gently, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. "Stay here. I'll take care of it."
Glinda nodded, swallowing hard. Her fingers barely touched Elphaba's before she let go, as if trusting her with that would be harder than crossing that invisible line herself.
And so, with the thunder of drums and horns exploding all around, Elphaba plunged into the maelstrom of bodies and flags. The game had reached its final minutes, which meant the fans were at their peak intensity: shoving, spontaneous hugs, curses shouted at the referee, and a shower of nachos that looked like they'd been launched by a catapult from above.
Elphaba dodged everything as best she could. An ecstatic man almost kissed her. A woman shouted "Come on, lucky witch!" and placed a team scarf on her. A teenager spilled soda on her shoes. But she didn't stop. She had a goal.
From high above, Glinda watched her. Her hands were clasped over her chest, her heart pounding like a drum. Every time the puck slid unguarded into the box, Glinda tensed and jumped slightly, gripped by traumatic reflexes. Down below, amidst the involuntary shoving and tripping, Elphaba finally spotted him: the boy perched on a metal railing, waving his arms like an impromptu cheerleader, shouting insults at the team mascot from a distance that bordered on sporting suicide.
"Nicky!" Elphaba shouted, but her voice was swallowed by the collective euphoria celebrating another goal by the home team.
The roar in the stands reached absurd levels. It was as if every hit of the puck against the ice electrified the crowd. Lights flickered, drums relentlessly beat, and the fans seemed like a single creature with a thousand voices screaming at once. Elphaba pushed with difficulty, pushing her way through sweaty bodies, waving flags, and uncontrolled plastic cups. Her eyes never left the boy, who was jumping euphorically on some kind of metal container. He was only a few feet away... but those feet were a pitched battle.
"Nick!" Elphaba shouted, but the roar of the stadium drowned her out.
And then it happened.
The team missed a key shot. A play that was headed straight for goal… but bounced off the post. The entire stadium erupted like a pressure cooker being released. The collective scream was so fierce it reverberated in Glinda's chest even from a distance. The fans thrashed, bodies pressed forward, and in that instant, Elphaba saw it in horror: the boy lost his balance and fell into the crowd.
"NO!" she screamed.
She tried to move forward, but it wasn't just a tide anymore: it was a stampede. Every step forward was like fighting a hurricane of flesh and cloth. Elphaba struggled to keep her vision steady, but the boy was no longer visible. Panic began to consume her.
"Nick!" she roared desperately, her voice cracking with frustration and fear. "GLINDA!"
And then, on the other side of the chaos, something moved.
As if time slowed down for a second, Glinda, motionless until then at the top, lowered one foot onto the first step of the general section. Her hands were shaking. Her heart was pounding so hard she swore she could hear it over the roar of the stadium. The trauma was real. She felt it in her throat, in her legs, in the mental echo of a record crossing the air toward her six-year-old face.
But she saw the boy.
Between her legs and elbows, she saw him cowering, arms over his head, alone and scared.
And that was enough.
"Fuck it!" she muttered, and lunged.
She elbowed forward, with the strength only instinct could bestow. Every step was a triumph. A woman stumbled in front of her; Glinda nimbly sidestepped her. A man shouted at her to move aside; she pushed him mercilessly. Flags whipped her face, someone else's sweat clung to her body, but she didn't stop.
And then she found him.
Nick was on the ground, sobbing silently, surrounded by giant legs and nowhere to go.
"Nicky!" Glinda cried.
The boy looked up and, for the first time all afternoon, betrayed something other than arrogance: relief. Terror. Need.
Glinda knelt and took him by the shoulders, and with an effort worthy of a superhero, she lifted him up and hugged him tightly to her chest.
"Shhh... calm down, there you go, there you go, you little idiot," she whispered in a tremulous voice, stroking his hair as she held him tightly. "I'm not going to let go, you're with me."
Nick clung to her like a scared koala. He said nothing. He just stood there, breathing heavily, his face buried in Glinda's neck. She held him like he was the most precious thing in the world, not thinking about the game, the mass surrounding them, or the fear that had frozen her for years.
And then, through the tide, a familiar voice.
"GLINDA!" Elphaba screamed like crazy, spinning around, searching the crowd.
"HERE!" Glinda answered, raising a free arm, and Elphaba saw her.
She saw her standing, in the heart of hell, with the child in her arms, her face sweaty, disheveled, trembling… but invincible.
And for a moment, Elphaba stopped and looked at her with a mixture of pride, tenderness, and complete awe.
Because there was the woman she loved, overcoming her worst fear to save a child she had hated just minutes before.
Elphaba finally managed to push through the last wall of excited bodies and made her way through the crowd right up to Glinda. She found her standing, the child still clinging to her neck like a frightened monkey, trembling with every roar from the audience. Glinda was trembling too, not just from the chaos or the exertion, but from the residual adrenaline of having faced such a visceral and ancient fear.
But Elphaba didn't notice the tremors. She didn't see a scared woman. She saw a woman who had been scared. A woman who had faced it all—the trauma, the panic, the discomfort—and yet she had still walked straight into the general room to rescue a child who had insulted her, made her scream, bought greasy food, and probably shortened her lifespan by ten years.
"I can't believe this..." Elphaba murmured, breathless. "You did it."
Glinda blinked, still processing.
"I did it?"
"You did it! You threw yourself in there like a hero. You were a freaking force of nature. You protected the child, you went through your worst fear, and you didn't hold back. If that's not proof that you'd make an amazing mother, then I don't know what is."
Glinda was silent for a second. Then she smiled tenderly, her hair still plastered to her forehead and her lips dry from exertion.
"Only if you're by my side."
Elphaba looked at her, swallowing hard. Her eyes held something new. Something she found hard to name but that burned sweetly in her chest. Finally, she allowed herself to smile.
"Well... if you could overcome your childhood fear of the general section... maybe I can overcome mine of... you know... that."
Glinda raised an eyebrow.
"Are you serious?"
"I'm saying," Elphaba replied, taking her hand, "that if we ever decide to do it... you wouldn't do it alone."
And without further ado, they leaned toward each other and kissed.
It was a tender and sweet kiss, full of that intimacy that only undated promises can carry. And just at that instant, because the universe has a sense of humor, the stadium's Kiss Cam focused on them. Their faces appeared on the stadium's giant screen, surrounded by a digital heart animated with sparkles and fireworks. The crowd erupted in cheers and celebratory whistles.
Nicky, still hugging Glinda, grimaced in disgust.
"Ew... can you not do that? You're ruining my life."
"Oh, grow up, Nicky," Glinda replied, laughing, wiping away a tear of emotion and sweat at the same time.
"It's not that hard," Elphaba added with a half-smile. "Apparently Glinda already did it."
Glinda turned to her, with a mixture of mock indignation and an undeniable glow of pride. She stood tall theatrically, puffing out her chest and raising her arms like an Olympic champion.
"I, Glinda Arduen Upland, overcame my childhood trauma!" she shouted to the four winds, in the midst of emotional catharsis. "I faced the general section and won!"
And right at that precise moment, in the last second of the game, a Gillikin Panthers player furiously shot the puck toward the goal. The crowd gasped.
It bounced off the post.
It shot into the stands.
And, describing a perfect arc through the air, as if the universe were signing off on the punchline… it hit Glinda straight in the face.
And suddenly, Glinda saw only darkness…
The sound of the world faded for a moment, as if she were underwater. Then, little by little, a throbbing pain began to buzz in her head, a familiar but equally unpleasant sensation. A blinding light appeared before her eyes, flickering insistently, while a voice spoke calmly.
"Miss… can you hear me? Can you tell me your name?"
Glinda blinked, and when the image finally became clear, she saw the stadium doctor leaning over her, flashlight in hand. She was lying on one of the benches, surrounded by a couple of assistants, a half-open bottle of water at her side.
"G-Glinda..." he mumbled, between a groan and a resigned exhalation.
"Fine, fine," the doctor nodded. "Seems like she'll be fine... eventually."
"Eventually?" Glinda repeated weakly.
"Yes. How many fingers can she see?"
"Enough to know I never want to watch live sports again."
At that moment, two figures came running up: Elphaba and Nicky. The boy, far from being worried, looked fascinated, his eyes wide open and a nervous energy oozing from him.
"That was amazing!" he shouted. "I've never seen anyone head a hockey puck like that! BOOM!! Like a superhero! Can I tell it at school?"
"Yeah, right..." Glinda moaned, covering her eyes. "But make sure you leave out the part where I fell like a sack of potatoes."
Elphaba burst out laughing, visibly relieved.
“You can’t blame him, Glinda. It was impressive… and tragic… and a little epic, really. And best of all: thanks to you, the referee decided to add extra minutes to the game for the “technical accident.”
Glinda looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
“So?”
“And the Panthers scored a winning goal!”
Glinda stood still for a second, until a smile—crooked, but proud—began to spread across her face. Then Elphaba, with a theatrical gesture, unfurled a napkin. There, in the center, was the game puck, pockmarked with scratches and with a different signature on each segment. Signed by the entire team. Glinda looked at it, her eyes shining with excitement.
“And as thanks for your contribution, they wanted you to keep this.”
“Are you kidding me?” she whispered, stunned.
“Not one bit. It seems being trampled by history has its benefits.”
Glinda held the disc with both hands as if it were a diamond.
"This... this is the closest I've ever come to marrying an object."
"I regret to inform you," Elphaba joked, "that the disc already has one of your teeth, so technically they're already joined."
Glinda ran her tongue over her teeth, frowned, and brought her hand to her mouth.
"No...! Not again...?"
"Oh, yes," Elphaba confirmed with undisguised amusement. "You lost the same tooth you had when you were a kid."
"What kind of curse do I have with this sport?"
"One of those cute ones, like the ones with stories to tell."
At that moment, a stadium photographer approached them, camera in hand and smile ready.
"A picture for the team nets?"
Glinda, still somewhat stunned, nodded. Elphaba crouched down beside her, while Nicky happily climbed onto the bench and settled in with her best sly smile. Glinda tried to cover her gap with her hand, but Elphaba stopped her, whispering, "Don't hide your smile. It's your trophy."
Glinda, blushing, thought for a second... and then smiled. Wide, honest, and gloriously imperfect. The click of the camera sealed the moment.
A woman with one missing tooth. A proud bride. And a nine-year-old demon with the face of an angel in between.
A family by accident, for a few hours. And a memory that would undoubtedly live forever.
A short time later, while the last echoes of the game still floated in the air, the crowd began to leave the stadium amid chants, laughter, and excited murmurs. Glinda and Elphaba remained at the main entrance, standing under one of the lit lampposts, waiting. Elphaba's face was tired, her hair disheveled, and her soul slightly at peace. Glinda, for her part, held the game puck with the reverence others reserved for sacred amulets… and with her other hand, she held little Nicky's.
The boy, with boundless energy and no hint of fatigue, threw questions into the air as if he were in a police interrogation:
"Why do you hit each other so much in hockey? What if someone falls on their skates? And how do you keep the ice from melting? Are you married? Or are you just girlfriends who kiss a lot?"
Elphaba responded with her usual sarcasm:
"Yes. No. Magic. And it's none of your business."
"Hey!" Nicky protested.
"Nanny, not a saint," Elphaba muttered under her breath.
Glinda, on the other hand, responded with infinite patience… although she had clearly begun to do so on automatic, uttering phrases like:
"Yes, yes. Everything has an explanation. I'm sure the players hydrate a lot. No, teeth don't grow back. Well, some do. No, I'm not a real princess. No, your mom isn't a witch, just a busy woman."
At that moment, Nicky turned her head and exclaimed, "Mom!"
The woman hurried over from the parking lot, visibly relieved to see her son whole and, surprisingly, still dressed. Nicky ran to her and threw herself into her arms with a tenderness that completely contrasted with her behavior that day.
"It was the best! It was the best thing ever! He saved me from being crushed to death! And then Glinda headed the puck! Like a toothless superhero!"
"Oh, please," Glinda murmured, blushing as she instinctively covered her mouth.
The mother bent down for a moment to adjust her son's cap, then walked over to the two women, smoothing her blazer with one hand and offering a grateful smile.
"I'm speechless," she said sincerely. "Honestly, thank you so much for looking after him. Did everything go... well?"
The two looked at each other for a split second. A long gaze, heavy with memories of the day, of screaming, chases, public restrooms, pucks in their faces, childhood traumas, and existential reconciliations.
"Perfect," Glinda said with a forced smile.
"Impeccable," Elphaba added, without blinking.
The woman laughed with a hint of guilt.
“Well, I feel bad for leaving you in such a storm. I’d like to at least make it up to you a little more. How about a little extra for your services?”
Elphaba raised an eyebrow. She was about to decline with a “no need, hell was free” kind of phrase… when Glinda, without flinching, raised a hand:
“We’ll accept it.”
Elphaba looked at her, incredulous. Glinda simply responded, tapping her empty gum:
“Do you know how much it costs to reinsert a front tooth these days?”
Her mother laughed as she handed over an envelope of cash, thanked them once more, and then returned to Nicky, who turned just before leaving.
He approached slowly, calmer than he had all day, and looked at them with an expression that, for once, was sincere.
“It was… fun. I guess.”
“That’s as close to a thank you as you’re going to get, right?” Elphaba asked.
"Possibly," he said, shrugging.
And without warning, he hugged Glinda one last time. She, surprised, returned the gesture tenderly.
"You're good caregivers," he whispered. "Although a bit loud."
Glinda laughed, touched.
"And you're a little monster. But at least you weren't boring."
They finally said goodbye. The boy moved away from his mother's hand, who was already on the phone, without looking back. When they disappeared into the crowd, Elphaba and Glinda stood for a moment longer, in that limbo between utter exhaustion and profound satisfaction.
Then Glinda let out a deep sigh, hugging the record to her chest as if protecting a war trophy.
"I can't believe I'm saying this... but I miss the historic bus."
Elphaba laughed, crossing her arms.
"I don't." At least today you gained a memory... and a new facial trauma.
They both laughed softly as they began walking back to the car, together again.
The night breeze caressed their faces as they walked arm in arm, slowly leaving the bustle of the stadium. Glinda still held her precious signed record as if it were a newborn of rubber and glory, while Elphaba, with tired but steady steps, followed by her side, attentive to the road... and to any unexpected comment.
"You know," Glinda said in a casual but planned tone, "about having children..."
Elphaba let out a dramatic groan, tilting her head back with the desperation of someone who's just come out of a war and found out there's a sequel in production.
"Again? Glinda, please, we've talked about this like five times today..."
Glinda smiled, calm, impassive.
"No, no, I just mean... I think you'd make an amazing mom."
Elphaba looked down, and although her face didn't soften completely, a hint of tenderness crept into the curve of her lips.
"Oh, yeah?" she said with false modesty. "Well, of course. I'd be the fun mom."
Glinda stopped dead in her tracks and looked at her, her eyebrow raised like a whip.
"Pardon?"
"Yeah, obviously," Elphaba continued mockingly. I'd be the laid-back mom, the one who lets the boy stay up late, teaches him how to throw rocks, helps him build catapults in the garden…
"And set things on fire!" Glinda interrupted, horrified. "No, no, no. I'd be the fun mom. You'd be the strict one, the one who gives half-hour lectures for leaving a wet towel on the bed."
"Because that's a domestic crime!"
"Because it's not fun!"
Elphaba looked at her with a mock-thoughtful expression.
"Who brought a rubber frog dressed as a princess to a hockey game?"
Glinda shrugged.
"Who almost hit a kid with a foam hand in a public restroom?"
The two of them looked at each other… and then burst out laughing.
As they got into the car, the debate changed tone.
"What if we had one?" "Glinda asked playfully, as she fastened her seatbelt. "What would we name him?"
Elphaba made a disgusted face, as if she'd been asked what she thought about calling a cat "Fluffy."
"Do you really want to talk about names?"
"Obviously."
"Well... nothing that ends in -ina or -ito."
"How lacking in spirit!" Glinda laughed. "So... do you like Lionel?"
"Are we having a baby or adopting a magician from Las Vegas?"
"And Lucinda?"
"She sounds like an evil chemistry teacher."
"Lazarus?"
"Sounds like he's going to die and come back to life once a season."
"Luca?"
"Mmmh... meh."
Glinda sighed, crossing her arms with a smile of surrendered patience.
"Well, all right. We'll think about it later."
"Much further ahead," Elphaba remarked, starting the engine.
"Maybe..." Glinda added as the car started up and the stadium lights faded behind her, "something that starts with 'L'. I don't know why, but I like it."
Elphaba finally smiled, with that small, honest, luminous curve that Glinda could read better than anyone.
And so, between headlights, the murmur of tires, and shared laughter, they continued their journey. A chaotic, stubborn, slightly traumatized couple… but absolutely united. And they formed a family that maybe, just maybe… could one day be bigger.
Far from the roar of the field, the euphoria of the crowd, and the glorious chaos that Glinda and Elphaba had experienced, the world was a different place.
Behind a massive mahogany desk, a man in an impeccable suit slowly swirled the contents of a glass of golden liquor, which sparkled like liquid fire in the dim light of an antique lamp. He gazed out the window at the city's nighttime horizon, impassive. Everything about his bearing, his calculated gestures, spoke of power, of control… and of a past that wasn't entirely buried.
The door opened without knocking. A swift-footed assistant with a measured voice entered, a tablet in her hand.
"Sir..." he said respectfully, stopping just a few feet from the desk. "We have something."
The man turned calmly. A gesture of his hand was enough. She approached and handed him the device. He took it without haste, and as soon as the screen lit up, an imperceptible smile crossed his face.
There, on the official Gillikin Panthers account, was the image he hadn't seen in a while: Elphaba, with a tired half-smile; Glinda, holding a signed record and missing a tooth; and between them, the little devil Nicky. A peculiar portrait... but unmistakable.
The man took a sip of liquor and placed the glass on the table with a sharp, precise sound. Then he looked up, still smiling.
"Get me everything. Place. Date. Route. I want to know every move. Every stop."
"Yes, Mr. Oz," the assistant replied with a slight nod before disappearing as quickly as she had arrived.
The man—Mr. Oz himself—stood silent, staring at the photograph once more. His eyes hardened slightly.
"So... the two are back in the public eye," he muttered to himself.
Then he turned off the screen and slowly turned his chair toward the window, gazing at the lights of a new city rising before him… and soon, before his long-awaited guests.
Notes:
Surprise! I was bored, so I decided to update the story. I hope you enjoy the episode. And as a fun fact, the Glinda hockey "incident" is based on a real incident that happened to Ariana Grande when she was young. I recommend you look it up.
And go ahead, the next episode will be... something different, you'll see.
Chapter 24: FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Five years ago...
The rain pounded the city with the fury of a summer storm gone mad. Drops pattered on the rooftops and slid like glittering threads through the fogged-up windows of the apartment complex. Amidst that curtain of water and wind, a solitary figure sped forward, covered in a black hooded sweatshirt that clung to her body like a sopping second skin. Her sneakers squelched through the puddles in the courtyard. She was breathing heavily, as if she'd been running for blocks.
The figure arrived in front of a third-floor door, a narrow, poorly painted door with the number 34 in dull bronze. She paused there, just for a second, just long enough to catch her breath. Then she whipped off her hood with a sharp swipe. Her black hair, wet and plastered to her temples, revealed the younger face of Elphaba Thropp. Her eyes were blazing, her lips pressed into a hard line, and her brow furrowed with a mixture of worry and anger. A face that didn't yet know all the battles that were to come, but had already grown accustomed to fighting.
"Dorothy!" she shouted, soaked, her voice cracking between fury and fear. "I know you're there! Open the damn door!"
From the other side, the music was loud. So loud it was hard to tell if it was coming from inside the apartment or if it had filtered in from somewhere else in the complex. A nostalgic, somewhat ancient melody, with lyrics that spoke of returning home. But distorted. Ruinous. As if each note was scratching the walls.
"Dorothy, please!" she knocked again. "You don't know what you've gotten yourself into! You need help! This isn't a game! This is real, and dangerous, and you... you're just a little girl, Dorothy!"
Her voice cracked as she said it. Elphaba leaned her forehead against the door, overcome with helplessness, her still-clenched fists dangling at her sides. The rain continued to pound relentlessly. The wood of the door didn't respond.
But inside, it did.
The apartment was a mess. The curtains were drawn, some furniture overturned, papers on the floor, books open like fallen bodies. In a corner, huddled between a fallen lamp and a pile of blankets, a young woman with tangled hair and cheeks reddened from crying was breathing raggedly, her head resting on her knees. Dorothy.
Her large, glassy eyes trembled even more than the reflection of the fallen lamp. Her chest rose and fell violently as the music drowned her out, not with volume, but with meaning. Outside, Elphaba's pounding continued like a parallel rain, even more painful than the previous one.
"You know nothing," Dorothy whispered, barely moving her lips.
And then something in her face changed. Her shoulders straightened, her gaze hardened. She no longer looked like a terrified child, but someone who had made a decision. A very wrong one.
Outside, Elphaba was still screaming, though her voice wasn't as loud. Or maybe it was because the rain was covering everything.
CHAPTER 24: Follow the yellow brick road
PRESENT DAY:
A honking horn woke her.
Dorothy Gale—now an adult, elegant, reserved—stood on a street corner in the city center. She wore an expensive coat, dark glasses that hid more than the sun, and a travel bag slung over her shoulder. Her hair hung like a perfectly arranged veil, her posture as straight as a column. But beneath that restrained surface, something vibrated. Something that hadn't died, something that perhaps never would.
She took a folded piece of paper from her inside coat pocket, worn with age. She unfolded it and read it silently. It was an old address. Then she looked up. The waiting yellow taxi had stopped in front of her.
She got in without a word.
The taxi door closed with a soft click. Dorothy Gale settled into the back seat, crossing one leg easily over the other as she placed her bag beside her. With a serene expression—and a confidence in his voice that seemed rehearsed—he gave the taxi driver the address without even looking at the vehicle's GPS. The driver, a middle-aged man wearing a faded jacket and holding a thermos of coffee, nodded with a slight grunt and started the car.
For the first few minutes, the silence was comfortable, barely interrupted by the soft purr of the engine and the distant murmur of a radio playing at low volume. But, like so many in his line of work, the driver couldn't resist the temptation to start a conversation for long.
"So you're going to that area?" he commented as he turned onto one of the city's most tree-lined avenues. "It's not every day you take such a young girl to that part of town. Business or pleasure?"
Dorothy turned her face slightly toward him, keeping her dark glasses as an elegant barrier between her real expression and the world. She smiled.
"That particular building," she clarified in a light but firm tone, pointing her index finger at the exact address on the vehicle's system.
The taxi driver whistled softly.
"Wow, that's one of the most exclusive complexes in the city. Are you an actress? A model?" He laughed to himself. "Or one of those new influencers coming out of TikTok?"
Dorothy let out a light laugh, as if she found the assumption both adorable and wrong.
"Nothing like that," she replied, letting her Midwestern accent slip with a hint of irony through her words. "I don't live there. I'm visiting... I came to see someone."
That seemed to leave more questions than answers. The driver, far from holding back, suddenly feigned thoughtfulness.
"Can I guess? Texas? Oregon? Hmm... Montana?"
"Kansas," she replied with a smile that seemed made for that exact moment. "But I haven't lived there in a while." I've been traveling a lot. Back and forth.
"So Kansas..." the driver repeated, as if a nostalgic lightbulb had just gone off. "He says that as if it were an eternity ago."
"It was for me," Dorothy said, now looking out the window, watching the tall buildings and shop lights pass by as if they were scenes from a movie she'd already seen.
There was a brief silence before the driver spoke again, now with a little more courtesy in his tone.
"First time in the city?"
"Yes, officially," she said, taking off her glasses for a moment and cleaning them with her coat sleeve. "Although I've been here for a few weeks now. It's a monster of a city, but you learn to dance with chaos. I'm adapting quickly."
"Impressive," the cabbie admitted. "Although, if you've been here so long, why are you only now seeing that person?" Dorothy lowered her gaze for a moment, as if pondering what version of the truth to offer to the man with whom she shared just a few minutes of travel.
"I tried," she confessed. "Since I got here, actually. But... he never seems to be home. Or he doesn't want to be. Anyway, today I have a hunch. Today's the day. It has to be."
The driver didn't reply. He just nodded somewhat gravely as he turned onto the avenue.
"Good luck, then," he said, almost like a mantra.
Dorothy put her glasses back on, hiding a spark of emotion that betrayed her for a second. She settled back in her seat and looked up at the sky between the buildings.
"Thank you," she murmured. "I think I'm going to need it."
The taxi abruptly turned a corner, almost brushing against the face of a red-haired young man who was crossing with a dangerous synchronicity between chaos and habit. The car didn't stop. It didn't even slow down. But Boq, whose hands had barely touched a few papers, didn't seem surprised.
"No, no!" “I said the lighting installation has to be ready today!” he bellowed into the phone, holding a cup of coffee in one hand, a half-closed folder in the other, and his cell phone balanced between his ear and shoulder. “Because tonight is the grand opening, Mr. Ackerley. Remember? Grand opening? Lights? Music? Wealthy people with expectations?”
He turned the next corner with a hurried step, dodging a couple of tourists who were consulting a physical map as if it were 1997. Coffee spilled on his shirt as he quickened his pace. There was something of an urban juggler about his gait, someone who didn't expect life to get easy, but who had learned to dodge the inevitable with a precision that only exhaustion can bestow.
His path was suddenly interrupted. Upon reaching the main street of his usual route, he came across an immense chain-link fence, decorated with warning signs, orange cones, and a blinking digital sign that read: "Work in progress. Sorry for the inconvenience. Estimated completion time: indefinite."
Boq snorted. He slowly lowered the phone from his ear, as if needing a moment to grieve. He looked up.
On the other side of the fence, amid rusted structures and neglected scaffolding, stood what had once been one of Shiz.Corp's former headquarters. The sign still hung, crooked, like a shameful relic. The windows were boarded up, the facade eaten away by neglect and indifference. It was one of the many skeletons the city hadn't yet bothered to fully bury. A silent monument to the system that had collapsed... or pretended to have reformed.
Boq watched it for a moment, motionless. Nostalgia wasn't his thing, but even he could recognize ruins when he saw them staring at him. What struck him most wasn't the decay, but the fact that no one seemed to notice it anymore. They drove past the building as if it were part of the urban scenery, as if it had never contained so much power.
A horn made him jump.
He shook his head, adjusted his glasses, which had nearly slipped down his nose, and picked up the phone again.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm here. Sorry, you got cut off for a second." He paused as he turned onto an alternate route. "Look, Mr. Ackerley, if the lighting isn't ready, the cabaret won't be ready either. And if the cabaret isn't ready, Fiyero is going to use me as his comedy act for opening night. And you know what the worst part is? People are going to love it!"
On the other end of the phone, the contractor's voice stuttered a promise. Boq accepted it with the professional distrust of someone who has heard every excuse in the world at least twice.
He continued on his way with renewed urgency, the echo of his footsteps fading into the sounds of a city still adjusting to its new era, where progress and collapse shared a path.
But while Boq argued with the sixteenth contractor of the day and crossed another avenue without looking, his small figure went unnoticed in front of one of the city's most opulent buildings, a tower of mirrors and white marble where the water from the fountains inside probably cost more than the rent for half a block.
At the top of the building, in a penthouse whose terrace faced the sunrise as if it belonged to him, a man contemplated himself in front of a gilded mirror with the dedication of someone who had transformed himself into his own masterpiece. Sir Brrr, a gentleman to himself and a jester by vocation, adjusted the lapel of his wine-colored suit, decorated with a flower as absurd as it was elegant. He ran two fingers through his perfectly wavy hair while humming a jazz tune as if it were the prologue to an act that was about to begin... or fall apart.
Behind him, wrapped in a black silk robe and with the nerves of someone with too much to lose, stood the apartment owner: a man in his forties, tanned, athletic, married. He watched Brrr with a mixture of desire and desperation.
"Are you leaving already?" he asked, as if hoping otherwise.
Brrr smiled at the reflection, as if he knew exactly which note to play to elicit a laugh... or an existential crisis.
"Am I leaving already? Honey, if you had treated me like that last night, maybe I'd stay for breakfast," he said with a smile that was half mockery, half tenderness. "But don't worry, I'm not going to steal your decanter; you already gave me your dignity last night."
"It's not that, it's just... it's late, and... she might arrive."
"She." Brrr raised an eyebrow. "The spectral pronoun that always appears after climax and before breakfast. Your wife, lover, mother, image manager?"
"My wife," the man whispered, swallowing.
"Wonderful! The classic one. So, do I hide behind the curtains like in a vaudeville or jump out the window like a teenage lover?" Brrr asked as he twirled around, pointing out possible escape routes as if he were showing emergency exits.
"Don't be ridiculous, go to the bathroom! Quickly, before—"
But it was too late.
The penthouse door swung open. Heels clanged like gunshots on the marble floor.
"WHERE IS SHE?!" thundered a female voice that had been practicing the art of demanding the truth without asking permission for years.
The man's face drained of color.
—Oh, no no no no no...
Brrr, without losing his dandy-caught-in-a-farce demeanor, he said goodbye with a dramatic bow and slipped into the bathroom. Just before closing the door, he muttered:
—And to think I refused to do classical theater to avoid scenes like this...
From his hiding place in the marble and Egyptian linen towels, he heard the performance begin.
—WHAT'S ALL THIS?!—the woman screamed, storming into the room in Chanel.
—Darling, this isn't what it looks like...
—Oh, no? So what is it? A rehearsal for your next play about cheating idiots?
Brrr raised a hand to his face, half amused and half resigned. He looked at the bathroom window, considering whether he still had enough flexibility to get through it. Then he shook his head: he wasn't twenty-two anymore, and his suit was too expensive to die from a fall.
While he searched for a way out of this situation, which, let's face it, he himself had turned into art, his wife's voice continued to echo through the walls, and her lover tried to juggle words to sustain a lie that had already imploded.
The woman seemed about to cross the threshold into the bathroom, her index finger firm as a dagger of judgment, her lips tense and trembling with suppressed fury. The man, caught between his lie and the unmistakable scent of disaster, managed to stammer out a plea with the clumsiness of someone trying to defuse a bomb with boxing gloves.
"Love... please. Listen to me for a second."
She looked at him with a mixture of disbelief and theatrical hatred. But, as if by miracle or simple emotional exhaustion, he took a step back.
From inside the bathroom, Brrr let out a textured sigh of relief: long, aromatic, and with the dramatic vibration of an actor who has just survived the third act.
He heard the footsteps fade, the heels taper, and then, with the grace of a panther leaving the dressing room, he opened the bathroom door.
"Thank the muses of the theater for another closed act," he murmured as he smoothed the lapel of his jacket.
The man looked at him as if he were seeing a ghost from the future come to remind him of his mistakes.
"You have to go. Now. I'm begging you, before..."
"All right, all right," he raised his hands, not losing a single bit of irony. "I'm leaving now, before I become part of the decor."
But just as Brrr opened the hallway door to slip out gracefully, it opened from the other side, and there she was. The woman. This time with a piece of lingerie in her hand.
"Who the hell wore MY underwear last night?!"
Silence.
Brrr was stunned. The man paled. The air filled with electricity and lace stockings.
"Good morning, ma'am. Wonderful taste in lace, by the way. Sublime elasticity."
The man, now paler than the robe he was wearing, mumbled something that could have been "not what it looks like," but even he didn't believe it anymore.
And then the volcano erupted.
"GET OUT! YOU DAMN WRETCH! YOU DESTROYED MY MARRIAGE, MY SHEETS, AND MY LINGERIE DRAWER!"
What followed was a scene as chaotic and choreographed as a disaster opera: the woman threw pillows, photo frames, a Murano vase (which Brrr caught and returned with a bow), all while he dodged projectiles with the grace of a tango dancer in the midst of an emotional ambush.
"I'm taking my dignity and this last shred of sanity!" Brrr shouted as he crossed the door into the hallway.
"And you're taking my damn designer towel too!"
"Oh, it was yours! Such impeccable taste," he managed to say before dropping it on the floor with a mock bow.
As soon as he reached the elevator, he pressed the button with theatrical impatience, while in the background he heard breaking glass and phrases like "You're going to regret this!" mixed with insults in several languages.
When the doors finally closed, Brrr took a deep breath. He sighed. He straightened his tie. He took a gold comb from his inside jacket pocket and combed his hair again with the precision of a plastic surgeon.
The elevator descended.
Once outside, the city greeted him with its usual chaos. Elphaba would have frowned. Glinda would have fanned herself in boredom. Brrr, on the other hand, spread his arms as if greeting his invisible audience.
"Ah, fresh air and new opportunities for scandal," he murmured, satisfied.
He walked elegantly to the corner, where an elderly man was reading his newspaper. With a slight flick of the wrist and a charming smile, Brrr pointed toward the opposite sidewalk.
"Excuse me, is that... isn't that the Queen of England?" he asked.
The man turned around. No one was there. When he turned around again, his newspaper was already in the hands of the long-haired trickster.
"Thank you, my lord," Brrr said without breaking stride, unfolding the pages with a triumphant rustle.
And just when he thought the scene was over, a frame containing a wedding photo flew out of the twentieth-floor window, crashing onto the sidewalk just behind him. A group of pedestrians screamed. Brrr didn't even blink.
"Too baroque for my taste," he muttered, without breaking stride.
As Sir Brrr ambled down the sidewalk reading his newspaper with a mixture of sarcasm, elegance, and learned disdain, a huge truck roared past him, kicking up a cloud of dust and the chemical scent of fresh paint. Brrr raised an eyebrow, annoyed, but didn't slow down or slow down his reading. On the front page of the paper, the lead story was about the city's labor disputes; He flipped through it as if reading horoscopes.
"I read... 'Avoid troubled relationships and don't lock yourself in the married men's bathroom.' Too late for that," he murmured, turning the corner with the grace of a spoiled cat.
The truck, meanwhile, stopped at an intersection barely marked by yellow danger tape and dusty cones. The building it was approaching was imposing: a cross between a forgotten art deco theater and the promise of a new era. It still retained the mystery of its decadent history, but the facade was beginning to transform, as was its purpose. Above it hung a new sign, still covered by a red tarp, its gold letters barely protruding as if whispering from the past: Kiamo Ko.
At the rear of the building, the gates opened with a metallic screech. Two employees got out of the truck and began dragging three enormous dark wooden crates, marked with seals that warned: "Fragile. Contains bottled luxury." The morning rain was still evaporating on the asphalt, creating a steamy effect that made the alley look like the entrance to a stylized underworld.
The back door opened as if waiting for the spectacle, and a figure strode forward, wearing a perfectly tailored satin black blazer, shiny patent leather stilettos, and a clipboard decorated with glittery stickers that read "You Better Work" and "Invoice This, Bitch."
The Wiz—the peerless drag queen, Fiyero's personal assistant, and multitasking queen of logistical chaos—appeared with the solemnity of a royal accountant but the drama of a showbiz diva.
"Three crates? I said four." She checked the list with a frown, while one of the sweaty employees nodded blankly. Where's the limited-edition Wild Rose-scented Absinthe? That one was going to the Lounge Room!
The employees exchanged glances.
"They left it in the truck, I think," one said, swallowing.
"Well, go ahead and get it, and if anything happens to it, you'll be watching me sing "Careless Whisper" so loud your ears will bleed, you hear me?"
The two nodded and ran off. Wiz turned on his heel and headed deeper into the club, moving from the storage room to the beating heart of the place.
Beyond the service corridor, Kiamo Ko was beginning to breathe. The lights were already set up, the sound crackled in rehearsals, and the scent of new leather mingled with vanilla incense. In the center of the main room, lit by a restored chandelier with green crystals, rose the stage with a metal structure that looked half art installation, half cyberpunk burlesque cage.
And in the middle of the stage, standing like a captain on the verge of sinking, was Fiyero.
The stage looked like a failed orgy between performance art and industrial production. Fiyero stood in the center, his face sweaty and his shirt stuck to his back as he tried to explain to an acrobat in a harness and a dominatrix with a laser whip that no, they shouldn't perform the aerial inversion over the light show floor, and that yes, they should practice the part where they simulated a boundary negotiation before the midair suspension.
—No, no! First the consent, then the flight! Didn't anyone read the script?!?
At that precise moment, Wiz appeared next to the stage like a spirit of efficiency and irony, holding the phone with two fingers as if disgusted, but with the composure of a five-star concierge.
—Fiyero, your sugar daddy.
—My what?
—Your only investor, he corrected with a fake smile as he slid the device into her hand.
Fiyero snorted, turned, and took a step back, putting the phone to his ear and instantly changing his voice to a softer, almost enthusiastic tone.
—Higmuster! Nice to meet you! How is that great benefactor of alternative nightlife?
Higmuster Upland's voice erupted from the receiver like the horn of a polite Rolls-Royce: slow, intense, and full of geriatric enthusiasm.
—Fiyero, son! I was here sipping a vermouth and soda on the balcony and thought of you. How's everything going there at the... what was it like... that Kuma Ko?
"Kiamo Ko, yes sir, a gem of a club. Everything's moving forward... with speed and spirit."
Fiyero spoke with a tense smile while in the background an actor began to cry because they'd lost his trusty whip, and Wiz arrived with more papers. She shoved them mercilessly in Fiyero's face.
"About the fire inspector, the insurance, and the performer with a latex allergy," Wiz whispered.
"Yes, yes, yes..." Fiyero said into the phone and to Wiz at the same time, signing without reading and signaling the actors to resume rehearsals.
Higmuster carried on as if nothing had happened, delighted by the sound of his own voice.
"I was telling you, I love being able to contribute to the community. You do what you can with the family fortune, right? And this financing... what did you call it?" An “immersive sensory experience of consensual eroticism”? It seems… modern to me. Although I still don't quite understand the theme yet…
“It is… a sensory experience,” Fiyero replied, trying not to look at one of the acrobats unwinding a rope upside down. “A fusion of physical expression, alternative aesthetics, and emotional release through… aerial structures and… ethical consensus.”
Wiz, who was listening at his side while reviewing a list of issues on his clipboard, raised an eyebrow and muttered:
“You said ‘ethical consensus’ out loud. It’s coming out worse than I thought.”
Fiyero gave him a dirty look as Highmuster continued his monologue:
“I love it. I love that young people like you are creating unique spaces. Did you know I once invested in a nude gym in Milwaukee? It never took off; people didn’t want to lift weights with so much eye contact, but I learned that sometimes the eccentric is what leaves the biggest mark.” Fiyero nodded as if he understood everything, while Wiz simultaneously handed him a sheet of paper that said, "The sound system burned out again." Fiyero gave a thumbs-up without looking.
"Well, Fiyero, I won't take up any more of your time. I see you've got a lot on your plate. I don't want to seem like a nosy old fart," the investor said with a nasal chuckle.
"Not at all, not at all. It's always an honor to receive your... wise words. We're going to give you a show that will make history."
"I hope so! And don't forget my panoramic view box! I want to see everything! Everything, okay?"
Fiyero paled slightly.
"Sure, everything. Every... inch. See you tonight, Highmuster."
"Success, champ!"
Fiyero hung up, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Then he handed the phone back to Wiz.
"Tell me the dominatrix stopped hitting the acrobat with the whip."
Wiz flipped through his clipboard.
"No. But she's doing it in the right rhythm now. Progress."
Fiyero put his hands on his waist.
"God. Or Highmuster. Or whoever's listening. I just need to make it through tonight alive. I'm not asking for more."
But the young entrepreneur's peace was short-lived. "Another call, boss," Wiz said, not looking up from the tablet he was holding in one hand while with the other he signaled for them to stop rehearsing with real oil on the stage.
"Another? Who now?" Fiyero practically shouted from the floor, where he was on his knees picking up one of the leather bollards that had rolled down the stairs.
"Your lawyer. Well, your unofficial lawyer." Wiz handed him the phone like someone offering a bomb wrapped in cellophane.
Fiyero sighed deeply, accepted the device, and leaned his forehead against a padded column in the set.
"Tell me it's not bad news."
"Good news, my harried grayish hummingbird of law!" Tibbett said on the other end in his deep, soft, and always slightly ironic voice. "I just reviewed the contracts. All of them. The security contract, the drinks contract, the live music contract, even the one for the polyamorous performer who refuses to sign with her real name. Everything is in order. Legally speaking, tonight is possible."
Fiyero collapsed on his back with a sigh of relief.
"Tibbett, you give me life. You're my hero for the day. My patron saint of small print."
"Don't deify me so quickly, Crope makes me do the dishes if I get too carried away."
"He does it anyway!" Crope's high, melodious voice drifted in the background, amid laughter. "He does it with lace gloves so he doesn't ruin his cuticles."
"Shhh, my burning jasmine," Tibbett responded affectionately, and returned to the phone. "We're on our way to the apartment now. We'll grab breakfast and pick up the mail. If we don't call you back in a while, it's because Crope convinced the concierge to voguing with him."
"The final battle in the lobby belongs to me!" Crope shouted.
"See you tonight, Fiyero. Don't die before then."
"I'll do my best."
The call disconnected, and the scene shifted to the Lumen Heights Building, one of the most imposing complexes in the city's luxury district. It shone with that sterile splendor typical of buildings that seem built only for influencers and millionaires allergic to human heat.
Tibbett and Crope walked through the revolving doors with uncoordinated elegance: Tibbett dressed like a noir lawyer in a three-piece suit and sunglasses, while Crope wore a bright orange tunic and platform sandals that made a marimba sound with every step.
"I'll never understand why you don't like it when I speak to the doorman in verse," Tibbett whispered in his charming voice.
"Because not everyone is ready for a Greek tragedy-style greeting at nine in the morning, love."
They arrived at the reception desk, where the concierge handed them a couple of envelopes containing the day's mail. While they waited for a few more packages, they both settled into the lobby armchairs as if they were part of the usual furniture. "You know what hasn't happened in a while?" Tibbett said, opening a letter that didn't belong to her just to see if it was interesting.
"An emotional apocalypse caused by our neighbors?"
"Exactly!" she squealed with delight. "Where are Elphaba and Glinda? Why haven't they sent any smoke signals, existential selfies, or a postcard with a veiled threat?"
"I have no idea." Crope crossed his legs with dignity. "At this point, I don't know if they're on a spiritual retreat, a dramatic fight, or shooting a clandestine movie."
"I say they're on a lesbian road trip of self-discovery and chaos."
"Still?"
"Is there another kind?"
They looked at each other and laughed, just as the doorman returned with their boxes and asked if they wanted him to carry them. Tibbett jumped up, hung theatrically from one of the packages, and said,
"Thank you, noble man of marble and routine! We'll go up with honor!"
Crope simply bowed politely.
"Thank you, Manuel. Good coffee today."
And together they walked toward the elevator.
"Shall we water the black violets or let them dry out as a passive-aggressive warning?" Crope asked, idly flipping through a postcard with a picture of a lake impossible to locate on a map.
"Dry out. Definitely dry out. Elphaba always said she wanted plants that 'speak for her.' Nothing says 'I'm back' like a bitterly wilted orchid," Tibbett replied in his usual tone, like a Shakespearean actor trapped in an urban comedy.
They were both leaning against the lobby counter, waiting for the elevator to arrive, when a nearby presence caught their attention. A young woman stood up with a friendly gesture, her sunglasses still on despite being indoors, and a smile that seemed too confident to be entirely genuine.
"Forgive me for interrupting... Do you know Elphaba?" Dorothy asked, her voice sweet but with an intonation that betrayed that she already knew the answer and was just waiting for confirmation.
Tibbett and Crope exchanged glances. A microsecond of exchanged glances was enough to assess everything from her hairstyle to her type of footwear and conclude, without speaking, that the girl was an enigma dressed as a charming teenager.
"Yes," Tibbett finally answered, his smile sharper than it seemed at first glance. "We consider ourselves her unofficially sanctioned neighbors and best friends."
"And her occasional household angels," Crope added in a honeyed voice. "Why do you ask?"
Dorothy tilted her head, as if choosing her words with surgical delicacy.
"I've been looking for her for a while. I know she lives here... or at least that's what this address says. But I've been here several times, and she never seems to be there." Crope raised an eyebrow, letting the silence speak for him. Tibbett wasn't so subtle.
"Well, that makes sense. Elphaba and Glinda are out of town. They took a... how shall I put it? Vacation not authorized by calendar or logic."
"Vacation?" Dorothy repeated, and for a moment the mask of the charming young lady cracked slightly, revealing a shadow of disappointment on her face. "Well. That explains a few things."
"Do you want us to leave a message?" Crope asked, crossing his arms, in that amiable tone cats use before attacking a lamp.
Dorothy smiled gently, shaking her head.
"No, no need. I'm sure we'll run into each other. I'm in no hurry."
"Oh, of course," Tibbett said, though inside he was already assigning her a code and a color in his mental game of domestic spying. "And you say you're...?"
"An old acquaintance," she replied, still smiling, just as an elderly couple passed between them as if the tension couldn't be cut with a knife but with an ice cream spoon.
For a moment, the hall fell silent.
"An old acquaintance," Crope repeated, swirling the words around like a wine he couldn't quite trust.
"Yes. From her hometown. I owe her a chat from then on," Dorothy added, lowering her glasses just enough to reveal bright, curious... and dangerously alert eyes. "But don't worry, I won't do anything she doesn't want me to do."
And before they could return the courtesy or ask any more questions, Dorothy said goodbye with a small, mocking bow and walked briskly toward the revolving door. As the revolving door slid behind her, Dorothy could still hear, like an echo that refused to die, the high-pitched voices of Tibbett and Crope arguing with each other with the electric complicity of a couple who have had the same conversation hundreds of times and never tire of it. That exchange of velvet-wrapped knives was interrupted when Tibbett's voice reached her from the hall:
"Excuse me! Miss... one second..."
Dorothy turned slowly, slightly backlit. Her smile blossomed again, serene and charming, as if she weren't a lonely young woman crossing an unfamiliar city in search of a ghost.
Tibbett approached, with the slightly trembling warmth of someone offering tea so they don't have to ask difficult questions right away.
"I was just thinking... if you're not in a hurry, you could join us for breakfast. Perhaps... we could talk a little more about Elphaba. Perhaps we could find a way to help her. Or help you understand her." Dorothy looked at him for a moment, as if assessing the situation, weighing possibilities. And then, with an almost imperceptible nod, she agreed.
Minutes later, she found herself sitting cross-legged in the large but cozy living room of Crope and Tibbett's apartment. A minimalist fish tank bubbled gently to the side, and on a glass coffee table sat three cups, two plates of croissants, and a box of tarot cards, open and half-explored, as if abandoned in the middle of a prediction that was too disturbing.
"Sugar? Lemon? Both? Or do you prefer a taste of mystery?" Tibbett asked from the small kitchenette, stirring with theatrical enthusiasm.
"Lemon, please," Dorothy replied sweetly, her eyes scanning the walls decorated with art portraits, theatrical masks, and an old photo of Elphaba with both men, all three of them dressed up for a private detective-themed party.
Crope sat across the room, a cup resting on his knee, his eyes fixed on Dorothy, like a cat assessing that mouse for poison.
"So... an old friend of Elphaba's," he commented, his voice soft and gentle, as if he were removing a bandage without touching the wound.
"I think so," Dorothy said with a smile. She raised the cup gracefully, as if it were part of a learned ritual. "Although I'm not sure she thinks the same."
"And how long has it been since you last saw each other?" Crope asked, almost matter-of-factly.
"Five years. Or six. Depending on how you measure such things," she replied, looking down at her tea. "Some goodbyes drag on like a bad song that never quite ends."
Tibbett appeared with a tray of jams and biscuits, completely delighted to have a new audience. He was unaware (or choosing to ignore) that in this scene he wasn't the host but the target.
"It must be hard to be away from someone like that," he said, sitting down next to Crope. "We miss her a lot when she's gone."
"Does she go away often?" Dorothy asked with feigned innocence, raising an eyebrow. "I was wondering if this trip was common or... unusual."
"She's been more restless these past few months," Crope chimed in cautiously. "But it's not exactly a vacation. It's a trip of... rediscovery."
"Rediscovery?" Dorothy repeated, savoring the word.
“Love, self-discovery, trauma, problems with the AFIP… the usual,” Tibbett joked, letting out a giggle.
Dorothy laughed too, and for a moment she seemed relaxed. But Crope wasn’t distracted. There was something sharp in the way she followed every word, every gesture.
“And what is she like now?” the young woman asked casually. “Is she still as… difficult as she was before?”
“Difficult is an unfair word,” Tibbett replied tenderly.
“She’s passionate. And complicated. And stubborn. And brilliant,” Crope added, slowly lowering his cup. “You know her, don’t you? That’s how she was then too, I suppose.”
“She was,” Dorothy said, this time with a more wistful smile. “And perhaps… more.”
There was a silence.
Tibbett leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.
“Forgive me for asking so bluntly, but… why now?” Dorothy wasn't startled. Her reply was as smooth as a sharp knife:
"Because I wasn't ready before. And because now... maybe she is."
Crope narrowed his eyes.
"Ready for what?"
"For us to meet again. To close what was left open. Or open what was never closed," Dorothy replied, taking a last sip of her tea. "But well... that all depends on whether I can find her."
And then, without breaking the spell, she changed the subject.
"And you? How did you meet?"
Tibbett didn't need an invitation to launch into an anecdote, especially one about his beloved friend Elphaba. No sooner had Dorothy politely mentioned how much she was interested in hearing more about her than he was already settling more comfortably in his armchair, crossing his legs and gesticulating with a spoon as he spoke as if relating a saga of impossible adventures.
"Well, we first met her two or three years ago." It was one of those absurd nights, remember, Crope? She'd just moved into the building when she wanted to file a formal complaint about the noise coming from one of the apartments below. Of course, no one paid attention until we found her in the lobby yelling various truths at a poor, pimply-faced young man who had the misfortune of working the night shift that day; he looked like he was about to explode.
"A breakdown," Crope corrected with a crooked smile. "And I think she would have been kicked out of the building that very night if we hadn't intervened on her behalf... although you only did so because you loved the boots she was wearing."
"Nice details!" Tibbett exclaimed, flapping a hand. "The point is, we liked each other. I mean, she doesn't show it much, but Elphaba has this... quiet, bitter, completely charming way of telling you she appreciates you. In her own way."
Dorothy smiled and nodded, but something in her eyes revealed a delicate disconnect. Her interest seemed to hover over the words, more out of politeness than emotion, as if she'd heard hundreds of versions of "how Elphaba stalked into someone's life and messed it up like a philosophical hurricane."
But then Tibbett said,
"Of course, it wasn't until he met Glinda that everything... changed."
And then it happened. Barely perceptible, a slight movement on Dorothy's face: an eyebrow that arched, her lips that slightly tightened, her eyes that for the first time stopped looking through the cup and fixed, precisely, on Tibbett.
"Glinda?" she asked gently.
"Oh, yes," Crope replied, with a warning glance at his partner's growing enthusiasm. "His... erm... partner. Or girlfriend. Or eternal nemesis turned love of his life. There are many valid terms."
"And no label is enough," Tibbett added, as if reciting a phrase from a romantic postcard. "They're like one of those couples who argue about whether it's raining even though they're both dripping wet. Intense. Unpredictable. Insurmountable."
Dorothy lowered the cup onto its saucer with almost ceremonial slowness. Her smile reappeared, brighter this time. And sharper.
"I had no idea Elphaba was in a relationship," she said. "For a long time?"
"Depends on how you measure time," Crope said. "They've been on an emotional swing for over a year. They broke up, got back together, reunited in the middle of the end of the world, that sort of thing."
"Oh, I love stories like that," Dorothy said, leaning forward a little with genuine interest, as if the room had suddenly regained its oxygen. "And they're together now?"
Tibbett nodded, smiling broadly.
"Yes, like we said, they're on a trip, a romantic road trip. They packed their bags and hit the open road like two teenagers escaping the world. Although... they're probably more at the kill-the-other-for-forgetting-to-charge-the-GPS stage."
"Romantic," Dorothy repeated, almost as a sigh.
Her voice was sweet, but her eyes weren't. Crope noticed. And for the first time, she exchanged a fleeting glance with Tibbett. Something clicked on his radar.
Tibbett was still rambling on about a story involving an attempted community play, an escape artist goat, and a legal misunderstanding, when her uncontrollable verbosity accidentally mentioned Fiyero. But that was enough.
"Fiyero?" Dorothy repeated, her voice slightly higher than usual, as if she were chewing on the word.
Crope, who had kept one eyebrow permanently raised ever since the young woman crossed the threshold, looked at her closely.
"Do you know him?"
Dorothy shook her head with that mixture of sincerity and calculation that only certain people can achieve without flinching.
"No," she said. "But Elphaba mentioned him a couple of times... in the past. She said he was... someone close to her at the university." Tibbett snapped his fingers gleefully, delighted to have made a useful connection.
"Ah, then maybe he could help you! Fiyero's known her for years, though right now he's a bit... how do I put it? Crazy."
"Oh, yeah?"
"He's starting a nightclub. BDSM, themed, modern, edgy... Everything a young entrepreneur needs to go viral or in demand. It's called Kiamo Ko. It opens tonight, in fact."
"A club...?" Dorothy feigned surprise, though not too much.
"A club," Crope repeated, gauging the reaction with narrowed eyes. "Very exclusive, for now. But if you're interested in finding Fiyero, and through him, perhaps, getting in touch with Elphaba... that's where he'll be."
Dorothy nodded slowly. She tucked her hair behind her ear, took a small notebook out of her bag, and made a straightforward note of the club's name. The quill glided with an almost practiced fluidity. Then she smiled gratefully.
"I really don't know how to thank you."
"Such a lovely breakfast is reward enough," Tibbett said proudly.
But Crope wasn't smiling. He was watching Dorothy as if she'd already solved a riddle, but didn't want to reveal the answer yet.
A few more minutes of superficial conversation passed, some laughter more forced than others, until finally Dorothy stood up. She said goodbye with an impeccable handshake, her smile as perfectly measured as the perfume she left in her wake.
When the door closed behind her, the silence lasted longer than usual.
"Did you see?" Tibbett said finally as he collected the cups. "A lovely young woman."
"Hmm," Crope grunted, without moving from his chair.
"What?"
"I don't know..." he said, frowning. "There's something I can't quite put my finger on."
"Could it be that someone was outdone in charisma by a stranger for the first time in years?"
"Ha ha," Crope replied sarcastically. "I'm just saying he came looking for Elphaba, but he was more interested in Glinda and their relationship. He didn't ask where Elphaba was, or when she'd be back. He wanted to know who she was with, what she looked like, and how long she'd been with him. And when we said 'Fiyero,' he jotted down that name like it was the key to the National Treasure."
Tibbett paused for a second, holding the teapot in the air. He thought about it. He sighed.
"What if she just... wants answers?"
"Or revenge?" Crope suggested, his voice lower, deeper.
"Revenge?"
"Did you see the way she moved? As if nothing in this city could touch her. Not the traffic, not our questions. As if she already knew how to navigate all this, and we were just another square on her board."
Tibbett looked at him, and for the first time all morning, he had no immediate answer.
Crope sighed.
"Maybe I'm not saying she's dangerous. Just... interesting."
Tibbett looked at him out of the corner of his eye, half amused, half uneasy.
"You say that about everyone who ends up being dangerous."
And from the window, unaware she was being watched, Dorothy walked away down the street, her tiny silhouette amid the bustle of the city.
The notebook in her hand was still open. On the sheet of paper, three words:
Glinda. Kiamo Ko. Midnight.
As the distant murmur of the club began to come alive, the heartbeat before the chaos of a big night, high up in the building—in a small, windowless office with more paperwork than square footage—Boq was buried in invoices, tax projections, and what could only be described as a metaphorical threat disguised as an insurance contract. A forgotten cup of coffee lay next to the monitor, marking a dark circle over the latest quarterly balance sheet.
The door opened without a knock.
"If you come with more problems," Boq said without looking, "please disguise them with flowers."
But it wasn't flowers that came in. It was Fiyero.
He appeared with his signature jacket barely unbuttoned, his hair disheveled at that exact point between "bohemian glamour" and "I slept for five more minutes," and a smile that already had lines of worry etched around the edges. Her gait was still elegant, but there was something new about it: a kind of weariness… with emotional mascara.
"I'm escaping Wiz," she said as if speaking of a force of nature. "If he sees me again, he'll lock me in the VIP bathroom with the caterers to decide how many oysters are too tempting."
"And you thought this was a good hiding place?" Boq replied without raising his head, flipping him a sheet of paper. "This is where trouble comes to breed."
Fiyero sat down at the desk, accepted the paper, and scanned it without understanding. His fingers tapped against the wooden surface with a nervous cadence.
"Is this... good?"
"Not if you don't want to mortgage your soul," Boq replied. "Whatever you signed with Highmuster, I hope it includes clauses for when the deal fails in style."
Fiyero laughed, but the sound was brief, almost hollow.
“No one opens a business thinking of failing, Boq. Tonight is the night. Today can happen... anything.”
Boq looked at him, as if assessing how deep his faith in “anything” was.
“You hired half of old Ozdust’s staff,” he said with a mixture of irony and resignation. “Half out of loyalty, half out of guilt. It’s a nice gesture... but I don’t know if having three hosts for a room that barely exists is viable.”
“Yeah, well…” Fiyero shrugged. “I’d rather be an overworked employer than a successful traitor.”
“That’s not exactly what the business manual says,” Boq muttered. “And I’m still surprised the city would approve something like this. Especially after the last few months.”
Fiyero looked up. For a second, his face hardened.
“The city approves whatever the money tells them is right,” he said, with no trace of sarcasm. And having Highmuster Upland stamp his last name on your forms… well, it works wonders.
Boq nodded. He knew it was true. No one else would have managed to open a boutique BDSM club with a neo-baroque aesthetic and theatrical performances after a wave of political reforms that nearly criminalized alternative spaces.
"Now that you mention it," he said cautiously, "have you spoken to your parents lately?"
Silence.
The question hung in the air, awkward like a whip that no one asked for.
Fiyero looked away toward the window. From there, part of the neon sign advertising Kiamo Ko could be seen in wavy letters, not yet fully lit. A symbol, still unlit.
"No," he finally said, almost in a whisper. "It's been months. I guess they're not very interested in your son's 'non-traditional' business ventures."
Boq didn't answer. He knew that phrase was one of the many ways Fiyero protected himself. Beneath the pose of a wayward nobleman, beneath the carefully crafted rebellion, lay a much older wound. One that neither leather, nor performance art, nor financial backing could fully cover.
"Well," Boq said with a wry smile. "If everything goes well today, you'll surely see it on the news. Nothing like a televised scandal to reunite the family." Silence briefly fell over the office, interrupted only by the muffled hum of the neon light vibrating outside the window. Fiyero rubbed his eyes with one hand, while the other groped on the desk for his cell phone.
A notification flashed across the screen.
"Another debt collector?" Boq asked, without looking up from his balance sheets. "Or an ex?"
Fiyero grimaced and held up his phone.
"Definitely. Want to guess which one?"
"Which what? Debt collector or ex?"
Fiyero chuckled.
"Same game, different trauma."
"Let's see..." Boq tapped his fingers on the edge of the desk. "Elphaba?"
"Uh-huh," Fiyero agreed with a crooked smile.
"Or Glinda?"
"Both," Fiyero added, raising an eyebrow.
Boq snorted, amused.
"That pair is still the most dangerous combination in the country. What do you say?"
"We spoke on the phone a few days ago. I invited them to the opening, in case they were nearby."
"So?"
"They're on the other side of the country. But they're lucky."
Boq smiled, with the expression of someone remembering something that was and won't return, but it doesn't hurt as much as it did before.
"Do you remember when we first met them?"
"Which of all the traumatic times?"
"The one where Glinda almost broke my ego in two and Elphaba corrected my grammar in a single sentence."
"Oh, yes. Unforgettable."
They both laughed. Not with the laughter of wounded men, but with that of those who survived. There was a second's pause, not awkward but laden with affection.
"Do you think they'll be back soon?" Boq asked casually.
Fiyero shrugged as he put his cell phone in the inside pocket of his jacket. "Elphaba doesn't leave a place until she feels there's nothing left to learn. And with Glinda by her side, that can take a lifetime."
"Good answer," Boq murmured, half to himself.
Fiyero was already heading for the door, but stopped, looking over his shoulder at him.
"Are you going to stay here all day?"
"No, I plan to be part of the decoration. The living tableau of cursed accounting."
"If I die before the doors open, make sure my epitaph says: She tried it with lingerie and dim lights, but the city wasn't ready."
"And if you succeed?"
Fiyero smiled.
"Then let it say: I told them it was a good idea... but they still hesitated."
And with that, he left the office.
The hallway was empty for a moment, allowing him to pause by one of the high windows. Only then did he take his phone out of his pocket and open the full message.
Elphaba had written:
"Best of luck tonight, Yero. From me and Glinda (who insists you put out a red carpet or at least some glitter). We trust you. You know how to do it."
Below, a small, solitary asterisk closed the message.
"P.S. If anything goes wrong or you need lifesaving cash, you know where the key is. Take what you need. I trust you."
Fiyero stared at the message for another second. He didn't respond yet. He just let the weight of those words settle firmly in his chest.
The place she mentioned... only a few knew of its existence. And even fewer knew what was stored there. But if Elphaba reminded him of that resource, it was because she trusted that, when the time came, he would know how and when to use it.
Fiyero put his phone away once more. He took a deep breath. Then he exhaled.
It was his night.
And even though they weren't at the club... they were with him.
Meanwhile, in another part of the city...
A soft golden light filtered through the heavy curtains of a carefully tidy hotel room... to a point. It wasn't the most luxurious in the district, but the staff maintained every corner with a professional dignity that made it seem better than it was. The doorknob turned just as the bellboy's soft tapping sounded.
"Room service."
On the other side, the door opened with an almost rehearsed slowness. There stood Dorothy, clad in a white terrycloth robe, her wet hair falling in waves to her shoulders as she toweled it dry. The scene looked like something out of an old movie, and she knew it. She smiled that smile that easily crossed the line between seductive and innocent, as if he still had the script of a classic on his lips.
The bellboy, no older than twenty, froze for a moment. The tray he was holding trembled slightly in his hands. Dorothy gave him a look that seemed both grateful and commanding.
"Thank you, dear. Just in time," she said in a voice that seemed to be perfumed.
The young man stammered a small reply, too delighted to find a decent excuse to stay a second longer. Dorothy gracefully took the tray, briefly brushing the bellboy's fingers as she did so. The boy swallowed.
"Enjoy your lunch, miss."
"I will. You too, enjoy your afternoon... while they let you," she added with a gentle wink that said nothing and everything.
The door closed with a soft click.
In that instant, as if someone had turned off the stage lights, Dorothy's expression dissolved completely. She was no longer smiling. No longer enchanting. Her face was that of someone who had rehearsed a lifetime for a play no one else knew was on.
Without breaking stride, she placed the tray on a small table by the window. She removed the silver cloche covering the main course—grilled salmon with steamed vegetables, presented with a decorative red rose on the side—and gazed at the flower for a second, almost mocking its very existence.
"How charming," she whispered with a crooked smile, plucking the rose from its ornament and twirling it between her fingers like a small knife.
She crossed the room slowly, passing the open wardrobe and the half-empty suitcases. On the bed, like a makeshift altar centerpiece, were scattered its contents: fine clothes, carefully arranged makeup, a notebook with gilded initials... and in the middle, like a relic from better times, a small stuffed animal.
It wasn't a simple doll. It was carefully dressed in a tiny, hand-embroidered witch's hat and a blue bow to match its button eyes. The same kind of stuffed animal a child would keep her whole life... or a young woman would carry as a reminder of something far more complicated.
Dorothy walked barefoot around the room, the rug beneath her feet barely whispering to her measured steps. In her right hand, the decorative rose that came with lunch had transformed into something more: a scepter, a pointer, a subtle weapon. She twirled it between her fingers as she spoke in a low voice, her intonation honeyed, almost childlike... but in every word there was a barely contained, poisonous vibration.
"Oh, but of course... you were always the cleverest, weren't you?" "—she said, stopping in front of the small stuffed dog wearing a witch's hat resting in the center of the bed. "Always with your morals, your big words, your air of a misunderstood martyr... How tiring that must be."
The rose turned once more between her fingers, now pointing at the stuffed animal as if it were a microphone or an accusing finger.
"And now? Now you're hiding on the other side of the country. Isn't that lovely? You leave everything behind like an old jacket, as if no one could follow you... as if I couldn't."
She started walking again. The robe slipped from her shoulders in a fluid motion, and she let it fall to the floor without even looking at it. With precision, she opened one of the open suitcases on the armchair by the window. She rummaged through silk and lace garments until she found what she was looking for: another stuffed animal. A small, new, pink one. An adorable teddy bear with an embroidered smile and a satin bow, with a heart on its chest.
She held it in the air for a second and gazed at it with a bright smile.
"Oh, and you must be the new girl," she said as if speaking to a spoiled child. "You look so lovely... so soft, so pink, so... perfect. Almost as if you've stepped out of a window display of empty promises."
She stood for a second looking at the two stuffed animals together on the bed, and an almost childlike glint appeared in her eyes, but covered with that thick, varnished layer of pure sarcasm.
"Will you two get along?" she murmured. "Although we already know who's in charge here, don't we?"
She placed the rose to the side, on the pillow, like a thorny dagger. Then, without missing the rhythm of her charming voice, she began to dress.
Still wrapped in the soft white hotel robe, she carefully opened the second compartment of her suitcase. There was the dress: a fitted design of shiny, dark blue fabric, sleeveless, with a measured neckline but undeniably designed to attract attention. She held it in front of her like an actress examining her wardrobe before the final act, tilted her head with a smile, and murmured, "Perfect... not a stitch out of place. Just like you."
She cast a mocking glance toward the bed, where the two stuffed animals watched her in eternal silence. The stuffed dog in a witch's hat, solemn. The pink teddy bear, smiling blankly. Dorothy dropped the robe with a soft sigh and slipped into the dress like someone dressing with intentions. She smoothed the fabric against her hips with smooth, almost feline movements, then reached into the nightstand.
Heels sat at the side of the bed. High, classic, with a small ankle strap. They were waiting.
At her feet, black lace stockings with barely-there detailing. A detail not many would see, but she knew was there. The power of innuendo had always been more lethal than that of exposure.
"You don't know how much you taught me," he said to the stuffed animal with a hat. "From you I learned that everything important is always hidden in the details. The ideals, the lies... and the wishes too.
She laughed softly as she pulled out a small velvet box. Opening it, she revealed a pendant: a simple dark stone framed in antique silver. Not very large, but one of those objects that, without knowing why, captures everyone's attention. She placed it around her neck and adjusted it carefully.
"And now you have your new little wife?" she playfully asked the pink teddy bear, giving it a light pat. "How sweet. I wonder if you've told her everything that happened that night?"
She sat down in front of the mirror once more and began applying her makeup. The movements were slow, almost ceremonial. Dark shadows to accentuate her gaze. Eyeliner with a surgical precision that turned her eyes into weapons. Burnt red lipstick, not so much to seduce as to mark her territory.
For a moment, she paused. Something in her reflection seemed to be telling her something she didn't want to hear. She tilted her head, raised an eyebrow, and murmured ironically:
"Do you think this is crazy too?" She was addressing the stuffed animal, but her gaze never left the mirror. "Well, maybe it is... but at least this time I'm not going to stand by and watch everything burn without me."
She finished the last touch of her makeup, stood up, and slipped on her heels with pinpoint precision. She walked a few steps around the room, testing her gait. Each step had a rhythm, a rhythm neither of anxiety nor of haste: it was the rhythm of someone who knew where she was going, even if the path was dangerous.
She passed by the bed once more. This time she didn't speak. She just picked up her purse, turned off the lights with a swipe of her hand, and, just before closing the door behind her, she threw one last smile to her little witnesses.
"Don't go to sleep yet. Tonight promises to be... unforgettable."
And with that, the door closed. Silence settled over the room, broken only by the faint flicker of the lit television, and the two stuffed animals were left alone on the bed, like two pieces in a game that was just beginning.
And so, with energy sparking from every corner, the night at Kiamo Ko began.
Outside the club, a snaking line of people waited anxiously beneath the neon lights that bathed the facade. Glamorous dresses, tailored suits, intense gazes, and murmurs of anticipation mingled with the deep bass sound filtering from within. The door, guarded by a burly doorman with more rings than patience, opened slowly, admitting each guest as if crossing into another world.
Inside, Kiamo Ko was something else. It wasn't just any nightclub. There was no noise or chaos. It was elegance and fetish, burlesque and mystery. Dim lights danced across the velvet-paneled walls, and at the center of it all, a stage lit with surgical precision where a performative, artistic, suggestive, captivating BDSM act unfolded. Two performers tied together in a slow, precise, controlled choreography. The music wasn't electronic, but a hypnotic, sensual beat, the kind you feel more on your skin than in your ears. The guests sipped leisurely, some in small semicircular armchairs, others standing, chatting while taking in the spectacle. Kiamo Ko was a blend of art, avant-garde, and desire, as if David Lynch and Madonna had co-designed the concept.
Boq, surprisingly well-dressed in a tailored jacket and a scarf that betrayed a timid attempt at style, wove his way through the crowd. He looked like a supporting actor in a spy movie who had accidentally ended up at the most glamorous event in town. He carried a folder under his arm, and his expression was a mix of nervousness and urgency. He stopped by the bar where Wiz, now out of drag but just as fabulous in her monochromatic suit with glittery details, was coordinating drinks, customers, and bartenders who had more attitude than professionalism.
"Where's Fiyero?" Boq asked, raising his voice over the enveloping music.
Wiz, without taking his eyes off the orders piling up like bets at a poker table, pointed up with his elbow:
"He's in the upper section. Playing the Great Gatsby."
Boq hurriedly nodded his thanks and made his way through the crowd, dodging a couple laughing while taking selfies, a vinyl-clad performer floating between the tables, and a waiter discreetly pouring a drop of absinthe into a glass of dry ice.
He hurried up the stairs. From there, the entire ground floor could be seen like an intimate, effervescent stage. And finally, he found him.
Fiyero.
Standing like a modern king, elegant in a dark suit with pale gold details, glass in hand, surrounded by a small group of businesspeople, influencers, and the occasional "art patron" who only understood what sold for a high price. His smile was sharp, controlled, and his voice flowed naturally as he spoke of "the revolution of the sensual" and how Kiamo Ko was a space for the total expression of body and desire. "With this club, I hope to bring liberation and passion to the people to a new level, because that's exactly what the city needs after these tumultuous months," Fiyero explained enthusiastically.
"That's clear, young Tigeelar, and I think I understand your point..." One of the businessmen responded with genuine interest. "I admit it's not the most conventional business, but among the city's renovations... maybe something unconventional is the best option."
"I have a similar opinion, added to the fact that now they might close foreign imports with Maracoor Abiding because of the scandals... we'll have to look for another source of investment," another of the businesswomen added, sharing the enthusiasm.
"And I'd be more than happy to receive those..." Fiyero spoke with the smile of someone who knew he had his audience right where he wanted them when he noticed Boq in the corner, and his premature acceptance speech was cut short.
Boq beckoned. Fiyero immediately asked his circle of admirers for a second and approached with a firm, charming stride.
"So what happened now?" Fiyero asked with a half-smile, though his eyes prayed it wasn't another fire to put out.
"Nothing bad," Boq said, holding up the folder. "In fact, I think something miraculously good just happened."
Fiyero raised an eyebrow.
"Then you'll have to repeat that. I don't hear that very often."
Boq and Fiyero descended the wrought-iron spiral staircase that connected the upper section to the main body of the club. Around them, the air vibrated with just the right mix of music, expensive perfume, and the kind of laughter you only hear when people are slightly intoxicated and dangerously charmed. Between the soft shadows and golden reflections, they looked like two Wall Street executives trapped in a baroque cabaret.
Boq, still clutching his clipboard, mentally reviewed each point as he spoke:
"The absinthe bar performed better than expected, VIP reservations are full for the next two weeks, and the new bartender... well, he's not legal in two states, but the crowd loves him."
Fiyero nodded with Buddhist serenity as his glass danced between his fingers.
"Good. Perfect. Wonderful. And the bad news?"
"One of the dominatrixes mistook an executive for a performer and tied him to a column for twenty minutes before they realized he wasn't part of the show. He didn't complain, but his wife did. A lot."
"Classic. And the rest?"
Boq sighed, but with a smile that was more surrendered than stressed.
"The lighting system failed for a second. Someone stole a bottle of champagne from the Gold Section. And the men's restroom is still blocked."
" "So..." Fiyero took a sip of his drink. "...we went from 90% catastrophe to 70%. That's a record. We should frame it."
"I'm considering getting it tattooed," Boq replied with dry sarcasm.
They stopped next to a column from where they could see almost the entire club. Fiyero patted his friend's shoulder knowingly.
"Seriously, you did an amazing job. Honestly. Now relax. Go order that overpriced drink with the ridiculous name you always pretend you don't enjoy, and let me worry about finding that hairy bastard Brrr. His act starts in less than half an hour, and he's nowhere to be seen. He's probably outside smoking like there's no public health law."
Boq looked at him, torn between leaving and staying a little longer to make sure everything was still working.
"What if everything burns down?"
"Then we dance in the ashes," Fiyero said with a bright smile and no hint of irony. "Go on, Boq. Enjoy your 30% break. I'll take care of the rest."
And with that, Fiyero turned on his heel, crossed the dance floor while charmingly greeting a masked couple who were clearly not part of the usual circuit, and disappeared behind the red velvet curtains that led to the club's back exit.
Boq stayed in place for a few more seconds, staring at the stage where the lights were already changing to more dramatic tones, signaling that the next act was approaching.
Finally, he sighed.
"Ridiculous drink with an umbrella, here I come."
Meanwhile, the line outside Kiamo Ko flowed slowly, like a river of bottled desires, rippling with sequins, leather, and perfumes too expensive to last more than three hours. The club's sign glittered overhead, spilling red light onto the expectant faces. The music vibrated beneath their feet like a secret pulse, and the doorman—a large, stony man in a tight jacket that did nothing to soften his imposing figure—admitted one by one, with a robotic efficiency mixed with a fine instinct: he knew exactly who to let in and who not, without needing a word.
And then, she appeared.
Dorothy Gale, walking with the choreographed calm of someone who knows her every step will be watched. Her dark blue dress, made of shiny fabric that hugged her body like a second skin, caught the lights brazenly. She was coatless, as if the cold didn't dare touch her. In her perfect heels and with her chin held high, she walked forward until she stood before the doorman, a serene smile only partially concealing the sharp determination behind her dark eyes.
The doorman stopped her with a slight nod, like a medieval sentry blocking the way with a single gesture. He inspected her from head to toe, but his gaze wasn't lustful: it was professional, like that of a jeweler who suspects the stone is fake.
"Age?" he asked in a deep voice.
"Twenty-two," she answered without hesitation, flashing a smile that seemed bathed in syrup and gunpowder.
He didn't seem convinced. He tilted his head slightly.
"ID?"
Dorothy sighed as if she were in a 1940s romantic comedy.
"Are you really going to ruin my evening with technicalities?" She inclined her head sweetly at him. "Come on, surely you know when someone has the right age... and the right class."
"It's not a class issue," he said without moving. "It's establishment politics."
Behind her, the line was chugging along. And just then, two older women, a redhead in a low-cut dress and another in a sequined jumpsuit that looked like it had survived a glitter war, began to grow impatient.
"Can you move, baby? Some of us are of legal age," the redhead snorted with a nasal laugh.
"Maybe there's an ice cream place open for you, my love," the other added, with a razor-sharp laugh.
Dorothy spun slowly around in her heels. Her face didn't change, not one inch. She looked at them the way one might look at a dimly lit trinket display case.
"How adorable," she said with the poisonous sweetness of a teenage soap opera queen. Two graduates of the '98 class of "Bitter and Frustrated Girls" trying to live their last night of glory before menopause takes them in the form of a dragon.
There was a brief, dangerous silence. The redhead took a step forward, ready to launch herself with nails and words.
"What did you say, diapered trash?!" she roared.
But the doorman, without needing to raise his voice, stopped her by raising an arm as if conjuring an invisible barrier.
"It's over," he said sharply. He looked at Dorothy. "You, outside. Wait to the side if you want. You're not on the list."
Dorothy backed away without protest, a calm smile on her lips, though her eyes dripped venom beneath their veneer of self-control. She walked with dignity to the side of the building, where a dimly lit alley seemed to absorb the light and noise from across the street. The bustle of the club remained behind like a broken promise, a mockery of red neon.
She leaned a hand against the wall and sighed. From the shadows, her expression changed. Her smile faded into a grimace of elegant annoyance. She was about to reach into her purse for her phone when a voice came from the dark side of the alley:
"Were you locked out, kid?"
Dorothy turned, narrowing her eyes.
Brrr, a robust man with a jacket too big for his body, emerged from the shadows, half-smoking a cigarette. His hair was disheveled, and he had the energy of a street performer mixed with a retired bartender. His voice was husky, with a hint of cheap vodka and unpublished poetry.
"And who are you?" she asked, without flinching.
The comedian raised an eyebrow and smiled, as if he'd just been asked a charming question.
"Let's just say I'm part of the show. And you... you don't seem to come just to watch. Are you looking for someone?"
Dorothy watched him silently for a few seconds, and for the first time that night, her smile returned. Not a smile to convince. A smile to get started.
"Maybe," she whispered. "And can you help me get in?"
Brrr took a deep drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out theatrically.
"It depends." Do you want to see the show... or be part of it?
Dorothy narrowed her eyes, her voice so soft it seemed part of the wind.
"See. For now."
He nodded at her and walked away a few steps, pointing to another, smaller door on the side of the building, where someone else, a member of the staff, was smoking and looking at their cell phone.
As they approached the side entrance, the doorman on duty stopped them with a raised eyebrow.
"And who is this? The long-lost daughter of someone important?"
Brrr paused for a moment, looked at him as if he'd just asked her the most banal question of the century, and with a dramatic sigh declared, "She's my niece from the country. She came to see if she could find something more interesting here in the city than cows, Bibles, or childhood traumas. But I'm not promising anything." The doorman let them in without further ado, perhaps because he didn't have the energy to argue, or perhaps because, when Brrr spoke like that, it was better not to interrupt the show.
Delving deeper into the bowels of the club, Dorothy looked around with a mixture of curiosity and calculation. Everything was in constant preparation, as if the real club wasn't the one out there, but this one, the one breathing in the wings. Bottles were stacked, cables crisscrossing the floor, employees talking quickly between light boxes, and sets yet to be set up.
"Why are you helping me?" she asked suddenly, still looking around.
Brrr stopped in front of a makeshift table with bottles. He didn't look at her when he answered.
"Because, my dear Poisoned Magnolia," he said, pouring a drink with almost choreographic hands, "I have an idiotic weakness for pretty faces with broken eyes. They remind me of the theater, of poorly extinguished cigars, and of the decisions one makes in rooms where the light no longer shines."
He handed her the glass with a delicate twist. An amber liquid, garnished with a slice of citrus. Dorothy accepted it with a soft, almost genuine smile.
"What's this?"
"The most ridiculously harmless drink this place can serve without losing its dignity," Brrr replied, taking a sip of her own. "I mean, it's still poison... but at least it's polite poison."
She laughed. Not loud, not faked. Barely a sigh heavy with complicity. Then he leaned a little toward her, his voice dropping pointedly:
"Look. You can watch, you can enjoy, you can lose yourself in the crowd and pretend this is your story. But don't do anything stupid, especially nothing you'll regret nine months from now. Because I don't want to regret opening the door for you right now."
Dorothy nodded, but didn't promise anything. Promises were cheap coins on her lips, useful only when she had to buy herself a moment. And then, like a cyclone of expensive suits and administrative urgency, Fiyero appeared. He crossed the hall almost running, his eyes fluttering, searching for something—or someone—among the shadows of the staff.
"Brrr! Where were you? Your act starts in five minutes, and Wiz is about to murder someone with a martini glass!"
"Fiyero, my dear, always so tragic," Brrr said, with a half bow. "I'm coming, I'm coming. The artist enters when the anticipation becomes unbearable."
Fiyero rolled his eyes with exasperated affection. He was about to turn away when Dorothy took a step forward, still holding her drink, a smile barely forming on her lips.
"Fiyero?" she asked, as if repeating it to herself, as if savoring the name. "So you're him..."
Fiyero stopped. He turned to her, looking at her for the first time. His brow furrowed slightly. There was something familiar, a vague spark in the fog of recognition.
"Have we met?"
Dorothy shook her head with slow grace, her dress shimmering with a slight movement.
"Not yet," she replied. "But I've been hearing a lot about you."
Brrr watched them in silence, her glass in one hand, her eyebrow arched like an elegant question mark. Something in the air had changed. Something... intriguing.
"And you, my dear," he finally chimed in, smiling with that velvet-wrapped venom that was his trademark, "you didn't say you had family interests in the place."
Dorothy just looked at him, neither denying nor confirming anything. Her gaze had gone from curious to calculating.
Fiyero blinked once more, confused, before returning to his urgent needs.
"Well... welcome," he said, still unsure why he felt he had to say that. Then he looked at Brrr. "I'll wait for you on the stage."
And he left.
Dorothy looked down at her glass, swirling it slowly.
"Thanks for the drink, country boy," she said to Brrr without looking at him.
"Thanks for the mystery, Kansas girl," he replied with a smile. "Now then, go make some elegant mischief. But remember what I told you, don't make me tremble with fear before the first joke."
Fiyero moved through the shadows of the stage like an orchestra conductor without a baton, but with a thousand out-of-tune instruments. His gaze scanned every corner, every cable, every line of light, every actor waiting to enter, while his mind simultaneously processed budgets, guest lists, security positions, the smell of incense, and the precise amount of lingerie visible in the main act. He walked quickly but with the poise of someone who doesn't want to appear agitated. Behind him, like a bright and lethal shadow, Dorothy Gale followed him.
"So... you're directing all this alone?" "She tried, in an admiring tone.
Fiyero didn't look at her. He barely waved his hand, as if pushing back the air or trying to concentrate.
"Yes. Well, with help. But yes," he murmured, before launching into a conversation with one of the technicians about a spotlight flickering too close to the edge of the stage.
Dorothy rolled her eyes with a smile. She was used to men who believed the whole world depended on them, and although they often bored her, she also knew there was power in that belief. The important thing was knowing how to use it to her advantage.
But before she could attempt a second sentence, something—or someone—hit her from the side. A smaller, more hurried body, more overwhelmed with paperwork and clumsiness, slammed into her, and on impact, a glass tipped backward and ended up soaking a shirt that clearly had no replacement.
"Oh, for all the balance sheets! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Boq exclaimed, raising his hands as if he were about to be arrested by the glamour police.
Dorothy took a mere step back, looked down at her own dress to confirm it was still intact, and then at the little man in front of her, who seemed more distressed by the spilled drink than by any possible offense.
"It wasn't your fault," he said, with such measured sweetness that it seemed written by a publicist. "I was walking too close. I should have noticed."
Boq lowered his arms, clearly relieved, though still noticeably wet.
"No, no... I never look. I trip over everything. I'm like... like a statistic on legs." He shrugged.
She smiled. She hadn't expected that phrase.
"A statistic?" he repeated with interest.
"Boq," he introduced himself, extending a still-damp hand.
"Dorothy," she said, accepting the shake lightly. "Pleased to meet you."
Boq ran a hand through his hair, uncomfortable but captivated. He looked her up and down, as if trying to reconcile his age with the dress code and the level of sophistication of the party.
"Are you... old enough to be here?"
Dorothy smiled, and that smile had an edge.
"And you have enough heart to deny a young woman the chance to correct her mistake?" he replied pitifully.
Boq blinked.
"What?"
"I want to buy you a drink, because of what happened. The least I can do."
Boq hesitated. He had a reflexive impulse to refuse, but something about that combination of soft voice, steady gaze, and expensive perfume disarmed him.
"I suppose one doesn't say no to modern chivalry," he finally joked.
"Excellent," Dorothy said, linking her arm with his as if they were old friends.
Boq laughed awkwardly, but went with the flow. It was clear he had no idea what he was about to get himself into.
Onstage, Brrr was in his element. The kind of element served with a spoonful of elegant poison and a dash of malicious poetry. Dressed in a shiny suit, unafraid of excess, he strode across the stage as if the world were his living room and the microphone an old lover he'd reconciled with out of spite. The laughter came in waves, carrying with it the tension that still hung between the new guests and the seasoned underground regulars. It was a sharp act, full of jokes that danced on the edge of taboo and, as always, contained a hint of confession in disguise.
On one of the reserved balconies in the upper section of the club, Highmuster Upland laughed out loud with a glass in his hand, elegant, relaxed, vibrating with each of the comedian's punchlines as if the act had been written especially for him. He had the demeanor of someone who'd played the role of the charming patron for decades, and for once, the show was worth the price of admission.
Fiyero approached with his confident gait, his shirt perfectly fitted, and that slight hint of exhaustion in his eyes that only those who knew him well noticed. Still, his smile was impeccable as he approached the older man.
"Don Highmuster!" he greeted with just the right amount of deference.
Highmuster turned enthusiastically, opening his arms as if he were seeing his own son.
"Ah, my dear Fiyero! How wonderful it is here! What an atmosphere! What people! Even the air seems more interesting here!"
"And all thanks to you," Fiyero replied, though they both knew it was a measured exaggeration.
The older man handed him a bottle wrapped in a velvet ribbon. A champagne with a label Fiyero hardly dared to mention, the kind that isn't sold but inherited.
"So you can open it when your first night is sold out due to overcrowding. Or when there's an electrical leak and you need something strong. Whatever the occasion," Highmuster joked.
Fiyero laughed gratefully. They shared a moment of mutual observation while Brrr, on stage, launched into a line about politicians who claimed to understand the people and didn't even know how much a bottle of sparkling water cost.
"And Glinda?" Highmuster asked, pride sparkling in his eyes. "Don't you think she'd love this place?"
"She'd blow it up just by being there," Fiyero laughed. "In fact, she texted me. She and Elphaba send their regards and... the occasional threat if I don't get everything just right."
Highmuster laughed knowingly. He immediately pulled out his phone with enthusiasm. With the agility of someone who's done this a thousand times, he showed a series of photos: Glinda and Elphaba in front of a mural on the coast, them embracing at a craft fair, a selfie in front of a road sign with crooked letters.
"She sends me pictures every day." "Look at this... look at this," he said, sliding them with a fatherly, tender, almost childlike gesture.
Fiyero watched, smiling, something warm in his chest. But he also noticed that, amid that overflowing pride, something peeking out at the edges. A shadow behind the lens.
"You look happy," he commented. "And at home? Is everything okay?"
Highmuster was silent for a few seconds. His hand was still holding the switched-on phone, but it no longer displayed anything. Just a dim screen illuminating his face.
"Everything's the same... more or less," he finally said, without looking at Fiyero. "Larena and I... well, we hardly even talk anymore. It seems like we're always in different rooms. I don't know if it was something that happened... or simply something that stopped happening."
Fiyero nodded slowly. There was something deeply uncomfortable about watching such a charming man, so accustomed to toasts and finery, strip down like that, even for a second. "Sometimes I wonder if she sees these photos too," Highmuster added, his smile fading.
There was a brief silence between them, interrupted only by the distant laughter of the audience. Brrr had just made a reference to his last relationship and what it meant to share a laundry room.
But Highmuster, with the elegance of men who prefer toasts to mourning, shook off his melancholy and smiled again.
"But come on, this is a night of celebration, isn't it? And you, my dear, should be down there, among your creatures. This place is a jewel, Fiyero. And you, finally, seem to be where you belong."
Fiyero smiled modestly, but his gratitude was genuine.
When from the balcony, with the murmur of conversation and music enveloping the air like a thick, warm mist, Fiyero looked down. His champagne glass still held bubbles dancing as if ignoring gravity, but he was no longer paying attention. At a corner table near the bar, he clearly made out two figures: Boq—with that air of clumsy diligence that never seemed to leave him, even in his best suits—and opposite him, the girl in the dark blue dress who had entered with Brrr. Her bearing had something of a movie star from the golden years, and her smile was a velvet-covered dagger. He recognized her instantly, not because he had seen her before, but because of what his instinct told him: she wasn't there for the show.
Fiyero politely excused himself to Highmuster, placed his glass on the edge of the balcony, and walked down the steps with graceful swiftness, as if he were part of the spectacle. Champagne bottle in hand as Highmuster raised his glass toward the stage and laughed again. This time, a little more alone.
Down at the table, Boq laughed. It was a genuine, kind laugh… and absolutely unguarded. Dorothy watched him with fascination, though it was the kind of fascination one feels when looking at an antique clock taken apart, trying to understand which part moves which. She rested her elbows on the table, her chin delicately supported by one hand, and her tone was warm, even flirtatious, but with that invisible edge that only those who knew how to read between the lines could notice.
“Shiz.Corp?” she repeated, with mock astonishment. “You worked there?”
“Yeah, well, sort of,” Boq said, lowering his gaze for a moment, somewhat embarrassed. “I was on the finance team for the last two years. Until… well, it all fell apart.”
“That’s interesting,” Dorothy said, drawing the word out as if caressing it. “And did you know a lot of people there? Anyone named…”
“Dorothy?” Fiyero interrupted, gently placing the champagne bottle on the table, his voice like a taut string that hasn’t yet snapped.
Dorothy turned to him without a start, but her eyes shone with a sparkle that hadn’t been there before. Fiyero smiled politely, slightly inclining his head. Boq looked up in surprise.
“Fiyero! We were just talking about you,” Boq said, clearly relieved by the interruption.
“About me?” "That worries me," Fiyero replied, taking a seat without waiting for an invitation, though he did so with such grace that it was impossible to blame him. "I hope this young gentleman isn't ruining a reputation I don't have."
Dorothy laughed, that tempered-glass laugh she used when she needed to gain space. Then she turned her chair slightly to include him in the inner circle.
"Actually, we were just beginning to talk about... the city. And its old ghosts," she said, her tone slightly deeper, as if emphasizing a word without quite saying it.
Fiyero studied her for a few seconds. Long enough to make it clear he was reading her.
"Are you here for ghosts, too?"
"I'm not looking for them," he replied with a measured smile. "But I seem to leave doors open wherever I go."
"Interesting way to travel," Fiyero said, folding his hands on the table.
There was a brief silence. Not awkward, but heavy, like an overfull glass that you doubt you can lift without spilling.
"She…" Boq added awkwardly. "She's... a friend of an old acquaintance of ours. She came to town looking for her."
"And who would that old acquaintance be?" Fiyero asked, without taking his eyes off her.
Dorothy held his gaze, without wavering. That smile she'd worn since she'd entered the club was still there, but now there was something else to it. A slight twist, as if it were transforming into something else. Not a lie, but not true either.
The music continued to float in the air, between the decadent chords of electronic jazz and the scattered laughter that bubbled like champagne. Dorothy, with a smile as sharp as a gold pin, excused herself from the table, slipping out with a rehearsed grace that left no room for suspicion. As she walked away, Fiyero watched her for a few seconds longer than necessary, then returned his attention to Boq, although his mind was clearly moving elsewhere. Dorothy crossed the club, passing by the stage where Brrr was performing a routine as brazen as it was melancholic, spouting cynical lines as the audience erupted in laughter. However, she barely paid attention. Her heels tapped firmly against the polished marble floor as she headed to the bathroom with the elegance of a spy infiltrating a masked ball.
Upon entering, she was met with a restrained silence, as if the echoes of the place were waiting for her breath. The bathroom was empty, spacious, lined with antique mirrors with gilt trim that reflected her image from every angle. Dorothy leaned against the sink for a second, taking a deep breath. Her reflection watched her with that cruel mix of empathy and judgment that only glass can offer. She splashed cold water on her wrists. A small, almost ritualistic gesture. As if the mirror were a curtain she could speak directly to.
"Come on, Gale," she whispered to herself. It's not the first time you've been alone in a room full of hyenas.
And as if her voice had triggered a cursed prophecy, the reflection transformed with the appearance of two figures behind her. She saw them approaching slowly through the mirror, like snakes emerging from the edge of a baroque painting: Billina and Dalia. The two women she had passed hours earlier in the entrance line. Dressed like queens without a throne, their lips swathed in savage lipstick, and smiles so sharp they could cut a diamond.
"Look who's here," Billina drawled with poisonous relish. "The precocious little girl in the blue dress."
Dahlia closed the door behind them with a sharp click.
"We thought you'd run off with your tail between your legs. But it turns out rats know how to squeeze through cracks, don't they?"
Dorothy turned just a bit, just enough to face them. There was no fear on her face, not even discomfort. Just an old-fashioned theater air, as if her entire presence were a performance for an invisible audience.
"Do you really want to repeat that scene here?" she asked calmly, one eyebrow barely raised. "I thought you gave your best performance out there."
"Look, doll," Billina snapped, leaning closer. "We almost got kicked out because of you. You've got a pretty sharp tongue for someone who shouldn't even be here."
"And a dress that's too tight for someone with such arrogance," Dalia added, crossing her arms. "Maybe what you need is someone to figure you out."
For a moment, the bathroom seemed to shrink. The air was charged with static electricity that seemed to float over the marble and the steam-fogged mirrors. Dorothy didn't move. She just turned slowly toward them, and without losing her smile, she lowered her gaze to her own reflection, as if searching her own face for the most elegant response to such a vulgar situation.
"And miss their grand entrance? Never. I almost burst into applause when I saw they were allowed in after all. The doorman must have a heart. Or cataracts."
"And you're still so arrogant," Dalia muttered. "A shame you're so alone."
"And so... young," Billina added, taking a step forward. "These nights aren't for little girls, my dear. You could get lost, you could... get burned."
Dorothy turned slowly. Her smile was no longer sweet, but the kind you find just before the bite. She stood up straight, with a dangerous elegance, and faced them as if they were two ancient statues about to crumble.
"Don't worry about me. I've been told witches don't burn."
Billina and Dalia's laughter echoed off the marble walls of the bathroom like an echo of childish mockery, but with the edge of women who have sharpened their fangs at too many parties. Dorothy, trapped between the marble and the poison, held her dignity like someone trying to keep a house of cards upright in a storm. The women moved around her with theatrical slowness, like predators playing with a prey they don't yet know whether to bite or dress up like a doll.
"Now, sweetheart," Billina crooned, stretching out her arm like a queen. "What are you carrying here?" A toy lipstick and the keys to your locked diary?
Before Dorothy could stop her, she snatched the purse from her hands. Dorothy stepped forward, taut as a violin string about to snap.
"Give it back. Now."
But the hags just laughed. Dahlia was already rummaging inside her purse with jeweled fingers, pulling out her cell phone and waving it mockingly.
"Oh no! What if we call Mom and Dad?" she mocked. "I'm sure they're very worried about their little girl lost in a den of perversion and leather. Do you know what they'd say if they saw you here?"
Dorothy felt fury creep up her neck like a burning vine. She bit her tongue, breathed through her nose, and swallowed every word that might have lit the fuse prematurely. Because she didn't scream. She didn't whimper. She responded with surgical precision. Like someone choosing which spoon to use to serve poison. "Give it back... or they'll regret it."
"Will we regret it?" Billina repeated, advancing with a laugh. "What are you going to do, kid? Scream? Tell me I have 'mommy issues'? I know. I pay for it every Tuesday in therapy!"
Dorothy didn't answer. She just turned slowly, as if she were considering giving up... but what she was looking for was behind her. She subtly raised her hand, slid it with feline elegance toward the sink faucet. Her fingers gently caressed it. And they turned.
A powerful jet of water gushed out with excessive force, straight toward Dalia's side, soaking her dress, her makeup, and most of all, her pride. The woman screamed in horror, recoiling as if the water had been acid.
"YOU'RE CRAZY!"
"And you're just now realizing it?" Dorothy retorted, with a smile more dangerous than a dagger hidden in lace garters.
Billina, furious, dropped her purse and launched herself at her with the momentum of a supporting actress seeking her redemption scene, but Dorothy was already ready. She turned the faucet on again with a second motion, and this time the stream went straight at them both. Water, makeup, and screams collapsed in a chaotic and glorious instant.
"MY HAIR! MY FACE! THIS IS GUCCI!"
"It's water," Dorothy corrected with gleaming cruelty as she snatched her purse from the floor. "But I guess everything feels toxic if you were already toxic inside."
And without looking back, she turned on her heel and pushed open the bathroom door with rehearsed elegance. But what awaited her on the other side wasn't the quiet triumph she imagined.
Facing her, as if they'd been there forever, were Fiyero, Brrr, and Boq.
Fiyero, eyebrows raised, holding an untouched glass of wine.
Brrr, with the feline expression of someone watching a play that had suddenly become more interesting.
And Boq... well, Boq seemed to have forgotten how to blink.
For a second, no one spoke. From inside, Dalia's high-pitched squeal and the dull sound of something falling could still be heard. Probably a perfume bottle thrown in hatred. Dorothy, barely breathing, lifted her chin and plastered her best smile on her lips.
"Guys," she said with a charmingly weary sigh. "You can't imagine how hard it is to find good company in this city."
Sitting at the back of the club, at a semi-dark table away from the roar of the dance floor and the laughter of the audience, the four formed a strange silhouette: Fiyero, Boq, Brrr, and Dorothy. An impromptu retinue, each with a half-empty glass and faces marked by various forms of doubt.
Fiyero had been clear: we need to talk. His tone brooked no objections, and while it wasn't an official interrogation, it wasn't casual conversation either. Dorothy's presence had triggered too many questions, too many alarms, and no matter how much charm she wore wrapped in smiles, Fiyero wasn't foolish enough to miss the point. But he was also too elegant to accuse her without proof. So they would talk. And they would listen.
Dorothy took her time. The drink Brrr had prepared for her remained in her hand, untouched. Her fingers caressed it without drinking it. Finally, she sighed. Not one of surrender, nor of guilt, but of strategy. Measured. Precise. Almost... rehearsed.
"The truth," she began, in the firmest, clearest voice she'd used all evening, "is that I came to town for Elphaba."
The three men exchanged glances, but no one interrupted.
"I knew her years ago," Dorothy continued, staring at the table as if digging into a painful memory. "Another time, another place. Things happened... important things. And when I knew she was here, I couldn't stay still."
"Important how?" Boq asked awkwardly but without hostility. His concern was sincere, almost childlike.
Dorothy looked at him. Her expression held a carefully placed melancholy.
"Things you don't forget. She helped me through a difficult time, when no one else would. She taught me things that... shaped many decisions in my life. But it didn't end well. I left. In an ugly way. And I never saw her again."
"And now you want to fix things?" Fiyero asked, without emotion. He was testing the waters, weighing every word.
"Not exactly," Dorothy said. It's not about fixing. It's about closure. I need to understand. I need to say some things... and hear others. I want to find her. Nothing more.
For a moment, the silence was real. The roar of the club seemed distant, as if they were encapsulated in another frequency. Brrr was the first to speak.
"And that's why you came to the club? To talk to Fiyero?"
"Elphaba mentioned him," Dorothy replied, with something that sounded like nostalgic sweetness. "Not often. But she did. She mentioned names, moments... I remembered them. I didn't know where else to go."
Fiyero rested his elbows on the table, interlaced his fingers, and watched her for a long second. He was thinking. There was something about her that didn't quite fit, but also something that appealed to his softer side. That side that remembered Elphaba as a human earthquake that left its mark on everyone who knew her. Why not this girl too?
Boq, meanwhile, was already shaken. His eyes reflected tenderness, sympathy, and a certain dangerous willingness to believe in anyone who presents themselves with vulnerability.
"Did you try sending her a message?" he asked simply. "Maybe we could help you contact her, I don't know..."
"I tried," Dorothy lied artfully. "But she's not answering. I guess she doesn't want to see me. Maybe... she shouldn't. But I'm here anyway. I just needed to try."
Brrr watched her with an arched eyebrow. He said nothing, but his gaze held more irony than judgment. After all, he understood farces, characters who were built with just the right makeup, a timely tear, and a drink in hand. But she also knew how to recognize when a performance was good. And this one was. Maybe too good.
Fiyero finally sighed.
"We don't know where she is," he said honestly, though hiding more than he was saying. "She's traveling with Glinda. We haven't seen her in weeks."
"Glinda," Dorothy repeated. Her smile was gentle, but inside it grew as sharp as a razor.
"But when she gets back," Boq added, almost enthusiastically, "maybe you can talk to her. We can let her know you're looking for her."
"That would be," Dorothy said, looking down and biting the rim of her glass, "a very generous gesture."
"Where are you staying?" Fiyero asked.
"In a hotel near the center," he replied without elaborating. "I'm fine. I don't want to cause any trouble. I just wanted... to know if anyone knew anything." If it was possible... to have a little luck.
"Luck can often disguise itself as many things," Brrr murmured as he raised his glass. "Tonight, for example, it looks like an unexpected visitor in a blue dress."
Dorothy laughed. A perfect laugh. Harmless. Human.
Fiyero was about to end the conversation. His glass empty, the murmur of the music fading, as if even the club respected the pause of a key moment. He was ready to say a polite goodbye, to tell Dorothy they'd be in touch.
"Oh... there's something else," he said, barely lowering his gaze. "I didn't just come to talk to Elphaba. I also need something back. A notebook."
The sentence hung in the air like a discordant note in a symphony. Fiyero, who was already standing, stopped dead in his tracks. Brrr raised an eyebrow in a gesture of vague interest, and Boq blinked as if he hadn't quite understood.
"A notebook?" Fiyero repeated, in a neutral tone that only a trained ear would recognize as alert.
"Yes," Dorothy nodded, with a studied innocence. "An old, black, leather notebook, quite worn. I lent it to her years ago. It's something personal. Very personal, actually. She promised she'd return it, but she never did."
"What was in that notebook?" Brrr asked, clearly amused by now.
"Notes," she answered quickly, almost as if she had it all prepared. "Notes, memories, some writing. Things that didn't seem important at the time, but... well, they are now. Some of them are part of a project I'm working on. A notebook, actually. Nothing commercial, nothing big... just something for me. But without that notebook, I can't go on."
"And why do you think Elphaba still has it?" Fiyero asked, without moving from his spot.
"Because Elphaba doesn't throw anything away," Dorothy answered without hesitation. "And because she hasn't told me otherwise. I figured if she didn't give it back to me, she still has it. She... valued that sort of thing."
"And you can't wait for her to come back," Boq pointed out, who by now had completely taken the bait.
"I can't," Dorothy said with almost theatrical solemnity. "What's in that notebook might be important to more people. It is to me. I'm willing to leave it where I found it later, but I need to have it in my hands, even if only once more."
Fiyero crossed his arms. He watched. He didn't speak. He weighed every word. Every gesture. Every pause. Finally, he spoke:
"If she has it, and if she didn't take it with her, it may be in a place where she kept some things. It's not safe. But I can try."
"Could we go now?" Dorothy asked, letting out a small plea.
Boq stepped forward, like someone saying yes before thinking about it.
"Sure! If Fiyero knows where to look for her, we can go. Nothing's going to happen at the club that we can't pick up later."
Brrr, with a half smile and a hunched shoulder, simply said,
"I'm not one to turn down a little nighttime detour. Especially not one that promises academic drama with a hint of mystery."
Fiyero hesitated. It wasn't part of the plan. And something still didn't add up. But he was caught between two forces: his curiosity about what Dorothy knew... and the shadow of that notebook, that dark, dense object like a badly buried secret.
"Okay," he finally gave in. "But you guys go ahead. I have to talk to Wiz before we leave. We can't just leave the club like that."
"Meet me at the side exit?" Boq asked.
"In ten minutes," Fiyero said. Dorothy looked at him for a moment, almost as if evaluating whether to trust him or not. Finally, he nodded.
The three of them stood up and walked away into the crowd. Dorothy cast brief glances over her shoulder, perhaps to make sure he wouldn't change his mind. But Fiyero had already taken out his phone.
On the screen, a pre-composed message awaited the final touch. Fiyero took a deep breath, watching as they disappeared into the crowd.
Message to Elphaba:
"There's a young woman looking for you. She says her name is Dorothy and that she knows you. She also says you have something that belongs to her."
And then, as if she knew she wouldn't get an immediate answer, she turned off the screen. Her eyes searched for the exit. But her mind was already much further away.
Night had fallen gently over the city, enveloping everything in a bluish light from the streetlights that barely filtered through the tall trees in the park. Beneath their feet, an iconic yellow brick path stretched out like a nostalgic remnant of another era, occasionally shimmering with dampness and the distant reflection of the Kiamo Ko club's neon sign, which was already fading behind them.
The quartet made their way along the curving path, traversing the calm of that in-between hour when the city wasn't sleeping, but was beginning to lower its volume.
At the front, Boq walked upright, slightly more confident than usual. Beside him, Dorothy listened with a constant smile, her head tilted slightly to the side, her eyes wide and attentive as if the redhead's every word were a fascinating revelation.
"...and even though they hired me as an accountant, I ended up being the club's financial director, partly because no one else wanted to touch those numbers," Boq said, with a mixture of resignation and pride. "And now it turns out I even have to talk to the licensing people. Me! I can barely order a coffee without getting stuck..."
Dorothy laughed with perfectly calibrated musicality.
"Well, I think you're doing an incredible job. Not everyone could handle something so complicated." She glanced at him with that spark she knew how to use like an emotional scalpel. "You're like the heart of the place, even if no one notices. Clubs need brains... but they also need souls."
Boq blinked, amazed. Maybe no one had ever said anything like that to him before.
"Thank you... that's... very kind."
"It's not kind," she replied, lowering her voice. "It's the truth."
Boq blushed awkwardly, trying to recover from that unsolicited but welcome boost to his self-esteem. They walked slowly, in a bubble made of flattery and perfectly manipulated admiration.
A few paces behind, Fiyero watched the scene with a faint frown, as if calculating a chess move he didn't yet fully understand. His eyes remained fixed on Dorothy, scanning her. He didn't trust her. Not since she mentioned that notebook.
"Does that sound familiar?" Brrr asked, walking beside him, hands in his pockets, still staring straight ahead.
"What?"
"The notebook. You said Elphaba had thousands of things saved, and that's true. But the way she named it... the way she wouldn't explain why she needed it. There's something off, isn't there?"
Fiyero didn't respond immediately. He just looked down at the shiny path beneath his feet.
"Elphaba did have an old leather notebook. From her college days. She didn't talk about it much. Sometimes she'd flip through it when she thought no one was looking."
"So what was in it?" Brrr asked, his tone more serious than usual.
"I don't know. But when she showed it to me once, all I saw were formulas. Diagrams. Notes." Things that seemed… too complex to be just college notes. As if they were part of something bigger. Something unfinished.
Brrr whistled softly.
"And now a lovely young woman from Kansas with a Judy Garland smile shows up, asking for her just as she's halfway across the country."
Fiyero raised his head again. He was still watching her. Dorothy was laughing at an anecdote about Boq, gently touching his arm as she spoke. There was nothing explicitly suspicious. Everything about her seemed charmingly harmless. Maybe that made her even more dangerous.
"I sent Elphaba a message," Fiyero murmured, barely audible. "I told her someone asked about that notebook. If it's important, she'll get back to me."
"And if she doesn't?"
"Then we'll see how far this Dorothy Gale is willing to go."
Brrr nodded, still humorless.
"Do you want me to distract her?" Do I handle the interrogation with charm while you play nightclub spy?
"Not for now. But keep your eyes on him. There's something I can't quite put together. His story is good, too good."
"Then we're in the right country," Brrr muttered with a crooked smile, lighting an invisible cigarette and exhaling as if he really had one. "In these parts, the best lies always sound like fairy tales."
The two men continued walking, the yellow brick park leading them toward that hidden corner that only Fiyero knew, where perhaps that notebook lay... or the secrets someone was willing to do anything to unearth.
Dorothy walked with her hands in the pockets of her fitted coat, effortlessly elegant, while occasionally turning her face toward Boq. Her smile had that mix of genuine curiosity and something more—a precise ability to regulate her interest at just the right moments, so that he couldn't help but keep talking.
"So tell me..." he asked with a barely mischievous smile, "is there a girl?"
Boq almost tripped over a loose tile.
"Girl?" he repeated, blushing as if the word were an accusation. He scratched the back of his neck and forced a chuckle. "No, I mean... yeah... well, not right now. There were a couple of attempts. A few dates. Nothing serious. Not my thing, I guess. But thanks to Fiyero, I've improved a bit... I think."
"Improved?" Dorothy raised an eyebrow. "Does that mean you were worse before?"
"I couldn't even manage a conversation before," Boq admitted with a self-deprecating shrug. Then he lowered his voice, as if talking more to himself. "Although... there was someone."
Dorothy didn't push him, just waited, with that trained patience that betrays good social predators.
"Glinda."
The word hung in the air. Dorothy feigned surprise and immediately dropped it into her internal box of relevant information.
"The same Glinda who...?"
"Yes." Boq sighed. "That Glinda. Elphaba's friend. It was a long time ago. I was... besotted with her. And I knew it. Everyone knew it. Except her. But never... there was no reciprocation. Not real."
"And now?"
"We're friends now," Boq said with a somewhat forced smile, as if the word still hurt to come out. "Almost like siblings. She's brilliant, kind, hilarious... and she's at a stage in her life where, honestly, she deserves every good thing that happens to her. So... I learned to love her on otherwise.”
Dorothy tilted her head, like someone examining a diamond from a different angle.
"How mature of you," she said, her tone somewhere between sincere and clinical. "Not everyone can transform that into something healthy."
Boq shrugged, a little uncomfortable with so much focus on his emotional world.
"I guess I had no choice. And well, being around her is better than not being around her. She and Elphaba have something... hard to explain. But it's real. I think that's what finally freed me. Seeing them together."
Dorothy nodded, as if each word were a strand of thread she tied to many others in her mind. With each step, her goal seemed clearer: not just to find Elphaba, but to understand the full fabric of her emotional history.
"It must be an intense relationship," she said, almost as if talking to herself. "The kind that defines a lifetime."
"Yes," Boq said, and this time he smiled without regret. "And you know what? I'm glad you're away from all this now. You deserve it. Although not hearing from you has us all a little... in the dark."
Dorothy lowered her gaze for a moment. Then she smiled again. She had learned more than she'd let on.
"I suppose mysteries are solved... with time."
Boq didn't quite understand the comment, but he laughed politely.
Behind them, Fiyero was still watching. Brrr glanced at him and muttered, with his guillotine humor, "I think your new recruit is sharper than he looks. And thirstier, too."
Fiyero didn't respond. He just kept walking, his eyes fixed on Dorothy Gale.
The silence of the urban night was broken only by the crunching of dry leaves and the quartet's rhythmic footsteps on the uneven cobblestones. In the distance, the constant murmur of the city still lived on, but here, among poorly lit alleys and facades corroded by time, the clock seemed to have stopped. Fiyero, Boq, Brrr, and Dorothy had left the safety of the square behind and were now entering one of those areas where streetlights flickered like warnings.
The old train station loomed a few yards away, shrouded in shadows and legends of abandonment. Dorothy looked at him with a mixture of fascination and doubt. “Are you sure it's this way?” he asked, quickening his pace to catch up with Fiyero.
Fiyero didn't respond immediately. His gaze was fixed on the opposite sidewalk, where a group of figures stood out against a faded mural. The Wheelers. There were six, maybe seven young men with the appearance one only finds in corners where time has decided to give up. They wore hand-cut and painted leather jackets, boots with excessive buckles, defiant hairstyles with streaks dyed electric greens, purples, and blues, and an attitude that reeked of gasoline and trouble.
One of them—tall, thin as a whisper, with scarred eyebrows—took a step forward, crossing his arms while smiling with sharp, almost theatrical teeth. “Look what we have here,” he said mockingly. “A senior parade?”
Fiyero didn't stop. He walked with the confidence of someone who had dealt with worse than teenagers with a villain complex. “We're not in the mood, guys. Turn around and get back to your nineties cosplay.”
The others laughed, one spit on the ground. The youngest of the group, with metal knee pads and fresh tattoos, took a step closer. “What if we don't want to? It's been a while since we played with tourists.”
Boq swallowed hard. Dorothy, on the other hand, maintained the composure of someone who knew that beauty was also a useful mask, though this time it didn't seem enough.
“Listen,” Fiyero said with a sigh. “This city is trying to heal. There are places for violence. This isn't one of them.”
“And who do you think you are?” another replied, igniting a small butterfly knife with an overly rehearsed motion. “The fucking mayor?”
Brrr, who until then had remained in the background, took a step forward. He adjusted the lapel of his jacket with a calmness that only the truly dangerous possess. His voice was soft, almost seductive. “My dears… This is very inelegant.”
The boys looked at him, confused. One laughed. “And who are you, the butler?”
“Me?” Brrr tilted his head and smiled. “I’m what happens when you don’t know when to retreat.”
The one with the knife moved forward, sneering. “Oh, really? And what are you going to—?”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
The blow was sharp, precise, brutal. Brrr barely twisted his torso and swung his fist toward the boy’s jaw, who fell to the ground as if his soul had been unplugged. The rest of the group froze, frozen between disbelief and fear. The sound of the body hitting the pavement echoed like a gunshot in the alley.
Boq's eyes widened, unable to process that the comic actor quoting Wilde had rendered a criminal unconscious with the skill of a former secret agent. Dorothy brought a hand to her mouth, trying to hide a surprised smile. Fiyero, without changing his expression, just nodded.
"Anyone else want to try their luck?" Brrr asked, wiping his knuckles with the handkerchief in his inside pocket. "Or do we all remember that violence is not a performance they can successfully execute?"
One of the punks helped lift the boy off the ground while another muttered that it wasn't worth it. In less than a minute, the Wheelers had dissolved into the darkness like cheap smoke, muttering insults under their breath and licking his ego wounds.
Brrr turned to the group with the same calmness with which one asks the time. “Now then. Shall we continue, my little urban hobbits?”
Fiyero chuckled and led the way again. Dorothy walked beside Brrr, still in awe.
“I didn't know you could fight too,” she said in a honeyed voice.
Brrr glanced at her and replied, “Anyone who works in comedy needs to know when to throw the final blow.”
And without looking back, the group resumed their walk toward the station, amidst the echoes of footsteps, distant neon lights, and the growing weight of secrets that were beginning to crack the night.
Now the old comedian led the group, while Dorothy, with her classic charm, approached him to politely engage in conversation. But Brrr was no idiot. He walked with his hands in his pockets, his jacket barely waving in the warm night breeze, and although his voice was light and his gaze traveled lazily over the lit streetlights in the park, his mind was restless.
"And how did you end up in a town like this, little lady in the center of the storm?" he asked sarcastically as they avoided a loose paving stone on the yellow road.
Dorothy laughed with that tone that could melt lead.
"And how did you end up telling jokes with leather whips and ropes?" she replied with venomous sweetness.
Brrr gave her a sideways glance, as if assessing the true stature of her intentions behind the smooth face and long eyelashes.
"Touché," she muttered. "Let's just say it was that or go back to being a mascot on a children's show. And believe me, kiddo, once you've tasted red velvet and low lights, you never want to sit on a sticky carpet next to an alcoholic puppeteer again."
Dorothy smiled. She had a talent for listening, you had to give her that. She didn't interrupt, didn't nod automatically. She just walked beside him attentively, with that reserved smile and eyes that saw more than they should.
"Sometimes the strangest places are the ones that end up giving us a shape," she said casually, as if she didn't measure the weight of her words, although each syllable had direction. "There's something admirable about that. About surviving being part of a circus and coming out... with your own voice. With elegance."
Brrr, her eyes narrowed. The tone was flattering, but not superficial. She recognized in Dorothy an old but polished tactic: find the wound, lick it with words, wrap the interlocutor in her own narrative until they believed they were the one carrying the conversation. The irritating thing was that it worked.
"I don't usually receive compliments without being asked for something afterward, you know?" she commented with a crooked smile.
"And what would you do if I told you I wanted nothing from you, other than your friendship?"
"I would recommend that you not lie so early in the evening." There's time for that later, when the alcohol makes the words feel true.
She laughed, but without breaking stride.
"All right," he relented. "Maybe I'm interested in understanding how someone like you managed to sustain yourself in a city that crushes those who don't fit in. Because if someone like you could do it... then maybe I can too."
That puzzled him. For a moment, he thought he saw something real behind Dorothy's glittering eyes. Something that didn't seek to manipulate or seduce or deceive. Something... broken. Or perhaps it was a more elaborate mask than the ones before. Either way, he found it impossible to hate her.
"You know," she said finally, "there are two kinds of dangerous people in this city. Those who pretend to be sheep... and those sheep who grew tired of pretending. I still don't know which you are, Dorothy Gale. But you intrigue me."
She winked at him with studied grace.
"Then... we're doing well."
Finally, the quartet arrived at the station, which was shrouded in a thick fog that seemed denser the further they got from the main street. It wasn't fog in the strictest sense, but an accumulation of dust and forgotten things that hung in the air like the memory of something once important. The faded sign hung crooked: "Emerald City Central Station," a grandiose name for a place that was now little more than a hollow shell.
The entrance doors gave way with a weary creak, and Fiyero held them open with one hand as he beckoned to Brrr and Boq.
"Wait here," he ordered, with that firmness disguised as politeness he often used when he was uncomfortable. "This shouldn't take long."
Brrr muttered something about having to endure other people's secrets, while Boq leaned against a column with the hopeful expression of someone who hadn't yet realized the night was just beginning. Fiyero paused for a second, quickly checked his phone to confirm that his message hadn't been answered, and headed into the darkness of the station, Dorothy following close behind.
The silence inside was different from the one outside. It wasn't emptiness, but something denser, a perpetual pause suspended between concrete columns and rusty bars. Lamps flickered above, old neon lights that still resisted the passage of time, as if they wouldn't resign themselves to ever going out completely. Their footsteps echoed on the broken mosaics, and each echo seemed to return with a different question.
"It looks like a mausoleum," Dorothy commented softly, though the sound echoed louder than she expected.
"For some, it is," Fiyero replied without looking at her.
They walked down a side corridor that led down to the old storage areas. At some point, the city had privatized the old lockers, allowing them to be rented out as mini-warehouses for those who needed to hide something, store something... or simply forget something.
"Elphaba rented one of these years ago," Fiyero explained, feeling for the keys in his pocket. "She barely moved to the city." He gave me a copy in case anything ever happened... or if she needed to disappear.
Dorothy nodded, as if she already knew that. In fact, she seemed to know a lot she hadn't said. She paused beside each locker with an almost reverential attention, as if each one held not just objects but personal stories. When Fiyero bent down in front of locker 137-B and began to struggle with the lock—an old, stubborn, and rusty security lock—Dorothy leaned against the wall and watched him with the intensity of someone seeing someone for the first time and at the same time for the last.
"I know you don't trust me," she said finally, with a smile that was both confession and provocation. "I felt it from the first second."
Fiyero didn't respond, concentrating on turning the key precisely. He just raised an eyebrow, inviting her to continue.
"And you're right," she added. "Don't trust me. I wouldn't if I were you. But I'm not a complete stranger, either." I knew who you were even before I walked into that club. I looked you up. After they told me your name, it was easy.
The lock finally gave way with a click that felt more like an old heartbeat than a mechanical sound. Fiyero sat up slowly, his back to the still-locked locker.
"Did you look for me?" he asked, his tone restrained but inquisitive.
"Social media is wonderful," Dorothy said, pivoting casually on one foot. "And if you know where to look, you find not only what people post... but what they're trying to hide. You and Elphaba have a long history. And you're someone important to her."
Fiyero held her gaze for a moment. His wasn't cold, but calculating. There was no aggression, but a careful assessment, as if seeking to understand what kind of creature he had in front of him.
The creak of the lock as it gave way was barely audible over the restless rustle of the nearby trees, stirred by the night breeze. Fiyero pushed the door with one hand, and it opened with a rusty groan. The interior of the small cubicle revealed itself with the austerity of an abandoned warehouse: an old lamp hung from the ceiling, trembling in the filtered wind; papers, folders, and scattered objects covered the metal shelves and the desk at the back, as if someone had left in a hurry, leaving a storm halfway unraveled. A pair of open books lay on a wooden box, one marked with notes in violet ink, the other closed but with corners so worn it looked like it had lived a thousand lives. Elphaba, no doubt.
"Don't touch anything," Fiyero said as they crossed the threshold, turning his face slightly toward Dorothy without fully looking at her. His tone was firm, but not entirely hostile. It was an attempt to establish a boundary, to maintain control over a space that felt more intimate than it seemed.
Dorothy obeyed instantly, with that distinctive expression of hers: a mix of feigned obedience and latent satisfaction, as if she'd gotten exactly what she wanted. Her eyes scanned the space with surgical attention, without moving a muscle, absorbing every detail as if she already knew what she was looking for and only needed confirmation.
"Was this her refuge?" she asked softly, barely above a whisper. "I thought it would be more... neat. I always imagined her as very methodical. But of course, that only showed on the outside." She paused, then added with a small smile, "Although also... Chaos can also be a form of control, can't it?"
Fiyero didn't respond. He stood with his back to us, rummaging through some metal crates. His posture was tense, as if he expected something—a memory, an object, a revelation—to jump out at him at any moment. He picked up a folder, flipped through it without finding what he was looking for, and put it down more abruptly than necessary. It wasn't the notebook.
Behind him, Dorothy resumed the conversation with the ease of an actress who knows her lines and exactly when to project her voice.
"Your history impresses me, you know? —he commented as he walked in a straight line, not touching anything, but letting his footsteps echo just enough to announce his presence. —A son of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in the country... raised among marble and servants, surrounded by expectations, protocols, lineage... and yet, here you are. In this den. Chasing ideas. Changing molds. Messing with the unpopular. Even Elphaba.
The name floated like an echo laden with intent.
Fiyero turned his head slightly, still not quite stopping what he was doing. He had found another box, this time filled with books and a black folder that might be what they were looking for. But he didn't respond yet.
"Many think you've lost your mind," Dorothy continued, with a gentleness that was more dangerous than any direct threat. "That she dragged you into her world and you never made it out. But I don't believe that. I... I understand. Because it happened to me too."
That sentence did make him turn around. His eyes met hers for the first time since they entered. Dorothy held his gaze with something between tenderness and defiance. The silence that fell was thick. Fiyero tested his words carefully.
"I don't know if I was ever inside her world," he said finally. "Sometimes I think I was always at the door, looking in from the outside. And that she only let me in when it suited her."
Dorothy nodded slowly, as if reading a line she already knew.
"And yet you kept coming back, didn't you?"
The dimness of the warehouse was barely interrupted by the warm light of a spotlight hanging from the ceiling, swinging gently like a cursed pendulum. Fiyero, bent over a dusty box, continued to sort through the objects of the past with careful hands. So many memories encapsulated in fabrics, old papers, torn albums. Until something stopped him.
A leather bag, old but recognizable, half-hidden under a travel blanket. He carefully took it out, opened it, and for a moment his eyes lit up with that mixture of surprise and relief. He was about to put it away for later when something at the bottom of the shelf caught his eye: a small, worn notebook, covered in a thin layer of dust.
"I think I found the notebook!" he announced, raising his voice without taking his eyes off the object. He heard no reply. He turned to Dorothy, who still had her back to him, apparently exploring another section of the warehouse. She frowned, but opened the notebook, intending to check its contents. The pages rustled as they turned—completely blank. Her frown deepened.
“What the hell…?”
It was then that Dorothy turned. In her hands, she held a small black box with a metal lock that gleamed as if she knew the value of what it protected. Her smile was no longer that of a charming young woman seeking help. It was sharp, precise, perfectly calculated.
“That wasn’t what I came here for,” she said with dangerous calm. “But thank you for entertaining me while I found it.”
Fiyero took a step forward, his face hard.
“What is that?”
Dorothy stroked the box with her fingers as if it were a talisman. Her eyes, partially hidden by the shadow of her bangs, had a strange gleam.
"Something Elphaba accidentally left me. Something that... if I can't reach her, she'll come to me. That's why she'll follow me to the ends of the earth, I know. Just as I planned."
The silence grew thick, charged with electricity. Fiyero realized too late that he'd been manipulated. That all the sweetness, all the tears and confessions were just an act.
"You're not going to get away with that."
He tried to move, but Dorothy had already anticipated it. With unexpected strength in her small body, she pushed a stack of old crates toward him. The crash was brutal, wood against wood, and Fiyero barely had time to cover himself before being partially buried. He shouted her name, but Dorothy was already running for the exit, her silhouette slipping through the shadows with the crate clutched tightly to her chest.
And as she escaped through the service entrance, under the incipient rain that was beginning to drum on the asphalt, Dorothy didn't look back even once.
The emergency lights flashed red and white through the empty aisles of the station. A metallic creak resounded as Fiyero emerged from between the stacked crates, still panting from the fall and the exertion. His jacket was stained with dust, his hands scraped by the cold concrete, and he was still carrying the bag he'd taken from the storage unit, but his gaze was fixed: Dorothy was no longer there. Where seconds before he had seen her with the box in her arms, all that remained was a small mud mark on the ground and the shaky silhouette of an exit door that had yet to close completely.
"Shit!" Fiyero exclaimed, throwing his bag to the ground in frustration.
He scrambled to his feet and ran toward the exit, stumbling over pipes and tools, slipping on a puddle of old oil. The echo of his footsteps reverberated through the corridors as anger, surprise, and bewilderment mingled in his chest.
He had barely turned a corner when he found himself face to face with Brrr and Boq, who were coming down a side ramp, visibly agitated.
"Where the hell were you?!" Brrr shouted, slamming on the brakes when he saw him.
"What happened?! Where's Dorothy?" Boq insisted, looking around as if he expected Dorothy to emerge from somewhere. Fiyero raised his hands, still breathing heavily, and spoke quickly:
"He left. He took a box. It was all a lie. He pushed me and left through the north side... damn, I didn't think he'd go that far!"
Boq looked at him, perplexed. "A box? What was in that box?"
"Something of Elphaba's. Something that..." Fiyero paused for a second, as if a deeper, less rational answer was trying to emerge. "Something that shouldn't have fallen into his hands."
But there was no time for further explanation.
A metallic screech cut through the air like a whip. A door swung violently behind them, and a bright light blinded them for a moment. A flashlight. A security guard's voice boomed with authority:
"Hey! You guys! Stop right there!"
Fiyero spun around, his reflexes still working like they had back in his college rebel days, and without thinking, he yelled:
"Run!"
The three turned as one and ran down the opposite corridor, their soles pounding against the floor, the echoes growing behind them like a stampede. Brrr, his suit half-zipped and his laughter staccato, shouted that this was "too much theater, even for him," while Boq tried to maintain his balance with each stride, tripping over a discarded wrench. Fiyero led the escape, his jaw clenched, his bag clutched for dear life, his brow furrowed, every muscle tense.
Behind them, the guard shouted something unintelligible into his radio as he gave chase, but they soon turned into a dimly lit side tunnel and disappeared into the darkness, disappearing into the shadows of the underground.
Meanwhile, in the other direction, Dorothy ran without looking back. Her steps were lighter, more methodical. The box remained firmly clutched in her arms, her hair loosening with every movement, the fitted dress contrasting with the wildness and determination of her run. She didn't need to see Fiyero to know she'd achieved what she wanted. The nighttime city opened up before her, a silent accomplice to her escape.
And on her face... a faint smile. That of someone who had made the first move. And made it well.
The alley was silent, damp from the recent drizzle, and perfumed with an uncertain mix of trash and cheap tobacco. The streetlights barely filtered between the graffitied walls and forgotten recycling bins, staining everything with a yellowish patina that seemed to further dilute the reality of what had just happened.
Boq slumped back against a wall, her hands on her knees, her breathing labored as if she'd run a marathon. Brrr adjusted his jacket, breathing through his nose with theatrical elegance, as if refusing to admit he was tired too. Fiyero paced in circles, hands on his head, trying to sort out thoughts he'd thought he'd completely under control five minutes ago.
"What... what just happened?" Boq asked, still panting. "How did it leave so fast? And what the hell was in that box?"
Brrr grimaced, his brow furrowing slightly as he took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his neck with an exaggerated flourish.
"Whatever it was, it looked important. And not just any old trinket. The way he held it..."
Fiyero stated flatly. His face, which had always had a sloppy, arrogant charm, was now shadowed by an uncharacteristic seriousness. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and held it in his hand, staring at it as if it suddenly weighed twice as much.
"I have no idea what was in that box. But I do know this: she's not after Elphaba for a nostalgic chat or to settle old scores. She manipulated us, all three of us. She used every word, every gesture, every measured smile to lead us straight to the place where she knew Elphaba would have hidden something important."
"Then let's call her," Boq insisted, with a mixture of concern and guilt. He was no longer worried about looking like an idiot, but about having put her in danger.
But Fiyero firmly denied it. Without raising his voice, but with a clarity that left no room for objection.
"No."
"What? Why not?" Boq replied, louder than he should have, causing Brrr to give him a quick glance to calm him down.
Fiyero raised his cell phone screen for both of them to see. The one he'd sent Elphaba hours ago. A warning. A plea, maybe. But it hadn't been received yet. He stared at the text for a second longer, then deleted it with a swipe of his thumb. The delete icon disappeared, and with it, the possibility of Elphaba finding out from him.
"If we tell her anything," Fiyero said, with a seriousness only heightened by the echoing alley, "she'll drop everything and come. We know what she's like. She wouldn't sit still knowing someone—anyone—is snooping around in her past."
"And isn't that precisely why we should warn her?" "Brrr countered, more gently than Boq, but just as firmly.
Fiyero shook his head.
"You don't understand. Dorothy wants Elphaba to find out. She wants her to find her. She wants her to follow her. She wants her to walk right into the trap she set for us. That box..." He paused, as if the memory had somehow unexpectedly pricked him. "There's something in that box Elphaba couldn't ignore. No matter how far away she is. I felt it as soon as I saw Dorothy talking about it. She wasn't lying about everything, but the part about wanting to talk... that was a facade. She's up to something deeper. More... dangerous."
Boq looked down, clearly conflicted. Brrr looked at him and then at Fiyero, gauging the tension in the air.
"So... we let her go? Just like that?"
"For now," Fiyero said through gritted teeth. "We let her think she won." We let her walk alone with that box she doesn't understand. And we figure out what's inside without dragging Elphaba into this. If we made a mistake bringing her there, we're not going to fix it by pouring gasoline on her.
Brrr sighed, taking out a cigarette even though he knew he couldn't smoke there. He played with it between his fingers like a magician's wand.
"This is going to get complicated," he muttered with a mixture of resignation and bitter amusement.
"It already is," Fiyero replied.
A streetlight flickered above them, casting intermittent shadows on the damp walls of the alley. The bustle of the city continued beyond, but here were only three panting figures, covered in sweat, dust... and doubt.
"I knew it," Fiyero snapped, still catching his breath. "I knew something was wrong with that girl."
Brrr turned on him, furious.
"Then why did you agree to help her, idiot?" We almost got arrested!
Fiyero didn't respond immediately. He looked down, and for the first time in a long time, his expression revealed something more than the carefree charm with which he usually hid from the world.
"Because I had no choice," he finally said, bending down and placing the black bag he'd been protecting on the floor.
The other two stared at him blankly. Fiyero undid the zipper slowly, as if it were physically difficult for him to do so. And when he opened the bag, they both took a step forward.
Bills. Stacks of bills. Neatly arranged, wrapped in elastic, old but intact.
"What the..." Boq trailed off.
"It's Elphaba's," Fiyero said in a small voice.
Brrr frowned.
"Your ex gives you bags of money and you don't even tell us?"
"He didn't give it to me. He entrusted it to me. It's different," Fiyero replied, more sharply than usual. "It's his stash. The money he was owed by his family, by his share of the inheritance. When he ran away from home, he took it and kept it. He never used it, not even when he needed to." He confessed it to me one night… after he quit Shiz.Corp and started living on his own. He told me if anything went seriously wrong, I'd know what to do with him.
Boq took a step back, as if he'd just received an invisible blow.
"Were you going to use him for the club?"
The silence that followed was louder than any scream. Fiyero didn't respond. He didn't need to.
"Shit..." Boq muttered, putting a hand to his head.
"Big shit," Brrr repeated.
Fiyero closed the bag firmly.
"It wasn't ideal. Or fair. But she herself insisted that if I needed it, I should get what I needed, I didn't like it… But I figured I had no choice."
"And that's why you agreed to accompany Dorothy… you came to get the money."
The three of them fell silent. Elphaba wasn't there, but her shadow seemed to surround them. Their trust, their past, their pain. Now they were in it up to their necks, and the only way out was by working together.
"We already messed up," Brrr said, shaking his mane of hair. "We can't untangle it. But we can fix it."
Fiyero looked at him with a sad smile.
"Yes. But we're going to need more than luck this time."
"And a good excuse if she finds out," Boq added.
The three of them looked at each other. Companions. Guilty. A makeshift family. And without another word, they looked up at the end of the alley. The future awaited them.
With or without redemption.
Meanwhile, Dorothy's hotel room remained clean, almost impersonal. Warm lights from dim lamps, half-packed suitcases, an unmade bed as if there had been a storm of thoughts before their departure.
Dorothy bent over her suitcase, roughly arranging wrinkled clothes and documents. With the phone pressed between her shoulder and ear, she spoke rapidly, as if time were slipping away.
"Yes, a ticket for tonight if possible... immediate departure, any station. Extra payment if necessary," she said, interrupting the operator impatiently.
As she continued speaking, her gaze shifted. The metal box, locked with a combination lock, lay on the desk. She'd been trying to open it for hours. Maybe days. Her nails were marked, her fingers covered in small cuts.
She tried again. 4... 0... 6...
Click.
The lock gave way. Dorothy removed it slowly, almost reverently. The lid creaked as it opened.
The smile that spread across her face wasn't one of relief. It was something more restrained. More intimate. As if the universe had just confirmed her point.
From inside the box, she carefully removed a single object:
A high-heeled shoe. Silver. Shining even in the dim hotel light. Elegant, classic, and loaded with symbolism too personal to be casual.
"Destiny?" the voice on the other end of the phone repeated. "We need confirmation."
Dorothy didn't answer immediately. She stared at the shoe, the perfect curve of the heel, the ghostly reflection it projected on her laptop screen. With her other hand, she opened her computer and searched for a profile: perfectly curated photos, headlines filled with self-help phrases and political glamour.
Glinda Upland.
Dorothy narrowed her eyes. Not with hatred. Not exactly. But with an intensity that revealed years of unresolved issues, when she stopped at the most recent profile photos… the travel photos.
"Gillikin's Estate," she finally answered the phone. "First Class."
And she hung up without hearing the reply. The shoe remained on the bed, shining like a relic of the past that was… and the future that was coming.
Five years ago…
The ceiling fan turned listlessly, pushing lukewarm air in heavy circles inside an old small-town coffee shop. Outside, the sun beat down on the asphalt like molten lead, and inside, most of the students were looking for shade, Wi-Fi, and something cold to drink.
At the last table, almost hidden behind a column and a stack of books, a young woman was writing with absolute concentration. She had a half-finished bottle of water, a nearly melted iced coffee, and in front of her, a notebook filled with crossed-out lines, diagrams, and underlined quotes. Her light gray hoodie covered her face, but every now and then, as she adjusted her glasses, her face was briefly revealed.
Elphaba.
Younger. Thinner. More... withdrawn.
Her ink-stained fingers danced across the keyboard of her old laptop, and her eyes moved with the precision of someone struggling to grasp an idea before it slips away.
Then, the doorbell rang.
A gust of hot air blew in, and with it, someone else. Elphaba didn't look up. At first.
Timid, uncertain steps. A pause. And then, a voice.
"Excuse me...? Are you Elphaba?"
Elphaba looked up, slightly annoyed by the interruption. She pushed her glasses down her nose and squinted, as if assessing the intruder. In front of her, standing with a backpack over her shoulder, a young woman with brown hair, faint freckles, and an anxious expression smiled uncertainly.
Dorothy Gale.
She wore a light dress, somewhat worn boots, and an expression that mixed exhaustion, curiosity, and hope, like someone who has come a long way to find something she isn't entirely sure she deserves.
"I was told... you could help me with something," she said, playing with a bracelet on her wrist.
A long silence. And then Elphaba tilted her head, looking at her more closely. She didn't smile. But she didn't throw her away either.
The laptop remained between them. Open. Blinking. Like a door that has just opened slightly.
Notes:
Well, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, this chapter was a bit different, but at the same time, it was great to write because of the opportunity to explore other characters. Writing these four characters together was a real joy. In the next chapter, we'll return to Elphaba and Glinda's road adventures, but I promise Dorothy's story is far from over.
Chapter 25: BLONDE....
Chapter Text
Prologue to Chapter 35 – “On the Reflections That Distort Us”
of “Invisible Bonds – Reflections on Her and Me” (working title)
(Should we keep it as Chapter 35 or move it after the one about college? See if the theme of ridicule is repeated.)
There are versions of us that only exist in the memories of those we no longer love.
— Too aphoristic to open? But it works as a hook...
The version of me that used to duck my head.
The version of her that measured her laughter so as not to disturb.
The version of us that still asked permission to shine.
Sometimes I wonder how many versions of us inhabit us at the same time.
The one that defends herself. The one that accommodates.
The one that acts like it doesn't hurt.
The one that competes.
The one that pretends nothing matters to her.
— I like this part, but check the rhythm. Too much free verse?
And then there's the version that only appears when we're alone.
That Glinda who ditches the swear words and the cheap jokes.
That Elphaba who isn't afraid to be tender.
No one teaches us how to navigate the abyss between what we show and what we protect.
There's a secret art—or perhaps a shared awkwardness—in learning to show someone not only what you are... but what you were and what you fear to continue being.
—Cross this out and rewrite more precisely. Though it hurts, it's the most honest sentence in the text.
Sometimes, loving someone means witnessing them struggle with their most uncomfortable reflection. And staying.
No one is safe from having a ridiculous past.
But if someone loves you even when you're dressed as a waitress at a party where everyone looks better than you... then maybe, just maybe, you're in the right place.
(Add note: And if they also steal it from you on the dance floor, even if you hate dancing, get married now.)
And if that person also ends up spilling shots with you, even better.
— Ending with humor? Maybe. Balance is part of the point.
CHAPTER 25: Blonde….
In modern times, nothing embodies humanity's contradictions as clearly as great metropolises. They are temples of swift promises, instant transformations, interchangeable identities bought on credit. Where no one is what they seem and everyone can be someone, at least for an afternoon. And perhaps nowhere else is this revealed as starkly as in shopping malls: those labyrinths of desire where the population congregates with a fervent, almost religious purpose, chasing objects they don't need to become people they aren't.
And there was Elphaba.
Sunk into a too-soft armchair, one of those designed for exhausted companions, trapped in the seventh store of the day. The synthetic leather of the seat was sticky from the faulty air conditioning, her back arched in a position strange to her slender body. She had been orbiting for more than two hours among clothing racks, faceless mannequins, and salesgirls who didn't know whether to greet her or ignore her. In front of her, as if on a stage set up exclusively for her torment, Glinda stood in a fitting room lit by a pristine white light, trying on her eleventh outfit of the day. From that store.
"And this one?" Glinda asked, walking out with a catwalk stride, slowly spinning around in a pink outfit that looked designed for a spring fashion show. Her smile was as radiant as it was rehearsed.
Elphaba barely raised her gaze from the floor and squinted.
"It's... how can I put it without sounding like a Disney villain? Offensively adorable?"
Glinda clicked her tongue as she looked at herself in the triple mirror that multiplied her figure at impossible angles.
"That's not a valid criticism," she protested, turning around to observe how the top fit her back. "Adorable to whom? Offensive in what context? Does it make me look like a high school student or a vegan influencer?"
"Is there a difference?"
"Elphie!"
Elphaba smiled faintly, just enough to provoke without offering respite. The truth was, she didn't care about the outfit, not the one before it, nor the one before that. They were all alternate versions of the same glittering universe that Glinda inhabited with enviable ease. In truth, Elphaba was exhausted, her ankles tense from walking in circles between aisles of fabrics that smelled of new plastic, and her head dizzy from a mix of pop music and cold lights. But she was also fascinated—in a way she wouldn't admit so easily—by watching her companion immerse herself in her habitat with such confidence. It was a world Elphaba had never inhabited and one she still felt like a visitor to, even though Glinda insisted on making it her own.
"I like this one for dinner," Glinda said as she reentered the dressing room. "I know you said you didn't want anything 'too formal,' but that doesn't mean we can't have style. Besides, the patent leather handbag we saw earlier would be perfect, don't you think?" "I think I have blisters in places I didn't know blisters could occur," Elphaba replied, shifting uncomfortably in the armchair. "How much longer are we going to be here?"
"Until I find what I need. And what I didn't know I needed until now," Glinda said, poking her head out with a mischievous smile. "You're being a martyr. Do you want me to get you a Frappuccino?"
"Wouldn't a free pass out of this circle of hell come with cream?"
"Cold with a double shot of tolerance?" Glinda teased.
Elphaba didn't respond, just leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes for a moment. She let herself be carried away by the sounds of the place: the buzzing of the lights, the constant murmur of customers chattering among themselves, the soft footsteps on the polished floor, the squeaking of metal hangers. And in the midst of it all, Glinda, moving like a restless hummingbird among fabrics and colors, as if this ritual of choosing and testing were a personal dance. For Elphaba, who had grown up avoiding mirrors and guarding her body in dark, practical clothes, this devotion to image remained a form of alien, almost mysterious magic.
But then Glinda emerged once more. This time in a simple, ivory dress with soft lines that fell like water over her body. There were no sequins or sheer details, just a clean, elegant cut. She stood before Elphaba in silence, without turning or posing, as if she wanted Elphaba to see her without play or artifice.
"And this one?" she asked in a softer voice.
Elphaba looked at her for a long moment, too long. The words caught in her throat, piled up, unsure which one to say first. Not because the dress was special. But because Glinda, for a split second, seemed to be performing for no one else.
"That's you," she finally said. "That's you... when you stop trying to impress everyone."
Glinda blinked. Then, slowly, she smiled. But it was a different smile. More shy. More real.
"Then this will be the one I buy," she said, and returned to the fitting room with slower steps, as if she didn't want that moment to end so quickly.
Elphaba was beginning to suspect that the minutes inside a shopping mall didn't obey the same laws of time as the rest of the universe. They were denser, stickier, as if each second stretched and perspired. Twenty minutes outside might have been a simple rest; inside that temple of consumption, they were an odyssey. And there they were now, walking toward the exit of store number seven with the grace of a baroque procession: Glinda in front, luminous as ever, and Elphaba several steps behind, bags dangling from their arms, her fingers marked by the strings, and her patience dangerously close to collapse.
"It was so much fun, wasn't it?" Glinda said with genuine enthusiasm, as if she didn't notice the slight trembling in her partner's arms or the sweat on his forehead that he no longer bothered to wipe. There's something deeply symbolic about shopping together... it's like a dance. A ritual of mutual discovery. And you were such good company, Elphie.
Elphaba made a sound that could be interpreted as a polite grunt.
"You know, it seems unfair that I got everything and you got nothing," Glinda continued, stopping suddenly in front of a gleaming new window. "You should get yourself something. Something nice. Something for you. Come on, don't be so... monastic."
"Glinda..." Elphaba began, shifting the weight of the bags from one arm to the other with a resigned sigh. "I don't need anything."
"It's not about need. It's about expression," Glinda said, twirling around with a finger pointing at a mannequin in a metallic minidress that barely covered the bare essentials. "Look at that! It glistens like it was woven from unicorn tears! It would look divine on you."
Elphaba paled as if she'd been offered an acid bath.
"That's thinner than a napkin." If I wear that, the only thing that's going to be expressed is my discomfort and maybe my court sentence.
"You're exaggerating."
"I'm surviving."
Glinda, far from giving up, had already begun to walk slowly past other shop windows, as if she could conjure, through sheer persistence, the perfect outfit that would make Elphaba change her mind. From sequined dresses to strategically sheer tops, each window display seemed like another test in the aesthetic hell her partner was doomed to endure. Elphaba watched them with a mixture of skepticism and fear. Did people really wear that in public? Without medical or contractual necessity?
"And what about this fishnet bodysuit with lace and a built-in corset?" Glinda said excitedly, pointing with both hands as if she were presenting a work of art.
"Glinda, that looks like it was designed by someone who hates human mobility."
"Exactly! Who needs mobility when they can have a silhouette?"
But then, amidst that parade of minimal fabrics and excessive sparkles, Elphaba stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes, until then shifty and tired, suddenly focused on a completely different window. There were no mannequins, no white lights, no signs with discount percentages. Just an elegant display of covers, stacked carefully: novels, essays, maps, thick-leaf notebooks, books of old photography, poetry, science fiction, natural history. A bookstore window.
Elphaba took a step forward as if something in her body had activated. It was almost imperceptible, but Glinda noticed it immediately.
"No..." she said slowly, with a note of melodramatic panic. "No. You can't be serious."
"What? You said I should buy something. I'm interested in that."
"Elphie, it's a bookstore! That doesn't count as 'buying something nice'!" You're not going to parade with a book, you can't wear it to a dinner party, it doesn't sparkle or match your eyes. You can't seduce me with an essay on postcolonial ecology!
Elphaba turned her head slightly, smiling crookedly.
"And who said I'm trying to seduce you?"
"I guessed as much! It's a couple's trip!"
"Well, then I'll seduce you more by being honest. Nothing suits me better than a good philosophical contradiction and black coffee."
Glinda put a hand to her forehead theatrically, as if the universe itself had betrayed her.
"This is humiliating. I'm dating a woman who considers the "Critical Essays" section her erogenous zone."
"You chose this," Elphaba reminded her, pointing to her own face.
"I know. I know, and I would choose it again," Glinda sighed, and then, like someone accepting an inevitable fate, "But at least promise me you won't buy more than five books."
"Three."
"That was too easy!"
"I said three... for now."
Glinda snorted, somewhere between amused and defeated, and took one of the bags Elphaba was carrying.
"Go ahead, witch. Let's see if the bookstore has your damn paper paradise. But tonight... I choose the movie."
"You always choose it."
"But this time with moral guilt weighing on you. And that, my dear, is true power."
And so, as the cruel poetic justice of the universe dictated, it was Glinda's turn to live her own hell.
According to the clock on her cell phone (which she had already checked three times in the last minute), they had been in the bookstore for exactly ten minutes. Ten. Minutes. An eternity compressed into wooden shelves and the smell of dried ink. A purgatory made of respectful silence, dim lamps, and the faint sound of pages being turned as if conspiring against her.
She felt... flattened. Like a flower pressed between dictionaries.
"Did you find anything?" she asked with feigned enthusiasm, leaning against a shelf as if her heels had given up.
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She was concentrating, standing in an almost reverential pose, slowly turning a book over in her hands, as if it were a mystical artifact and not a scholarly edition of postmodern essays on language as a power structure. Her long fingers ran along the spine with a kind of silent affection that Glinda recognized... and was beginning to resent.
Because, yes, Glinda had her own love affair with literature. She'd read Austen at fourteen and Woolf at seventeen, cried with Brontë, underlined Mary Oliver, even argued at a college party for the need to reread Colette. But this was different. This was excessive. This was a Saturday afternoon caught between treatises on geopolitics and semiotic criticism while her girlfriend silently debated each title as if she were interviewing her for a job.
Glinda crossed her arms with a sigh worthy of an opera. She walked a few steps down the aisle, barely shuffling, and then she saw it: a side shelf of romance novels, all with covers bursting with saturated colors, titles in wavy cursive, and women in impossible dresses that defied both physique and modesty. One in particular caught her eye: a red-haired period lady in a sapphire-blue dress slashing to the soul, standing dramatically on a cliff. The background looked like the fingertips of a lovesick teenager.
Glinda couldn't resist. Half joking, half with the intention of investigating, she picked up the book and approached Elphaba, who was still engrossed in the contemporary political philosophy section.
"And this one?" she asked with a sly smile, holding the novel in front of her like criminal evidence. "Don't you think that dress would look lovely on you?"
Elphaba slowly looked up. She saw her. Then she lowered her eyes to the cover. She pursed her lips slightly. And finally, she gave a brief, almost polite laugh.
"Sure. If I ever decide to cosplay as a governess straight out of a nineteenth-century melodrama... I'll keep it in mind."
Glinda tilted her head, still smiling. She watched, with feline attention, as Elphaba looked back down at the book in her hand. But there was something in the stiffness of her shoulders, in the way she didn't look up again, that made an idea spark like a wet match.
"You don't like that kind of clothing, do you?" she asked, her voice softer this time. It wasn't mockery. It was pure curiosity, disguised as small talk.
"It's not that I don't like it," Elphaba replied without looking at her. "It's just that it's not for me."
Glinda crossed her arms and leaned her hip against the bookshelf. She studied her partner for a few more seconds.
"Because you don't feel comfortable... or because it makes you uncomfortable to be seen like this?"
Elphaba remained still. These kinds of questions were typical of Glinda: phrased gently, but with the surgical precision of someone who knew exactly where to aim. It wasn't that she wanted to make her uncomfortable, not entirely. But she did want to understand. Because something about this constant refusal to show herself—to show herself in a certain way—awakened in Glinda not only suspicion, but also something more: a desire to get closer to the part of Elphaba that was still hidden.
"I'm not interested in that kind of spectacle," Elphaba finally said, returning the book to the shelf with a firm gesture. "Those clothes aren't for the streets. They're for those who don't have to explain themselves all the time. For those who the world already assumes are desirable before they even open their mouths."
Glinda felt the subtle blow of those words. They weren't directed at her, but they touched her.
"But you are desirable," she said without fully meaning it. You are... incredibly desirable, Elphie. It's just that you have a hard time believing it unless you have a book in your hands.
Elphaba smiled, tired but not angry.
"And you believe yourself undesirable unless you're shining," she replied with pointed gentleness.
They were silent. For a moment. In the middle of the bookstore, with the distant murmur of a barista in the adjoining café and the yellow light falling like a truce.
Glinda took a breath. She looked again at the novel in her hands and then at her partner.
"I'd still like to see you in one of these dresses," she said, now without sarcasm. "Not because you need to change. But because sometimes changing a little... can be another way of playing."
Elphaba looked at her. Slowly. Thoughtfully. And she didn't say no. Not entirely.
And that was enough for Glinda to know that the idea had been planted like a seed. And while Elphaba remained completely absorbed in the pages of a volume on "Narratives of Trauma in Contemporary Literature," Glinda stood by her side with a most angelic smile... which was actually the usual disguise of her mind in the throes of conspiracy. She had sown doubt, had detected a chink in the wall of principles of their relationship... and now, her instinct told her it was the perfect time to move forward.
And then she saw it.
Directly across from the bookstore, in the same shopping arcade, was a more discreet, almost hidden shop that offered a much more specific type of clothing. It didn't sparkle, it didn't have loud music, it didn't display its products with mannequins about to explode in sequins. No. This shop played on a different level: intimate, dark, slightly mischievous. In the window, only a couple of hangers and a black and white photograph suggested what was inside. A suggestively cut black bikini hung on a solitary hanger. Glinda felt the Chaos Gods had given her a sign.
The smile that spread across her face was, to say the least, dangerous.
"Love, I'll be right back," she said in her most innocent tone, which to anyone who knew her was a warning. "I forgot... something."
"What?" Elphaba asked without looking up.
"Just a small errand. Nothing important. You just got on with your paperwork."
And without waiting for a reply, she slithered out of the bookstore like a snake wrapped in floral perfume, straight for her new staging ground.
Ten minutes later, Elphaba finally emerged from the store, three books clutched to her chest and the crumpled receipt in her free hand. She examined it with a frown that only appeared on rare occasions: when institutions committed injustices... or when she noticed that the total at the bottom of the receipt exceeded her predictions by more than 25%.
"How can a paperback cost the same as a doctor's visit?" she muttered to herself, mentally tallying up the charges and taxes, trying to remember whether the Canadian author's essay was on sale or not.
And then Glinda appeared.
Shining with that solar energy that defied all logic, with a confident gait and an expression somewhere between excited and guilty, like a child who had just broken a lamp but also brought ice cream.
"Tadaaaa!" she crooned, pulling from behind her back an elegant black bag with gold lettering that already gave off bad signs.
Elphaba looked up suspiciously.
"What did you do?"
"I bought you a present!" Glinda replied, completely ignoring the implicit question.
"Glinda, wait, I need to check this ticket. I think there's a mistake and—"
"No no no no," she interrupted quickly, with a smile that brooked no debate. "First the shock. Then the financial crisis."
She opened the bag with an almost ceremonial gesture. And from inside, like a forbidden treasure, she extracted... a bikini.
Black.
Of an outrageously minimalist design.
Elphaba looked at it.
Blinked.
Looked at it again.
It was so small it could have been folded inside a fortune cookie.
"Is this...?" she began, but didn't finish.
"A bikini," Glinda said enthusiastically. "But not just any bikini. One that, if I may say so, would look spectacular on you. Picture yourself on the beach. Sand. Sun. Your long legs. Your skin against the black. An iconic image. Almost poetic."
"This isn't a bikini," Elphaba said finally, holding it up like someone examining a stuffed insect. "This is an argument in favor of nudism."
"Oh, Elphie! Don't be dramatic. What's wrong with it?"
“Glinda, this is exactly three molecules of fabric and one dream. It covers nothing. It holds nothing back. I’m pretty sure gravity will be offended if I try to put it on.”
“It’s modern, it’s elegant, and…” she said, leaning closer, her voice dropping dangerously low, “…it’s the one thing I want to see you wearing at the next stop on our journey.”
Elphaba opened her mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again.
“That… that’s not going to happen. Not in public.”
“I don’t understand why this is a problem,” Glinda was saying, her arms crossed but her tone hurt more than furious. “You have no problem wearing even more revealing things when we’re in our… private moments. I saw you in lace lingerie that makes this bikini look like a nun’s habit.”
“That’s different,” Elphaba said firmly, though without raising her voice. “That happens in a controlled environment. In privacy.” Where I have agency, where... where no one is scrutinizing me or judging whether or not I have the right to feel attractive.
"And what's so wrong with the world seeing you the way I see you?" Glinda retorted, her voice soft but charged with conviction. "Would it be so terrible if someone looked at you and thought, 'Wow, what a beautiful woman'? Because I think that every time I see you. And I don't want you to be anyone else. I just want you to allow yourself to show who you already are."
Elphaba squeezed the bikini bag until it wrinkled. The internal struggle was evident. She wanted to give in, at least a little. For Glinda, for what they shared. But she was also afraid... what? That it would become real? That the disguise she wore every day to appear untouchable would fall apart with so little fabric?
"I'm not like you, Glinda. I never was." "The clothes you wear," she said, making a sweeping gesture, as if trying to encompass all the wardrobes available in the city, "make you beautiful because you already come from a world that validates you. It makes me feel like I'm forcing a role that doesn't correspond to me."
Glinda lowered her head slightly, but didn't give up.
"Maybe," she said, calmer. "But there's also something we do share... The right to play. To flirt with the world. To like each other. And if I'm asking you, it's not so you'll fit in. It's because I'm excited. I'm proud to be with you. You're my beautiful witch, my antisocial panther. And I want to show you off. At least once."
There was a silence that lasted longer than was comfortable. Then Glinda smiled with a flash of renewed mischief.
"Besides..." she added, with the tone of someone who hasn't yet revealed their best card, "I didn't show you the whole gift."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, already anticipating that nothing good could come of that statement.
"What does that mean?"
"You'll see." And without further explanation, Glinda took her hand.
Elphaba protested, verbally and physically, as she was dragged back down the aisle. Several people looked at them: not because they recognized a famous couple, but because Glinda walked with the determination of a reality star on a shopping spree, and Elphaba trailed behind her like a librarian dragged into a music video.
They stopped in front of the same store. The designer swimwear boutique.
"Glinda..." Elphaba began warningly.
"Shhh," she said with a smile. "Now look."
She led her inside, past the saleswoman who greeted them with a knowing smile, as if she was already in on the game. Glinda guided her to the back, where two even more stunning bikinis than the one she'd bought hung: one in ruby red with thin straps and beaded details; the other in pearly white, high-cut, with slits on the sides that left little to the imagination but expertly hinted at it.
"These are for me," Glinda said. "But I'm only taking one... whichever you choose. Because I want us to match. You wear the black one. I wear the one you like best."
Elphaba blinked. The store had mirrors at every corner and ambient music that seemed designed to encourage impulse buys and questionable decisions. She felt her body tense, as if she were on the cusp of something much more intimate than a simple textile choice.
"This is a trap," she finally said.
"It is," Glinda admitted. "But it's a nice trap. The kind you fall into and end up happy with. Like falling in love with me, for example."
Elphaba looked at her.
She looked at the bikinis.
The thought of the two of them walking together on a beach in those outfits made her laugh, but also blush. She felt a part of her want to say no, but another part—that part that had learned to trust Glinda even when all her instincts screamed otherwise—was beginning to give way.
"The red one," she said with a sigh. "If you're going to drag me into the hell of exhibitionism, at least do it in style."
Glinda gave a little squeal of suppressed excitement and hugged her around the waist.
"I knew you were going to choose that one. We're going to look ridiculously sexy together. And I swear, if anyone dares to look at you the wrong way... I'll personally throw sand in their eyes."
"And if they look at me the right way?"
"Then I'll trip them up on their own desire," Glinda said proudly. "I have exclusive license to admire you."
Elphaba shook her head, half-laughing.
"I can't believe I'm doing this."
"And you still don't know what I have planned for today."
"What?"
"A nude beach."
"Glinda."
"Bullshit! But for a second there, you believed it, didn't you?"
And Elphaba, unable to help herself, laughed. She actually laughed.
Victory shining in her eyes as if she'd just won a continental fashion show, Glinda spun on her heel with carefully measured theatricality and strode toward the store clerk.
"The red one, please," she said, pointing at the bikini Elphaba had chosen, as if it were an exotic jewel. "To go."
The young, perfectly made-up employee, trained to smile enthusiastically at any impulse purchase, nodded dutifully and began wrapping the garment in black tissue paper, so delicately that she seemed to be handling an heirloom. Meanwhile, Glinda turned to Elphaba with a triumphant smile, interlacing her fingers with hers.
"See? It didn't hurt that much. I bet you anything you'll want to wear it before the day is out."
Elphaba only let out a low grunt, as if she hadn't yet forgiven herself for giving in. She looked at the floor, then the counter, then the ceiling, like someone searching her surroundings for a sign that it was all a dream. But no. She was buying—she, the woman in worn boots and gray sweaters—a bikini that looked like it was designed for Greek goddesses reincorporated into capitalism.
"I can't get used to this level of financial superficiality," she murmured.
"It's not superficiality! It's aesthetic investment. Emotional self-care in lace and Lycra!"
The clerk finished closing the bag with a red ribbon as if it were a Valentine's Day gift. Glinda, beaming, took out her credit card—a gleaming gold piece engraved with her name and a small star on the side that she had requested "to give it personality"—and offered it with the dignity of a royal heiress.
The reader beeped.
And beeped again.
The clerk raised an eyebrow.
"Excuse me... it was rejected."
They both froze.
"Sorry... what?" Glinda asked, as if the word "rejected" had been in another language.
"Insufficient funds," the young woman repeated, her practiced smile gone.
Glinda stared at the machine. Elphaba slowly raised her head, unsurprised, with the resigned patience of someone who knew the sandcastle was going to collapse sooner or later.
"It can't be," Glinda whispered. "That card is connected to my personal savings account... I had a whole budget set aside for this trip."
"I had," Elphaba corrected dryly.
Glinda whipped out her phone with the speed of a pistol. She opened her banking app. She looked.
And went blank.
"Oh no."
"Oh yes," Elphaba said, taking a seat in the nearest armchair in the boutique as if already preparing for a different kind of pain.
"I'm in the negative! NEGATIVE! How did this happen?"
"I remind you that in the second week of the trip, you decided to buy 'emotional souvenirs' in each place. Including those ostrich feathers in Santa Candida del Este."
"They were handmade!" Glinda moaned. And the axolotl-print tights! And the hairdo with real flowers! And… Oh no. Oh no no no.
“And,” Elphaba added in a litany of voices, “your tooth replacement after that hit by a ball at the Gillikin Panthers hockey game. Remember? The one that cost almost as much as renting an apartment.”
“And what was I going to do, smile with a hole in my face?! My social career would have died!”
“Your card certainly did.”
The clerk looked at them without saying anything, though she was clearly enjoying the spectacle in professional silence.
Glinda was panicking. She hugged herself, paced in circles, spoke softly like a prophet in a trance.
“What are we going to do? How are we going to pay for food, gas, accommodations? We still have weeks of travel left! Are we going to have to beg? Become a tent influencer? I don’t know how to camp!” I'm not cut out for austerity! How are we going to survive?
She began pacing in circles inside the store, speaking rapidly and gesturing haphazardly, as if enough dramatics could replenish her bank balance. The clerk discreetly retreated to the back.
"Glinda," Elphaba said in a calm but firm voice. "You're not disintegrating. You're just down to zero."
"It's the same thing!" she exclaimed, placing a hand over her heart. "I can't be poor! I wasn't trained for this! No one warned me that living had real financial limits!"
"And yet here we are," Elphaba sighed. "Capitalism is unforgiving."
Elphaba sighed. She stood up, took the card out of her own pocket—a modest but effective personal spending account without decorations or stars—and approached the counter.
"I'll pay."
"What? No, you can't," Glinda protested.
"Yes, I can. I knew this was coming. That's why I have my emergency fund."
"But that fund was for important things! Like, I don't know... legal bribes or emergency apocalypse kits."
"Exactly. This qualifies."
Glinda stared at her, wide-eyed, as Elphaba completed the transaction without flinching.
They both left the store in silence, each carrying her bikini bag. It was an absurd sight: two women, gorgeous, stylish, with funeral faces, carrying swimsuits that suggested anything but sadness.
"I'm broke. Ruined. Poor. I'm a disgraced princess! This is like an emotionally devastating version of "Cinderella," but in reverse," Glinda lamented while Elphaba, leaning against a rusty railing, watched the sunset with the calm of someone who has spent half her life waiting for the apocalypse and learned to greet it with irony.
"It's not the end of the world, Glinda," she said, for the fifth time in the last five minutes. "It just means we're going to have to sleep in more creepy motels and eat more canned soup now. We already do it. We'll just do it more."
"But we didn't have to! We were at the top of our game! At the top of our game! And now? Now we're going to have to wear the same clothes two days in a row!"
"Isn't that what you did in college when you lost your suitcase on that spiritual retreat?"
"Yeah, but I was surrounded by hippies back then! That was the context! Now we're in a world of beautiful people, beaches full of hydrated bodies and expensive smiles... and I can't even afford a coconut water!"
Elphaba sighed. She noticed Glinda's defeated expression. Her perfectly wavy hair was already starting to frizz from the humidity. There was sand around her ankles and glitter in her eyes... but not the good kind.
And then, Elphaba did the unthinkable. She looked back at the bag with the black bikini.
"Okay," she said suddenly, like someone deciding to sign a treaty with chaos.
Glinda looked at her, confused.
"What?"
"We're going to the beach."
"Now?"
"Yes. With the bikinis."
Glinda's eyes widened. She blinked. She put a hand to her chest as if she'd just received a love confession.
"Are you saying...?"
"I'm saying if this is going to make you feel a little better," Elphaba said with a vague gesture, already walking toward the car, "then I'll do it. Although I'll probably regret it as soon as I see the reflection in the water."
Minutes later they were at the beach.
And not just any beach: the beach. Full of people. Tanned people, full of shiny abs, strategic bikinis, chiffon sarongs, speakers playing soft reggaeton, and children running around with melted ice cream.
And them... in front of the public bathroom.
"Are you ready?" asked Glinda, now completely changed, wrapped in her red bikini with runway pride, her skin glistening with sunscreen, and a nervously excited expression.
"You go first. I'll catch up later," came the sound from the other side of the bathroom door, where Elphaba had been locked for over eight minutes.
"Elphaba..." said Glinda, crossing her arms. "Don't make me break down the door. We already had one card rejected today. I don't want us to end up in jail too."
"I'm... psyching myself up," her girlfriend replied from inside. "Giving myself a pep talk."
"Get out now!" ordered Glinda, knocking softly on the door.
And then... the door opened.
And the world seemed to stop.
There was Elphaba, beneath the worn white plastic frame of the public restroom, standing with her back straight and her gaze steady, as if she were about to give a speech at the UN. The black bikini hugged her figure perfectly: simple, elegant, without unnecessary embellishments, but cut precisely enough to suggest power and sensuality without vulgarity. Her green skin contrasted with the black with hypnotic intensity. Her hair, tousled by the humidity, fell over her shoulders with the careless perfection of someone who doesn't know she's beautiful. And her dark eyes sparkled with just the right mix of pride and embarrassment.
The beach continued to move. But for Glinda, everything went into slow motion.
"Holy Oz..." she whispered.
Elphaba crossed her arms, clearly uncomfortable.
"Tell me this wasn't a mistake."
Glinda didn't respond immediately. She was watching her like someone looking at an unexpected work of art in the middle of a chaotic gallery. As if, suddenly, the freest, bravest, and most desired version of Elphaba had manifested without warning.
"You're... devastating," she finally said. "You're like the word dominant coming to life in a scandalous body." I didn't know if I was going to cry or scream. So I'm doing a bit of both internally.
Elphaba couldn't help a lopsided smile, tiny but real.
"Are we going to the beach, or are you just going to hypnotize me?"
"Come on. But I swear if anyone else looks at you like that... I'll turn into a banshee."
"Very healthy."
"Did you see it?! Those looks! I told you! You're a nuclear bomb and no one knew it!"
"And now everyone does."
"My God. I love being poor with you."
And so they walked along the beach.
Sorry. They destroyed the beach.
The sand seemed to open up under their feet, the wind rearranged the sound of the sea to echo them, and even the seagulls turned their heads as if acknowledging that something glorious had just entered the coastal ecosystem.
Glinda walked ahead, smiling, swaying her hips with that ease that only comes from being born under the sign of charisma and hairspray. The red bikini fit her as if it had been custom-made, the shiny fabric maliciously capturing every glimmer of sunlight. She was carrying giant sunglasses, an umbrella under one arm, and a bag full of snacks, creams, sarongs, and... a small portable fan?
Beside her, Elphaba walked with a much more... skeptical expression. Also wearing sunglasses—black, rectangular, implacable—carrying a folding chair, a bag of books, two bottles of water, and sunscreen. Her black bikini, with its simple, elegant lines, made her look like she stepped off the cover of an avant-garde editorial. She walked as if this were all part of a covert spy mission.
Eyes inevitably strayed toward them. Young people, adults, churro vendors, retirees in floral hats, even children with buckets of sand interrupted their castles to watch them go by. Some hid poorly. Others, worse.
Glinda responded to each of those glances with a diplomatic smile, a subtle nod, or a "hello" sung in that tone somewhere between innocent and criminally seductive. Beside her, Elphaba pursed her lips in the closest thing to a dignified rejection. A mix of "don't look at me" with "don't talk to me" and "if you keep looking, you'll need new glasses."
And then, as if in a scene written by fate, they walked past him.
A man in his thirties, excessively tanned, hair slicked back, carefully sculpted abs, a swimsuit so short it defied municipal regulations. Watching them walk by, his mouth opened slightly, as if the air had escaped him. He took out his cell phone and shamelessly took a picture of them.
"Dude, you have to see this," he said via voice message as the photo traveled rapidly across the internet.
Finally, the couple found a free corner and set up camp. Elphaba planted the parasol with the efficiency of a civil engineer; Glinda laid out the towel with theatricality, ensuring that the sarong's drape flowed like a satin waterfall. They laid out their personal belongings like someone preparing for a ritual.
And then, with a smile somewhere between tender and perfidious, Glinda knelt on the towel, swept her hair to one side with millimetric grace, and twirled around on her knees with a hint of feigned innocence.
"I think," she crooned, like someone beginning a Christmas carol, "I need someone to put sunscreen on me."
And she stood there, her bare back offered to the world, arched with the kind of precision one practices in front of a mirror.
Silence.
Glinda waited.
Nothing.
"Elphie..." she said more loudly.
But when she turned around, she found herself confronted by the least erotic scene on the planet: Elphaba sitting cross-legged, frantically jotting down notes in a wrinkled notebook, her brow furrowed as if she were calculating quantum physics.
"Are you... doing the math?"
"I'm reviewing our budget." He didn't even look at her. "If we stop buying name-brand coffees and use hotel shampoo for everything, I think we can make it to the next town without going completely into debt."
"I'm offering you my bare back as a canvas for summer pleasure, and you're talking about... hotel shampoo?!"
"Glinda," Elphaba said, barely raising her gaze over her glasses. "I'm trying to save us from emotional and financial destitution. Your back can wait three minutes."
"Can my back...?"
Glinda flopped faceup on the towel, theatrically offended, with a sigh worthy of the greatest tragedies.
"You're the only woman on this beach who can ruin the sexiest moment of the day with an improvised Excel spreadsheet."
"Technically, it's a handwritten table."
"Even worse."
And so, under the sun, surrounded by perfect bodies, chill-out music, and corn vendors, a green writer and a bankrupt princess began the most unforgettable afternoon of their trip. With a black bikini, a moral debt, and a dollop of sunscreen still waiting to find its place.
Elphaba was completely immersed in her mission.
Her body, covered by the black bikini and the now-tossed sarong, rested on a blanket, but her mind was in a parallel universe: one filled with numbers, projections, and austerity scenarios. Her notebook was filled with notes in black ink, with crooked columns and chaotic arrows marking possibilities like "shared dinner," "radical couchsurfing," and "cancel streaming anime with lesbian subthemes."
She'd even taken out her cell phone calculator. As the sun blazed and the waves crashed in a natural soundtrack of tourist seduction, she murmured:
"So..." she murmured, more to herself than to the world, "if we divide the expenses by city, subtract the gas, and eliminate all the impulsive stops, maybe we'll make it to Ozington without sleeping under bridges. Maybe. If there are no medical emergencies. No boutiques. No teeth."
"Elphie..." Glinda said in a honeyed voice, barely turning her head. "Don't you think this is the perfect time to, I don't know... appreciate the scenery?"
Elphaba didn't look up.
"I'm appreciating the financial picture. It's devastating."
Glinda turned on one elbow, resting her head on her hand, her sunglasses barely pushed down her nose to look at her with sparkling eyes.
"Do you know there's a picture-postcard view behind you?" Glinda said sourly, not moving from her position. Literally a dreamlike scene. Your girlfriend offers you her tanned back. She winks at you in a bikini. She indirectly recites an erotic poem with her clavicles... and you prefer to talk about financial excellence?
"I'm trying to ensure a future without catastrophic debt."
"I'm trying to ensure an afternoon without emotional withdrawal," Glinda grumbled, still posing with absurd grace on the towel.
Elphaba snorted, without looking up.
"Besides, I don't like the sea."
"What?"
"Saltwater is corrosive. For some skin... it can even be harmful. And I don't want to find out if my green skin reacts chemically to coastal salinity. Imagine me melting like a cheap witch's candle in front of children."
Glinda looked at her with a defeated expression.
"So you brought me to the beach to... avoid the water?"
"I brought you here because you were having an existential crisis in front of the mall, and this seemed less dangerous than letting you yell at an ATM."
"I wanted a sexy vacation. This feels like accounting in a bathing suit."
Elphaba, ignoring the prompt, continued typing. Then she raised her head with an idea.
"What if we get a temporary job? Something informal. We could clean hotel rooms, or sell things at the coastal fair. I could teach literature classes. Or edit other people's theses online."
"Job?!" Glinda straightened as if she'd been offered underwater mining. "We're on vacation! This is a romantic trip! Bohemian, not precarious."
"The other option," Elphaba said calmly, still typing, "is to call your parents. Ask for financial help. I know your father. I'm sure he won't deny it."
Silence.
And then, as if the word had summoned a dark force, Glinda turned sharply, her face hard and her voice deep:
"That's not going to happen."
Elphaba slowly raised her gaze. Something about that tone was different. Deeper. More vulnerable.
"Glinda..."
"I'm not going to ask my mother for anything. She's already told me everything she thinks about this trip. And about us. I don't need her money. Or her permission. Or her pity."
"How long have you not spoken?"
"Since that conversation. And I don't feel like going over it."
Elphaba slowly closed the notebook. The weight of that confession hung between them. For a second, the beach fell silent.
Glinda, still furious, grabbed one of the towels. She shook it roughly, stood up in her chaotic queen stance, and slung it over one shoulder like someone carrying a battle flag.
"I'm going into the water. With or without you."
"Glinda...?"
"And you better show up sometime! Because if you don't come out of that corner with sunscreen in hand, you'll be sleeping in the backseat of the car for the next two nights."
And so, without waiting for an answer, she walked toward the coast. The sun's rays made her body glow as if the universe itself refused to let her go unnoticed. Her figure glowed with pride, but the line of her shoulders held a hint of rigidity.
Elphaba followed her with her eyes until she disappeared among the umbrellas. Then she looked back at her notebook, where a number was underlined three times: the exact amount they had left.
She slowly closed the notebook. She was silent for a second. And then, sighing, she stood up.
"Damn," she muttered. "Now this is love."
And she started looking for the sunscreen.
Meanwhile, as if straight out of a shampoo commercial banned for its erotic power, Glinda emerged from the water with the choreographic precision of a goddess. Her blonde hair, now soaked and shining, flew back in a perfect curve as she arched her back and shook off the drops as if each one were a jewel the ocean had gifted her.
A ray of sunlight chose that exact moment to filter through the clouds, bathing her figure in a golden light that seemed designed exclusively to highlight the curve of her shoulders, the glow of her skin, and the smile of pure self-confidence she wore.
The entire beach stopped.
A couple stopped arguing. A group of teenagers nearly knocked over a cooler. A dog stopped barking.
She knew it.
Every eye was on her, as it should be.
She turned gracefully toward the shore, expecting to see her girlfriend already melting from the heavenly vision she'd just witnessed... and instead, she found her there: Elphaba, standing like a glamorous scarecrow at the water's edge, her face ablaze with internal civil war.
Her expression was a perfect mix of hatred of water, fear of ridicule, and existential shame, all wrapped up in the body of a woman who looked like a statue carved by a depressed artist.
"Are you going in, or are you going to put down roots in the sand?" Glinda called from the sea, pushing her hair out of her face with one hand.
"I'm... considering the risks," Elphaba said, not moving. "The level of salinity. The density of bacteria." The possibility of some sea creature taking an interest in my leg.
"Good heavens, it's water, Elphie! Not acid!"
"It's seawater. Technically a hostile environment for unadapted organisms."
"You're a dominatrix witch," Glinda snorted, crossing her arms as she floated. "Adapt."
Elphaba took a step. Then another. And then she stepped back.
Glinda rolled her eyes. And then, with a sly little smile, she raised an eyebrow and changed strategy.
"Well. You missed it."
"What?"
"The mystical experience of swimming with me. But don't worry. In three seconds it's going to get better. I'm going to scream. Loud. I'm going to pretend I'm drowning. And then..." she jerked her chin toward the nearest tower, "she's going to come."
Elphaba looked. There, high above, like an aquatic embodiment of desire, was the lifeguard. Tall, with rounded shoulders, shiny brown skin, wet hair tied back, mirrored glasses, and the classic red suit that looked like it had been sewn by a feverish French designer. She sat like a bored goddess who hadn't yet been sufficiently worshipped.
"Are you going to pretend to drown so she can save you...?"
"Oh yeah. And when she comes swimming up like a muscled dolphin, I'm going to faint in her arms. And she's going to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Several times. Just to be safe."
"Glinda..."
"And afterward, of course, she's going to stay and make sure I'm okay. We'll laugh. She's going to tell me I'm incredibly brave. I'm going to tell her that her arms are the safest I've ever been in. We're going to make eye contact. Long. Meaningfully."
"Glinda."
"And when she asks for my number, I'm going to give it to her. Of course. Out of respect. Because... you were too busy with your notebook and your nautical excuses."
"Glinda."
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
And then, without warning, Elphaba leaped.
The plunge was more of an aerial attack than a graceful entry: an explosion of water, a stifled scream, and a huge wave splashing Glinda, who didn't even have time to defend herself.
"ELPHABAAAA!" she screamed between peals of laughter, completely soaked.
When they both resurfaced, they were already in the water, together, wet, and caught in that nervous laughter that only happens when your body doesn't know whether to scream or hug.
"You're crazy! That was a bomb! That was a beach bomb!"
"And you're an idiot flirting with a lifeguard in front of his partner," Elphaba said, splashing her.
"It was a legitimate threat! You didn't seem very eager to join in!"
"Now I'm here, right?"
"Yeah, all over me. You literally ruined my hair."
"I ruined a lot of things today. But I can make up for that."
"Oh yeah? How so?"
Elphaba looked at her closely, the sun reflecting off her wet face. Her expression no longer held its initial hardness. All that remained was a warm mix of resignation and tenderness.
"I'm going to hold you in the water," she murmured. Literally. Like in those absurd movies where someone faints and someone else carries them in slow motion.
"And then?"
"Then you're going to promise me you won't pretend to drown to kiss muscled strangers."
"I promise I'll only do it for you."
"I accept the risk."
And so, amid splashes, laughter, threats of jealousy, and a treacherous wave that almost knocks them off their feet again, our heroines, with no budget but an increasingly unfiltered love, slowly sank into the sea of their own contradictions. Together. Finally.
Against all odds—and against all prior logic in their characters—both managed to enjoy the beach.
And they didn't just survive: they shone.
Elphaba, her reluctance dissolved amid laughter and splashes, had begun to find pleasure in floating, in the reduced weight of her body on the water, in the casual touch of Glinda's fingers as they swam side by side. And Glinda, now revitalized by the contact, the sun, and the moral victory, kept commenting out loud about how beautiful they looked together in bikinis, or about how they should start a literary OnlyFans where Elphaba read poetry in a swimsuit.
The laughter came with the naturalness of something that no longer needs to be proven.
At one point, they tried to build a sandcastle. Glinda treated it as a structural beauty pageant. Elphaba, as an essay on medieval architecture.
"We need taller towers! Sexier columns!" Glinda shouted, kneeling in her shimmering bikini, molding shells as if they were parade molds.
"This is structurally unstable. If you don't reinforce the base, your 'sexy column' will collapse as soon as the wind blows," Elphaba replied, mapping out a defensive plan around the castle with mathematical precision.
Within five minutes, they were covered in sand up to their eyebrows and giggling like girls drunk on lemonade.
Then came the ice cream.
Glinda insisted that sharing one of those giant, sprinkled, ridiculously shaped cones was "part of the beach experience." Elphaba reluctantly accepted it, only for Glinda to accidentally (accident?) slam it against her nose and then try to wipe it off with her tongue. A stunned Elphaba took a second to react before counterattacking... with an icy spoonful of revenge between Glinda's breasts.
The result was a brief chase across the sand, amid shouts, laughter, and occasional applause from fascinated onlookers.
When they surrendered to exhaustion, they lay down together on the towel under the umbrella, sharing Glinda's phone earbuds. Elphaba stopped fighting with the volume and finally agreed to listen to the "Sexy Apocalyptic Summer" playlist Glinda had prepared in advance.
"Do you have any songs that aren't by Dua Lipa?" Elphaba asked.
"One. By Kylie."
"Of course."
And there, amidst pop songs, traces of sand in their belly buttons, the smell of coconut and salt, the two remained silent. Staring at the sky. Smiling. Elphaba's fingers intertwined with Glinda's without any ceremony.
"You know what?" Glinda murmured, half asleep.
"What?"
"This day wasn't so bad."
"You're saying that now that I got in the water."
"I say that because... even when you hate everything, you're with me." Even if you hate the sun, bikinis, the sea, the sand, crowds, and the possibility of an eye infection.
"And you?"
"What about me?"
"What do you hate, and you do the same for me?"
Glinda turned her head to look at her.
"Counting money? Sleeping on mattresses that sound like sacks of chips? Eating food that's gluten-free, dairy-free, and joy-free?"
Elphaba smiled.
"We're a pair of idiots."
"We're idiots in love. It makes everything better."
And for a second, that moment was perfect.
"You know what I was thinking?" Glinda said suddenly, her voice sweet. "That this trip... this moment... is like a poem."
Elphaba smiled without opening her eyes.
"A poem about debt, motels with cockroaches, and bathing with stolen soap?"
"No. About... freedom. And love. And well-lit curves."
"Curves?"
"Yours. And mine. And those of this beach. And those of the road."
Elphaba opened her eyes and turned to look at her.
"Are you improvising beach poetry?"
"I try," Glinda replied proudly. "Look: 'In the sand I draw you, with the fingers of desire / sun and salt, skin and ink, what we build together without fear.'"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, impressed.
"That was... surprisingly decent."
"Thanks! I made a mental note of it while you swam like a shy dolphin. I was planning to tell you later, in an intimate scene at sunset. But anyway..."
And then, the world shook.
Not literally. But almost.
The music came as a distant vibration at first. A thump of heavy bass, electronic percussion, and some screeching synthesizer that ruined any deep thought. Then it got louder. And louder. And louder.
Until even the crabs on the shore seemed to stop in protest.
Glinda sat up in annoyance, pushing her glasses up onto her forehead.
"What the hell is that? A DJ with an earthquake complex?"
Elphaba stood up too, squinting to identify the source.
"That's not a speaker. That's an invasion."
And then they saw it.
A yacht. A huge white yacht, with chrome trim, flamingo-shaped floats, and a banner with gold letters that read "Live Life for Real." From the upper deck, colored lights flickered in the sunlight, someone was dancing in a unicorn costume, and a stack of speakers vibrated to the beat of a silly song about "drinking champagne with the muses."
The yacht was getting closer. Too close. As if seeking to metaphorically park itself in front of our heroines' peace.
Glinda and Elphaba watched it with the same expressions you might make when watching a wave of ketchup advancing across a white carpet.
"What is this...?" Elphaba muttered.
"A floating party?"
"A cult?"
"A sign from the universe?"
The yacht stopped a few feet from the shore, its imposing presence completely eclipsing the small boats nearby. The music dropped for a moment, as if the ocean itself were holding its breath. Then, with a mechanical clack, a chrome gangplank slowly descended from the side of the boat, extending like a shining tongue to kiss the sand in front of Elphaba and Glinda.
Immediately, three figures stepped out.
They weren't ordinary sailors. They weren't even sailors from a revue.
They were... living homoerotic icons, straight out of a Village People dance routine: one wearing a white captain's cap and leather shorts; another, topless with suspenders and combat boots; and the third, a classic sailor suit, modified with sequins and no pants. All muscular, tanned, smiling, and perfectly synchronized in their performance.
"Are you the legendary Glinda and Elphaba?"
They both blinked.
"Are you... greeting us?" Elphaba asked, looking around, as if there were more people they could be addressing.
"We're inviting you!" the second sailor said, winking. "Aboard pleasure, sweethearts."
"It's an honor to welcome such iconic women!" the third added, throwing gold confetti from a mysterious envelope.
Elphaba looked at Glinda.
"We have clones? Doppelgangers? What's going on?"
Glinda frowned, suspecting something. But with no better idea, and still not fully understanding, they both boarded the ship.
The gangplank creaked beneath their feet. The sun shone. And everything seemed, for a moment, like a welcoming parade without logic.
But then they reached the interior.
And logic died.
Elphaba looked around as if she were entering the astral plane of a psychosexual dream designed by a graphic designer with too much free time. Columns lined with mirrors. Statues of Greek gods with LGBTQ+ flags painted on their chests. Round beds. Mirrored spheres hanging from the ceiling. An open bar with bartenders in G-strings waving fans like Vegas drag queens.
And on one of the walls, hung a neon-lit sign that read:
“BRA CLUB MEMBERS ONLY — GIRLS, ABSTAIN 💋”
“Is this... a beach club?” Elphaba asked, slowly spinning around. “Or a banned episode of Queer Eye?”
“This is…” Glinda gulped, the color draining from her face. “No. It can’t be.”
“What?”
“We have to get out of here! Now!” Glinda grabbed Elphaba’s arm urgently.
“But why? Are they treating us well? Did they offer us daiquiris?”
“It’s their ship,” Glinda said, with a real tremor in her voice.
“Whose?”
The music changed abruptly.
Strobe lights clicked on. A pink spotlight illuminated a spiral staircase, and from the top, descending in a sequined cape, fan in hand, knee-high boots with gold heels, spiky blonde hair, precise makeup, and a violet lace bodysuit with shoulder pads, appeared Frankini… Upland.
“GLINDA DEARIIIIIIIIIIII!” she shouted, arms open as if receiving an Emmy nomination. “The blonde bubble has arrived!” And he brought with him the most desirable creature of the intellectual underworld! Ladies, gentlemen, queeeers: let's celebrate! The dysfunctional family is together again!
Elphaba opened her mouth.
Glinda took a step back.
"No. No. It can't be. Why is he here?"
Frankini took the last step down and landed in front of them with a curtsy worthy of the emperors of excess. She straightened with that poisonous smile Glinda had known since childhood.
"Surprise, cousin! My dear Ammanni "
Glinda gritted her teeth.
"Don't call me 'Ammanni.'"
"Sorry, my dear! But when you have a mark, a presence, a stamp on the heart of the queer-coastal community, you have to use it. And you, dear cousin, are part of the lineage. Even if it's the part with... how do I put it?... wardrobe malfunctions."
Frankini walked along the railing as if it were his personal runway at Hell's Met Gala: slow, undulating, perfectly in sync with the disco music that had just started playing again, each step accompanied by a look, a gesture, a mini-performance. The tulle cape floated around him as if of its own volition, and the reflections of the mirror balls crowned him emperor of the ridiculous.
Elphaba couldn't close her mouth.
It wasn't from horror. It was from total disbelief.
To her left, Glinda looked like a coffee machine just before it exploded: all internal vibration, building pressure, and a high-pitched beeping sound about to explode into screams. To her right, Frankini twirled, stopped, posed, and flashed a smile more poisonous than the venom of a glam jellyfish.
"And so, the ocean finally returns to me what I once thought lost," he said in a honeyed, exaggerated voice, not looking directly at Glinda. My beloved cousin, the golden one, the absent one, the scandalously forgettable Glinda!
"Frankini..." Glinda hissed, not moving an inch. "What are you doing here?"
"Here? This is my yacht, my love! Where did you expect me to be? In an office? Teaching? Married to an accountant and raising chickens in Kansas? No, no, no! I am where history happens. And today history happens here. Because today... we meet again."
Elphaba blinked, still trying to make sense of it all.
"Are you... cousins?" she finally asked, looking at Glinda.
"Yes," they both said simultaneously. But while Glinda said it as if confessing to having run over someone in her youth, Frankini declared it with the enthusiasm of a commercial.
"Favorite cousins!" he added. "Raised together. Once inseparable. Until Glinda decided the world wasn't big enough for two suns shining at the same time."
"Bullshit!" Glinda roared. "You ruined my quinceañera, filled the pool with toxic glitter, and threw cake in my mother's face."
"She deserved it."
"Frankini!"
"What? You want me to remind you of the time you tried to cut my bangs while I was sleeping?"
"I was thirteen!"
"And I was seventeen and already wearing wigs! It was a personal attack!"
Meanwhile, Elphaba stared at them as if a three-dimensional puzzle had been taken apart without instructions.
"Wait a second... you never told me about him?" she asked Glinda quietly.
"Because... because... this!" Glinda said, pointing at him. "Because he's what happens when narcissism and glitter mix with bad parenting and access to family funds."
Frankini spun around and approached Elphaba with a feigned charm that smelled of cheap perfume and the Cold War.
"But, but, but... I didn't introduce myself! Frankini, multi-platform artist, choreographer, tastemaker, and occasional aesthetic oracle. And you must be... the witch."
"I'm Elphaba," she replied with a half-smile. "Part-time witch. Full-time girlfriend. And a horrified witness to this dynamic, apparently as of today."
Frankini burst into raucous laughter, covering her mouth dramatically.
"Adorable! Cynical, dry, and green! A fascinating choice, my cousin! I thought you'd never break out of the straight, blond catalog mold."
"Frankini," Glinda hissed, gritting her teeth. "We're leaving. Now."
She took Elphaba's hand and began to pull her toward the catwalk.
But Frankini, with the dramatic flair of a viper in velvet, pirouetted forward, blocking the exit with open arms.
"Wait a minute! Years, Glinda! Years since we've seen each other! And just as the moon enters Aquarius and the sun is at its zenith in Scorpio, I'm reunited with my adorable, jealous, neurotic cousin. And you want to run away without having a drink with me?"
—Yes. Exactly that!
—No way! Today is a day of charity. And as a gift to humanity... I've decided to dedicate my time to you. To you! To interstate lesbian love! To this unlikely duo that makes me believe even the impossible can have interior design!
Elphaba let out a long, long sigh as the music started playing again behind Frankini, and two sailors began rolling out a sequined rug toward a back lounge.
—Is there any way this ends without someone ending up in the water? —Elphaba asked quietly.
—No, —Glinda said, staring at her cousin. —But with luck...that someone will be him.
It was as if someone had yelled "Fire!" in an Old West duel, but instead of bullets, the projectiles were words laced with pastel poison.
Elphaba barely had time to register the atmosphere. Glinda and Frankini positioned themselves like two sarcastic gunslingers at either end of the deck, with Elphaba caught between them, like the poor cow caught in a stampede of egos.
"I see your taste is still... alternative," Frankini commented, glancing sideways at Elphaba. "I love your 'depressed goth college professor' vibe."
"And I see you're still going with that 'villain rejected by Nickelodeon style," Glinda countered with a smile as sharp as a razor blade dipped in Chanel No. 5.
"Oh, cousin, your tongue is still as sharp as your elbows."
"And your ego is as big as your platform shoes, which, by the way, are still a crime against stability."
"Oh, I'm glad you're so concerned about my footwear. You always knew how to look down!"
"Only because you never knew how to rise to anyone's level but your own."
"Touché!" Frankini clapped once, theatrically and happily. "This is almost like Christmas, but with more sweat and less dignity!"
Elphaba, in the center, was turning her head from one to the other as if following a particularly vicious tennis match. She didn't know whether to intervene or find the quickest way to throw herself overboard without losing her bikini.
And then, as if the day's script had been dictated by a spirit of chaos trained in musicals, Frankini took a step back and suddenly changed her tone. She smiled gently. Well, her version of gentle.
"But enough with the sharp words," she declared, placing a hand dramatically on her chest. "The important thing is that you're here, on my yacht, on the same day as my big evening event. A theme party! Bodies, glitter, and moonlit revelations!"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Party?"
"Obviously." What did you think, that this was just a guided tour of my ego? No! This is just the prelude! Tonight, my dears, there's a special event. And you're honored guests.
"NO," Glinda said with the rumble of an offended goddess, taking a step forward as if her word could seal a hellish portal. "No, no, no. No way. We're getting off this ship right now. Thanks for the... trauma."
But Frankini smiled with the calmness of someone with an ace up their sleeve... or several compromising photos on their cell phone.
"Are you sure, Glinda? It's just a small get-together. Beautiful people, loud music, maybe... some innocent anecdotes from your youth. Like that time at camp when you mistook repellent for self-tanning spray. Or when you accidentally dyed your eyebrows trying to imitate Madonna? Or—"
"We get it!" Glinda shouted, as white as a sheet of paper.
Elphaba slowly turned toward her, her gaze somewhere between amused and malicious.
"Self-tanning?"
"Don't start."
Frankini leaned closer, placed a hand on Elphaba's shoulder with manipulative familiarity, and crooned, "Tell me, Elphie, wouldn't a glamorous night be in order?" Music, drinks, uninhibited people who won't give you weird looks if you quote Nietzsche while swaying in sequins.
Elphaba hesitated for a moment. The salty air, the enchanting chaos, the promise of chaos with a glass in hand... and, above all, the desire to see how far this absurd show could go.
"Well..." she said, glancing at Glinda out of the corner of her eye. "Maybe an hour. To observe the local wildlife."
"Elphaba!" Glinda cried as if she'd just been stabbed with a broken martini glass. "You can't be serious!"
"She's just academically curious," Frankini replied, satisfied.
Glinda gritted her teeth, turned around, and with a perfectly fake smile, murmured:
"Would you excuse us for a second, darling?"
With unusual strength, Glinda dragged Elphaba down the yacht's interior corridor like someone dragging a prisoner to the gallows. They passed by feathered sailors, pink lights, and a champagne fountain shaped like a headless sculpted torso. All of which they completely ignored. Elphaba trotted along, resisting more out of reflex than conviction, until Glinda stopped in front of a door and flung it open.
"Inside."
"Where? In the—"
"Inside."
Elphaba stepped inside. And immediately realized her mistake.
The yacht's bathroom, if it could even be called that, was the size of a closet with a cabin complex. No more than three feet square, with a pink porcelain toilet and a sink so small it could double as a martini glass. Elphaba barely took a step before she was bumping knee to knee. Glinda followed, and the door clicked shut, trapping them face to face, noses dangerously close.
"Are you out of your mind?" "Glinda said, throwing her hands out to the sides as if looking for space to breathe, and the only thing she touched was the glitter-padded wall. "Accept Frankini's invitation? Do you want to die of glitter poisoning?"
"It's free food," Elphaba replied, trying not to move her elbows. "And lodging. Remember we're broke?"
"I'd rather sleep in a parking lot than spend a night under the same roof as that... that... ornate demon!" Glinda exclaimed, her eyes bloodshot.
Elphaba tried to remain calm. It was difficult, considering Glinda was four inches from her face and the humidity in the bathroom was making her soul frizzy.
"Look," Elphaba said reasonably. "I'm not asking you to love him. Or even talk to him. Just that we survive one more night on this trip without having to sell one of my kidneys."
"And you think that's a safe place to stay? With naked men, strobe lights, and my cousin making a catwalk among the desserts?"
"A little bit," Elphaba admitted, holding back a smile. "Come on, Glinda... it can't be that bad." We eat, we have drinks, I complain about the DJ, and you revel in the sight of men wearing boots you could only dream of. Where's the danger?
"I am the danger!" Glinda retorted, suddenly ticking off a list on her fingers. "Do you know what that lunatic did to me? He ruined every birthday since I was eight! He sabotaged my ballet audition with pink smoke! He pretended to be me on a video call with the girl I liked! He sold my mom my private letters to blackmail me with hideous boots! He stole my crown at the school pageant and used it for his poodle!"
As Glinda rant, she raised both hands as if strangling an invisible neck.
"Sometimes I dream I strangle him with his own extensions!"
Elphaba couldn't hold it in any longer. She burst out laughing.
"What are you laughing at?" Glinda exclaimed, offended.
"About you. About this. About everything. You're just as crazy as he is, only blond."
"Here!" Glinda exclaimed, hitting him gently but dramatically on the shoulder with her open palm. "You make me angry. I hate you. You're my ruin."
"And you're my financial ruin," Elphaba replied with a half smile, gently touching the receipt she still had in her pocket.
For a moment, they both remained silent, breathing heavily, pressed against each other and the walls, the tension slowly dissolving like foam in a champagne glass. Elphaba gently touched her chin.
"Just one night. With luck, a few free drinks and lots of tanned men in sunga..."
Glinda narrowed her eyes.
"Sometimes I regret that you're bisexual."
Elphaba laughed again.
"Why? Because I can have fun with you and look at the sailors?"
"Because you're a traitor," Glinda said with a resigned smile. "And because you know that in the end you always give in to my dramas."
"And you to my arguments."
Glinda sighed, conceding defeat... or at least a tie.
"Fine! Just... Promise me you won't leave me alone for a second."
"I promise."
"And if he tries to tell the story about the piñata shaped like me, you'll distract him by yelling something in German."
"Even in Klingon."
"Fine. But if he tries to put a flamingo-feather hat on me again, I swear to God—"
They tried to move to leave, but they were tangled up like human pretzels. Glinda turned toward the door, Elphaba backed away, but neither of their arms seemed to find the handle.
"Can you...?"
"I'm trying!"
"Your elbows are in my face!"
"Your hair is in my mouth!"
As they struggled, Glinda tripped over something next to the toilet. A soft click sounded, and suddenly, from the ceiling, a miniature disco ball descended, spinning with a flash of pink and blue lights. At the same time, from the side of the toilet, something emerged.
They both froze.
A massive inflatable phallus erupted with a squeal, flashing LED lights and the Frankini logo at the base.
Glinda and Elphaba stared at it in complete silence.
"AAAH!" they shouted in unison.
"FRANKINI!" Glinda squealed, as if she had just seen a spectral apparition.
They both tried to escape, pushing each other, with no room to coordinate. Glinda tripped over the toilet seat. Elphaba got tangled up in the velvet curtain that shouldn't have been there. Hands in the wrong places, legs in opposite directions.
"You got out!"
"No, you got out!"
"My bikini caught on the doorknob!"
"Your bikini IS the doorknob!"
And with one last combined push of legs, elbows, and desperation, the door flew open.
The two fell into the hallway, one on top of the other, right in front of two half-naked sailors holding trays of fluorescent drinks.
The sailors looked at them. The disco ball was still spinning inside the bathroom. The inflatable phallus was waving as if in greeting.
"First victims of the DiscoBathroom Deluxe?" one asked, unfazed.
"Did they survive "Pandora's Penis"?" —the other added with a smile.
Elphaba, lying face down, slowly turned her head to look at Glinda, whose eyes were wider than ever.
"I hate him," she said.
"I know," Elphaba replied.
"And you do too, a little bit, right now."
"I know that, too."
And then, as if nothing had happened, a Cher song began to play throughout the yacht. The party hadn't even started yet... but the chaos was already perfectly choreographed.
For the rest of the afternoon, in the complimentary dressing room Frankini had given them with obvious malice, Glinda engaged in such an intense oral marathon that Elphaba began to suspect her girlfriend was breathing through her ears.
"And under no circumstances believe him if he says it was me who ruined Uncle Wilford's wedding. It was him. He threw the inflatable snake. Him. Are you listening to me?"
"Uh-huh."
"If he starts talking about his 'conceptual cave performance period,' you just smile and change the subject. Never, and I repeat, never, ask him what he means by 'spiritual body fusion.'"
"Sure."
"And if you see him approaching with a velvet-wrapped object or something that says 'limited edition,' run. He's probably alive."
"Understood."
"Are you ignoring me?"
"No. I'm fantasizing about being born without eardrums. It's different."
The dressing room looked like it had been designed by a drunken elf with a fixation on Art Deco and sexual ambiguity: mirrors in every corner, wigs with impossible haircuts, sequined curtains, and a marble statue of a half-naked Frankini serving as a coat rack. Despite the thematic horror, Glinda managed to assemble a small beauty sanctuary in the corner with her styling tools, and with surgical dedication, transformed her curls and makeup into an aesthetic statement of war.
Elphaba, for her part, chose an elegant and slightly punkish version of the black dress, with a high neckline and an open back, paired with bright red lipstick and her favorite sunglasses. She was beautiful, dangerous, lethally restrained. Exactly what the situation called for.
As the sun began to descend over the sea, dyeing the sky that orange-gold that made even the yacht's dirty windows look like something out of an expensive postcard, the two left the dressing room.
And walked onto the deck as if they were the only stars that mattered.
Glinda, radiant in a white ensemble with metallic accents and platform shoes that screamed "I didn't come to have fun, I came to dominate," held an empty glass as if she were about to give her acceptance speech at the "Most Iconic of the Night" awards. Elphaba, meanwhile, walked like a black cat between columns of incense: oblivious, elegant, inexplicably intimidating.
The few guests already present turned their heads almost in sync. A topless young man put down his glass. Another adjusted his glasses with trembling hands.
And in the background, of course, him.
Frankini. Standing behind the yacht's makeshift bar, dressed in a violet silk kimono that revealed more skin than legally allowed in at least seven states, he shook a cocktail shaker while humming a Broadway tune, relaxed, charming, completely odious.
"Voilà!" he exclaimed upon seeing them. "My stars! My tragedy and my comedy!" Light and shadow! The blonde and the... well, the green one!
Glinda strode forward.
"Don't start."
"Start? I'm just getting started, dear!"
Elphaba sat down on a bar stool, crossed her legs, slowly took off her sunglasses, and placed them on the bar as if challenging the universe.
"Do you have anything strong without glitter?"
Frankini looked at her with genuine interest.
"Do you like dangerous flavors?"
"Only if they make me forget I'm on this ship."
Frankini smiled. She stirred, poured, swirled. Within seconds, a frosted glass goblet appeared in front of Elphaba, containing a dark liquid that fizzed suspiciously.
"The Green Exorcist, limited edition. For thick, sharp-tongued spirits only."
"Grateful." Elphaba took a sip. She didn't grimace, but her eyes widened slightly. Oh. This has bottled-up childhood traumas.
Frankini nodded, pleased.
"Exactly."
Glinda, meanwhile, was busy intercepting each guest who approached her cousin to confirm whether they had already mentioned any of their stories about her.
"Don't believe anything he says!" she told them with a smile through gritted teeth. "Especially if it starts with 'once, my cousin.'"
Frankini raised her glass.
"Here's to the night. To the reunion. To family secrets."
Elphaba, her eyes narrowed, her mischievous smile emerging like a dangerous tide, gently swirled her glass, observing Frankini with something between scientific curiosity and pure morbid curiosity.
"So..." she began casually, "you two were close as children?"
Glinda, who was currently taking a long drink to try not to scream, choked. She coughed. She swallowed. She blinked.
"No, no, no. Don't wind him up." He feeds on chaos.
"Close?" Frankini repeated, her eyes shining like a dressing room lamp. "My dear, we were thick as thieves. Well... thick as glitter. Right, cousin?"
"We were two cosmic mistakes who shared a family tree and shared trauma."
"Oh, come on, Glinda. Admit it: your most colorful years were with me. Who else taught you how to use a boa constrictor as a weapon?"
"That was a self-defense emergency! You cornered me in the closet and screamed that it was a ritual to channel Cher."
"And it worked! Your voice has improved so much since then."
Elphaba laughed softly, delighted. She watched the dynamic with the delight of someone watching a period drama, an absurdist comedy, and a disastrous reality show all at the same time.
"So what happened then?" "She asked, crossing her legs with renewed attention. "Why can't you stand each other now?"
"Because he ruined everything," Glinda said.
"Because she became boring," Frankini said at the same time.
"She was fifteen years old and had a serious life plan!"
"She was fifteen years old and dressed like the first lady of a banana republic, and thought she was the reincarnation of Grace Kelly!"
"She had elegance!"
"You had delusions of grandeur and an unhealthy obsession with dresses with shoulder pads!"
"Because you made me believe I had perfect shoulders!"
"And you did. But that doesn't excuse that fringed emerald green outfit."
"It was a tribute to Hilary's stylistic diplomacy!" Glinda shouted with a fury that only Elphaba could find endearingly funny.
Frankini turned to Elphaba, as if she were now the supreme judge of this family tragicomedy.
"The truth, dear El, is that Glinda and I were inseparable. Two little divas in training. We competed for everything. For attention, for outfits, for who knew the most musical choreography, for who cried with the most style. We were art colliding."
"And when was the big breakup?"
Frankini sighed theatrically, as if she struggled to remember the trauma… but enjoyed every second of reliving it.
"It all began," she said in a narrator's voice, "on Glinda's eighth birthday, also known as the big day of the pavlova cake and the lace-suit rebellion. I, of course, was a child with vision. With a hunger for expression. With—"
"With attention problems and a superiority complex the size of Australia," Glinda interrupted.
Frankini ignored the aside with the grace of someone accustomed to the truth getting in the way of a good story.
"My mother made me wear an ivory tailcoat. Horrendous. Rigid. Repressive. Like your diet before you discovered sugary drinks, dear."
Glinda took another sip and muttered an insult that was lost in the noise of the bar.
"So I did the only thing a free spirit could do: I slipped away, went into Aunt Wilhelmina's closet—which was spectacular, by the way—and put on an emerald green ball gown with tulle, elbow-length gloves, and a fake tiara. I went back to the party. I paraded across the table. I introduced myself as the real birthday girl. And I said that Glinda had given me her day as a gesture of redemption for being a spoiled witch."
Elphaba choked on her drink.
"You did what?"
"He stole my birthday!" Glinda yelled, banging on the bar. "And all the kids thought I was the imposter! I cried in front of a unicorn piñata for twenty minutes!"
"Oh, Glinda," Elphaba said, both moved and tempted to laugh. "That sounds... traumatically adorable."
"And humiliating. That was just the beginning!"
Frankini snapped her fingers.
"Then came Operation Punishment Candy, when I convinced the neighbors that Glinda was glucose intolerant so they wouldn't give her candy on Halloween."
"And the time he edited the school yearbook to replace my inspirational quote with 'I'm only popular because I have long legs.'"
"That was a sociological observation!"
"It was emotional sabotage!"
Frankini raised her glass.
"She accused me of sabotage, I of artistic censorship. The school tribunal declared it a tie. Glorious."
Elphaba listened to each story with wide eyes, her glass half-full, and the suppressed smile of someone who knows she should be outraged... but can't help but enjoy the disaster. It was, without a doubt, the most chaotic corner of Glinda's story, and she was absolutely fascinated.
"So you were like... a cold war with glitter."
"Exactly!" they both shouted in unison, then looked at each other, horrified that they had agreed.
Glinda straightened, smoothing her dress furiously.
"This is a trap. You just wanted her to like you so you could use her against me."
Frankini placed a hand on her heart.
"Never. Well, maybe a little."
"Elphaba, don't be fooled. He uses charm as a weapon!"
"Don't worry," Elphaba said, raising her glass. "I'm immune. But I do want to see how this story ends. For research, of course."
Glinda closed her eyes and promised herself to breathe. Once. Twice. Three times.
"Just... please, Elphaba. I beg you with all my heart. Don't be seduced by her version of events."
Frankini looked at her, falsely hurt.
"My version? I tell the story like an artist! Like a survivor."
"As a serial manipulator with a flair for drama!"
"As someone who suffered the tyranny of a Barbie dictator with golden curls!"
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"
"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO, THROW A GLITTER SHOE AT ME AGAIN?! I STILL HAVE IT!"
"IT WAS JUSTIFIED AGGRESSION!"
Elphaba scooted back a little, taking another drink with a delighted smile.
"Please continue," she murmured. "This is just getting good."
As the dueling family anecdotes escalated like a play without a director, Elphaba continued to drink in measured sips. That's when she noticed.
One. Two. Five. Ten.
More guests began to arrive. All men. All with glistening, tanned, perfectly oiled torsos. Some with flower crowns. Others in outfits so skimpy they defied textile physics. They all radiated that same kind of exaggeratedly sensual, affable, and dangerously Frankini energy. There wasn't a single woman in sight.
Elphaba tilted her head and leaned toward Glinda, who was still trying to finish the story of the time Frankini turned the family pool into a jasmine-scented pool of foam.
"Glinda," she said softly. "Don't you think we're... the only women here?"
Glinda blinked. She looked around. Then she slowly turned to Frankini, who, at that moment, was standing on the bar, spreading her arms like a pop messiah.
"Welcome, my gods and mortals! Tonight, we celebrate beauty, festivity, and the harmony of oiled bodies and catchy rhythms. All welcome to the... Frankini Fantasy Yacht Fest!" A shower of confetti (from where?) fell from the ceiling.
Glinda knew at that instant.
"No... no... no," she repeated on repeat.
Frankini twirled with choreographed grace, stepping down from the bar without breaking her regal posture. She walked toward them, her kimono flapping like diva bat wings.
"My sweet and only flowers in this testosterone garden, we have a little problem!"
"A little problem?" Glinda repeated, her voice sharpening.
"Nothing serious, nothing serious. It's just that... the staff hired to serve tonight mysteriously disappeared for reasons that have nothing to do with a class-action lawsuit. So I thought... who better to turn to than my spoiled cousin and his fascinating, mysterious witch girlfriend?"
Elphaba tilted her head, her glass still in her hand.
"Are you asking us to serve drinks?"
"No, no! Asking isn't the word. I'm... inviting you to collaborate in the art of hospitality. Isn't it beautiful to reach out? To serve. To shine. To carry trays of cocktails between glittering bodies. Like fairies! Or nymphs." Or exotic maids. Whatever you prefer.
Glinda took a step forward so furiously she almost knocked over the bar. Her curls were shaking. Her lips were trembling. Her dignity was shaking.
"You want me to serve drinks at YOUR party? At an event you didn't even respectfully invite me to, where you conveniently omitted all important information, and where we're the ONLY women?"
"Of course you're the only women!" Frankini exclaimed with a smile from another plane. "You're the element of surprise. The unexpected twist. The accent in the opera. The plot twist in the soap opera. The cherry on this homoerotic cake!"
"I'm going to kill you," Glinda said, climbing onto the bar with threatening momentum.
Frankini stepped back theatrically, placing a hand on her heart.
"What violence! Is this how you reward my generosity?"
"What generosity?!" "Free accommodations? Gourmet food? Unlimited drinks? Glow-in-the-dark drinks?! Where's the gratitude?"
Glinda prepared her war cry, but before it could explode like a blond storm, Elphaba grabbed her arm and pulled her down from the bar.
"Wait. Think for a second."
"I don't want to think!"
"I know. But listen to me."
Elphaba pulled her to her side and spoke softly, while Frankini watched them with the smile of an early victor.
"We don't have any money. This guy is an idiot, but he wasn't lying about the food and drinks. We're in the middle of the sea. This, as ridiculous as it is, is... useful."
"I can't believe you're even considering this."
"Me neither. But if it means having a roof over your head, a hot dinner, and not asking your parents for money... we can survive a night playing half-naked waitresses among reggaeton-dancing bodybuilders. Besides..." she smiled wickedly, "there's something almost poetic about making this plan her show. Letting Frankini think she's won."
Glinda clenched her jaw. She watched Frankini, who was now whistling a tune and winking at a guest who was slathering sunscreen on his pecs.
"Okay," she murmured with murderous resignation. "But if anyone tries to touch my ass, I swear I'll throw the tray like a lethal Frisbee."
"That's what I love most about you."
Frankini clapped her hands gleefully.
"Then it's a yes!"
"It's not a yes," Glinda said through gritted teeth. "It's a temporary deal with the scent of revenge."
Frankini turned around and shouted with glee, "Dear goddesses! Get ready! It's time to change and shine! In five minutes, I want to see you in your new uniforms."
Elphaba and Glinda exchanged glances.
"Uniforms?"
Five minutes later—five eternal, doomed, inevitable minutes later—Glinda and Elphaba emerged from the dressing room, their dignity battered but intact... for now.
Both were wearing what could only be described as the nightmare designed by a French fetish-obsessed designer, the most outrageously skimpy and ridiculously uncomfortable "waitress" uniforms ever concocted: tight bodices swathed in glittering lace, minuscule aprons trimmed with absurd lace, elbow-length fishnet gloves, and thigh-high stockings that covered absolutely nothing. Glinda, of course, wore the pastel pink ensemble with offensively large bows. Elphaba, luckily or unluckily, was wearing black and gold… though she felt all the black in the world couldn't hide the humiliation.
They glared at each other.
"Don't say anything," Glinda murmured.
"I was about to ask you to kill me," Elphaba replied.
And then, like a snake disguised as a cabaret host, Frankini appeared from the glittery mist with a drink in one hand and two trays in the other, which she handed to them with a ridiculously exaggerated bow.
"My goddesses are ready! Look at those silhouettes, that poise, that suppressed despair! Aren't they divine?"
Glinda glared at him, ready to stab him like decorative knives.
"You know what else is divine, Frankini? Silence. Try it sometime."
"Oh, cousin!" he laughed, as if it were a compliment. "Always so sharp." But remember what we talked about…" She lowered her voice and hummed, "lalala… the video."
Glinda froze.
"You wouldn't dare."
"Darling, if you throw a shoe at me… I'll premiere a musical with that video. It'll be called 'Karaoke Night Fatal: The Britney Remix.'"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"What video?"
"Nothing. It doesn't exist. It never happened," Glinda said through gritted teeth.
Frankini gave them one last pat on the back, like someone saying goodbye to two actresses on the way to their involuntary nude scene.
"Serve, my angels! And don't forget: smile! You're adorable, unforgettable, and slightly replaceable."
Elphaba regarded her girlfriend with a mixture of sympathy and amusement. Glinda took a deep breath, gripped the tray, and forced a smile so wide it looked like it was carved from plaster.
"All right," she said in a homicidal, sing-song voice. "Where are those thirsty, muscled gentlemen?"
"That's a spirit of service!" Frankini exclaimed, throwing confetti from her sleeve. Literally.
The two walked onto the main dance floor like heroes headed to the gallows. The pink spotlights and disco music didn't help. Nor did the fact that everyone present—a crowd of tanned men with fluorescent drinks—was more interested in dancing and taking selfies than even noticing their triumphant entrance.
Elphaba took a deep breath.
"Well, at least it's a gay event. No one's going to hit on us. That's... something."
Glinda raised an eyebrow, pouring her first cocktail.
"So that's your consolation? Spending the night dressed in a post-war fetish outfit with sore feet, but at least not being harassed?"
"I'm trying to look on the bright side," Elphaba murmured. "Though I admit I'm reconsidering every one of my decisions. Starting with leaving Nevermore, then following you on a no-budget trip, and finally... agreeing to wear this."
"Don't say that like you don't secretly enjoy having that corseted body."
"I like the corset. I don't like serving drinks as a decorative backdrop to a homoerotic version of Beauty and the Beast on steroids."
"You know what's worse?" Glinda snorted. "That this—this exact thing—is what Frankini's dreamed of since we were kids: me at his party, dressed for his convenience, forced to smile while he reigns."
"And yet, he's still alone. Surrounded by people who only adore him for the free alcohol and inflatable toys. You have something he'll never have."
Glinda looked at her sideways.
"A little judgment?" "A girlfriend willing to humiliate herself at your side," Elphaba replied, raising her glass in a tragic toast.
Glinda smiled, finally genuinely, as they clinked glasses in embarrassment.
"To bad decisions."
"And to nights that become anecdotes." Elphaba winked at her. "Hopefully, this ends in a funny story."
"Or a complaint. We'll see."
And so the evening began, with full trays, empty smiles, and the growing suspicion that Frankini hadn't yet played his final card.
The night was endless, like a hangover without the alcohol.
Glinda and Elphaba continued their absurd role as fantasy waitresses in Frankini's hedonistic hell. He, for his part, strutted around like a sequined peacock, greeting each guest with a kiss, an off-color comment, and a fanfare he seemed to have brought with him on a personalized Bluetooth speaker.
"Oh, girls!" Frankini exclaimed from the bar. "Could you get some more unicorn cocktails with star-shaped ice for the exotic dancers' table in the third corner? And Glinda, darling, try not to walk like you still think you're at Buckingham Palace. Give me a catwalk, please!"
Glinda, swallowing a sharp retort that would have set the party on fire, looked at him with a forced smile quivering at the corners of her lips. Elphaba, at her side, raised an eyebrow and murmured, "Was that passive-aggressive homophobia or just glitter aggression?"
"Both," Glinda replied softly, as she turned on her impossible heels and headed to the bar, balancing a tray with the precision of a resigned tightrope walker.
In another corner of the ship, a group of half-naked men were having a posing contest in front of a dressing-room-lit mirror. One of them—holding a fan that said “SLAY ME”—stopped Elphaba as she walked by.
“Honey, could you take a picture of us? But not your face. Don’t let it show. Just your hands are fine.”
Elphaba looked at him, blinked twice, and handed him the phone without a word. As she took the picture, she muttered under her breath,
“Your ego is bigger than your pecs.”
“What did you say?”
“I said it came out gorgeous. Smile.”
The “games” weren’t helping either.
The waitresses, as Frankini mockingly called them, were tasked with leading impossible trivia rounds about '70s gay fashion (Elphaba failed every one), dancing to Madonna's hard techno, and handing out trays of shots to a group of influencers who offered patronizing compliments like:
"You're so brave! I could never wear that. Your confidence is admirable, really."
"It's great you're brave enough to come anyway, even though you're not... well, "targeted."
Glinda endured it all with cosmetic stoicism. Elphaba, on the other hand, reflexively began speaking Latin whenever someone touched her without permission.
Frankinci, of course, didn't let up. During a round of "friendly roast," she decided to improvise a microphone and began reading Glinda's "school anecdotes" in front of everyone:
"And this one is great!" She was 13 and mistook hairspray for tanning spray... and ended up looking like a Cheeto! For a week. Can you imagine the despair?
The guests laughed. Elphaba didn't.
Glinda looked down. She gripped the edge of her tray until her knuckles turned white.
And there was more to come.
Frankini had them put bunny ears on them because "the dessert theme is 'naughty bunnies,'" and then announced that whoever poured the most drinks would receive the "honor" of singing the final karaoke of the night.
"Glinda, honey, I know you want that crown. Give us your best like that time at Uncle Fester's wedding!"
Glinda clenched her jaw and just said, "I need... five minutes."
And so, she left the living room, dashed through the golden tulle curtains, and entered the kitchen, like a goddess expelled from her own temple. And when she slammed the tray down on the counter, it was like the sharp blow that shatters glass. And Elphaba, who followed her wordlessly, understood without Glinda saying anything: she'd had enough. And she was right.
Glinda headed toward the makeshift kitchen—a corner behind a unicorn-print curtain—and slammed the tray down on the counter with a sharp thud, making the glasses clink with a hollow sound, like the mournful bells of patience.
She furiously tore off her apron and threw it onto a ridiculously padded chair. Her face was red with suppressed anger, her makeup barely disfigured by sweat, and her golden curls tousled as if she'd been battling the wind... or an emotional storm.
Elphaba entered seconds later, cautiously crossing the curtain, as if entering a hungry lion's cage.
"Glinda?"
Silence.
"Are you okay?"
Glinda spun around so quickly that if she'd been armed, Elphaba would have had to dodge a flying cup.
"Okay?!" she burst out with a high-pitched laugh. "Do I look okay to you, Elphaba?"
"Well..." Elphaba raised her hands diplomatically. "More like freaking out in a kitsch dressing room serving drinks with a fake smile, yes. But alive."
Glinda clenched her fists.
"You know what Frankini's doing, right? She's not just 'inviting' us to her party and putting us to work. She's enjoying it. She enjoys every look she throws me, every comment, every 'innocent' joke. She's doing exactly what she did when we were kids."
"Torturing you with sequins?"
"Humiliating me, Elphaba." It was always like this. He was always the center of attention. I was always his competitive mirror. If I sang, he sang louder. If I shone, he dressed up as a star. And if I won something... he made sure to turn it into a joke.
Elphaba approached slowly. Glinda was trembling, not from the cold, but from suppressed rage. From wounded pride. From accumulated emotional memory.
"I know this is difficult," Elphaba said gently. "But you're not the same little girl he could make cry in front of the family. And he's just a clown on a budget. You have... something real. Something he never had. You have talent, you have charm, you have strength. And you have me."
Glinda looked at her with wide, misty, but still defiant eyes.
"And what do you have?"
Elphaba smirked.
"A furious girlfriend in lace underwear who can throw cups like shurikens. It's quite something."
Glinda burst out laughing through her tears.
"I hate this place."
"Me too. But I hate seeing how he makes you feel more."
Glinda lowered her gaze. Her shoulders relaxed. Elphaba moved closer and placed one hand on her waist, the other gently brushing the back of her neck.
"This will end. And when it does, you'll be okay. We'll be okay."
"Can we set fire to the dolphin statue?"
"I have matches in my purse. I never go out without them."
Glinda laughed again, more lightly.
"I hate how well you know me."
"Me too. But I love it."
They stood like that for a moment, sharing a small respite of humanity amid the madness. And then they heard him. The unmistakable shrill, nasal voice, with that tone from a misdirected children's musical, came from the main hall like a flash of toxic glitter:
"Cinderellas! Less drama, more champagne! And remember, after service, it's your turn to do the dishes!" she concluded, amid laughter from some guests who couldn't tell if it was a joke or a royal command.
Glinda froze. Then, as if on a spring, she broke free from the hug and turned toward the table where the utensils were.
Elphaba could barely process what she was seeing.
"What are you doing?"
Glinda took a knife (a small, butter knife, but with a fury that made it look like a ceremonial sword) and, her eyes shining, exclaimed:
"I'm going to murder him. Briefly. Painlessly. Or not so much. I don't care."
"Glinda!"
"I always knew men were idiots! But I thought it was because they wanted to sleep with me!" I see now there's no saving grace! They're idiots regardless of sexual orientation!
"That's... profoundly true," Elphaba said, grabbing her wrist before she could advance. "But you can't let them drive you crazy. If you do, they win."
"They've already won! I'm dressed up as a frilly Parisian sex doll, serving drinks to an army of oiled-up torsos and the glitter psycho from my childhood!"
"I know," Elphaba said softly, holding her firmly. "But if you're going to destroy them... do it the way only you know how."
Glinda looked at her. The fury in her eyes mingled with a flash of clarity. Elphaba knew her. She knew that behind that divine hysteria was a master strategist, a born actress, a lethal diva.
"My way?"
"Your way. With elegance. With showmanship. With brilliance."
Glinda laid the knife down on the table.
"With humiliation."
"Exactly."
Glinda smiled. And it wasn't a friendly smile. It was the smile of a queen who remembered she could crush empires without getting her hands dirty.
"Give me five minutes."
"What are you going to do?"
"What Frankini hates most," Glinda said, storming out like a hurricane of makeup-covered fury, "is stealing the spotlight from her."
And Elphaba watched her go, knowing she'd just unleashed a hurricane in heels, who would make history that night.
Elphaba followed her down the pink-lit aisle, between columns shaped like crystal penises (because of course they would), and sequined curtains that seemed to vibrate with Glinda's every firm step.
But when she reached the edge of the dance floor, she stopped.
Because what she saw... was a spectacle.
Glinda wasn't walking, she was parading. She was no longer a waitress in a pink corset. Now she was a queen of the night. She wore the same ridiculous uniform, yes, but her back was straight, her gaze blazing, and each step seemed to shake the floor of the yacht. Around her, the group of Frankini's adorers could barely understand what was happening. Frankini himself—mid-improvised monologue, glass in hand—interrupted when he saw her approaching, with that twinkle in his eyes that only preceded disaster (for him).
"Glinda, darling? Are you back from your emotional break yet?"
"Oh, yes," she replied sweetly, leaping nimbly onto one of the DJ stands. "I just needed to remember who I am."
Everyone turned to her. The music died down on its own, as if it knew it was no longer in the spotlight for the moment. The spotlight somehow found her.
Elphaba crossed her arms and leaned on the bar. He'd never seen her like this. So... commanding. So exact. So her.
"I'd like to make a toast," Glinda said, raising a glass someone had pushed toward her, not daring to refuse it. "To my dearest cousin, Frankini."
Frankini smiled like a caged cat. Doubtful, but still believing he was in control.
“I want to toast because, for years, I thought I hated him. I thought he was cruel. That he envied me. That he ridiculed me because he was jealous.”
“Isn’t that so?” Frankini asked, with a venomous half-laugh.
“No,” Glinda said. Her smile turned wistful, sincere. “It’s worse. He was right.”
A murmur crossed the guests. Frankini blinked. Elphaba tilted her head.
“Yes,” Glinda continued. “I was the spoiled one. I was pampered. I was a self-centered idiot with a princess complex. And Frankini was the clown who came to ruin my throne. That’s how I saw it.”
She took a step to the center of the platform. Now no one blinked.
“And I grew up believing that if I messed up, it was someone else’s fault. That if someone outdid me, it was unfair. That if they made me feel insecure… they had to be destroyed.”
She turned to Frankini. She looked at him with devastating calm.
"Until I met someone who taught me that there is no greater power than saying 'I was wrong.' That vulnerability isn't weakness. That laughing at yourself, sometimes, is braver than covering up the wound."
Frankini tried to interrupt, but Glinda raised a finger.
"And for that, dear cousin... I apologize. For how I treated you. For how I made fun of you at Christmas 2009. For spraying hairspray on you in the school locker room. And for telling Aunt Elizabeth you were addicted to Satanic Barbies."
A collective “ahhhh!” came from a group of men by the mojito fountain.
Glinda smiled. She took a breath.
“But I also want to say something else: I still think you’re an idiot.”
Frankini’s eyes widened.
“A brilliant, fabulous, hopelessly insecure, attention-addicted idiot. And for that, I admire you… but I no longer fear you.”
The silence was absolute. Glinda raised her glass.
“To the truth. To freedom. And to the idiots who force us to grow up. Cheers.”
And she drank.
The applause was immediate. Slow at first, then thunderous. Some clapped, others shouted. Someone threw an inflatable rose.
The air on the yacht was celebratory, still vibrant after Glinda’s toast. The laughter, the applause, the toasts colliding like freedom bells filled the place with an energy that could only be defined as collective euphoria. Glinda, still standing with the glass in her hand, felt an unexpected warmth in her chest. Not from the alcohol—which had barely touched her lips—but from that strange and powerful feeling of having said something real. Something of her own. And that that truth had not only been accepted… but celebrated.
Everyone felt it. Everyone but one.
Frankini.
Standing on her makeshift pink velvet throne, looking on with a sneer of false politeness and her teeth clenched behind a bleached smile, Frankini couldn't bear what had happened. She couldn't allow it. Not at her party. Not on her yacht. Not with her audience.
So, with that self-destructive impulse so characteristic of insecure souls, she did the only thing she could: speak.
"Bravo!" she exclaimed in that cloying, poisonous tone like a spoiled cake. "A beautiful speech, Glinda." It made me think of all those reality shows about personal transformation, you know... where the popular girl finally admits she's a bitch and everyone applauds her as if she'd invented empathy.
The laughs were few. Nervous. But Frankini didn't stop. She never did.
"And you know what the best thing about you is, cousin? You're always craving attention. From the time you wore glitter to Aunt Agnes's baptism to... well," she smiled, more cruelly, "to the time you decided to come out during a televised public hearing against a homophobic senator. Now that was a debut!"
The atmosphere changed. The tone lowered. The laughter was no longer supportive but uncertain. Frankini smiled, convinced he was in control again. Until he said:
"And now the whole family knows. Mom, Dad, and even the aunts... Although, well, I guess it doesn't matter much, because your parents are separating. Oops. You didn't know that?" It was as if a tile had opened beneath Glinda and swallowed her whole.
Elphaba, from the bar, felt her body tense instantly. Glinda's face froze. There was no anger in her expression yet, no sadness. Only that timeless moment of disbelief where the soul doesn't know whether to defend itself, scream, or simply break.
Frankini was still laughing. Alone. Because even his most faithful worshippers were now looking at him with discomfort. But it was too late. The poison had been thrown.
Glinda lowered her gaze. She swallowed. Her breathing became erratic, and for a second she seemed about to collapse.
But then… something changed.
She shifted her gaze slowly to one of the decorated tables at the party. Above it, an obscene ornament in the shape of a silver phallus—one of Frankini's many aesthetic "details"—glimmered as if it had been waiting for just that moment.
Without saying a word, Glinda walked to the table. She picked up the object.
And without breaking stride, she turned and, with surgical precision, slammed it directly into Frankini's crotch.
The blow resonated. The scream was high-pitched, almost comical. Frankini fell to her knees with both hands between her legs, her eyes crossed and her lips open in a pitiful, inhuman, almost lyrical wail of pure pain.
There was absolute silence.
And then, chaos.
One of Frankini's lovers—a muscular young man with a neatly trimmed beard and shorts so short they defied the laws of modesty—ran toward Glinda with unclear but surely hostile intentions.
He didn't get very far.
Elphaba, who was already approaching, reached for a decorative wall where "themed toys" from the party hung. She grabbed one of the most striking: a black leather whip with neon pink accents. She unwound it with a dexterity that left no doubt this wasn't her first time.
The lover rushed toward Glinda.
The whip cracked.
A line of air cut between them and stopped inches from the boy's chest, who stopped dead as if struck by an invisible force.
"You better not move," Elphaba said, her voice deep, calm, dangerously sweet.
The young man raised his hands. He stepped back.
And then war broke out.
Frankini, still on the floor, shouted insults. Other guests began recording with their phones. A shower of confetti was accidentally activated. Glinda climbed onto the bar, the phallic ornament still in her hand like a sword. Elphaba followed, the whip hanging from her belt like an urban warrior.
"THESE WOMEN ATTACKED ME ON MY OWN BOAT!" Frankini shouted from the floor, her voice cracking like a diva.
"AND I WOULD DO IT AGAIN!" Glinda roared from the bar, illuminated by the dance floor spotlights.
Elphaba's whip cracked through the air one last time with a precise crack that sent her final attacker reeling back. Glinda, at her side, brandished two feather fans taken from the stage props, now converted into makeshift nunchucks, with which she had just brought down a trio of tanned models who tried to ambush them.
The dance floor was a battlefield.
The music continued to blare, the remix of "Toxic" vibrating from the speakers like a call to rebellion. Strobe lights illuminated the artificial smoke and the semi-naked bodies slumped in dramatic positions. A unicorn-shaped inflatable spun in slow motion, a collateral casualty of the confrontation. Glinda and Elphaba were at the center of the chaos, breathing heavily, glistening with sweat, glitter dust, and divine fury.
"Are you okay?" Elphaba asked, holding her whip like a ceremonial sword.
"I look fabulous," Glinda replied, removing a broken false eyelash from her cheek. "And eager to finish this."
A few feet away, the last men were falling, exhausted, wrapped in pink gauze or trapped in sequined curtains that Elphaba had thrown with lethal aim. One of the dancers was whimpering in the fetal position, a dildo in his hand like a distress flare.
And then, amid the smoke and the remnants of confetti, a body crawled.
Frankini.
The self-proclaimed emperor of the night, star of his own tragicomedy, crawled on all fours across the deck, leaving a trail of glitter like a defeated silver slug. Her hair was no longer conceptual art, but a frizzy jellyfish. Her makeup dripped. Her split sunglasses fell off the side of her face.
"Damn... traitors... degenerates..." he muttered under his breath, as he crawled with waning dignity toward an emergency exit door.
But he didn't get far.
Because a golden heel—sharp as a sword, resplendent as the final judgment—planted firmly on his lower back, forcing him to stop.
Frankini froze.
Elphaba, from behind, raised an eyebrow in interest.
Glinda was standing over her cousin. Literally. One leg over his back, hands on his waist, her hair tousled from battle, and her pink corset even tighter, soaked with the sweat of victory.
Elphaba thought she'd never seen her so dangerously beautiful.
Frankini moaned.
"Glinda... cousin... please..."
"Please what, Frankini? Please don't humiliate me on my own ship?" Please don't make me swallow the words I used to drag you across the deck in front of your decorative boyfriends?
"Please don't crush my kidney!"
Glinda smiled. Calmly, she leaned toward him slightly, still pressing down on him with her heel.
"This is for all the comments you made about my weight when I was a teenager."
She pressed lightly.
"For sabotaging my role as Sandy in Grease."
She pressed a little harder.
"And for telling me in the middle of a public party that my parents are separating."
Frankini squealed.
"I DIDN'T KNOW YOU DIDN'T KNOW!"
"And finally," Glinda added, lowering her voice to a venomous whisper, "this is for decorating an entire yacht with inflatable phalluses, not knowing that some of them... are operable."
"Come on, cousin, just don't..." But before Frankini could finish her pathetic attempt at a plea, Glinda reacted... And with a single, pointed blow to her cousin's face, darkness fell.
Frankini began to blink. The morning sun was a knife against her swollen eyelids. The first thing she noticed was the pain in her lower back. The second, the immobility of her arms. The third, a synthetic, rubbery taste in her mouth.
He tried to sit up. He couldn't.
When his eyes finally focused, the sight that greeted him was as humiliating as it was cinematic: he was in his underwear—a gold-sequined sunga, too small even by his standards—bound hand and foot with other sungas, all from his collection, firmly tied to one of his rainbow heart-shaped decorative armchairs. In his mouth, a rubber dog toy-style bone prevented him from speaking. His entire body was lightly sprinkled with glitter. His dignity, however, was nowhere to be found.
And in front of him, like two goddesses reclining on wicker chaise lounges, were Glinda and Elphaba, sunbathing.
Glinda wore a pale peach two-piece set with gold detailing, oversized sunglasses, and a smile that would make any foreign minister shudder. Elphaba, beside him, more covered but equally dazzling, casually flipped through one of the books she had bought at the bookstore the day before, while sipping her martini with martial elegance.
Glinda was the first to notice that the prisoner was conscious.
"Oh! Look who woke up from his little defeated diva nap," she exclaimed with venomous sweetness, taking off her glasses to look at him directly. "Did you sleep well, Frankini?"
The rubber bone made a muffled sound, a mixture of protest and plea.
Glinda sighed, stood like a queen abandoning her throne, and sauntered toward him, her sarong flapping in the wind like a cape of summer revenge.
"Don't make that sound," she requested, leaning slightly over him with the air of an annoyed kindergarten teacher. "It makes you look even more pathetic than you already are, and believe me, that's an achievement."
Around her, the few remaining guests—all men, all half-naked, and visibly defeated—now bustled about obediently, pouring cocktails, passing sunscreen, sweeping up glitter, and decorating the deck with discreet white garlands. One even held a portable fan pointed at Glinda as if it were his personal air conditioner.
Frankini blinked in horror, speechless.
Glinda then turned, picked up her glass, and raised it like someone inaugurating a new regime.
"Listen, dear cousin," she began, her voice like a sweet song on a sharp blade. "This is the part where I talk and you listen, okay? Because I'm going to tell you exactly what's going to happen."
She took a step closer.
"Elphaba and I are going to stay here for the rest of the morning. We're going to have breakfast, sunbathe, and maybe ask you to read us homoerotic poetry aloud while we're fanned with palm trees—we haven't decided yet. Then we're going to leave this ship with our things, our bikinis, and our dignity intact. But before we go, you're going to make a generous—generous—donation to our vacation fund."
Frankini groaned something incomprehensible. Glinda clicked her tongue.
"Oh, and one last condition," she added, leaning so close that her heels clicked by his ear. "Never again. Never. You will come near me or Elphaba again. You will not text us, follow us, stalk us online, send us pictures of your new outfits, or attempt any kind of revenge. Because if you do..."
She pulled out her cell phone.
"I have the video, Frankini. The whole thing. You publicly humiliating a female waitress—me, that is—on your male-only yacht. Your misogynistic comments, your outrage, the phallic ornament vibrating as you shouted, "This is my party!" Imagine the headline: "Frankini, queer icon or just a misogynistic jerk in a sequined thong."
Elphaba burst out laughing from her lounge chair without looking up from her book.
Frankini stopped moving.
"So..." Glinda finished, returning to her place, adjusting her glasses and leaning back with the glass in her hand. "Your choice. Donation... or cancellation."
Elphaba raised her glass. Glinda followed suit.
"To eternal vacation," they toasted.
As the sun continued to climb in the sky, the yacht's deck was invaded by a new calm. An ironic, improbable, and absolutely deserved peace.
With a feline sway of her hips, Glinda returned to her chaise. But this time she didn't lie back. This time she gracefully climbed onto Elphaba, straddling her with her sarong falling to the floor like the curtain of an avenged tragedy. Elphaba raised her eyebrows, amused.
"You look especially radiant when you dethrone horrible men," she murmured, slowly caressing Glinda's hips, with the ease of someone who knows every curve by heart.
"Only then?" "Glinda asked, gliding closer, her smile heavy with meaning.
"Well, also when you go on a shopping spree, or when you dress to humiliate a senator, or when you silently dominate me with just a raise of an eyebrow..."
"Hmm, and now?" Glinda asked, leaning down until her lips brushed Elphaba's. "Now that my cousin is crying, bound and gagged while I'm on top of you in a lounge chair, aboard a yacht we conquered with sex shop weapons?"
"I think it's the most poetic thing we could do," Elphaba said, taking her by the waist. "I've always wanted to have revenge sex in front of a defeated misogynistic jerk."
"It's literally my teenage fantasy," Glinda whispered, lowering her head to hers, and then...
They kissed.
At first gently, then with all the passion of a contained storm. Their bodies fit together like secret pieces of a cosmic puzzle. The laughter faded, the slow music played again in the background, and for a moment the entire universe seemed to revolve around that salty, triumphant kiss, full of desire and promise.
As the sun continued to climb higher in the sky, the inflatable decorations continued to float like ridiculous ghosts of defeated patriarchy, and Frankini continued to let out pitiful moans, Glinda and Elphaba sealed the best beach day of their lives with kisses.
And from that day on, no other summer would dare to compare.
The sun began to descend like a gold coin sinking into the ocean horizon. The last light of day painted the sky with orange, pink, and violet strokes, while the waves gently crashed against the shore. In the distance, Frankini's yacht was receding, an extravagant silhouette in the afterglow, like a ridiculous dream finally fading.
Elphaba closed the car trunk with a thud. Sand still trickled down her boots—new, black ones with metallic details that, surprisingly, she had managed to keep as part of the "moral reparation" Frankini owed them. She placed her backpack on the back seat and dusted off her hands, satisfied.
She turned her head.
Glinda was still sitting on the shore, her legs tucked in, her feet buried in the sand, her gaze lost in the horizon as if she were still in the middle of the ocean. The sarong was now a blanket over her shoulders, her hair pulled back in a makeshift braid that made her look younger, quieter, more vulnerable.
Elphaba approached slowly, as if each step should respect the silence that enveloped Glinda. He sat next to her without speaking, just watching with her the sea he had hated so much that morning, which now seemed to have a different tone, calmer, slower.
"Are you okay?" he finally asked, his voice soft, deep, almost a whisper carried by the sea breeze.
Glinda didn't respond immediately.
Only after a few seconds did she murmur, without taking her eyes off the water:
"Do you think what he said is true?... About my parents separating."
Elphaba felt the pain hidden behind those words. It wasn't the words that hurt, but what wasn't said: the fear, the uncertainty, the weight of a family that seemed perfect from the outside but was held together by invisible and fragile threads.
Without saying anything, Elphaba took her hand.
Glinda let her hand be taken. She let her head fall onto Elphaba's shoulder.
"I don't know," Elphaba replied, with the unadorned honesty that always defined her. "Maybe so. Maybe not. But if it's true… then we'll go through it together. Like everything else."
Glinda closed her eyes, her fingers tightening in Elphaba's.
"I don't want my family to fall apart," she confessed. "I always knew my family was a mess, but… they were my mess. I knew how to dance in their shadows. I knew how to please them, how to keep them balanced. But if they fall apart completely… I don't know what's left of that."
Elphaba turned just a little, just enough to gently kiss her temple.
"There's you," she whispered. "And that's saying something."
Glinda smiled without mirth, but with some relief.
"You're terrible at this comforting thing."
"I know," Elphaba replied, resting her cheek on her head. "But I'm very good at staying by the side of the one I love when everything goes to hell."
Silence settled between them again, comfortable, filled with the cadence of the waves and the murmur of the wind, as if both needed that stillness to accommodate the words they still didn't know they wanted to say.
It was Glinda who spoke again.
"It wasn't just what Frankini said," she murmured, without looking at her. "It was... the way she said it. The way everyone laughed. The same as always. As if I... were a joke."
Elphaba listened without interrupting. Her gaze was on the sea, but her attention was completely on her.
"It's as if my whole life has been like that for everyone else," Glinda continued, her tone calm, undramatic, just honest. "Something to laugh at. To make fun of." Even when they loved me, they did so as if I were a talking doll, or a glittering puppet doing tricks. And after what happened with… with Milla”—the word barely stuck in her throat—“I promised myself that no one would ever have that power over me again. That no one would ever make me feel that way again.”
Elphaba gently squeezed her hand. But she said nothing yet.
Glinda let out a very short, humorless laugh.
“And that’s why… when people tease me, even now, when I’m younger, or even when it’s not meant maliciously… it… it touches something in me that I can’t control. It makes me want to scream. To strike. To get even.”
Pause. The sea was still crashing. The wind ruffled their hair. And then:
“And then I wonder…” she added, almost in a whisper, “am I a hypocrite? Because when we’re alone together, you and I… when we play… when I’m ‘humiliated’ by you… I seek it out. I desire it.” It makes me feel alive. It makes me feel... loved. But when it happens out there... I hate it. It destroys me. How can that be?
Elphaba turned her face. She looked at her in profile. That perfect nose, those lips now curved in a question that seemed to weigh more than she could bear.
"You're not a hypocrite," she said gently. "You're human."
Glinda looked at her again, searching for another answer.
Elphaba took a deep breath. She thought. And she spoke with the slow cadence of someone who isn't improvising, but remembering what she's felt firsthand.
“Humiliation in BDSM… isn’t real. Not the way it is out there. It’s not meant to destroy you, or nullify you, or expose you as less than. It’s chosen. Agreed upon. Contained. It’s like the fire inside a fireplace. It warms, but doesn’t burn. It smolders, but doesn’t destroy. And most importantly…” he stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, “…the person who humiliates you there is also the one who holds you afterward. The one who honors you. The one who reminds you that it doesn’t define you. That it’s a game. An act of trust.”
Glinda swallowed.
“So what we feel out there…?”
“It’s a fire,” Elphaba nodded. “Something out of control. Without consent. Without respect. And without love. That’s why it hurts. Because it’s not pleasure. It’s hurt.”
Glinda nodded slowly.
“So it’s okay for me to want one and not the other?”
“Of course it’s okay.” What's wrong is that the world made you doubt that. That they taught you that your pain had to be swallowed with a smile. That your light should shine, but not burn. That your desire to be seen was vanity, not necessity.
Another silence fell, but this time it was different. Lighter. As if something had settled between them.
Glinda sighed. And, as she did, it seemed as if something old and dark also left her body.
"Thank you," she said, resting her head on Elphaba's shoulder.
"Always," she replied, and kissed the top of her head.
And so they stood, still and warm under the orange sky, two strong, vulnerable, complex women. Two women who loved each other with a depth that asked for no explanation, only presence.
A conversation without tears, without melodrama, with no embellishments other than truth and affection. And that, perhaps, was the most beautiful thing of all.
Chapter 26: THEY ALWAYS TRY TO TEACH THE WRONG LESSON
Chapter Text
Prologue to Chapter 41 – “What Remains When the Younger Version of Yourself Leaves”
from “Invisible Ties – Reflections on Her and Me” (working title)
(Footnote: This chapter isn't entirely convincing. Rewrite the second paragraph without sounding condescending to my twenty-year-old self.)
Returning to certain places is an act of willful cruelty.
Sometimes we do it out of vanity—to prove they miss us. Other times out of guilt, to prove we haven't forgotten them.
I returned by accident. And I stared up and down the halls like someone trying to find a letter they wrote years ago… without remembering what it said.
The building was still standing. My name hung on a plaque.
—This seems arrogant. Delete? Or leave it as a contrast to what follows?
But I didn't recognize myself. Not in the students' faces, nor in the phrases framed on the walls, not even in the ideas I once defended tooth and nail, and fury.
Sometimes we create things that outlive us.
— Or that betray us?
My younger self would have hated the woman I became.
Maybe out of exhaustion. Maybe out of fear.
Maybe because growing up, inevitably, means disappointing the idealized version of yourself.
She asked me if I was proud.
I told her no. But that I was grateful.
Because with every wrong decision, she stayed.
Sometimes as criticism. Sometimes as consolation. Sometimes as a dirty mirror in which I could still see myself... if I was lucky.
CHAPTER 26: They always try to teach the wrong lesson
The night had unfolded with celestial generosity over the drive-in. Hundreds of small white lights flickered overhead, as if the universe itself were silently watching the film projected on the giant white screen at the side of the road. The rows of cars, like jumbled music boxes, swayed to the sway of muffled laughter, dim lights, and the distant whisper of idling engines. In one of those capsules, parked in the second lane, a small, more intimate universe unfolded with its own rhythm.
Elphaba was leaning back, the driver's seat slightly reclined, the steering wheel carelessly tilted to the left. She was wearing a fine linen shirt that opened gently across her chest, and her long, green fingers absently played with a handful of popcorn she held in her other hand. Glinda, on the other hand, was curled up on top of her, her head resting on her collarbone, her legs draped over the passenger seat, and her torso partially covered by a light jacket that barely concealed her insistent need for contact. Her gaze was fixed on the movie, but she hadn't been paying attention for a while.
"Is he dead, or is he just pretending to be asleep?" Elphaba murmured, squinting at the dramatic scene unfolding on the screen. A man covered in blood was holding another man in his arms under the artificial rain of a romantic storm. Glinda didn't respond.
"Glinda?" Elphaba insisted, lowering her gaze to her.
"Shhh..." Glinda replied with a sigh that touched her collarbone, pretending to follow the story. But her fingers, those perfect fingers with nails painted like constellations, began to slide leisurely down Elphaba's abdomen, slipping beneath the hem of her shirt.
"Oh... I see," Elphaba said with a lopsided smile, her eyebrow raised in such a characteristic way that Glinda felt it without needing to see it. "You're being naughty."
"It's not my fault," Glinda whispered honeyedly, as if describing an inevitable weather phenomenon. "The weather is perfect, the car is private enough, and you're wearing that shirt that makes me want to rip it off you ever since you put it on at the bookstore."
"Since the bookstore? That was two days ago."
"Exactly."
Elphaba laughed softly, the sound vibrating against Glinda's body. Outside, the movie was reaching its emotional climax with a loud confession of love in the rain, but inside the car, the only drama was the complicit tension that grew like a spark about to ignite.
"And you think this is the ideal place for... that?" "Elphaba asked, tilting her head in amusement. "We're surrounded by families, teenagers with cameras, and a group of probably homophobic bikers in the back row."
"Exactly," Glinda repeated, mischievously biting her lip as she hiked the hem of her own skirt a little higher. "The perfect place. Intimacy with a hint of danger. And besides..." She straightened slightly, until her lips were inches from Elphaba's, "...I know you love to pretend you don't like it when you take control of the wheel... and everything else."
"Are you implying that driving turns me on?" Elphaba laughed, narrowing her eyes.
"I'm implying that dominating turns you on. And that right now, I'm offering you the car, the scene, and myself on a silver platter."
Elphaba let out a breath. It wasn't impatience. It was surrender.
"You're incorrigible."
"You're irresistible."
"And you're impatient."
"And you..." Glinda trailed off. Because Elphaba's mouth stopped her.
They kissed with the tranquility of those who have all the time in the world, but with the latent urgency of those who know that the night, like all beautiful things, is not eternal. Outside, the stars continued to shine. Inside, the screen of the world dimmed a little more with each shared caress.
With an agility that betrayed experience—though surely no moral authority—Glinda slid with feline elegance over Elphaba, mounting her with a smile as cheeky as it was charming. The driver's seat lowered with a mechanical groan as Elphaba pressed the lever with a swift hand, allowing the seatback to recline fully. Her other hand clutched Glinda's waist, as if she couldn't allow herself to lose her balance in the face of the beauty that now loomed over her with the clear intention of making her lose her mind.
The cinema, the night, the world... everything was relegated to a background murmur. The lights from the screen filtered through the windshield like flashes from another universe, and the distant laughter, the revving engines, and the scattered voices were erased by the much closer sound of stifled laughter, deep sighs, and the touch of two skins seeking each other's warmth.
"See?" Glinda murmured between kisses, slowly unbuttoning one of the buttons on Elphaba's shirt. "This is art house cinema."
"I don't know," Elphaba replied quietly, feeling how Glinda's every movement disarmed her of all her defenses. "I liked the previous scene... the one with the bisexual rebel trying to watch the movie in peace."
"That story has a sequel," Glinda whispered just before kissing her again.
But just as their lips met again with the suppressed urgency of days on the road, a dry sound resonated against the vehicle's bodywork. A metallic clang, isolated and precise, that made Elphaba snap her eyes open.
"Did you hear that?"
"Probably the sound of my dignity escaping through the window," Glinda said without moving, clinging to Elphaba's neck with the stubbornness of someone unwilling to be distracted by a sound effect.
"No, seriously. It was like... a pain."
"Oh, please," Glinda snorted with sensual annoyance, her fingers already finding the next button on his shirt. "If you're going to use the excuse of a horror movie killer to get out of having sex with me, you'd better come up with something original."
"Glinda..."
"Oh no, Elphaba, we can't go on. I think there's a killer clown out there," Glinda said mockingly, pretending to tremble with fear. "Please, if a killer clown shows up, I invite him to come and look."
But before she could dramatize further, another clang shook the back of the car, this time accompanied by the sound of something rolling on the asphalt.
Elphaba sat up abruptly, pushing Glinda into the passenger seat as she hurriedly buttoned her shirt.
"Aha! See!"
"Okay, that was something. But please, no teenagers." There's nothing more sex-ruining than a gang of pubescent kids with a James Dean complex.
They both got out of the car. Elphaba first, feeling a mixture of distrust and irritation. Glinda followed, sighing in resignation as she tried to fix her hair without a mirror.
When they turned the car around, they found two crushed beer cans on the ground, still dripping with warm foam. A third lay farther away, bouncing on the gravel.
"Do you think it was intentional?" Elphaba asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Dumped right in the back? Right when we were in the middle of a 'dress rehearsal for a banned film'?" Glinda clicked her tongue. "Either it's intentional, or there's a ghost who hates lesbian sex."
"Homophobic ghost. Great. Just what I needed."
Elphaba bent down to examine one, looking like someone on the verge of declaring war. Her eyebrow arched dangerously, as if even the drive-in gods would shudder at her calculating the weight of a dented can.
"No one," she said firmly, looking at the marks on the rear paint of her vehicle, "hits my car."
"Technically, it's mine," Glinda murmured, arranging her hair with the dignity of a dethroned queen.
"Not now, Glinda."
Guided by the unmistakable sound of male laughter—loud, with that smug tone so characteristic of someone who thinks they're being funny only because their group supports them—the two walked to the side of the lot, where cars were lined up under the dim headlights. And then they saw it: a huge, late-model black pickup truck, gleaming arrogantly in the light. The tinted windows were barely ajar, just enough for the music to burst forth with vulgar power—reggaeton distorted through the speakers—and a thick, sweet, penetrating mist to escape into the night like a marijuana ghost.
Elphaba wrinkled her nose and made a fist.
"Oh, no. No, no, no." And she began rapping furiously on the driver's door with her knuckles. "Get out of there right now!"
Silence. Or at least, no sound other than the thrumming bass of music and laughter.
"I saw them! They threw things at our car! Get out, cowards!"
Glinda, a little less impatient and considerably more aware of what it meant to confront a pack of idiots in an altered state, circled the vehicle with measured steps.
"Maybe we should call someone. Security. Or... I don't know, the FBI."
"I'm starting to reconsider the killer clown option."
And then it happened.
A sudden movement at the rear window.
A body turned inside, and then—as if the universe needed confirmation of the humiliation—a bare backside slammed against the glass. Straight. Firmly. Like a seal of official idiocy.
"AH!" Glinda flinched back as if acid had been thrown on her. She tripped over a rock, and Elphaba came running, grabbing her arm.
"What happened?"
"There was... rear! Glass! Too much eye contact!"
"What?"
Elphaba didn't wait for an explanation. She stepped forward, grabbed the rear door handle, and yanked it open, like a sheriff in the Old West about to burst into the saloon.
What followed was a cloud. A thick, grayish-green puff of smoke, smelling of industrial-strength marijuana, aerosol deodorant, and unsupervised testosterone. They both instinctively stepped back, coughing as they waved their hands in front of each other.
Inside the vehicle, five—no, six—college students were at various levels of inertia, euphoria, and utter shamelessness. One had a bottle of vodka between his legs, another held a bag of snacks in his lap, another wore sunglasses and a cowboy hat. Two were shirtless. And one seemed convinced he was in the middle of a music video.
"What the f--" Elphaba began.
"Wooooow!" one shouted from the passenger seat. "A witch and a blonde bunny? Is this the pre-show?"
Elphaba looked at him as if she could evaporate him with her mind. Unfortunately, she hadn't mastered that spell yet.
"Were you the one who threw the cans?"
"What cans?" another asked from the back, laughing through narrowed eyes. "Bro, were there cans?"
"We're watching a movie in peace," Glinda said, regaining her dignity as she dusted her ankles. "We don't want any trouble. But if you keep causing trouble, we're going to drag you up to the screen and impale you on the projector tripod." Is that clear?
One of them made a theatrical mockery, placing his hand over his heart.
"Oooh, watch out, bro, they're going to throw... what? Glitter at us?"
"Do you really not recognize anyone when you're sober?" Elphaba looked at the group with a raised eyebrow, so motionless she seemed carved from stone.
"Huh?"
"Her," she pointed at Glinda. "It's Glinda Upland. And if you keep this up, tomorrow you'll wake up on the cover of TMZ titled 'Six Idiots vs. Lesbian Avengers.' Got it?"
The six of them looked at each other. Two burst out laughing, another raised his cell phone like it was a reality TV camera. One, the one with the hat, asked,
"Upland? The one with the senator scandal?"
"Correct," Glinda said with a bright, terrifying smile.
"Ohhh, so... you want to join in?" laughed the one in the back, holding up a bag of jelly beans.
While Glinda twirled on her heels with a mix of glamour and menace worthy of a scarlet empress, Elphaba maintained a steady, lethal, and calm gaze on the group of college students as if she could decipher which of them had been the perpetrator of the attack by sheer homicidal vibration.
"Do you know who you're talking to?" Glinda said, raising her voice as she pointed dramatically at Elphaba. "This is Elphaba Thropp!"
There was a brief silence.
"So?" —one blurted out, chewing gum with his jaw loose like a caricature of an idiot.
But then, something changed.
One of the boys—the only one who seemed to possess at least half a functioning brain cell—frowned. His expression went from skepticism to confusion, and then to a kind of revelation.
“Wait, wait... Thropp?” he repeated, looking more closely at Elphaba, who was crossing her arms with the resignation of someone who has experienced this too many times. “Thropp, like... Elphaba Thropp?”
“She just said it, genius,” another muttered.
“No, no, but seriously. The Elphaba Thropp. The one Philosophy Professor Tims keeps mentioning in every class. He always says she was some kind of... tragic genius, or something. He thinks we've ruined modern critical thinking because we're not “half as brilliant as Thropp in second year.” She always bursts into tears when she talks about an essay on "subversive ethics in contexts of institutional surveillance." Was that you?!
A murmur broke out among the group. One pulled out his cell phone as if he wanted to Google her. Another simply let out a "woooow" while pointing at Elphaba as if she were a legendary Pokémon.
Elphaba, who had already taken a step back, looking for an exit, froze.
"...I don't know. Maybe."
"YES! IT WAS HER!" another shouted, laughing. "The academic urban legend! I can't believe that Thropp is this chick!"
"I was nineteen and had a lot of resentment. It was a hobby, not a manifesto," Elphaba muttered under her breath.
Glinda, who until then hadn't understood why everyone seemed to suddenly transform into fanboys, slowly turned to her girlfriend, with a mixture of pride and bewilderment.
“Wait a minute… Gillikin State University?” she asked, already knowing the answer, but delighting in making it explicit.
“No,” Elphaba said.
“It’s that university!” Glinda exclaimed as if she’d discovered a dragon egg in the sand. “The university you went to!”
Elphaba snorted, as if each word tore at a small part of her soul.
“I went. Just to escape from home. I hated it. I never looked back. And if I ever mention it, it’s on a night of wine, vulnerability, and poor judgment. Don’t take it seriously.”
The guys inside the van were still laughing, now placing bets on whether Elphaba could write essays with her eyes closed or whether Glinda was a typical girlfriend who corrected grammar during sex. A can fell to the floor. No one picked it up.
Glinda, ignoring the college students, turned back to her partner with a mischievous, delighted smile.
"And how far is it?"
"No."
"How far?"
"Glinda, no."
"Come on, E! Just a quick trip. A couple of hours."
"How do you know it's close?"
"But before Glinda could answer, one of the boys—the one who seemed to have brain function slightly above the group's average—intervened.
"It's about four hours away. Going on to five if there's traffic. If you follow this route north, past the dam, and through the national park, you're already there. Why?"
"Because we already have a destination," Glinda declared, turning on her heel with the grace of a Broadway musical. "We're going to see the birthplace of your academic legend!"
"Glinda..."
"Do you know how many libraries there must be? And cafes. And weird art student parties. And they definitely have merch with your face on it! I want a mug that says 'Thropp taught me how to think.'"
Elphaba looked at her with a mixture of pleading and surrender.
"I hate all this."
"Do I too?"
"A little."
"Perfect. Then let's go." And she took her arm, walking joyfully toward the car as if she'd just won a secret auction.
As they drove away, one of the idiots yelled,
"Send our regards to Professor Jensen! Tell him your girlfriend is a 10/10!"
"I will!" Glinda shouted without turning around. "But he already knows."
Elphaba silently opened the car door and slumped into the seat as if she were descending into an abyss.
"This is going to be hell."
"And it will be a lovely hell!"
And so the road stretched out before them into the endless night, the constant hum of the engine serving as a backdrop to Glinda's carefully curated playlist, which included an impossible combination of college movie scores, retro hits, and the occasional musical number that Elphaba only tolerated out of love (and because she didn't have the energy to argue). Elphaba had both hands on the wheel, her eyes fixed on the road, her knuckles creased, her jaw clenched like the wheel of a ship about to crash into an iceberg of repressed memories.
In the passenger seat, Glinda was in her own world: a mixture of euphoria, romance, and something resembling a thirst for gossip. She had a thermos of coffee in one hand, a blanket on her lap, and a gleam of excitement in her eyes. Every so often, she turned to Elphaba with a smile that shone even in the dimness of dawn.
"So you were the mysterious girl who wrote inflammatory pamphlets on bulletin boards? The intellectual shadow of the hallways? The romantic rebel with a doom-laden stare and a cup of cheap tea?" she said dramatically, taking a sip of coffee. "Why didn't you ever tell me you lived in a cult indie film?"
Elphaba didn't respond. Or she did, but with a look. One of those that could wither flowers or break egos. Sadly, Glinda was immune.
"Did you know that in some cultures, sharing your dark past with someone is an act of deep commitment? This is like you've given me a key to your soul, only with the smell of reheated coffee and a college hangover."
"Did you know that in other cultures, it's in bad taste to encourage a driver to crash?" Elphaba replied without taking her eyes off the road. "I'm seriously considering incorporating it."
"Don't be melodramatic!" Glinda laughed. Come on, I admitted there's a part of you that's a little nostalgic.
"Yes, the part that's fast asleep and can't remember anything."
Silence returned for a moment, until Glinda spoke again, softer this time.
"It's just... I've never seen you like this. So uncomfortable. And vulnerable. And I like that. It makes you more... human."
Elphaba gave her a look that said "humanly hostile," but said nothing.
Finally, as the sky began to turn that light blue that announces the day before the sun dares to rise, the lights of a small town began to appear on the horizon. A sign greeted them with a quaint greeting: "Welcome to Gillikin Springs. Home of the Gators and academic excellence."
Glinda sat up with a stifled gasp of suppressed excitement.
"Oh my goodness! It's adorable! Look at those themed cafes, the bagel stands, the bookstore with student discounts, the bikes! The bikes parked in groups like tribes!"
Elphaba snarled.
"It's a setup. It's all a facade. Inside, they're rich kids with superiority complexes, egotistical professors with academic Twitter accounts, and coffee shops that don't know the difference between coffee and swamp water."
As they wound through the cobblestone avenues of the university center, Glinda swiveled in her seat, like a tourist at Disneyland for the first time. Elphaba, on the other hand, kept her face tense, her back straight, and her eyes scanning every corner as if at any moment a personified embarrassing memory might emerge from one of them.
"Is that where you once threw up after a philosophical debate about free will?" Glinda asked, pointing at a fountain.
"No."
"Is that where you had your first kiss with a shy sociology student who only spoke in haikus?"
"No."
"Is that where you lost a bet and had to teach an impromptu lecture dressed as a Marxist nun?"
Elphaba stopped dead in her tracks at a stoplight and turned slowly toward Glinda.
"Are you just ad-libbing that, or did you read my diary?"
Glinda clutched an offended hand to her chest.
"I don't have access to your diary. Yet. But if I ever decide to hack something, it'll be your laptop, not your soul."
"They're both equally encrypted."
"And I'm very good with emotional passwords," she winked.
As the car turned onto a tree-lined avenue and the sprawling main campus opened up before them, with its baroque-modern architecture and its central statue (which Glinda swore looked suspiciously like Elphaba), the atmosphere changed. The city looked like something out of a college postcard, with students walking around with backpacks, coffee in hand, and headphones, unaware that two forces of nature had just arrived to rewrite, or at least disrupt, their normality.
Elphaba parked in front of a small university plaza. Glinda got out before the engine had even died, turning around with a sigh.
"This is perfect. The ideal setting for a story of redemption, self-discovery, or student chaos with queer undertones. I'm so excited!"
Elphaba rested her forehead on the steering wheel.
"I'm going to regret this every second of the rest of my life."
Glinda leaned out the window and kissed her temple.
"And that's why I love you."
The university town seemed enveloped in a light breeze of artificial nostalgia. Everything was too perfect, too harmonious, as if someone had designed the place based on a catalog of "ideal college towns" sold by mail to future students eager to experience their coming-of-age life. For Glinda, it was like stepping onto the set of an indie film with a decent budget and a warm color palette; for Elphaba, however, every block she drove was a tactile, auditory, and emotional reminder of a past she'd locked away for very good reasons.
"It's absolutely adorable," Glinda said, her smile spreading throughout the interior of the car. "There's a bookstore on every block, and all the cafes have names like "Fleeting Mind" or "Coffee and Chaos"—it's as if your past were written in cursive on an ink-stained napkin!"
Elphaba didn't respond. She held the wheel with one hand, the other resting languidly on the gearshift. Her eyes stayed straight, on the road. Not because she didn't want to look around, but because every corner was a memory trap. A fragment of something she wasn't sure she wanted to see again.
"My university in Emerald City was completely different," Glinda continued, completely oblivious to the turmoil growing beside her. "Everything was so serious, so elegant, so... dead. The parties were ridiculously sober, the libraries were colder than the classrooms, and the only rebellion was when a girl wore sandals in January. This, on the other hand, is as if freedom had a corner coffee shop and emotionally overweight people reading slam poetry."
It was at that moment, just as she came to a stoplight, that Elphaba turned her head for a moment. And she saw it.
It was an ordinary coffee shop. It could have been any other. Round tables outside, a striped awning, signs written in marker on glass. But something about the way the dawn light fell on the sign, something about the muffled sound of steam rising from a coffee pot inside, or maybe the faded colors of the awning… made a memory crackle through her mind. A sound. A voice. A shout that wasn't shouted. A conversation she hadn't wanted to hear. The image of herself, much younger, shivering over a cup of cold coffee.
Elphaba blinked. A shock ran down her spine, as if something ancient had been loosened inside her. Her breathing quickened imperceptibly, and for a moment she felt out of sorts.
"Elphaba?" Glinda's voice brought her back. "Green. The light's green."
Elphaba looked straight ahead again and accelerated immediately, as if wanting to escape that image. The past had awakened. And she didn't like the taste it left behind.
"We should find a hotel," she murmured, trying to sound casual. "Something close to the center. Get some rest. Make an itinerary."
"Itinerary?" Glinda laughed in disbelief. "Right now you want to improvise a strategy? No, no, no, my dear anti-establishment rebel. You promised we'd come see your old university. That was the only thing that kept me up all night."
"It wasn't a promise. It was a forced suggestion."
"I don't care about legal terms. Come on!"
Elphaba sighed. She tried one last pleading look that didn't work, as was her custom with Glinda.
"Don't you want to shower first? Get some sleep? Wash the last 24 hours off our souls?"
"All that can wait," Glinda replied, already looking for the university's address on the map. What she can't wait for is for me to see with my own eyes the hallowed place where the legend of Elphaba Thropp was born. Did you have a nickname here? The Green Lady? The Debate Witch? The Silent One on the Second Floor?
Elphaba buried her face against the back of the seat, wishing the steering wheel would transform into a time warp heading in the opposite direction.
"If we find graffiti with my name on a wall, I'll jump into the nearest river."
"What if we find a commemorative plaque?"
"I'll jump in with stones in my pockets."
And so, amid sarcasm, resurrected memories, and Glinda's unwavering joy, the car continued on its way through the increasingly familiar streets. The clock tower was beginning to emerge among the trees, the classical columns of the Humanities building were tentatively peeking out, and Elphaba knew, with resignation, that there was no turning back.
The past was waiting for her.
And she had the keys to the university.
Finally, after hours of driving, exchanged glances, and coffee spilled by an inopportune pigeon's brakes, the car crossed the gates of the Gillikin State University campus. The main entrance was majestic in a decadent sort of way: slightly cracked stone columns, welcome signs that no longer welcomed anyone, and a central fountain that looked more like a fountain of bacteria than water. Even so, the place maintained that solemn, chaotic air that only university spaces possess: a perpetual intersection of youth, anxiety, and the false hope that one is doing something important with one's life.
"Oh my God!" Glinda exclaimed, getting out of the car as if she were about to receive a star on the Walk of Fame. "This is perfect. It's like someone filmed all those college movies I love, then mixed them with a touch of realistic decadence, and projected them onto the facade of this place. I feel like I could bump into a young Sandra Bullock at any moment." "Yes. Or with a young sociopath who explains Marxism to you without asking your name," Elphaba murmured, getting out of the car with less enthusiasm and more resignation than a bureaucrat on a Monday.
The two began walking arm in arm. Glinda marveled, spinning around with each new sight: the groups of students chatting in circles about Nietzsche without having read him, the "Roommate Wanted (Without Mental Hygiene Problems)" posters, the bicycles chained to anything with shade, and of course... the "specimens."
"Were they always so... shameless and existentialist?" Glinda asked, pointing to a group of students shouting about whether cinema was art or capitalist emotional manipulation.
"That's the film-philosophy club. They were worse in my day," Elphaba replied with a mixture of tenderness and trauma. "They once organized a screening of The Seventh Seal and ended up hitting each other with cardboard chess pieces."
Upon arriving at the main building, a young student appeared out of nowhere like an energetic apparition, armed with a brochure, a wide-eyed smile, and a T-shirt that read "Future Minds, Present Vibes." Glinda was already opening her mouth, ready to introduce herself as if she were on a talk show, but Elphaba was quicker, which was surprising.
"Hi, we're just passing through. My partner and I wanted a quick tour. Nostalgia, you know," Elphaba said with a polite, mysterious smile.
The student, who introduced herself as Nari, nodded with youthful enthusiasm.
"Of course! It's always a pleasure to guide alumni. What generation are they from?"
"The one that drowned in debt and sarcasm," Elphaba answered without thinking, while Glinda nodded graciously.
Nari didn't seem to grasp the irony and began walking down the entrance hallway, telling them about recent renovations, restored murals, and how difficult it was to get library space after 3 p.m. Elphaba nodded distractedly, but her gaze kept wandering. That corner next to Room 2 where she'd once cried because she'd been rejected from the literary magazine. That staircase where she'd met that professor who seemed to understand her... until he didn't. That bulletin board where she'd first read a published poem of hers—complete with spelling mistakes from the editor.
Every step was a pang. Not necessarily of pain, but of a rough, heavy feeling. As if her old self were still wandering the halls, pale, idealistic, angry, unaware that one day she'd return accompanied by a woman in a sparkly dress and a smile big enough to set an entire classroom on fire.
"Are you okay?" "Glinda murmured, taking advantage of the fact that Nari was fervently explaining a statue of a chancellor no one remembered.
"I'm... processing," Elphaba said honestly. Her fingers tightened around Glinda's arm as if her touch anchored her to the present.
"Does it hurt to be here?"
"No," Elphaba replied after a second's thought. "But there's something in the air. As if my youth were speaking to me from the walls. And I didn't like the way I spoke to myself back then."
"Well, if a past version of me were speaking to me from the walls, I'd probably criticize my hair or my dress," Glinda replied sweetly. "But you... I'm sure I'd tell you you turned out better than I expected."
Elphaba turned her face. She couldn't help but smile.
As they continued their tour of the campus, with Nari leading them with the enthusiasm of someone who still believes that everything in life is an exciting and photogenic adventure, Elphaba hung back slightly, walking as if each step drained a little more of her soul. Glinda, on the other hand, turned her head in every direction, absolutely fascinated by everything: from the rusty plaques with unpronounceable names to the squirrels who seemed far too comfortable among humans.
It was then that they passed a trophy case, just down the hall. It was one of those old-fashioned cases, with varnished wood and thick, slightly tarnished glass. It contained sports trophies, framed diplomas, faded photographs, and other mementos from generations past. Nari, stopping in front of her, began speaking with the excitement of a museum guide:
"This display case brings together some of the university's most significant achievements: tournaments won, debate olympiads, outstanding publications... even a state grant we were awarded in 2006 for research on gender dynamics in educational settings."
Glinda nodded politely, but her attention was drawn when she noticed something out of place. On one side of the lower shelf, almost hidden behind a giant co-ed volleyball cup, was a slightly crooked black and white photograph. The frame was slightly rusted, and the image didn't look like it had been cleaned in a long time, but it still stood out because of the intensity of the gazes within it. It was a group of students sitting in the stands of what looked like an auditorium. And among them...
"No. No. It can't be!" Glinda exclaimed, putting a hand to her mouth in a mixture of theatrical horror and pure delight.
She leaned even closer, her eyes widening with the force of comical revelation.
"It's you!" she pointed at the image. "Look at you! LOOK AT YOU! Oh, Beta Layer, you're like a cross between a distraught poet and a failed indie drummer."
Elphaba strode over to her, her cheeks flushed, not out of modesty but from that existential mortification one feels when the past intrudes unannounced. Sure enough, there she was: sitting cross-legged, wearing a knitted hat (which she'd clearly made herself), thick-framed glasses, and a long coat that looked more like an existentialist blanket than functional clothing. Her gaze fixed on the camera, serious, distant, intensely... ridiculous.
"Why does that photo still exist?" she whispered through gritted teeth.
"Why didn't you tell me you were the star of a student tragicomedy?" Glinda laughed, whipping out her phone.
"No. Don't you dare." Glinda.
—Oh come on! I need to capture this. For us. For posterity. For my wallpaper.
But before she could take the picture, Nari, who had been explaining something about the medals won by the robotics team, turned around and noticed what Glinda was pointing at.
—Huh? Oh wow! Wait... is that you? —she asked Elphaba, her eyes wide.
Elphaba blinked. Her body tensed as if she'd just been discovered by the police of the past.
—I'm not sure... it could be someone who looked like me... you know, all emotionally traumatized students with glasses look alike, —she tried to deflect.
But it was too late. Nari tilted her head as if a divine revelation had ignited inside her.
—Elphaba Thropp! It's you! The Elphaba Thropp! I can't believe it! —She turned to Glinda, completely excited. Your name keeps coming up in debates about ethics, critical philosophy, and queer studies! There are professors who still use you as an example in their classes. You were a university legend!
Glinda, fascinated, slowly turned to her girlfriend with a smile that mixed tenderness, wonder, and the silent threat of never letting her experience this again.
"Legend, huh?"
Elphaba closed her eyes, as if that would reset reality.
"Do you think it's a good idea to go back to the car now?" she asked with resignation.
"And miss the tour of your rebellious years? Not a chance." Glinda turned to Nari. "What else can you show me of this creature in its natural habitat?"
And at that precise moment, like a cosmic joke… A voice came like a dull explosion in Elphaba's chest. Not a scream—although it was one—but the kind of sound that lodges between the ribs and the memory, provoking a visceral response before the mind can react. They had barely crossed the threshold into another wing of the building when Elphaba stopped dead in her tracks.
"No…" she whispered, staring up at the ceiling as if she suddenly needed every god in the pantheon to conjure a hole to sink into.
The voice, shrill, impertinent, with a timbre as sharp as nails on glass, rose above all the student conversations, making the halls rumble.
"WHO THE HELL PUT GLUE ON DEAN SIMPSON'S SEAT AGAIN?!" THIS ISN'T A CIRCUS SCHOOL, IT'S AN ACADEMIC INSTITUTION, DAMN IT!
Glinda's eyes widened in interest.
"A friend of yours?"
"A recurring nightmare with a helmet hairstyle," Elphaba muttered through gritted teeth.
Nari, visibly flustered, excused herself for a second and ran toward the chaos. Glinda and Elphaba stood still, expectant. From where they were, they could hear the wailing of some professor, the monumental reprimand, and finally... the change in tone.
"What did you say, Nari? Who's here?"
Pause.
"Thropp?!"
And then, like the vengeful specter of a university era tinged with debates, strikes, student sabotage, and at least three articles in the local newspaper titled "Green Rebellion," she appeared.
Mrs. Coddle.
Eternal dean. Matriarch of institutional chaos. Dressed as if she were attending a court hearing and a funeral simultaneously, her plump but imposing figure emerged from the corner of the hallway as if she had never moved in the last ten years. She was wearing the same pearl-gray ensemble Elphaba remembered, with her necklace of war pearls and that perfectly spherical hairstyle that seemed to obey neither the laws of time nor style.
Her eyes fixed on Elphaba.
"Elphaba Thropp!" she exclaimed, extending her arms as if welcoming her with love... or as if marking a target before throwing a javelin.
Elphaba blinked. Elphaba stepped back. Elphaba resigned herself.
"Mrs. Coddle..." she greeted, in the strained voice of someone greeting their dentist just before surgery without anesthesia.
"I can't believe it! The infamous, irreverent, insufferable, brilliant Elphaba Thropp has returned to the scene of the crime!" "She said with a tone of false adoration.
"I was passing by. Just... passing by," Elphaba clarified a bit too quickly.
Coddle approached like a swooping eagle. Glinda, completely fascinated, took a step back to enjoy the spectacle. The dean ignored her completely.
"And look at you... taller? Greener? More sarcastic than ever, I imagine?"
"Anything's possible with a balanced diet and a grudge sustained for years," Elphaba replied with a tight smile.
“Oh, your sarcasm is still as sharp as your handwriting on those protest letters you used to leave in my mailbox every week!” Coddle laughed. “Those were the days… students on strike, teachers in tears, buildings taken over. I think I still have an ulcer with your name on it.”
“I always knew I’d leave my mark,” Elphaba said with a resigned sigh.
Glinda finally stepped forward, her smile radiant.
“You must be the principal! Glinda Upland, Elphaba’s partner. Nice to meet you!”
Mrs. Coddle blinked as if Glinda had just spoken to her in Klingon.
“Oh… nice to meet you too,” she said in a neutral tone as she scanned Glinda from head to toe, clearly trying to determine if she was a hallucination or part of a sociological experiment.
Before Elphaba could open her mouth to formulate any excuses—and she'd already come up with three, including one involving a fictitious medical emergency involving her traveling cactus—Mrs. Coddle took her arm firmly as if she were still her dean, dragging her with surprising agility through the hall. Glinda barely had time to blink before she was also hooked onto the woman's other arm, and without fully understanding how, she found herself walking briskly between the two, as if they were a small university procession.
"You don't know how happy this is," Coddle said, leaving them no room for a reply. "That our little Thropp is finally returning... like a professional back to her roots! Oh, my dears, this deserves a tour."
"A what?" Elphaba whispered urgently to Glinda.
"Shhh!" "I want to know everything," she murmured delightedly, her eyes shining like a fanatic backstage at her favorite band.
The tour began in the old auditorium where Elphaba, according to Coddle, "organized a rebellion against the discriminatory scholarship system" by hanging a banner from the rafters while reciting a cursed poem in five languages. They passed the lecture hall where she was temporarily expelled after debating a visiting professor who, in her words, "held ideas made of cardboard." They even stopped in front of a seemingly ordinary rosebush.
"Right here," Coddle said, pointing to the flowers as if they were sacred ruins, "is where Thropp planted this rosebush as a protest when the feminist book club was removed from campus."
"They wouldn't let me put up a plaque," Elphaba said resignedly, looking at the flowers as if they still held personal thorns against her.
Glinda couldn't take it anymore. She laughed and sighed and secretly snapped photos, while Elphaba sank inch by inch into her own shame.
Finally, upon reaching a classroom that used to hold political philosophy classes—and where, apparently, Elphaba once rewrote the student manifesto in the middle of a strike—Mrs. Coddle stopped, breathing theatrically.
"Elphaba Thropp... I must ask you. After graduating with the highest score of your class and rejecting about ten graduate school offers that I processed myself, what has become of you? Where has your mind shined since then?"
Elphaba opened her mouth. She closed her mouth. She calculated how many seconds it would take her to jump out the window without breaking a bone. But before she could utter a word, Glinda, who had already anticipated this moment as if it were an awards ceremony scene, took the lead in a clear and excited voice:
"It was amazing, really." She worked for Shiz.Corp, then turned against Shiz.Corp, worked as a teacher at Nevermore Academy, and on top of that… led a revolt against Emerald City's corrupt reform initiative.
Elphaba blinked.
"Glinda…"
"And that's not even counting discrediting an entire multinational corporation she used to work for in front of a civic city council." Glinda's voice was soft, confident, as if she were telling the story of a secret hero about to receive her medal.
Mrs. Coddle nodded, surprised.
"Well… that's… worthy of you, Thropp."
And then, the catch. Because Coddle smiled, lacing her fingers with satisfaction and that maniacal gleam that only obsessive academics have when they see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
"Then… I know what you have to do."
"No," Elphaba said, before even hearing the proposal.
"Yes!" Glinda exclaimed at the same time.
"A talk," Coddle announced in a vibrant voice. "A big talk, in front of students and faculty. Tomorrow! 'Elphaba Thropp: From Rebel to Leader.' Sounds splendid, doesn't it? And Glinda, my dear, you could introduce her. What better way to inspire future generations?"
Elphaba turned slowly to Glinda, with a look that said I'm going to bury you alive under the rosebush.
Glinda smiled like a child who had just been offered an endless supply of ice cream.
"Can we make it themed? Like a TED Talk with dramatic lighting?"
"Sure!" Coddle said, already pulling out his planner.
"I'm in hell," Elphaba murmured.
"And I'm your favorite little devil," Glinda whispered, giving her a fleeting kiss on the cheek as she giggled.
The talk was sealed. The past was unearthed. And Elphaba Thropp… was going to teach a lesson in front of the very monster of her youth.
"Well, well… this is a special occasion, dear Thropp. It's very rare that we have a distinguished former student visit us, let alone one with such a record. And with such a…" her gaze flicked to Glinda, "…charming classmate."
Glinda smiled immediately, radiating social radiance like a flower in the sun. Elphaba, on the other hand, took a half step back.
"We don't want to cause any more inconvenience," she said quickly. "Besides, we need to find a hotel, something discreet—"
"Not at all!" Coddle interrupted with an imperious gesture. "It would be an institutional insult for a brilliant graduate like yourself to stay in a hotel at her own expense when Gillikin State University still has so much to offer—including, of course, housing."
Elphaba felt her spine chill as if a pitcher of iced coffee had been spilled on her back. She swallowed, but Glinda was already jumping up and down with excitement beside her.
"Are you serious? That would be lovely! Do they have a guest room or a suite for distinguished scholars?"
Coddle laughed. A dry, almost crisp laugh.
"Oh, Glinda, may I call you Glinda?" He didn't wait for a reply. No, we don't have suites. But what we do have… is room 3B.
Silence.
Elphaba blinked. A shadow of horror crept across her face.
"3B? As in… my room?"
"The same one. According to Miss Nari, the room is available right now."
Glinda was already excited. Somehow, for her, this was equivalent to sleeping in the room where a pop star wrote her first album.
"It's perfect!" she said, taking Elphaba's arm. "Isn't it amazing to go back to the beginning? The place where it all began…"
"Where my gastritis began," Elphaba murmured, unheard.
"You can stay there until the talk, if you wish. You'll have access to the student dining hall"—Coddle wrinkled his nose briefly, as if remembering what was served there—"and if you need anything, just let me know. Anything."
Glinda placed a hand on her chest, delighted. Elphaba said nothing, too busy mentally collapsing the universe.
"And now," Coddle continued, "I'll leave you two to get settled. I'm sure 3B hasn't changed that much... though I doubt the bed has gotten any more comfortable." She laughed again, in that tone that brooked no reply, and strode off down the hall, muttering something about looking for the old yearbook photo archive.
The moment she disappeared, Elphaba turned to Glinda with a look of quiet despair.
"Do you hate me?"
Glinda was too busy pulling out her phone and mentally jotting down every detail of the day for her personal journal.
"What? No, I love you! This is amazing. It's like a redemption story... or a retro college comedy. Do you think any of your old clothes are still around?"
"Glinda..."
"What if we find some sappy letter you wrote to an ex? Or a diary!"
"Glinda."
"Oh, come on, Elphie. You survived my cousin. You can handle this."
And so, with the shaky gait of someone returning to the scene of an emotional crime, Elphaba picked up her bag, entwined her fingers with Glinda's... and the two of them headed toward Room 3B, the past waiting for them behind a wooden door and many secrets yet to be unearthed.
The room was small, with low ceilings and poorly nailed bookshelves, a desk stuck to the window that still bore marks from old coffee cups, and one of those gooseneck lamps that looked like a war survivor. Although it had been renovated since Elphaba had lived there years before—new curtains, a more decent mattress, a shiny floor—the entire space was charged with an energy Elphaba knew all too well: sleepless nights, internal struggles, arguments with teachers and with herself, feeling like she would never be enough even when she achieved everything.
Glinda, for her part, twirled around like a child entering a museum of her favorite character.
"This was your room?!" she exclaimed with the excitement of someone entering the secret room of a fictional character. "It's... small, cozy, full of possibilities, with a window overlooking... well, a tree... but a very university-style tree! My God, why isn't there a poster of you here?"
Elphaba barely raised an eyebrow. "I think I preferred it when my memories were dead and buried, thank you."
Glinda turned, still smiling, and sat down next to her on the bed, gently, as if afraid of disturbing something sacred.
"You know... for a moment, I wish we'd shared a room in college. The two of us, wearing ugly pajamas, secretly eating chips and spying on the pretty girls from the art department from the window. Surely if we'd shared a room, we would have been best friends from day one... any expert on the subject would tell you that."
Elphaba squinted at her.
"And you think I had time to spy on pretty girls? I was too busy hating the system, writing unreadable manifestos, and fighting with every living thing with more than two brain cells."
Glinda giggled and lay down beside her, tilting her head on Elphaba's arm, which was still stretched out like a postmodern martyr.
"Yeah, well... and I probably would have been an insufferable idiot who hung pink garlands all over the room, cried over a boy, and threw unicorn-themed parties to force you to socialize."
Elphaba glanced at her.
"Sounds like a nightmare."
"And yet... we would have fallen in love anyway," Glinda said with a soft, almost nostalgic smile. "Sooner or later. Because I would have seen you. Even if you were hiding behind that militant sarcasm and those hideous turtlenecks."
Elphaba covered her eyes with her forearm and snorted.
"They were elegant. And fashionable... in my head."
Glinda laughed, resting her head on his chest, and they both remained silent for a few seconds, holding each other in that corner of the reimagined past. The room was still, but not empty. There was something almost restorative about being there, together, in a place that had meant so many different things once.
Elphaba exhaled, as if letting go of something she'd been holding on to for too long.
"I don't understand how you can find all this so... enchanting."
Glinda raised her head to look at her.
"Because it's your story. And I want to know every part of it. Even the ones that hurt. Even the ones you want to forget. If this place was your prison... I'd like you to remember it now as the first place we imagined ourselves together from the beginning."
Elphaba slowly turned her face toward her. Her eyes, still tired, softened their edges.
"You're impossible."
"And you love me for that."
"Tragically, yes. And if you hold out one more day, tomorrow we can spy on pretty girls together. For science, of course."
"Only if there are fries."
"Deal."
They both laughed for a moment, but despite Glinda's best attempts, Elphaba's spirits seemed stagnant.
Elphaba stood up heavily, grabbed her jacket, which hung over the back of the chair like a symbol of escape, and put it on without even buttoning it. Her tone was dry, but not cold; it was wrapped in that fog that appeared when she felt the whole world was watching her from the past.
"I need to walk," she said bluntly, her gaze searching for her notebook. "To think. Maybe find a way not to throw up on a microphone tomorrow."
Glinda sat cross-legged on the bed, looking at her somewhat sadly, but not resisting. She knew forcing her would only make things worse.
"Don't take too long," she finally said gently, as if promising that the room would still be there, waiting for her. "And don't get into fights with random students just because they're wearing backward caps."
Elphaba snorted, the closest thing to a laugh she could muster in that state, and left the room, closing the door with a soft click.
Silence settled for a few seconds.
Then, Glinda turned her head to the left, then to the right. She sat up slightly, looking at the corners and the furniture. Her eyebrow arched suspiciously.
"Hmmmm... I wonder where she masturbated?" she murmured to herself, in an investigative tone.
The campus lights slowly came on, casting long shadows over the stone paths and neatly trimmed gardens. Elphaba walked with her hands in her pockets, her head down, and her steps heavy. The air had that faint scent of freshly cut grass and old books, as if time there had been suspended in the same note of waiting, of possibilities that never materialized.
She passed the Humanities building, whose high windows still let out murmurs of some night class. She recognized that hallway. She recognized the door to the library she used as a hiding place. She also recognized the stone bench behind the greenhouse where she had once spent hours weeping silently, over something she couldn't even clearly remember now. Because that was the cruelest thing of all, she thought: that she didn't even retain any clear details of her time here. Only a vague, gray feeling, like a cloudy day that doesn't let you know whether it will rain or not.
She stopped dead in front of a noticeboard. The wood was newer than the one she knew, but still hung crooked papers, fluorescent band-aids, and pamphlets with garish typography announcing debates, theme parties, theater and creative writing workshops. Everything she never allowed herself. Everything she despised with a mixture of superiority and envy.
“The Queer Book Club presents: Pride in Letters, this Friday in Room 12.”
“The Absurd Theater Workshop invites inexperienced actors and actresses: come make fools of yourself with us.”
“The Philosophical Café asks this week: How much of your pain is your fault?”
Elphaba read that last title with a bitter grimace. A question too precise for a bad day.
She kept walking. She passed an empty court, where a couple was kissing in the distance as if the world didn't matter. She passed the gallery where they used to hold student fairs. And that whole journey, every step, every corner, brought back not so much clear memories as absences. As if in each of those places she could point with her finger at what she didn't experience. The laughs she didn't have, the dances she didn't go to, the hands she didn't touch. Always apart, always watching from afar. Sometimes, by her own choice. Sometimes, because the world seemed to have made the decision for her before she even asked.
"Was it me who was withdrawing... or was it the world that wouldn't let me in?" she thought quietly, almost without realizing it.
It was hard to tell. For years, she'd built up the narrative that she'd been marginalized, underestimated, scorned for being too strange, too intense, too green—literally and metaphorically. But sometimes, like tonight, she wondered if she'd closed the doors on herself first. If it was because she was afraid of not fitting in that she'd decided not to try.
"Maybe it wasn't them... maybe it was me," she whispered, with a quiet sadness.
She walked past the main lecture hall, an ancient, ivy-covered building that stood with archaic dignity. She still remembered her first time there, sitting in the front row while everyone else chose seats in the back. She didn't want to miss a word from the professor. She wanted answers. She wanted to save the world... alone.
And now she was back. Not as a promising student, but as a figure the others admired more for myth than truth.
"A talk to inspire the students," the principal had said. But "What do I have to say to these kids?" she thought quietly. “That I studied like a demon, that I burned my midnight oil for a place I never felt part of? That I came far, but still got fired from my job for being who I am? That I finally found something resembling happiness, and still don't know if I deserve it?”
She felt her chest ache, not like when something hurts in the present, but like when you discover that something hurt years ago and you never wanted to admit it.
She stopped in front of a solitary bench at the edge of the athletic field. She sat down. She watched the campus lights come on one by one. She felt the cool air on her skin. The murmur of the trees. The laughter in the distance. And the deep, immense emptiness of the past.
She didn't cry. It wasn't that kind of sadness anymore. It was more of an uncomfortable clarity.
The night remained warm as Elphaba sat on the bench, embraced by the stillness and the distant murmurs of the campus. But her eyes were no longer wandering lost in the landscape, but had settled on the old clock tower. At first, it was just a glance of recognition, like someone looking at a family heirloom in a shop window. But then… she smiled. It was a small, contained smile, as if she were afraid someone might see her feeling good about a memory.
The tower rose with the same melancholy as always, like a forgotten sentinel. For most of the students, it was just an inaccessible, dusty corner. For her, it had been everything. A refuge. A hiding place. A space outside of time.
And above all, it was hers. Theirs.
She remembered the clumsy steps climbing the spiral staircase for the first time, when she had barely met Fiyero, that wealthy prince with unsettling manners and eyes that defied all her defenses. Neither of them fully understood what they were looking for then, but they both shared the certainty that they didn't fit in anywhere. Not on the surface of the world. That's why they climbed. That's why they hid up there.
She remembered the first timid exchanges. The whispered conversations about control, vulnerability, desire. The intense glances that preceded surrender. The first pair of handcuffs Fiyero brought as a joke... and how neither of them laughed when she put them on. And how, for the first time, she felt empowered without having to raise her voice, without having to gain anything.
In that tower, she wasn't the weird girl, or the angry activist, or the lonely brainiac. She was Her, without needing more.
She sighed. The wind barely moved the tree branches, making everything feel suspended, like a living memory. For a moment, she thought about climbing again. Just to see if any of that magic was still there, that version of her that now seemed so distant.
But instead of heading for the tower, she walked back toward the main building. Step by step, no longer with the heaviness of before, but with a certain reconciliation. It wasn't just about reliving the past, but about understanding that she had survived it.
And it was then, as she passed an old maintenance door—one she knew well, one she used to sneak past when she wanted to avoid the teachers—that she heard voices on the other side.
"I'm telling you, it doesn't make sense! You weren't even honest with me that night!" a young voice shouted, high-pitched and thick with anger.
"Because I got scared, idiot! Because I like you and I didn't know if it was mutual! And because…!" The other voice cracked, deeper and shakier.
Elphaba stopped. She took a half step back, as if she didn't want to invade... but she couldn't leave either. Not out of curiosity, but because she recognized the tone. The tension. That space of raw emotions she once knew so well.
"And why now, after ignoring me for three days? Why are you coming to tell me you do want something?"
"Because I saw the way you looked at me with her! And I got jealous, okay?!" I didn't know how to handle it!
There was silence behind the door. Then, a faint creak, as if someone had sat down or leaned against the wall. Elphaba took a deep breath. These kinds of discussions, these kinds of revelations... happened in every corner of the world's universities. In bathrooms, in hallways, in clock towers. But they didn't always have witnesses who understood how important they were.
But suddenly, the door of the small janitorial closet opened with a sudden, capricious creak, as if the campus itself conspired in favor of the drama. And in a chaotic and perfectly choreographed second, two bodies rushed into the hallway: a jumble of legs, backpacks, stifled laughter, and an unmistakable cloud of marijuana that enveloped them like a poorly disguised perfume.
Elphaba took a step back, her eyes wide open. The two girls lay on the floor, their eyes wide, their faces torn between terror and bewilderment. The shorter one had a cap on wrong and a student club T-shirt bunched up at her belly button. The other, with curly hair and glasses, had an ink stain on her neck and an expression that screamed "I shouldn't be here."
For a second, the three of them remained in a kind of static trance, a pause in the timeline where no one knew quite how to react.
Until the one with glasses bolted upright, uttering a hurried babble:
"P-p-p-teacher," she stammered, her eyes wide open. "It wasn't my idea, I swear! She made me. It was... emotional coercion."
"Me?!" the one with the cap exclaimed, turning around in horror. You were the one who kissed me in the middle of the foreign policy debate, you lunatic!
"Just to shut you up!"
Elphaba watched them silently, but not with fury. Not with indignation. There was something about the scene that touched her more than she expected. A chaotic mix of guilt, desire, fear, and involuntary comedy... everything she had felt in her youth, compressed into a theatrical explosion before her. She bit her lip, holding back the smile that trembled on her lips. She couldn't give in so easily.
She adopted her best grumpy teacher tone—one she had perfected at Nevermore—and spoke tersely:
"Silence!" Elphaba interrupted in a deep voice, without thinking, channeling with surgical precision the tone of authority she once swore to hate.
The two girls cowered like mice before an owl. Their mouths snapped shut, and for an instant, Elphaba felt she had absolute control of the scene. What a strange and powerful feeling.
"What are your names?" she asked without moving from the threshold, crossing her arms.
"I... I'm Liri." The one with glasses lowered her gaze.
"And my name is Kess." The other lifted her chin with a mixture of pride and resignation. Elphaba smiled inwardly. That was the rebel of the duo.
"Uh-huh... Liri and Kess. Do you know what would happen if this were a real dean's inspection?"
They both shook their heads, trembling slightly.
"Suspension. Notify parents. Loss of scholarship if you're lucky, and if not... well, it could be worse. The university frowns on illegal substance use, especially when combined with romantic arguments in cleaning supply closets."
Both of them turned even paler. Elphaba paused dramatically, then added slowly, "But for today... maybe... I can forget I saw anything."
Both of their eyes lifted at the same time, surprised and unsure whether to believe it or not. Elphaba crouched slightly, looking at them with her head tilted.
"On one condition."
"What?" they asked almost in unison.
"Stop playing hide-and-seek. Whatever this is between you two, stop fooling around. An argument, a joint, and a lock in a closet isn't the beginning of a worthy story... but maybe a sober walk around campus, gazing at the stars and wondering if you're ready for something more... is."
The two stared at each other, stunned, silent.
"Are you saying that..."
"I'm saying I've been where you are before," Elphaba sat up. "And I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."
The girls didn't understand the reference, but Liri let out a nervous laugh.
"Thank you... Professor..."
"I'm not a professor." —Elphaba smiled mischievously— But a good guess.
The two young women looked at each other, smiled, held hands, and walked away.
Elphaba watched them walk away, two tiny silhouettes among the flowerbeds illuminated by the dim light of the university lampposts, holding hands as if walking toward a new beginning. The ancient masonry of the campus returned to her attention, but this time not as the setting for her own ghosts, but as a space where other stories flourished. She felt a strange warmth in her chest, almost like a sigh of relief: if two young women could dare to be themselves here, perhaps there was hope for everyone.
However, before she could complete that thought, a soft voice brought her out of her small ecstasy:
"Elphaba Thropp... is that you?"
Elphaba turned around with a lurch in her chest. She would recognize that voice anywhere, even as the years passed. It wasn't bombastic or melodramatic like so many figures in her life. It was calm, deep, with a slight foreign accent that softened each word as if it caressed them. And when her eyes fell on the thin, hunched figure advancing toward her from the cobblestone path, her entire body seemed to respond to a single emotion: pure joy.
"Professor Dillamond...?" she murmured, before surprise turned to certainty.
He smiled, that same kind smile that had brightened her loneliest years at the university. His hair, once black with gray streaks, was now completely white, and his glasses seemed to have gotten larger with age, or perhaps it was just that his face was thinner. He dressed the same as always: a somewhat frayed wool vest, a shirt carefully buttoned to the neck, and a light scarf awkwardly tied. As if fashion had never mattered to him in the slightest.
Elphaba didn't give it a second thought. She ran toward him, no matter how ridiculous he might look. And when they hugged, for a moment it was as if she were back again, that insecure young woman with the defiant gaze who found refuge in the corners of libraries and quiet offices where words mattered more than appearances.
"I can't believe it," she said, with a smile rarely seen on her face. "Is she still here?"
"Oh, Elphaba dear," he said, laughing softly as he patted her back. "And you think I was going to leave before the system finally collapsed completely? This place still needs one or two old fools who insist on thinking outside the box."
They both laughed, sharing a moment of complicity that didn't need to be explained.
"You look... well, you look alive," he said, pulling away only slightly to look at her closely. "More tired, maybe, but with eyes just as stubborn."
"I guess it's the best anyone could ask for," she replied with a half smile. "I came to visit with... someone. I'm just passing through, but things got complicated as usual. Now it seems I have to give a talk tomorrow."
Dillamond raised an eyebrow.
"A talk? You? Volunteer?"
"Of course not!" Elphaba snorted, then lowered her gaze in resignation. "Principal Coddle still hasn't lost her manipulative touch."
"Oh, that woman. She still walks around the halls screaming like they're the private property of her ego. I'm surprised she didn't name an auditorium after her."
"She did. It was destroyed within a month," Elphaba countered, and they both burst out laughing.
They spent a few minutes walking slowly along the path, between empty benches and tall trees that whispered in the wind. The conversation flowed with a naturalness Elphaba hadn't experienced in a long time. She spoke briefly about her job at Nevermore, how she'd left it, her relationship with Glinda—a topic Dillamond greeted with a genuine smile and not a hint of judgment—and how the past seemed to have a capricious way of knocking at the door when one least expects it.
"You know what the strangest thing is, Professor?" she said, stopping at the edge of a garden. "It's not just the memories. It's what I didn't experience here. What I didn't allow to happen. The clubs, the parties, the people... I gave myself so many reasons to stay away, and now I don't know if it was out of defense or fear. Maybe both."
Dillamond looked at her tenderly, as if this was the reflection he'd been waiting to hear for years.
"We all deserve time to understand ourselves, Elphaba." Some do it at parties. Others, among books. And a few... among scars. But you're not alone, you never were entirely alone. What you did here, you did with conviction, even if it was lonely. Now, perhaps it's time to reconnect with what you were, and what you could have been.
Elphaba looked at him for a long moment, and instead of answering, she simply nodded. A small gesture, but loaded with meaning.
"Thank you, Professor," she said finally, her voice low. "For being there when I needed you most... and for continuing to be."
Dillamond patted her shoulder again.
"And you, Elphaba Thropp, remain one of the best students I've ever had. Not because of your grades, but because of your fire. Never lose it. And if you ever write that book you kept promising, I still want a signed copy."
Elphaba smiled sideways. Then, with lighter steps and a less tight chest, she said goodbye with a shorter but equally warm hug. Before parting, the professor made her promise to accompany him the next day for tea so they could continue catching up, and also to bring her date so he could meet her. Elphaba accepted with a smile and left.
As she walked back toward the dorm where Glinda was waiting for her, Elphaba felt something different. As if the shadows of the past, for once, had begun to dissipate beneath a light that didn't hurt to look at.
When she finally reached room 3B, Elphaba gently closed the door, careful not to make a sound when it closed. The interior was dimly lit by an old lamp beside the bed, and amid the silence that enveloped the dorm, only Glinda's slow breathing could be heard. She slept cuddled against a pillow, her legs tucked up, her expression so pure and peaceful that for a moment Elphaba felt her chest loosen just looking at her.
He walked over to her, unhurriedly. He leaned in slowly and placed a light kiss on her temple, barely a brush of lips that was more a gesture of belonging than a caress. Then he quietly undressed, put on an old T-shirt he found in his backpack, and got into the other bed. From there, he reached out to Glinda, who, asleep, murmured something incomprehensible and snuggled closer, as if even in her dreams she knew Elphaba was there.
He gazed at her for long minutes, his fingers tangled in strands of her golden hair. He was always fascinated by the light Glinda carried with her, as if every day in the world was worth celebrating just for existing. How had someone like her ended up crossing paths with someone like Elphaba? And why, despite all the conflicts, hurts, and differences, had that crossing turned out to be the most significant thing that had ever happened to him?
Without letting go, he reached for his phone and unlocked it. The screen cast a faint blue glow over his face as his fingers navigated with mechanical familiarity. He accessed the university website, scrolling through the menus with a mixture of habit and distance. “Historical Gallery,” one section read.
The images took a while to load, but when they did, Elphaba felt back at the center of that frozen time.
There they were. Photos of student events, award ceremonies, winter festivals, afternoons in the campus gardens. Photos where the sun shone brighter than she remembered, where laughter seemed easy, genuine. She flipped through one after another, recognizing names, places... and then she stopped.
It was a picture of the debate club, dated with surgical precision: “Junior Year Winter.” There she was, among a dozen students, all with awkward postures, hands clasped in front of them, and stiff smiles. Her younger self—long, dark hair, no makeup, thick glasses—stayed at the edge of the group, as if she didn't want to be there but had no choice.
She kept passing by. Another from the lab. Another from the book club. Another, more blurred, from a student protest where her figure holding a sign was barely recognizable.
And suddenly, she felt emptiness. Not nostalgia, not sadness. It was a physical absence in her chest, a feeling of having witnessed her own life from the other side. In all those photos, she had been present, yes. But she hadn't really been. Not in the sense that the others seemed to inhabit the moment.
She wasn't sure if she'd been left out, or if she herself had chosen to remain on the sidelines. Maybe both. Maybe it was the surest way to survive in a time when the world seemed made to devour you if you let your guard down. And yet, now, seeing herself from the outside... what exactly had that margin protected her from? What would have happened if she'd tried to enter?
She sighed. She placed her phone on the nightstand. She clutched Glinda tighter, as if afraid the distance between the photos might penetrate the bed and seep between them.
"Don't leave me alone again," she whispered softly, unsure if she was speaking to Glinda or to her own reflection, lost in the past.
Glinda murmured something again, perhaps a name, perhaps a meaningless word. But Elphaba understood her.
And she allowed herself, for the first time in that room, to feel a little less alone.
The next morning, the sun shone insolently over the rooftops of Gillikin State University, illuminating every corner of the campus with that fresh, promising light of a young morning. The air was thick with excitement, confusion, and cheap caffeine. From early on, the trumpets of the university band broke the tranquility with a vigorous fanfare that bounced off the walls of the red brick buildings. On the sidewalks, cheerleading squads performed acrobatics, student clubs set up makeshift tents and distributed leaflets with desperate enthusiasm, speaking out in favor of the survival of white-striped dolphins or protesting against the retrograde policies of Maracoor Abiding and what they caused.
Also in this youthful ecosystem, one could find a student asleep on a bench, an involuntary witness to the chaotic parade that inaugurated another day of university life.
And walking amidst all this perfectly university-like chaos was her: Glinda Upland.
She wore white linen shorts with a perfectly fitted pale pink silk blouse, round gold-rimmed sunglasses, and a top knot that shone as if she'd styled it in the light of dawn. She carried two steaming coffees in a recyclable cup holder and a bag of lukewarm croissants, weaving between alternative theater clubs, impromptu protests over parking prices, and anxious students searching for Wi-Fi.
Eyes fell on her as if she were a movie star lost in an episode of "Campus Confidential." Some wondered if she was part of some new university advertising campaign. Others simply stared, convinced they'd never have that glamorous energy before 10:00 a.m.
But Glinda didn't stop. Her goal was clear.
She climbed the stairs of the old dorm without even breaking a sweat, turned the key Coddle had given them the day before, and pushed open the door to room 3B with an anxious smile. Inside, the atmosphere was the complete opposite of the campus's dynamism: the half-closed blinds filtered the light as if it didn't dare enter completely, and on the bed, still covered by rumpled sheets, lay Elphaba, tangled up in herself like a modern sculpture of insomnia.
Face down, one leg dangling over the side of the mattress, her black hair scattered like ink on the pillow, and the expression of someone clearly not ready to face the world. Her furrowed brows, even in sleep, revealed that she was surely having some kind of philosophical, or worse, administrative, dream.
Glinda sidled over, placed the coffee and croissants on the desk (away from any potential morning catastrophe), and sat delicately on the edge of the bed. She gazed for a moment at that stubborn face she loved so much, and, unable to help herself, smiled.
"Good morning, Professor Thropp," she whispered sweetly, like someone singing a secret.
Elphaba moaned slightly, without opening her eyes, and muttered something incomprehensible in what could have been Latin, Ancient German, or pure exhaustion.
"I brought coffee... and food with butter," Glinda added, now smiling guilty. "Technically croissants. Technically unhealthy." But they have almonds, so they're... protein?
That managed to open one eye. Just a green slit that looked at her suspiciously, as if unsure if she was dreaming or if Glinda was really talking about protein at something like seven in the morning.
"Have the Hunger Games already started outside?" Elphaba growled, her voice hoarse.
"Worse. Drama clubs, church groups, and a guy in a wig juggling while yelling about the market economy."
"I'm going to die."
"Not today. Today you have coffee, croissants, and a whole day to remember how much this place hated you. Happy nostalgia!"
Elphaba sank back into the pillow as Glinda laughed, and for a second more they were silent. Until Elphaba reached out and felt on the nightstand for her coffee. When she found it, she murmured,
"I hate you."
"And I love you," Glinda replied, lying down beside her as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Elphaba sat up in bed like a creature fresh from the cave, her hair tangled in chaotic strands and one eyebrow permanently arched in distrust of the sunlight. She hunched slightly, hugging the hot coffee as if it were a sacred shield against the outside world. She took a long, bitter sip, never taking her eyes off the walls around her. It was as if every crack, every creaking floorboard, every ridiculous poster stuck on with invisible tape stirred a memory she'd rather bury beneath ten meters of emotional concrete.
"God..." she growled, aimlessly. "This room still smells of wasted youth and intellectual dampness."
Glinda, who had taken her seat with all the grace and poise of a Spring Festival queen, nibbled a croissant with delicate enthusiasm, one leg crossed over the other, fondly observing the scene of existential despair that was her pre-caffeinated girlfriend.
"Don't be melodramatic, my dear. Well... not so much. Are you ready for your talk this afternoon?"
Elphaba glared at her with a look that, if it were a weapon, would leave craters. She rested her coffee on her thigh, sighed deeply, and said gravely, "The only useful lesson this university taught me is that Fiyero's rear end was... spectacular."
Glinda raised her hands, determined not to lose face by discussing Fiyero Tigelaar's pelvic poetry. She cleared her throat and diplomatically returned to the topic.
“Okay, let’s overlook your scandalous history of gluteal admiration. We can think of some thematic threads. Perhaps you could talk about how to challenge academic power structures from a perspective…”
“I’m not going to talk about anything academic, Glinda. Nor do I want to. They’re going to have to wrench that talk from me with pliers, and they know it.” Elphaba leaned back again, huffing. “But last night… I ran into someone.”
That caught Glinda’s attention, and she set her croissant aside and leaned in with interest.
“Someone from my past?”
“Dr. Dillamond.”
Glinda blinked; the name was barely familiar, like a distant echo that had floated through some midnight conversation, between confessions and anecdotes.
“Was that the one who… taught you philosophy? The one who once wrote you a recommendation letter with five pages of metaphors about resilience?”
“The same one.” My professor for history, philosophy, critical theory, and basically any other subject they couldn't assign to someone less eccentric. He was... well. Different. He never treated me as an oddity or a threat. He never expected me to fit in. He just wanted me to think.' Elphaba looked down, smiling faintly. 'He recognized me as soon as he saw me. And he hugged me like he'd been waiting for me all these years.'
Glinda regarded her with restrained sweetness, placing a hand on Elphaba's leg.
'I'm glad you at least had a light amidst so much darkness in this place. Did you arrange to meet?'
'Yes. Today at teatime. He invited me to take you.' Elphaba took another sip of coffee and looked at Glinda over the rim of her glass. 'You don't know it yet, but you're about to be enchanted by an old man who's half-wise, half-goat, half-teapot.'
'That's three halves.'
'Welcome to the world of philosophy.'
Glinda gave a light laugh, and for a moment the air in the room lightened, as if the weight of memories were melting away with the steam from the coffee.
"So..." Glinda laced her fingers through Elphaba's. "We started with a proper breakfast and ended with a tea date. It's not such a bad day."
"There's still the public torture called 'chatting with strangers' to come. Don't count yourself a winner."
Glinda smiled. She leaned over and placed a soft kiss on her cheek.
"You got away with the almond croissant. One more word about Fiyero and breakfast would be all over your face."
"It was worth it," Elphaba said, and slumped back with a sigh lighter than the others.
The mid-morning sun bathed the campus gardens in a gentle warmth, and the music of the student band could still be heard in the distance, interspersed with loudspeakers encouraging students to join clubs, participate in workshops, or take a photo with the university mascot, a sort of... beaver in a toga? Glinda found it adorable. Elphaba, on the other hand, looked ready to commit a crime against joy.
They walked side by side, and anyone who saw them would think they were two people who had just met on a dating app that matches influencers with swamp creatures. Glinda was impeccably dressed, as always: a white pleated skirt, an ivory chiffon blouse, a pastel pink blazer with gold trim, heart-shaped sunglasses, and heels that, miraculously, didn't sink into the grass. Next to her, Elphaba looked like a student who had gotten up for an eight a.m. class with a ten-year emotional hangover. She was wearing a gray college sweatshirt, probably stolen from the back of some closet, hood pulled low over her head, black "witness-protected" sunglasses, and moss-green jogging bottoms that did nothing to hide her desire to disappear from the material plane.
"Do you have to dress like a fugitive from a reality show about academic conspiracies?" Glinda whispered as they walked past the university theater booth.
"I don't want to be recognized," Elphaba muttered from under her hood. "If any of these hormonal creatures find out I'm 'the legendary Thropp,' they'll never leave me alone."
"Oh, come on! You're like a mythological figure here. You're in the oral histories of debate clubs."
"I almost formed a debate club only to disband it after the first meeting." Elphaba paused to point to a booth with a sign that read "Eco-Consciousness Club: Save the Coastal Moss." "The moss doesn't need saving." The moss will outlive capitalism, climate collapse, and probably our graves.
"Can you not destroy the dreams of every student who breathes near you?" Glinda replied with a fixed smile as she greeted one of the architecture club members, who offered her a brochure made of recycled paper and biodegradable glitter.
"I'm just applying a corrective. If someone had told them earlier that the world is a soul crusher, they would have prepared better."
"And you think you're that voice of wisdom?" Glinda asked as she dragged her toward the "Creative Writing Club for Emotional Healing" booth.
"I'm a public service," Elphaba replied dryly. "And by the way, writing poetry about 'blossoming from pain' isn't going to pay their rent."
Glinda stopped dead in her tracks and looked at her.
"Can you try not being the witch of cynicism for five minutes? Huh? This is like a little capsule of youthful enthusiasm." Do you remember what that felt like?
"No. I killed him with a Nietzsche book in my first year."
Elphaba lowered her head like a secret agent, walking past a group of students selling cookies to fund a meditation retreat. Glinda stopped, delighted, bought a bag, and Elphaba almost glared when she saw the cookies were shaped like chakras.
"See? It's not so terrible. Everyone's excited, full of hope and... enthusiasm."
"And that's precisely what scares me."
"Oh, please," Glinda snorted as she took a cookie and offered it to her. "Eat the third chakra and take a deep breath."
"I'd rather swallow nails."
"You do that every day, dear," Glinda said soothingly as she took Elphaba's arm and dragged her toward another booth.
In the distance, someone was mentioning the upcoming film club screening, which would feature “generation-defining films.” Elphaba stopped.
“If they show ‘Dead Poets Society,’ I’m going to throw up on the screen.”
Elphaba walked as if the university lawn gave her a rash, each step accompanied by a grimace of disgust, a biting critique, or an existential sigh. Glinda, still optimistic—though her smile was slightly strained at the edges—tried to enjoy the walk, sweetly greeting each student they passed. But it was hard to stay luminous when your girlfriend was spewing venom with the precision of a philosophical sniper.
“‘Spiritual Growth Through Origami Club’?” Elphaba read aloud in a monotone. “How comforting to know that paper folding has a bigger budget than history departments.”
“Oh, please!” Glinda replied, playfully nudging her. You have to let youth experiment. Passion is contagious!
"So are STDs," Elphaba replied without even turning her head, stunning a group of students passing by.
But just at that moment, something caught both of their attention: squeaky, rhythmic music began to play, and a dozen of cheerleaders emerged into the center of the courtyard with their explosive energy. Dressed in shimmering emerald and gold outfits, they began a perfectly synchronized routine of screams, jumps, pirouettes, and vibrant pom-poms that fluttered like fabric fireworks.
Glinda stood rooted to the spot, her eyes shining like a child watching a princess carriage. One hand covered her chest, and the other held Elphaba as if she needed to share this sacred moment with her. Elphaba, in contrast, rolled her eyes so hard you could almost hear them rolling.
"What do you think?" Glinda asked with a giant smile.
"I think the collapse of the education system is a silent tragedy," Elphaba said gravely. "If they channeled half that energy into reading critical theory, maybe they wouldn't vote for politicians who promise free Wi-Fi as a solution to climate change."
Glinda didn't even flinch. She clapped enthusiastically when the routine ended, and one of the cheerleaders—tall, athletic, and made up like a teen pop star—approached with a smile.
"Thank you! We're rehearsing for the regional semifinal," the young woman gasped.
"You were amazing!" "Glinda exclaimed, and then, casually, added, "I was a cheerleader too. In fact, I won a cheerleading scholarship in high school and then became captain at Emerald City University. We won the state competition, twice."
"Really?!" the cheerleaders said in unison, looking at her as if they'd seen Beyoncé.
Glinda smiled like a star in the spotlight. Elphaba crossed her arms and looked up at the sky in silent despair.
"You're kidding!" said a cheerleader. "Do you have any videos or something?"
"Oh, I have everything... except privacy." Glinda laughed flirtatiously before turning to Elphaba with a venomous half-smile. "I know you weren't in that club. I imagine you more in the chess club or the... bitter, unfiltered commentators club?"
But then, something unusual happened.
Elphaba tensed.
Barely for a second. But enough.
"No," she said, perhaps too quickly. "I was never a cheerleader. Never."
Glinda narrowed her eyes like a sitcom detective.
"Never?" she asked with venomous sweetness.
Elphaba swallowed, her hood suddenly feeling heavier. She lowered her voice as if confessing to a war crime.
"I tried out. Once. Just once. It was for... research."
There was silence.
The cheerleaders stared at her as if they'd just learned the library director had a past as a pop singer. Glinda froze, mouth agape, and then... she burst into a scream of excitement so loud several students in the math club turned around.
"You tried out to be a cheerleader? You?!" she said between ecstatic shrieks as she held onto Elphaba to keep from falling. Oh, for gods' sake! And what happened? Did you refuse to hold a pompom for ideological reasons?
"I didn't pass," Elphaba replied emotionlessly, staring at an indefinite point on the horizon. "I failed. Like almost everything."
And without further ado, she turned and continued walking, her hands in her pockets, as if with each step she tried to put that confession behind her.
Glinda watched her walk away, and her smile slowly began to disappear, replaced by a look of empathy and pity. Because in that moment, she understood that every corner of that campus held a piece of Elphaba's puzzle... and she, with every story, every failure, and every forgotten memory, was one step closer to completing it.
In a sunny corner of the campus, tucked away from the bustle of students and activities, there was a small stone terrace with wrought iron benches and a wooden table. There, under the generous shade of an ash tree, Dr. Dillamond waited with a porcelain teapot and three impeccably arranged cups, as if the tea ceremony were part of an ancient ritual. As he watched them approach, his face, furrowed by lines of wisdom and patience, lit up with warmth.
He stood up with the slowness worthy of someone whom the years have not defeated, but rather made more deliberate.
"Elphaba," he said, extending his arms with that mixture of contained joy and deep respect that only true masters know how to offer.
Elphaba approached with a genuine smile, one of those gestures that were unusual for her and that arose from very specific places, like memory, tenderness, and gratitude. She hugged him briefly, almost shyly, as if part of her were still nineteen.
"Dr. Dillamond, it's a pleasure to see you again."
"The pleasure is mine, my dear Elphaba. You don't know how good it is to see you again." —Then he turned to Glinda. “And you must be…?”
“Glinda. Glinda Upland.” She extended her hand with radiant elegance, and he took it courteously.
He watched her for a second, studying her with kind eyes, as if reading beyond her perfect smile, as if wanting to see why and how someone like her would be standing next to someone like Elphaba. And in the end, he simply nodded, as if something had made sense.
“I couldn’t expect anything less from Elphaba.”
Glinda laughed softly, pleased, as they both took seats next to him. Elphaba, without saying anything, poured the tea as she had done so many times in silence during his years of study; the gesture was automatic, but filled with an almost ritualistic calm. And then began the gentle questioning of an old teacher who never stopped caring.
"So, what's become of you, Elphaba?" Dillamond asked with genuine interest. "Where have you been? What have you done?"
Elphaba shifted a little in her seat. She stared at her cup as if searching for an answer floating through the tea leaves.
"A bit of everything. Nothing too exciting. Jobs, responsibilities, moving cities. I became a teacher for a while. An auditor. I was... a lot of things."
"Too modest," Glinda interrupted, taking the liberty of leaning lightly on her shoulder. "Well... she was an administrator for a fairly large company for a few years, but quit because the bosses were misogynistic jerks. Afterward, she was a social studies teacher at Nevermore Academy, organized an anti-corruption audit against the Emerald City senator's government... Oh, and she's published an essay on judicial reform from a non-anthropocentric perspective."
"Glinda!" Elphaba raised an eyebrow with that irritated, yet endearing smile that only she knew how to muster. "Enough."
Dillamond laughed, delighted.
"I'm very impressed... but I'm even more interested to know how you are, Elphaba. How you feel. Because you're not the same brilliant, impatient, and defiant young woman who sat at the back of the classroom with her eyebrow raised. There's something different about you."
And then, his eyes rested, fleetingly but pointedly, on Glinda.
"And I suspect part of that difference has a name."
Elphaba looked down for a moment, but no longer to hide. This time it was to search for the words, to think them through. And when she spoke, she did so with disarming honesty.
"I don't know exactly. It took me a long time... to figure myself out. Not as an academic, not as a professional. But as a person. I was always good at building walls... but not so good at doors." It took me years to understand that I was so busy surviving that I never really knew how to live. Glinda—she glanced at her, smiling helplessly—appeared at one of the most absurd moments of my life. She was literally a corporate rival who ended up becoming... everything.
Glinda took her hand under the table, not flaunting it, as if the gesture were part of the language they shared.
"We met working together," Glinda added with a giggle. "We were forced to share an office. It was... an experience. We hated each other. It was beautiful."
"And then..." Elphaba continued. "Well, there were a lot of things. Moving, fights, making up, rediscovering each other. It's weird. If Glinda had met me at this university, she probably wouldn't have been able to stand me."
"Hmm... I'm not so sure," Glinda said, smiling at her. "I think I would have loved you just the same. But it would have taken me a little longer to realize it."
Dillamond watched them wordlessly, as if contemplating a work of art completing itself, without any need for intervention. Finally, he nodded.
"You're more you now, Elphaba. And that's not what books teach you."
Dillamond's comment was like a soft whisper amid the hustle and bustle of life. One of those phrases that doesn't seek comfort or flattery, but simply speaks the truth with the calmness that only wise old people possess.
But Elphaba immediately sighed and, pursing her lips, stood up. "Okay... I think... we need more... Sugar... I'll take care of it!" Elphaba immediately left.
Glinda, still holding her cup, slowly turned her face toward him as she watched Elphaba, in the distance, walk toward a small gas station to get some sugar, her shoulders slightly tense and her hands in her pockets as if she were cold... or afraid of appearing vulnerable.
Dillamond watched her too, silently, with a melancholic tenderness that settles in the eyes of those who have seen too much and still choose kindness.
"She'll never say it," he began, his voice low and measured, almost as if he were confessing something forbidden. "But you helped her more than you'll ever know, Glinda. She's... a proud creature. She clung to her armor for so long that she ended up thinking it was her skin. But when she looks at you... that armor cracks."
Glinda lowered her eyes, a little overwhelmed by those words. Sometimes, even in her certainty, she doubted what she really meant to Elphaba. But in Dillamond's eyes, there was no exaggerated romanticism or idealization: there was only truth.
"I don't know if I did that much," Glinda finally replied with a shy smile. "Sometimes I feel like she's the one who saves me. Every day."
"I doubt it." Dillamond shook his head, with that mixture of wisdom and sorrow that sometimes settles over older adults when they remember other people's youths as if they were their own. "I was her teacher for three years. And although she was brilliant, imposing, tireless... I never saw her like that. So... light. So present. The Elphaba I knew was always on the defensive. As if the whole world owed her something and at the same time was charging her for everything. She never asked for help, never accepted it. And yet... she suffered so much."
He paused for a second, searching for the right words, like someone who knows they don't have many more opportunities to say them.
"It wasn't just that the world was cruel to her, Glinda. What was truly unfair... was that her own family was also unfair. That they taught her that she had to earn even the right to be loved. I... I'm a foreigner, you know. I know what it's like to be seen as something strange, alien, as a mistake. But Elphaba... she was displaced even within her own blood. No one should grow up like that. No one should have to build their dignity from the rubble others left them."
Glinda listened with growing attention. She had never heard it said like that. With such depth. With such compassion.
"And yet, look at her," Dillamond continued with a smile. "Look at her now. She walks as if she doesn't carry the weight of the world on her shoulders. She talks to you as if she has nothing to prove. She smiles... out of love. Do you realize how far she's come?"
Glinda looked into his eyes, and for a moment she felt something warm squeeze her chest. It wasn't pride. It was something more intimate. More sacred.
"She's... incredible," she whispered, as if saying it out loud would give a new dimension to that thought she always had.
At that moment, Elphaba returned with a couple of sugar packets in her hand and a wry expression on her face.
"What are you two so mysteriously plotting about?" she asked, sitting back down next to Glinda and stirring her tea suspiciously.
Dillamond just smiled and raised his cup.
"We were just talking about old times... and how wonderful you are."
"Uh-huh. I'm sure." Elphaba narrowed her eyes suspiciously as she sipped a sip from her cup. "Are you all right, Glinda?"
"Yes," Glinda said, smiling and taking her hand under the table. "Perfectly fine."
And so, the sun continued to rise over the campus, caressing the ancient walls of the university and also those who sat in that corner sharing tea, a story, and something even deeper: the knowledge that sometimes, despite everything, things find their way. Especially when someone decides to stay.
Shortly after, as the day began its slow descent over the campus and the mild evening air filled with the murmur of students and footsteps on the pavement, Elphaba and Glinda walked together, arm in arm, with a slowness they only allowed themselves when everything seemed, for once, to be in its place.
They had just said goodbye to Professor Dillamond after an unexpectedly moving afternoon snack. Elphaba, with her usual cynicism, had let it slip that she hadn't yet decided whether she would give the talk. But barely a few feet had they walked and a complicit silence had settled between them, and it was she herself who, in a quiet voice, broke the moment.
"I'm going to give it."
Glinda stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening with a mixture of surprise and excitement.
"Really? Are you going to do it?"
Elphaba nodded, without slowing down, with a grimace of resignation that hid a half-smile.
"Yeah, well... I don't want the old man to die disappointed," she joked, squeezing Glinda's arm a little in hers. "Though don't expect a revelatory speech. He'll probably ramble on about epistemology and leave half of us asleep."
"Or fascinated," Glinda responded enthusiastically. "Because you're brilliant and sharp and weird... and that plays very well in a university setting."
"Yeah, right. All that's missing is an honorary doctorate, and then I can retire to a monastery."
"Or at least an obscure bookstore in some French city," Glinda laughed.
The two walked a few more steps, exchanging gentle banter, until something stopped Glinda in her tracks. In front of them, in a corner of the campus, stood a modest but colorful stand decorated with ecological flags, hand-drawn posters, and a blackboard that read: "Ethical Action and Conscience Club - For a Fairer Tomorrow!"
Glinda let out an excited gasp as if she'd just seen a unicorn.
"Gods! They had one here too!" she exclaimed, breaking free from Elphaba's arm and running toward the stall with an energy that would have made any first-year student blanch.
Elphaba hung back, smiling indulgently. She crossed her arms, leaning against a lamppost, as she watched her fling herself with teenage enthusiasm toward the young stallholder, a freckled girl in overalls with a folder full of forms.
"Hi!" Glinda said, beaming like the sun. "I can't believe clubs like this still exist. I was in an almost identical one in Emerald City, 'Voice for Social and Animal Ethics.' We even helped abolish the use of cosmetics with illegal ingredients!"
"That's incredible!" the young woman replied, clearly dazzled by Glinda's energy and poise. This club was also formed to protest state practices in applied sciences. We are currently protesting how government conflicts in the country of Maracoor Abiding are causing natural damage to its wildlife and the consequences this could have on the rest of the world!
"Please tell me you have pins!" Glinda demanded, already taking one from the counter without permission, as if it had been offered to her. "And banners. I love a good banner."
From a distance, Elphaba watched her with a mixture of amusement and adoration. There was something deeply inspiring about the way Glinda launched herself into the world, without fear, without masks, without needing permission. In that snapshot, watching her converse with a stranger as if they were lifelong friends, Elphaba remembered why, of all the things she loved about her, this was one of her favorites: Glinda never forgot how to fight for what she believed was right, but she always did it with joy.
The club representative seemed to be jotting down Glinda's name on a contact sheet. Glinda, for her part, was already trying on a bracelet made from recycled thread and, with a wink at Elphaba, gave a dramatic thumbs-up, as if to say, "I still have it!"
Elphaba shook her head and let out a nasal laugh.
"There's no stopping her," she murmured to herself, with undeniable tenderness. For a moment, just one, she allowed herself to forget where she was.
But something changed.
Like a pang that didn't hurt at first, only whispered to attract attention, her gaze drifted to a bulletin board plastered on the red stone wall. It was a tangle of posters and crooked papers, most of them crumpled, advertising everything from tutoring services to vegan empanada sales to clandestine parties with ironic names. She approached it without thinking, more out of habit than curiosity.
And then she saw it.
A simple sign, written in neat, confident letters. A senior student was offering tutoring for incoming freshmen: "Freshman Tutoring. Philosophy, Ethics, Methodology, Academic Writing. Seniors, Excellent GPA. Confidential Consultations."
A contact number. A small, hand-drawn smiley face in the bottom corner.
But Elphaba's legs weakened.
The text was innocuous. But the structure. The font. The tone. The paper stock. It all matched.
Her body stiffened, the blood drained from her face, and for an instant, the campus disappeared.
Not again.
And as if her mind obeyed that grim command, the images returned with the violence of a reversing train. A hallway. A half-open door. Her own scream as she shoved it wide open. The young woman's body sprawled on the floor. Her ankles bent, her skin reddened. Her hands cuffed behind her back with cheap metal cuffs. A cheap latex asphyxiation mask pressed against her face, vibrating faintly with her last gasps of air.
Elphaba, five years younger, burst into the room, panting, yelling her name. Her fingers tore at the mask with clumsy force, the latex refusing to budge. She pounded on the girl's face, pleading, begging, "Breathe, damn it, please wake up!" she screamed, almost voiceless. One second. Two. Three. Nothing...
Until, with a wrenching spasm, the girl breathed again. A sound Elphaba remembered more than anything else: the sound of surviving terror. And of the guilt that is born.
She returned to the present as if violently thrown from her own mind. Elphaba took a step back, the air burning in her throat. Glinda was just a few feet away, chatting animatedly with a group of students from the club, her face alight, so happy to share that space with her. And just at that moment, the blonde turned, emotion dancing in her eyes, and said, "And this is Elphaba Thropp! My girlfriend, and probably the smartest, most critical, and brilliant person to ever walk this campus." They should really listen to her. It's the perfect guide to thinking about activism from a structural perspective. It's like having an existentialist philosopher with a whip and a New York Times subscription.
Everyone laughed. But not Elphaba. Elphaba stared at them with a blank stare. And then, without warning, she spoke.
"Do you really think you're doing something?" she said in such a dry tone that the group immediately fell silent. Glinda turned to her, confused.
"Elphie..."
But Elphaba couldn't hear her anymore.
"Ethical Conscience Club? What the hell does that even mean?" she continued, staring at the group of young people who were now staring at her as if a thunderstorm had rolled in during a picnic. "Are you going to go to a march, hold up a little sign, upload a black and white photo to your social media, and then sleep peacefully thinking you changed the world? Do you know what changes the world? Despair. Failure. Real pain." Not this little game of pseudo-university revolution.
Elphaba could barely hear her own voice; her heart pounded in her ears, images returning one after another, invading the edges of her vision.
“This whole place,” she said, looking up at the campus, “is a lie. A factory of moral narcissism where everyone learns to feel special for reading three articles and learning how to use intellectual language while trampling on others for not having the same cultural capital. This isn’t activism. This is vanity in fishnet stockings and hand-painted banners.”
Glinda tried to interject, but Elphaba took a step back. Her gaze was fixed on the bulletin board, as if the connection she’d just made wouldn’t let her let go.
“And you… you have no idea what it’s like to fight. Not with real consequences. Not with losses. Not with… The weight of knowing that every decision you make only hurts someone else.”
The silence became unbearable. No one fully understood. Not even Glinda, who was now looking at her with real concern, not for her reputation or the scene, but for what lay behind that sudden fury.
Elphaba breathed deeply, turned around, and without another word began to walk, her steps quick and erratic, as if she needed to get out of her own skin.
Glinda hesitated for a second, looking at the young people who were still trying to process what had happened. One of them opened his mouth, perhaps to make a taunt or comment, but Glinda stopped him with an icy stare.
"You don't dare," she said in a low but firm voice.
And then she ran after Elphaba, knowing that this time, her girlfriend wasn't running away from a place... but from a ghost she didn't yet dare name.
Elphaba moved through the hallways with an urgent mix of rage and fear, pushing doors without looking, going down stairs she didn't remember ever taking, as if the labyrinth of the building could absorb her and erase her existence. Her steps were quick, erratic, but firm, like someone running away from something inside.
Finally, she found an empty corner, a dead-end hallway behind the main dining room, and there, with no strength left to maintain the facade, she collapsed. Her back hit the wall with a dry sound, and from there, with her legs drawn up, she tried to catch her breath. Each exhalation shook as if her chest were falling apart from within.
She forced herself to look straight ahead, and that's when her eyes fell on a small rectangular window that overlooked the dining room. Through the glass, she saw one of those plastic cafeteria trays, forgotten on a table: an apple, a glass of lukewarm milk, and... a bagel. So insignificant. So brutally evocative.
Elphaba froze.
She felt the air drain from her, as if a bag had once again enveloped her face, as if the memory she'd been trying to silence for years had risen with all its violence.
Then, without turning around, in the most broken voice Glinda had ever heard, Elphaba asked:
"Did I ruin your life?"
Glinda stopped as if a bolt of lightning had pierced her soul.
"What...? What did you say?"
Elphaba didn't turn around. Glinda took a step forward, bewildered. Her face, usually firm and composed, now showed a gaping wound she didn't know how to heal.
"No... Elphie, don't say that. We already had this conversation. I thought..." she faltered, her voice hurt. "I thought you knew how much you mean to me."
Elphaba forced herself to stand. She straightened her back, adjusted her hood. She did what she always did: closed herself off.
"Forget it. It doesn't matter. It was a stupid thing," she said quickly, without looking at Glinda.
"Of course it matters!" Glinda burst out, with a mixture of frustration and despair. I'm not going to let you minimize it again. Not after all this time, after all we shared. You always do that. Why can't you trust me with this? Why do you keep running away?
Elphaba took a step back. She wanted to walk away, to hide, to disappear.
"Because I can't. Because I don't know how."
"Then learn!" Glinda exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears she refused to let fall. "Learn like you learned to care for me, like you learned to love! Like you learned to read my body language with a glance! This too is learned, Elphie! Opening up is also learned!"
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. Glinda approached her slowly. There was something devastating about seeing Elphaba like this, such a hard and repressed woman, reduced to a ball of guilt and fury. She wanted to touch her, but Elphaba shrank away.
"You've been different since we arrived," Glinda said gently but firmly. "You shut down, you avoid speaking, you avoid anything that has to do with you. You laugh when you're flattered, you mock your own achievements. You treated those children badly... why, Elphaba?" Why this need to destroy everything you touch? Why this hatred for everything you were?
And it was then that Elphaba, still not looking at her, exploded.
"It's because I'm a failure!"
Glinda didn't respond immediately. The world seemed to stop. Elphaba still stood at attention in the hallway, her gaze steady. And then, as if someone had finally unleashed a torrent, she continued speaking. Without filters. Without pauses. As if she were finally allowing herself to say everything that had been repeating itself in her head for years.
"What am I supposed to tell those kids in the talk, Glinda? That these were the best years of my life? That I found my voice and flourished in these halls?"
She laughed, that kind of hollow laugh that only serves to hide tears.
"All I did was lock myself away to study. Day and night. Because I didn't know what to do with people. They scared me. They repelled me. Or they reminded me of everything I wasn't." I didn't go to parties, I didn't have friends. I was never part of any clubs for long, not even the ones who now call me a "leading figure of the past." Do you know why I came to this university?
Glinda didn't respond. She just knelt beside her, not touching her yet.
"To escape from home. I came with the absurd hope of reinventing myself, of becoming one of those people who change the world. I kept telling myself that if I tried hard enough, if I got the best grades, if I was the most capable, the most efficient, the most... obedient, someone—someone—would finally see me. Admire me. Accept me. That the pain would be worth it."
Her eyes searched the ceiling, as if she wanted to find there the words she could no longer contain.
"And you know what I got? Jobs I hated. Bosses who silenced me. A position at a school where I didn't last a semester because, oh surprise, I wasn't good with teenagers either." And the crusade against the senator, the one you talk about as if it were my great heroic moment, wouldn't have happened if you hadn't dragged me by the hair. Because when we separated, Glinda... when you left me... when I thought I was ready to face the world, the reality is that all I did was... hide. I hid for months. I didn't answer calls, I didn't eat well, I hardly spoke to anyone. I did nothing. I just... tossed and turned in my own failure like it was a heavy sheet I couldn't get off.
Elphaba's eyes were now brimming with tears, but she wasn't crying. No. Crying would have been cathartic. This was worse: it was total containment. It was the collapse of an ancient structure that had never been reinforced.
“Everything I’ve done… everything… has been to prove that I’m not a mistake. So that someday someone will look at me and say: she was worth it. She wasn’t a disappointment. She wasn’t the failure her father believed her to be.”
And then, finally, her voice cracked.
“But I don’t know if that’s true anymore. I don’t know if I’ve accomplished anything more than staving off the collapse for longer than I expected. Maybe… my father was right.”
The last sentence fell like lead. And then yes: the tears flowed.
Glinda, who until then had remained motionless, unsure if she was allowed to intervene, approached slowly and put her arms around Elphaba. Elphaba didn’t respond to the hug, but she didn’t pull away either. It was a start.
Glinda rested her forehead against hers, whispering firmly, with that sweetness that seemed forged in steel:
“Don’t say that again.”
Elphaba wanted to protest, but Glinda wouldn’t let her.
"Don't ever say you didn't accomplish anything again. Because you have me. Because you did what no one else could: you changed me. You made me question everything I thought, everything I was. You taught me to see beyond the smiles and the sparkles. You set me free. And if you can't see that now, that's okay. I'm going to remind you every day, every time I have to, even if you want to push me away, even if you hate me for it. Because I won't let you sink into that voice that's been haunting you since you were a little girl."
He paused, squeezing tighter.
"You're not a mistake, Elphaba. Much less a failure. You're a survivor. You're a fighter. You're the most incredibly alive person I know. And even if you don't change the world with speeches or protests, even if you're not recognized by the right people... that doesn't make you any less valuable. Because you changed me. And I do see you."
The words hung in the air, like a warm blanket after a storm.
Elphaba clung to that embrace as if it were the only stable thing in a world spinning too fast. She said nothing. There was no need to.
And so, in a forgotten corner of a university building, two women stood embracing. One facing the ghosts of her past. The other, reminding her that she wasn't alone.
Because sometimes the only way to rebuild yourself... is to have someone believe for you, when you can't.
The embrace wasn't brief. Nor was it perfect. It was awkward, tense at first, as if Elphaba didn't yet know what to do with the comfort, or how to receive it without breaking further. But little by little, as if her body finally remembered that love isn't always a trap, she let herself fall into it.
Glinda held her. She said nothing at first. She just held her.
When she finally felt Elphaba begin to breathe a little more calmly, she murmured,
"We can go, if you want. Right now. You don't have to give that lecture. You don't have to prove anything to anyone."
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She closed her eyes. She felt the warmth of Glinda's body, the gentle pressure of her arms, the still-vibrating echo of her own crumbling words.
She could leave.
She could walk out the door, start the engine, disappear from that city, and pretend she'd never returned.
But no.
Elphaba opened her eyes, and for the first time in a long time, the decision she made wasn't born out of guilt, or duty, or fear of failure. It was born out of truth. Out of necessity, not to justify her past, but to stop hiding it.
"No," she said, her voice still raspy. "I'm not leaving."
Glinda looked at her, surprised.
"Are you sure?"
Elphaba nodded, with a familiar hint of determination… but this time it wasn't directed at the world, but at herself.
"I'm going to give that talk," she said. "But I'm not going to pretend… I'm going to be honest…"
Glinda said nothing. She just smiled, a gleam of serene pride in her eyes. And she took her hand.
The auditorium was packed. Not because of her, Elphaba thought with a cynical smile, but because of the promise of extra points, insistent professors, and the morbid curiosity aroused by a former student once considered "the brightest of her generation." From the back door of the stage, Elphaba scanned the rows of seats. Students were settling in, some yawning, others checking their phones. Some attentive, others just waiting for time to pass. All strangers.
Except for one.
In the third row, dead center, impeccably dressed as if she were giving an interview with Vogue instead of attending an academic talk, was Glinda. Sitting upright, legs crossed, her smile soft, attentive, and without a trace of judgment. Just that look that seemed to say: I'm here. And I'm with you.
Elphaba took a breath. Not deeply. She didn't need to prepare for a war. This time was different.
When she was introduced, her name echoed over the speakers with a certain unnecessary reverence: "Elphaba Thropp, distinguished alumna, honor graduate, speaker, activist, former professor, thought leader..."—and a series of titles Elphaba didn't even remember having accumulated. But when she stepped onto the stage, she simply said:
"Hello."
The microphone barely amplified her voice. She didn't need to shout. The room immediately quieted, as if her mere presence was enough to capture their attention. Elphaba took a breath and began.
"I'll be honest with you. When they asked me to give this talk, my first impulse was to say no. Then, I thought about running away. Literally." Until a few hours ago, I was convinced I'd find an excuse to disappear and fake a contagious illness.
A few soft laughs from the audience. Elphaba continued.
"The thing is, this university... this place... doesn't hold the best memories for me. Not because it's a bad place—on the contrary, it has excellent professors, resources, opportunities. But when I was here, I wasn't happy. I wasn't successful. I wasn't popular. I wasn't even particularly functional. I was a girl who came from a home where she felt invisible... or worse, like a living disappointment. And I thought that if I came here, if I worked hard enough, if I studied until I dropped, if I got the best grades, then the world would accept me. They would see me. They would love me."
A deeper silence settled among the students.
"So yes, I graduated with honors. I had recognition. I was at the top of my class. And yet, I left here with such a huge emptiness that for years I convinced myself it was a part of me." That was the truest version of me: someone who, despite all efforts, was never going to be enough.
She stopped. Her gaze searched and found Glinda. That golden beacon among the blurred faces. Elphaba smiled, and something in her body changed. A lightness, a strength.
—But that wasn't the whole truth.
—The truth is, I wasn't a broken person… but someone waiting to be found. And that, I want you to hear clearly, wasn't changed by my resume. No award, no heroic act. It was changed by the people who saw me, really saw me, even when I couldn't do it myself.
—So if you're here waiting for me to tell you how to succeed, how to excel, how to change the world, I'll tell you this: the world doesn't need more perfect people. It needs brave people. Honest people. People willing to fail, to feel lost, to get up on weak knees and say: still, here I am.
—And if at any moment you feel like you don't fit in, that you're too broken or too weird or too different… I swear you're not. They're just on their way. And the journey hurts sometimes. But it also finds answers. It finds hugs. It finds love. It finds a life.
Elphaba looked at Glinda again. Her eyes were moist.
"Today, I don't come to speak to you as a successful woman. I come as someone who is still learning to forgive themselves. To heal. To love themselves. To accept that failures are also part of history. And if this talk is useful for anything, or for anyone, let it be to tell you this: you are not alone. Not anymore."
There was a thick silence. The kind no one dares to break. Until, from the back, a clap began to applaud. Then another. And another. Until the entire audience rose in a round of applause, genuine, without drama or protocol. Only respect.
Elphaba swallowed. She bowed her head, lowered her microphone, and left the stage.
Glinda was waiting for her in the wings.
Without saying a word, she just opened her arms. And Elphaba walked toward them.
This time, without fear.
As they descended the side stairs of the stage, the energy still vibrating in their skin, Glinda intertwined her fingers with Elphaba's. They moved through the building's corridors with an unusual lightness, as if leaving centuries of weight behind. Elphaba was smiling, without realizing it, and Glinda—as always—noticed. She said nothing. There was no need to.
Until, as she turned into the corridor toward the exit, like a specter of the establishment that refuses to die, Chancellor Coddle emerged from nowhere. Almost panting with excitement, with a beaming smile and her blazer perfectly ironed.
"Elphaba Thropp!" she exclaimed. "That was... simply moving! Inspiring! The kind of testimony we need to promote our institution! I'm sure the local newspaper would be delighted to—"
"No," Elphaba said with a polite smile, without pausing.
—We could even take a photo next to the university's founding sculpture and then a brief profile of you for the alumni page, and later we could—
—With all due respect, Ms. Coddle… I've always considered you to be the human embodiment of vaginal cancer. See you soon.
The Chancellor blinked. Twice. And then, not knowing how to respond, she simply fell behind, as Glinda and Elphaba's laughter echoed through the halls like liberating bells.
"So... are we leaving tonight?" Glinda asked with a raised eyebrow as they stepped outside.
"No way am I spending another night in those college beds," Elphaba grumbled as she adjusted the collar of her jacket. "My back isn't the same as it was when I was twenty."
"And your ego?"
"Much less flexible," she replied proudly.
Glinda laughed as they walked through the campus gardens, the last rays of sunlight casting the ancient bricks a golden hue.
That's when Elphaba spotted him.
Professor Dillamond, sitting alone on one of the benches under a tree. He had a cup in one hand, the other raised in a friendly, warm gesture that reminded her of a father watching his daughter walk away after watching her grow up.
Elphaba stopped. Something stirred in her chest.
"Give me a second?" she said to Glinda.
Glinda, still smiling, nodded.
"Go on. I'll wait for you in the car... with real heat and mattresses."
Elphaba crossed the lawn slowly, as if each step completed a cycle, as if she could say to her younger self: Look, we're here. It wasn't easy, but we're okay.
Dillamond waited for her wordlessly, just with his eyes shining behind his worn glasses.
Elphaba sat next to him, silent. A second, two.
"Thank you for coming," he finally said softly.
"Thank you for staying," she replied.
He looked at her with that mixture of affection and respect that only those who saw the worst version of you and never stopped believing in you possess.
"Can I give you some advice before you go?"
Elphaba nodded.
"Don't let the shadow of your past obscure the light of your present. Because I promise you that what you have now..." he looked toward where Glinda waited in the distance, "...is extraordinary."
Sitting next to each other on the bench, Elphaba and Dillamond shared a silence heavy with memory. There was no need to speak, but Elphaba knew there was something she had to say.
"Thank you," she finally murmured, her voice barely steady, staring at the floor. "Thank you for... for seeing me. When no one else did."
Dillamond didn't respond immediately. He nodded serenely, as if he'd been waiting for it for years. He stood slowly, as men do who have many lifetimes under their belts, and looked down at her with that mixture of tenderness and pride that Elphaba still struggled to contain.
"You've grown, Elphaba," he said. "And far beyond what I was once able to teach you."
Then, gently and completely clearly, he said the words she never imagined she'd hear:
"I'm proud of you."
Elphaba didn't know how to respond. Not with words. Something in her chest tightened, as if a long-tightened knot were beginning to give way, to gently unravel. And she felt it. Not just hear it: she felt it. And for the first time, she didn't reject it.
But Dillamond wasn't finished.
"And most importantly," he added, leaning slightly toward her, "you should also be proud of yourself. Of who you are now, yes, but also of the girl you once were. Don't hide her. Don't treat her like a mistake you outlived. Because even when she made mistakes, she... never stopped learning. And that's why you were my best student."
Elphaba looked at him with a mixture of disbelief and gratitude, as if a broken mirror finally revealed a complete picture.
They hugged. Not as teacher and student, not as two acquaintances from the past, but as two people who deeply recognize each other. A brief, firm, real gesture.
"Promise me you'll keep in touch," Dillamond asked as he released her. "And please... someday, I want to read that book you always talked about. Your story deserves to be told."
Elphaba laughed, lighter than she had been in a long time.
"I might even start it this week," she joked. "But I don't promise not to drop it halfway through because of existential panic."
"Then it will be an honest book," he replied with a knowing smile.
Dillamond walked away with calm steps, disappearing into the long shadows of the evening.
Elphaba lingered on the bench for a moment longer, as if to allow the silence to seal that moment.
And then, looking up, she saw it.
The clock tower.
Old, imposing, lonely... and absolutely full of memories.
Elphaba's gaze fixed on her, and an idea sparked like a lit match. She pulled her cell phone from her jacket and dialed without hesitation.
"Hello?" Glinda replied on the other end, her voice smiling. "Are you on your way?"
"Change of plans," Elphaba said, already standing and striding purposefully. "I'll wait for you at the clock tower."
"The tower? Are you out of your mind? Is it even open?"
"Glinda. Bring the flashlight."
The hinges of the side door creaked with a rusty wail, but Elphaba barely noticed. She held the flashlight in one hand, and with the other, guided Glinda up the narrow stairs that creaked beneath their feet. Every step was imbued with memory. Elphaba moved forward as if she were looking through an old journal made of wood and dust. Her breathing quickened not from physical exertion, but from the emotional burden. For the first time since she had set foot in this university again, she felt the weight of the past not as a condemnation, but as a distant echo she could face head on.
Glinda, on the other hand, wrinkled her nose.
"Is this at risk of collapsing, or does it just look like it?" she murmured.
"It's structurally questionable, but emotionally invaluable," Elphaba replied with a smile.
Finally, they reached the top landing. The flashlight traced a faint circle over the tower's old engine room: immense gears dormant under dust, walls graffitied by generations of rebellious students, a blanket forgotten in a corner, open notebooks that went unclaimed. And in the background, a broken window let in the night breeze and a view of the entire illuminated campus.
Elphaba turned off the flashlight.
"Are you sure this isn't where they hide the bodies of the rebellious students?" "Glinda asked, crossing her arms.
Elphaba let out an unexpectedly sweet laugh.
"Maybe. But I wouldn't know. I was too antisocial to rebel." She glanced at her sideways. "Except here. With Fiyero."
Glinda looked at her silently. Elphaba cleared her throat in amusement.
"We used to come here to... well, to experiment. What I'd call alternative education in dissident sexuality today."
"Ew! I didn't need that image!" Glinda exclaimed, half amused and half horrified.
Elphaba laughed sincerely. For the first time, laughing at the past felt natural to her.
"This was the one place in the world where I didn't have to pretend," she said, her voice lower now, laden with something Glinda recognized: naked truth. "Where no one looked at me strangely. Where I didn't have to prove anything. Where I could breathe. And I didn't want it to stay like that... a neglected corner in my memory."
He turned to Glinda, his eyes shining.
"I can't rewrite my memories. But I can create new ones. And I know who I want to do it with."
Glinda said nothing. She just nodded. And when Elphaba leaned closer, there was no resistance. Only desire. Only trust.
The first kiss was slow. Honest. As if they were measuring each other's souls. But it grew, like the tide. Fast, urgent, inevitable. They clung to each other with their hands, their mouths, their bodies. The passion, long contained in the chaos of the previous days, exploded without asking permission. Clothes fell away, piece by piece, amid muffled laughter and gasps.
"Are you sure this place doesn't have hidden cameras from the sixties?" Glinda whispered as Elphaba lifted her amid abandoned gears and knowing shadows.
"It would be a credit to the historical record," Elphaba replied through gritted teeth before kissing her again.
And then, beneath the broken window frame and with the lights of the university as a witness, they made love like two women who had survived their own wounds and decided, at last, to write their own rules.
Where Elphaba had once been a shadow in a forgotten tower, she was now fire.
And together with Glinda, they lit a night that would live on in their memories like a beacon.
Not to forget the past.
But to illuminate it from the present.
The first ray of sunlight filtered between the Gothic buildings of the university, giving the campus a golden glow, as if the day had also woken up with a hangover. But it wasn't an alcohol hangover, at least not for them.
Elphaba and Glinda descended the steps of the clock tower as if emerging from a secret sanctuary, disheveled, their clothes wrinkled, and a mixture of dark circles, smiles, and satisfaction etched on their faces. They were a walking chaos, but a happy chaos. They linked arms, bumping shoulders with each step like teenagers who'd just run away from home.
They crossed campus slowly, unhurriedly, while around them, students paraded, dragging backpacks, vomit, or existentialism, victims of the previous night's college parties. One tripped over his own feet and fell to his knees on the grass. Glinda, without missing a beat or a smile, gave a thumbs-up.
"You're doing an amazing job, champ!"
Elphaba laughed a hearty laugh, without cynicism. She wasn't laughing at them, but with them. For the first time in years, she felt she was no longer trapped on the margins of her own story. It was as if she had folded it, taken it apart, and put it back together, piece by piece.
Finally, they reached the administration building, where a bulletin board with incoherent schedules and stickers from decades past advertised the place. The office door was ajar, and Elphaba, still smiling, entered to return the key to the dorm room they'd borrowed.
Glinda lingered for a second in the doorway, assessing her caffeine levels like a doctor specializing in romantic addiction.
"I'm going to get reinforcements," she announced, raising her empty cup. "Double espresso with cynicism or existential sweetness?"
"Whichever comes first," Elphaba murmured with a half-smile, and Glinda disappeared with a wink.
And then… Elphaba was alone.
Not alone like the old days, that thick, oppressive loneliness, but alone in a new way. A pause between shared moments. A respite.
The office was empty except for the hum of an old printer struggling to eject a sheet of paper. Elphaba walked up to the counter, placed the key down with a soft tap, and rested her hands on the wood, exhaling slowly.
She looked around.
The hanging lamp, the shelves overflowing with filing cabinets, the old institutional paintings... everything was exactly as I remembered. Nothing had changed.
Except for her.
For a moment, she imagined eighteen-year-old Elphaba, standing right where she was now, a file in one hand, a suitcase in the other, her heart filled with fury and anticipation.
She saw herself, thin and stiff, still unaware of how much growing up would hurt.
And for the first time, she didn't judge her.
She just smiled at her.
The young woman from the past couldn't yet know that one day she would return... not as a failure, not as a legend, but as a woman who had learned to forgive herself.
And that was a triumph no trophy in the display case could match.
Suddenly, the side door opened with a metallic creak, and the kind-faced secretary—a woman in her fifties with glasses dangling from a silver chain—entered with a cordial greeting.
"Good morning... Elphaba Thropp, right?" she said, settling into her desk.
"Yes," Elphaba replied, reaching out to drop off the room key with discreet ceremony.
The woman took it with a smile.
"Thank you. And I must say... your talk yesterday was wonderful. Truly. Very... honest. It touched us all."
Elphaba wasn't sure how to react. She nodded with a crooked smile, uncomfortable as always when praise struck a chord with too much sincerity.
"Thank you," she murmured, and for a moment it seemed the conversation would end there.
But Elphaba didn't move.
She stood, her gaze fixed on the edge of the desk, as if something inside her was stirring, awakening after years of silence.
"Excuse me..." she said finally, without looking up. "Could you help me with anything?"
The secretary raised her eyebrows curiously, ready.
"I'd like to know if you have any information about a student. Someone who was here when I was still a student. Her name was... Dorothy Gale."
The woman pursed her lips and began typing swiftly on the computer. Elphaba waited silently, a restless feeling in her chest, as if she'd touched a forgotten wound.
"Let's see... Dorothy Gale," the secretary repeated softly. "Hmm... Yes. Here she is. She enrolled about... six years ago? Early in her studies. But..."
Elphaba leaned forward slightly, noticing the pause.
"But?"
"She dropped out of college just a year later..." The woman's tone was soft, almost pained. "Exactly the same year you graduated, I see."
Elphaba stilled.
The news hit her like an unexpected gust of wind. She didn't know what she was expecting, but that wasn't it.
"Do you know if she transferred to another school?"
"No. All we have is the voluntary withdrawal record. She didn't file any formal complaints or give specific reasons... She just left." The woman shook her head regretfully. "And since then... nothing. No requests, no updates. As if she'd vanished."
Elphaba felt something inside her slowly close. The same old oppression. The weight of the unspoken. The weight of things broken without explanation.
"Is... is there any contact information on file?" she asked, already knowing it was a question she shouldn't ask, but unable to help herself.
The secretary hesitated for a moment.
"We have an emergency contact number filed in your file. It's old, we don't know if it's still working... but it's here." She wrote something on a small mint-green Post-it note and discreetly handed it to Elphaba.
"Thank you," Elphaba said, taking it without looking at her.
She tucked the note into the inside pocket of her coat. At that moment, Glinda was returning from the hallway, carrying two coffees and a radiant smile.
"Ready to leave this adorable hole of childhood traumas behind you?" she joked.
Elphaba responded with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Always," she said.
And as they both walked away, Elphaba clutched the paper in her pocket with her closed hand. She didn't say anything. But she knew that number... she was going to dial it.
Sooner or later.
Chapter 27: WE'LL BE THE GREATEST TEAM
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Prologue to Chapter 16 – “On Hiding Quietly”
from “Invisible Bonds – Reflections on Her and Me” (working title)
(Too soon to talk about this? Maybe this chapter is closer to the end. Or I'll leave it here as a draft.)
There are times when loving feels like hiding.
Doing it well means knowing where to put your hand, what word to keep quiet, how much space to leave between glances so they seem casual.
— Skip this if it sounds like a manual on emotional camouflage. Too didactic?
In certain places—those where skin seems thinner and judgment thicker—we learned to survive without naming each other. I was her traveling companion. She was my friend. Sometimes my sister. Never my lover.
Crossed out: "never my everything."
Replaced by: "never what it truly was."
What hurts the most isn't the act of hiding. It's the moment you realize you're getting used to it.
That night we spoke with two men. Soldiers. They laughed like someone who has seen things no one should see and still wants to keep believing in something. One of them looked at me as if he knew me. Not me, Elphaba. But that part of me. The part that didn't yet know I was writing.
Note in margin: "Was this the moment I started thinking about the book?" → Mark this as a possible narrative origin.
Maybe we all write because we're terrified of disappearing.
Or because we believe that by telling the story, we make it survive.
Crossed out: "we stop it" → Correct to "we sustain it"
That night there was no game. There were no strings, no roles, no scenes.
We just existed, nameless, like shadows leaning against a strange wall.
And yet, in that dark place, I began to write to each other.
CHAPTER 27: We'll be the greatest team
The sun rose over the desert like a judgment, high and golden, casting its relentless light over miles of parched earth, rippling sand, and heat-twisted scrub. The sky was a motionless, cloudless ocean, and the wind—when it dared to blow—brought no relief, only the murmur of centuries of silence. In that place forgotten by time, where the noise of the world seemed to have been swallowed by the stones, every sound became important: the screech of a distant bird, the dry crack of a branch, the faint whir of a car's engine parked on the side of State Route 65.
And then, the clear, purposeful sound of boots on gravel.
A dark figure walked calmly through the shadows cast by a low cliff. Elphaba's silhouette stood out sharply against the horizon, her black jacket open as if the wind had drawn it that way. Her hair was tied practically, her face illuminated by the harsh light, and her gaze, for once in her life, was at peace. There she was, standing at the edge of that inhospitable world, gravely observing the infinite map of dunes, stones, and solitude.
Elphaba didn't believe in symbols... but if there were any, this desert was it. A space where no one existed to define you, a blank place, so vast that any past, no matter how dark, became small. She closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. And for the first time in a long time, she felt that what lay in front of her was larger than what lay behind her.
"Come see this, Glinda," she said without turning around, knowing full well that her voice would be lost in the wind.
But it wasn't silence that answered her.
"A PLANT?!" a muffled scream was heard a few feet away. "How is a civilized and delicate woman supposed to urinate behind this? It doesn't even have a decent leaf!"
Elphaba smiled sideways, barely. The kind of smile only Glinda could muster from her. With that mixture of tenderness, resignation, and an almost violent affection in its sincerity.
"I thought you wanted the authentic Western experience," she replied, raising her voice without looking back. "Nothing says 'Western' like peeing behind a treacherous plant while snakes stare at you judgingly."
"There aren't any snakes, are there?!" Glinda replied, her voice high and her panic rising. "Because if there's even one nasty snake crawling around my ass, I swear we're going to Emerald City right now!"
"It's probably hiding under that pebble you're kicking," Elphaba said calmly, enjoying every second.
"ELPHABA THROPP!"
And then, as if the world had drawn her with a gold pen and mascara, Glinda emerged from the bushes, her skirt delicately lifted, her sunglasses slightly askew, and her pride slightly more wounded than her dignity. She trudged indignantly back toward the car, trying to compose herself as the wind tousled her perfectly structured hairdo.
Elphaba finally turned to look at her, resting a hand on her hip.
"Do you feel more connected to nature?"
Glinda stopped mid-stride, took off her sunglasses with as much dignity as possible, and replied,
"I feel violated by nature. And by the way, if something bites me on my butt, you'll have to explain to the doctor at the nearest emergency room why I have a rash the size of Australia."
Elphaba chuckled. She walked toward her, letting her boots make new footprints in the desert dust. When she stood before Glinda, she gently took her hands, still trembling with indignation, and looked into her eyes.
"I told you," she whispered, her voice intimate. "The West isn't for everyone."
"Then I'll have to conquer it," Glinda replied, calmer now, letting her forehead rest gently against Elphaba's chest. "Though I'd rather conquer you, honestly. Much better view."
"There's no competition," Elphaba said, and kissed her briefly on the forehead, right where her skin still smelled of sunscreen and defiance.
The two of them stood like that, united by that gentle gesture amid the impassive vastness of the landscape. Behind them, the car gleamed in the sun like a promise of movement. But for now, there was no rush.
Because even if the world was a harsh, barren place, even if the road was full of traps, even if they ran out of tires or water or even patience, there they were. Together. Standing. At the edge of the world.
Elphaba looked out at the horizon once more, this time with renewed clarity. She wasn't trying to see what lay beyond.
She was deciding how she would write it.
The orange light of sunset tinged the desert surface as if someone had slowly poured a bucket of liquid gold onto the dunes. The shadows lengthened lazily, merging with the sand as the wind began to cool, as if the earth itself were exhaling after the weight of the day. Elphaba and Glinda sat on the hood of the car, their feet dangling, shoulders touching, in silence. A comfortable, warm silence, constructed with the same care as a hand-woven blanket.
Elphaba's boots were dusty, the soles almost white from the heat. Her gaze wandered toward the horizon, to where the sun seemed to touch the edge of the world. Her eyelashes fluttered in the breeze. Without moving too much, without taking her eyes off, she spoke softly:
"I've been thinking... for a change," she said, half joking, half truthfully.
Glinda turned her face slightly, her cheek still resting on Elphaba's shoulder.
"And what does the brightest mind in this car think?"
"When this trip is over..." Elphaba began, pausing for a long time, as if chewing on each word. "When we have to return to 'civilization.' What are we going to do?"
Elphaba felt Glinda's fingers caress hers, not squeezing. A simple, comforting touch, as if to tell her you're not alone. Glinda didn't respond immediately. She watched the sun slowly descend, the sky turning from amber to pink to deep blue. She had avoided that question from the beginning. The trip had been an escape, yes, but also a kind of rebirth. A fantasy in motion, where each day was a new story. But the wheels couldn't turn forever. Someday, maybe soon, they would have to stop.
"I don't know," she answered honestly. "I haven't wanted to think about 'after.' But..."
She sat up slightly to look at her better.
“...what if there's no 'after'? What if we don't have to go back to what was before?”
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
“Are we never going back to Emerald City? Not to look for a job, or pay taxes, or clean the bathroom?”
“We can clean the bathroom... somewhere else,” Glinda replied, laughing. “Somewhere else. In another city. Another life. No one's forcing us to go back to the same thing. For the first time, we can decide.”
“And what do you decide?”
Glinda tilted her head thoughtfully.
“I want to be with you. Wherever. But if I have to choose... I want something where I can help people. But this time... my way. Not as 'Glinda the Good.' Just as Glinda. And you?”
Elphaba lowered her gaze thoughtfully.
“I never asked myself that question,” she admitted. “I always wanted to prove something. Or challenge something. Or prove to someone that I wasn't what they thought I was.” But I never... wanted something just for the sake of it.
Glinda laced their fingers together completely this time.
"Good. Now you can."
Elphaba looked at her. Glinda's expression wasn't idealistic or exaggerated. It was simple. Plain. Real.
"I don't know what I want," Elphaba said finally, her voice barely audible, charged with something new that bordered on tenderness. "But for the first time... I'm excited about not knowing."
They both stood there, suspended in that perfect moment, feeling the warm heat of the engine beneath their bodies and the imminent arrival of dusk. Elphaba rested her head on Glinda's shoulder and closed her eyes for a moment. Perhaps the world was vast. Perhaps the future was uncertain. But together, they intended to find out. And that was more than enough.
As the last ray of natural light slipped behind the mountains, Glinda sat up and stretched her arms.
"Well, it's time to find a place where we won't freeze to death tonight, huh?"
Elphaba hopped off the hood with a little jump and shook her hands.
"If we end up sleeping in a cave with coyotes, I'm going to blame you."
"I'll accept it, but only if the coyote is adorable."
They both laughed, climbed into the car, and started the engine. The car coughed, jerked, and then roared loudly, cutting through the desert silence. The headlights lit the way back to the highway.
Elphaba glanced in the rearview mirror as they drove away, watching the sun disappear completely. She didn't know what lay ahead. But she did know this:
This trip, which had begun as an escape, now felt like a promise.
And she was ready to keep it.
The highway stretched out in front of them like an endless ribbon that undulated over the body of the desert, pulsing with the heat still trapped between the stones. The sun had begun its gentle descent, casting shades of peach and lavender over the landscape. The car glided leisurely, floating between the music blasting from the speakers—an eclectic mix of rock ballads, nineties songs, and the occasional ridiculous pop tune Glinda loved shamelessly—and the laughter that peppered the air with every curve in the road.
Elphaba had one hand on the wheel and the other holding a plastic cup filled with the dregs of cold coffee. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched with mock disdain as Glinda waved her hands and hummed with absurd enthusiasm the song she'd just put on: a catchy bubblegum pop song about girls in convertibles living in the moment. And like every road trip, Glinda had invented another of her silly games to pass the time. This one was called "Who Would I Be If We Grew Up Somewhere Else?" and it involved swiping alternate personalities off each other, like sitcom casting ideas.
"Okay, okay, this one's easy," Glinda said, giggling. "If I'd grown up on a farm in Ohio, I'd be a rodeo champion who also teaches tap dancing in high school. And you..."
"I don't want to play," Elphaba interrupted in her typical dry tone, although she was already showing a small, treacherous smile.
“...you'd be the emo neighbor who lives in the trailer down the road and scares the town kids because they think you do black magic with goats.”
“Do you really think anyone would be scared?” Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
“Well, the kids. The adults would all be secretly in love with you. Especially the married ones. And the married women. And the priest.”
Elphaba let out a short but hearty laugh and then looked back ahead, where the sky was turning orange. It was then that they passed a rusty metal sign that announced “Welcome to the Southern Territory of the State — Next exit: Kansas (45 km).” Glinda immediately sat up, pointing at the sign with genuine excitement.
“Kansas! I've never been this far south. Can we stop for a picture later? Can you imagine how iconic a portrait with a cornfield in the background would be?” Do you think we could find a scarecrow? And a lion?
Elphaba didn't answer immediately. Something in her posture tensed. Her fingers closed a little more firmly on the steering wheel. Glinda noticed the change instantly, like someone sensing a change in air pressure before a storm.
"Have you ever been around here? Do you know anyone from Kansas?" she asked softly, her curiosity barely concealed.
Elphaba kept her eyes on the road, as if she needed to read a fragment of her answer into every blank line. Finally, she spoke in a neutral tone, devoid of drama but laden with something denser, deeper.
"I knew someone from Kansas, yes. In college. It wasn't... it wasn't easy. She wasn't. And I..." She paused briefly. "I wasn't easy back then either. Not that I've changed that much now."
Glinda remained silent, not pressing her.
"But if I could..." Elphaba added with a sigh that seemed to drag on for several years. "I wish I'd done things differently. I wish I'd realized sooner what I could do for her. What I could be with her."
For a few seconds, the car was filled only with the hum of the engine and the distant sound of the wind blowing through a poorly closed window. Glinda looked at her out of the corner of her eye, trying not to appear too interested, but with that tenderness she could no longer hide, even when she tried to appear distracted. She wasn't going to force her to talk anymore. She'd learned that Elphaba didn't just wrest secrets from her; they were offered when they were ready.
So she simply took her hand and, without looking at her, began another of her games.
"New idea," she said in an animated voice, changing the subject. "Vocation for our future. Elphaba as... an antisocial sculptor who teaches at a cultural center that no one visits."
"Charming," Elphaba murmured, more relaxed now.
"Or... Glinda as a spiritual influencer who does yoga on the beach and sells water with crystals."
"That already exists. It's called a pyramid scheme."
"Ha! But I'd be a good con artist. What if we opened a bookstore and café on the coast? You read, I'll bake. We'd be adorable."
"That sounds... awfully domestic."
"Oh, tell me you don't want to see me in a pastel apron."
"I'm driving. I'm not allowed to fantasize."
They both laughed, just as a strange tapping sound came from under the car. It was subtle at first, as if they'd run over a loose rock, but then it became more rhythmic, more insistent.
"What was that?" Glinda asked, abandoning the game.
"I don't know, but I don't like it," Elphaba replied with a frown, slowing down.
Pushing the car beyond what its cracked frame and years of service would recommend, Elphaba gritted her teeth as the vehicle rattled down the road as if it might explode at any moment. The sun had almost completely set, and night was beginning to fall with its typical air of Southern suspicion. Finally, with a final metallic groan, they managed to reach a dusty slice of civilization: a roadside stop comprised of an old Southern bar with a rusty roof and flickering lights, and a tiny gas station that looked more like an abandoned set From the 1950s.
In front of the bar were a few cars, a couple of motorcycles, and at least three pickup trucks lined up with decals of eagles, flags, and phrases like "God, Guns & Guts." It didn't bode well.
"How quaint," Glinda said from the passenger seat, leaning out the window as if watching a fairground ride.
"Don't get out," Elphaba ordered sharply, turning off the engine. She firmly got out of the car, opened the trunk, and walked to the rear side of the vehicle. She bent down and looked at it with horror: the right rear tire was as dead as romance at a consortium meeting.
"Shit," she muttered, smacking the tire with her open palm. She straightened, dusting off her hands, and turned to Glinda, who had already walked out with an elegant, casual gait, as if she were headed to a spa and not a lesbian trap in the middle of the desert.
"Where's the spare tire?"
Without hesitation, Glinda shrugged.
"I don't have one."
Elphaba froze. Her expression wasn't one of surprise. It was something worse: a kind of frozen neutrality, like someone who'd just heard their leg was amputated but hadn't yet felt the pain.
"What do you mean, you don't have one?" she said finally, in a calm tone that only preceded the apocalypse.
"Well, you see..." Glinda began to back away slightly, fiddling with her purse strap like a teenager trying to soften the confession that she scratched her mother's car. The car came with one, but it took up too much space in the trunk, and I had a purse I loved that wouldn't fit... and well, I had to choose.
"You chose between an emergency tool and a purse?"
"It was a vintage Dior, Elphaba. You can't ask a woman to give up something like that. Do you know how hard it is to get one in that color?"
Elphaba took a deep breath. She closed her eyes. She counted to three. When she opened them, she looked up at the sky as if she could find comfort there, or a divine sign justifying her life.
"We've been traveling together for over a month," she said in a low but dangerously controlled voice. "And you're telling me all this time we didn't have a damn spare tire?"
"Yes, but... we never needed one."
"UNTIL NOW."
"Well, now we know," Glinda replied with an awkward smile. "Lesson learned!"
"This isn't a lesson, it's a condemnation!" "Elphaba exclaimed, spinning around in frustration. "We're stranded. In the middle of nowhere. With the gas station closed, surrounded by armed rednecks, and without a spare tire because the princess thought her stupid designer handbag was more important."
"It's not stupid!"
"Do you want to go get help with the bag? Maybe they can inflate it and fly back to civilization."
Glinda crossed her arms.
"You don't have to be sarcastic. It's easy to bully someone about their priorities when you've been wearing the same sweatshirt for three days."
"Because I don't have any other clean change!" Elphaba yelled. "Because you packed for a fashion show and left me to take care of food, water, and basic survival!"
They both remained silent for a second. Elphaba's face was flushed with frustration and exhaustion. Glinda was offended but clearly holding back so as not to make things worse. In the distance, one of the bar's doors opened, and the sound of an old jukebox filled the air, along with rough laughter, cigarette smoke, and the smell of fried food. It was clear this wasn't a particularly progressive place.
"The gas station's closed," Elphaba finally said, calmer, scratching her temple. "The best thing we can do is go inside, get something to eat, and wait until morning. With luck, someone will know how to change a tire. Or steal a helicopter."
They both walked toward the bar with the forced determination of those who know they have no alternative. Each step on the gravel crunched like a warning. They passed motorcycles with crossed flags on the handlebars, cars with skulls painted on their hoods, and a red truck without a trailer, unmistakably old but well-maintained, with a decal on the back that read "Until We Are All One." Elphaba watched it for a second, curious, before moving on.
From inside the bar, coarse laughter, a drawled country song about trucks and broken hearts, and the distorted voice of an old television announcing something about "true values" could be heard. Elphaba took a deep breath, her stomach already tight. She had experience dealing with hostile environments, but she was never better at repeating it. Just as she was about to push open the swinging wooden door, Glinda stopped her.
"Wait," she said, in a deep voice she didn't usually use.
Elphaba turned her head. Glinda, still standing beside her, was discreetly pointing out the bar's side window. Right there, nailed to the wall with two crooked nails, fluttered the infamous Confederate battle flag, sun-faded but unmistakable. They both stood still. It was as if that fabric had thrown them into another time, another dimension. One where they weren't welcome. One where their love was not only misunderstood, but dangerously offensive.
Glinda lowered her hand and stepped back, visibly shaken.
"We're leaving," she whispered. "It's not worth it. We can sleep in the car or push the damn thing to the next town, but I'm not setting foot in there."
"We can't," Elphaba said, without looking at her. "There's no signal. No spare tire. And the engine is already making a noise that sounds like a terminal cough."
Glinda crossed her arms, her jaw tight.
"I don't want to be in a place where I'll be killed for the way I look at my girlfriend."
Elphaba slowly turned toward her and spoke in a low tone, sharp but not cold.
"And you think I do?" she replied. "But we have no choice, Glinda. If we want to get out of this hole tomorrow, we're going to need help. All I ask is that we make it through the night. No fights, no long glances, no affectionate gestures. Just two girls traveling together. Colleagues. Friends, if necessary."
Glinda exhaled sharply, surrendering to pragmatism.
"And what's our story going to be? Devout pilgrims? Witnesses of Oz?"
"Two college friends traveling because one just broke up with her boyfriend," Elphaba quickly improvised. "You're the broken one, and I'm the supportive driver. Keep it dramatic, but don't overdo it." No glitter. No "I'm a star trapped in a gray town" stuff.
Glinda raised an eyebrow.
"And you?"
"I'm going to pretend I don't want to beat up every man in this place. Which will be difficult."
There was a second of silence. Glinda looked at her. Elphaba looked back. They understood each other, no need for more.
"Then we go in," Glinda said, straightening her back. "But if anyone calls me 'doll,' I'll kick them out."
"Acceptable," Elphaba replied, and pushed open the door.
The interior of the bar did nothing to contradict their existing suspicions. Dark wood, smoke in the air, bottles lined up on the bar like soldiers in a dubious cause. In one corner, a group of large, burly men played pool while laughing in deep voices. On television, a woman with an impenetrable hairstyle spoke about foreign policy as if it were a divine crusade, and below it was a program announcement that proclaimed: “Other nations consider intervening in the internal conflict in Maracoor Abiding. Good or bad idea?”
But the most disturbing thing was what didn't happen.
No one looked at them.
Elphaba and Glinda entered as if they were invisible. As if they were just two more lost souls looking for beer, grease, and air conditioning. Elphaba walked first, Glinda following her closely. They sat at a table in the corner farthest from the door, near the window, where the flag hung like a warning specter.
Elphaba leaned her elbows on the table, her eyes scanning every corner, every customer, every possible threat.
“Now comes the hard part,” she murmured.
“What?”
“Act as if all this is normal.”
A waitress approached. She was an older woman with platinum-blonde hair and a look that was more tired than hostile. She offered them two laminated menus and, in a monotone, asked:
"What can I get you, girls?"
Elphaba and Glinda exchanged a quick glance. And without hesitation, they began to play their roles. Two ordinary travelers, two shadows among shadows. In a world that didn't see them... or preferred not to.
"…Today we have a special on spicy wings with BBQ sauce. Ten pieces for the price of six. Are you going to have them?"
Glinda, her radiant smile ready to unfold and demonstrate her refined food ethics, opened her mouth with a sweet and clear:
"Oh, no, thank you, I'm ve—"
But the sentence died in midair when a sudden pain shot through her shin: Elphaba's boot had caught her right under the table.
"Ow!" she exclaimed softly, choked by her own surprise.
Elphaba, with a rehearsed smile that barely managed to simulate humanity, intervened in a quick, neutral tone.
"My friend is... watching her figure. You know how women are," she said, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice that only Glinda could detect.
The waitress looked at them. Not with hatred, not with suspicion. With something worse: with that air of silent judgment that turns women into accomplices of their own executioners.
"Of course, of course..." she murmured, while jotting down notes in her notebook. "One must never let oneself go if one wants to remain desirable. Men are unforgiving, you see? There's always another younger and thinner one in line." She smiled, as if sharing a comradely joke.
Glinda felt nauseous.
Elphaba ordered a plain chicken sandwich and a soda, and a tomato salad for Glinda, and the woman walked off between tables full of men who made no effort to hide their stares. Some glances were brief, others blatant. But all were invasive.
"Five minutes," Elphaba muttered as she leaned back in her chair. "Five minutes and I'm ready to burn this place down."
Glinda crossed her arms in annoyance and lowered her voice.
"Did you kick me?"
"You were about to give us away, Glinda the city vegan. We can't afford to look... different."
Glinda grimaced.
"I don't mind pretending we're not a couple. What I struggle with is pretending I'm stupid."
"You're pretty good at that, anyway."
"I hate you," Glinda muttered, suppressing a frustrated smile.
Elphaba sighed, her eyes scanning the bar. It wasn't paranoia: they knew. This was the kind of place where any deviation from the accepted—be it a tone of voice, a way of dressing, a misread gesture of tenderness—could be a verdict. And if it wasn't immediate, it was more insidious. Slower. The kind of violence that begins with a fake smile and ends with a closed door and no escape.
"And the men who stare at you?" Glinda asked quietly, annoyed. "They're undressing me with their eyes."
"Worse for me," Elphaba replied disdainfully. "They stare at me as if they don't understand what I am. As if they're wondering whether to fuck me or set me on fire."
"Oh, how graphic."
"Realistic," Elphaba replied, and it was at that moment that a voice behind them rose above the general murmur.
—...and because the Unnamed God does not forget. He does not forget the impure. He does not forget the disobedient. He does not forget those who dress as men and love as women. And that is why punishment is near...
Elphaba closed her eyes. That voice. That tone. That content. She knew it well.
She turned her head slightly and saw him. A man in his fifties, wearing a shirt buttoned to the neck and a small gold star-shaped pin on his pocket, speaking in a low but firm voice to a group of younger men sitting in a circle. It wasn't a formal sermon, but it was clear they were following him. He spoke with fervor, with conviction. With that extremely dangerous mix of faith and ego. He was a Unionist.
Elphaba recognized him immediately. That way of speaking. That faceless god, the "Unnamed God," the god of punishment. A faith without temples but with millions of followers in the south. An ideology more than a religion. Sometimes dressed in patriotism, other times in traditional morality. Always the same victims.
Glinda didn't know him, but one glance at Elphaba was enough to tell that something had changed.
"What's wrong?" she whispered.
"We're in Union territory," Elphaba replied, without looking at her.
"So?"
"And it's exactly the kind of faith that wants to see us hanging from a tree," Elphaba said, as if describing the weather.
Elphaba looked back at the preacher, who was now speaking about redemption and penance, while his audience nodded. As if intolerance were a sacred ceremony. As if it were completely justified.
The two of them fell silent. The worst thing wasn't what the man said. It was the calmness with which he said it. The acceptance of others. The normalcy of hatred.
Elphaba kept her eyes fixed on the table, but her fingers curled into her napkin with an anxiety that even the best disguise couldn't hide. His knuckles trembled slightly, a tiny but constant tension, like a string stretched to its limits. Glinda didn't need words to understand. She knew it as soon as the preacher's voice rose again, like a dull knife slicing through ancient skin.
"The Unnamed God taught us that sin has a thousand faces... but only one way out. Repentance, renunciation, obedience..."
The man's voice was an echo of the past. A whisper that carried with it echoes of other sermons, other Sundays, other hells. Glinda understood immediately: it wasn't just what he said, it was who said it. Or rather, who it reminded her of. Elphaba gritted her teeth, but her gaze remained fixed on the edge of the menu.
"Your father was also of that faith, wasn't he?" Glinda said softly, more of a statement than a question.
Elphaba didn't respond, but her more labored breathing and a slight nod of her head were enough to confirm it. Glinda leaned toward her, her voice turning into a caress.
"Hey... I have an idea. Let's play."
Elphaba looked up slightly, her eyebrow arched with that mixture of cynicism and fatigue that only she knew how to conjure.
"Really? That again?"
"Yes. Let's play a game of making people up stories," Glinda whispered excitedly. "Guess who they are, where they're from, what they're thinking. Like we did at that train station and other stops, remember?"
"Yes. You insisted that the juice vendor was a Russian spy and almost followed him into the bathroom to confirm your theory."
"Because he was!" Glinda replied, still smiling. "But we're not talking about me now. Go ahead, have a round. For me. For your cortisol levels."
Elphaba sighed dramatically, but her softened expression betrayed that she couldn't completely resist.
"Okay. But you start."
Glinda turned slowly toward the nearest table, where a man with a bushy beard was eating alone while scribbling something on a napkin.
"That one," Glinda whispered. "Ex-soldier." She saw horrible things. Now she's trying to write a book of poetry, but all she can manage is food. She has three cats. One of them is named Liberty.
Elphaba smiled. Barely. But she did. And then, as if the air was catching in her lungs, she dropped her gaze to a woman at the bar, her hair dyed fiery red, smoking while casually checking her phone.
"She works at the town tattoo parlor. Her wife left her three years ago, and now she's in love with all her clients. She denies it, but every time she tattoos a name, she wonders if it's the right one."
"Oh, God," Glinda whispered with a goofy smile. "That was beautiful!"
"It wasn't beautiful. It was tragic."
"But tragically beautiful! Keep going!"
And so she did. Elphaba began to speak, her rhythm almost imperceptible at first, but growing. Her tone became looser, her eyes brighter. They played at inventing impossible biographies, romantic tragedies, secret missions, fantastic anecdotes for absolutely ordinary people.
And somewhere between the truck driver who was actually a retired drag queen and the teenager pretending to be heterosexual to inherit the family butcher shop, Glinda saw it: Elphaba was enjoying herself. Not because of the absurdity, not even because of the game. It was something more intimate. Natural.
Because when she told those stories, even if they were made up, Elphaba didn't have to protect herself. She didn't have to pretend. She could look at people without the filter of threat, without fear that what she saw was a reflection of her own pain. Because there, amid the noise, the grease floating in the air, and the religious ghosts that still scratched her ribs, she was creating meaning. She was writing, even if it was only with her voice.
"You have talent, you know?" Glinda insisted softly, as she picked a french fry off Elphaba's plate without asking permission.
Elphaba sighed with a gesture that seemed reluctance, but was actually an elaborate defense.
"Telling nonsense to avoid being bored isn't a talent, Glinda. It's a survival technique. I did it as a kid, you know? When the sermon went on for hours, or when my old man completely ignored me... I invented other lives. Other homes. Other families. So I wouldn't go crazy." She paused, pressing her lips together before adding, "It's not a credit."
Glinda leaned her elbow on the table, her cheek in the palm of her hand, watching her with a tenderness that was impossible to hide.
"I disagree. There are people who just sink. You, on the other hand, invented universes to keep you afloat. That says much more about you than any college grade."
"Don't start that again..." Elphaba muttered, though a small, involuntary smile appeared at the corner of her lips. She wiped it away instantly.
At that moment, the waitress brought the chicken sandwich and salad, placing them on the table with minimal professional enthusiasm. Elphaba barely glanced at her, murmuring a perfunctory thanks, then returned her attention to the semi-conscious sermon of the preacher in the corner.
"Because true faith is not twisted by desire! The Unnamed God is not tolerant, he is just! And those who walk in masks... shall soon be unmasked!"
Glinda rolled her eyes so hard they nearly popped out.
"Isn't there any way you can put a cork in it?"
"I could. I have a napkin and a basic understanding of anatomy," Elphaba murmured, her hand shaking slightly as she cut into the sandwich with more force than necessary.
Glinda gently touched her wrist.
"Don't give him the pleasure, love. He's not worth it."
Elphaba didn't respond. She kept her eyes lowered, fixed on her plate, but anyone who knew her—and Glinda knew her better than anyone—could see how she held back. Elphaba wasn't afraid of conflict; she lived in tension with the world. But this situation struck her in a place too deep, too personal, and the latent memory of her father seemed to seep into the preacher's every word like slow poison.
And it was in the midst of that dense silence, when the charged atmosphere seemed to push against her ribs. But unnoticed by either of them at the moment, from a distant table, half-hidden in a corner of the bar, someone was watching them.
But at the table, the argument continued...
"No. No, you're not going to tell him anything," Glinda whispered quickly, with a tight smile. "We're camouflaged. Do you remember the plan?"
"He's talking about 'converting the daughters of the serpent by the rod of correction,'" Elphaba muttered under her breath. "Do you have any idea how many times I heard my father say that exact phrase?"
"No, but if you stand up now and tell him what you think, besides ending up in a hospital, you'll probably leave me alone with an entire town that thinks the Unamed God was offended because I wouldn't eat chicken wings."
Elphaba snorted. Elphaba always snorted when Glinda was right.
But it was then, just as they were both trying to force a truce in the unbreathable air, that the atmosphere changed.
Two shadows approached the table. Elphaba sensed them before she saw them. The way the background murmur changed, the laughter fell silent, as if something slimy was crawling on the floor.
She looked up.
There they were. Two men. The standard Southern model: one tall, square-jawed, beer-bellied, wearing a sweat-stained camouflage cap; the other, slightly shorter, with a weasel-like gaze and a smile that looked like it hadn't been washed in days. Both reeked of stale vanity, an ego inflated by generations of impunity.
"Good evening, ladies," said the tall one, staring at Glinda as if she already belonged to him. "How rare to see such beauties in this part of the world. Are you passing through?"
Glinda didn't answer immediately. Not out of shyness, but out of calculation. Elphaba, on the other hand, already had a response ready, but swallowed it like poison. They couldn't risk it. Not there.
"Yes. Business trip," Glinda finally said, with a small, unenthusiastic smile. "The car broke down."
"Too bad." The other smiled with yellow teeth. I'm sure there are plenty of gentlemen around here who would be happy to help you... even if you don't seem like the kind of ladies who can accept male help.
The man's gaze shifted for a second to Elphaba. It wasn't just contempt in her: it was discomfort. They didn't like Elphaba's skin. Her height intimidated them. Her face, her voice, her entire presence didn't fit into their world. But they tolerated her because there was a blonde at the table, and the blonde was worth the effort.
Elphaba noticed. She always noticed.
"We're fine, thank you," she said, plainly.
"Are you sure?" The shorter one ducked a little, with an oiled smile. "Sometimes you need more than you think."
"We're fine," Glinda repeated, this time with a hidden edge in her voice.
The men looked at each other, as if they didn't understand the concept of "no." But finally, with a nasal laugh and a sarcastic murmur, they walked away. One of them, but not before looking at Elphaba again, as if he couldn't understand why someone who was clearly no stronger than him bothered him so much. It was as if her presence wordlessly challenged him.
The knife's blade gleamed subtly in the yellowish light from the ceiling. Elphaba didn't wave it, or show it: she simply held it, resting on the table, her long, firm fingers on the handle. As if it were a natural part of her body. As if the gesture said: one more word and we'll see how quickly machismo bleeds.
But Glinda noticed, and for a second her perfect smile faltered. Not out of fear of the men in front of them, but out of fear that Elphaba would lose her cool. Because she knew that gesture, that stillness before the trembling. She'd seen it before. And they knew that this bar was no place for Elphaba to drop the pretense.
"Well, it's been a pleasure, gentlemen, but we don't want to abuse your hospitality," she said in the gentlest voice she could, like a kindergarten teacher trying to get two children to return the gun to the toy box.
"Really?" the shorter one clicked his tongue. "The night's barely begun."
And just then, as if sent from heaven, the miracle arrived: the waitress.
She placed two tall, chilled glasses on the table. A dark bourbon with a cherry floating in it, and a lighter drink with cucumber slices and ice.
"What's this?" Glinda asked, confused. "We didn't order..."
"On the house. Well, from another house," the woman said, wiping her hands on her apron. "Two gentlemen said they'd come on a double date with you. Table in the back."
Glinda blinked. Elphaba raised an eyebrow. The two idiots stood there, staring at them as if they'd just lost a game they didn't even know how to play.
"Oh... how sweet," Glinda said, with an almost convincing smile.
"We should go," Elphaba added, her voice deep and calm, but her eyes shone with a spark of suppressed triumph. "We can't keep our... companions waiting."
"That would be rude," Glinda concluded, raising her glass in farewell.
They stood up. They said goodbye with smiles sharper than knives. And they walked through the bar like two gunslingers emerging from a duel won without firing a shot.
"Who the hell bought us a drink?" Glinda whispered as they made their way between the tables.
"I have no idea. Maybe we're walking right into another trap," Elphaba muttered, her hand still near the knife she kept in her coat pocket. "But I prefer an elegant trap to a vulgar one."
They circled the last row of tables... and saw them.
Sitting together, as if they were part of the decor but also as if they could become part of the furniture if they so chose, were two men. Very different from each other, but connected by a kind of shared energy, an effortless harmony.
Opposite them, at a round table with two untouched whiskey glasses and an open deck of cards in between, sat two men who seemed strangely out of place in that musty bar. Not because of their clothes—the well-worn military jackets, the worn jeans, the storied boots—but because of the way they held themselves. As if they were part of the furniture... but designed for another time. Or another planet.
The one on the left, taller, wore a red jacket with black lines that gave him an austere and sober air. His tight-fitting black T-shirt contrasted with the calmness of his face: he had dark blue hair, neatly swept back, and a discreet earring in his right ear. His blue eyes seemed to gaze without judgment, but with calculation. An unaffected kindness shone in his smile as he stood up.
The other was slightly shorter but solid as a sculpture, with smooth brown skin, silver hair that fell like a promise of danger, and dark eyes that didn't shy away from eye contact. He had two earrings in each ear and the kind of face that didn't ask for permission. His jacket was silver with red details, as if it were part of an unofficial uniform of an army that no longer existed.
"We're late for the date," the blue-haired one said, his voice deep and perfectly modulated. "We hope we haven't ruined your evening."
Elphaba raised a skeptical eyebrow and took the chair as if to assess its structural strength. Glinda, on the other hand, slid in gracefully as if she already knew that chair had been reserved for her for centuries.
"Not at all. Just in time."
Elphaba followed, still raising her eyebrow, but already relieved to be out of the earlier ambush.
"Names?" —Elphaba asked, sitting next to Glinda without taking her eyes off them.
—Orion and Dee,— the taller one replied, pointing first at himself and then at his companion.
—Last names? Real names? Secret double-agent code?
The shorter one, Dee, chuckled.
—Orion Pax and D. Just D. But nicknames work better. You know... certain precautions when moving through territories like this.
—Military,— Elphaba agreed instantly, picking up on the details of the haircut, the posture, the vocabulary.
—Ex. Technically on leave,— Prime said. —In transit, like you.
Glinda studied them for a moment, then understood.
—Did you do it to help us?
Dee smiled, and there was something in her expression that spoke of many nights like this. Of bars where security depended on silent gestures and shared glances.
"Let's just say we have a good radar for detecting when two companions need a change of narrative," she said with a wink.
The tension in Elphaba's shoulders began to dissolve. She took a drink. She closed her eyes for a second.
"Thank you," she said finally.
"You're welcome." Prime nodded. "The world still has some good soldiers. We must find them among the ruins."
And just like that, a new scene began. Not a double date, not a heroic crusade. Just four people sitting at a table in the middle of the desert, sharing a moment of complicity, protection... and perhaps, discovery.
"So?" Elphaba asked, leaning an elbow on the table between sips of her drink and a look that didn't miss a detail. "What exactly brought you to this bar lost on the map?"
Orion leaned back in his chair, relaxed, like someone who has already decided to trust on some level.
"Desert. Solitude. Long routes with open skies." There aren't many things that bring us peace these days, but driving at dusk on Route 66 comes close.
Dee made a barely audible sound. A sarcastic laugh, or a resigned nod.
"And greasy food. Never underestimate the power of a good fried sandwich when you've spent weeks eating packaged goods," she added, cutting into her burger with surgical precision.
Orion pulled his metal chain from under his shirt and dropped it on the table. It was his military dog tag. The name "Pax, Orion" was engraved next to his alias: Prime. Dee promptly did the same, but dropped hers on the table with a soft thump, like a declaration. His dog tag bore the name "D. Sixteen" and the alias: Megatron.
Glinda raised an eyebrow, amused.
"Prime and Megatron? Sounds like a pair of intergalactic fighters."
Dee looked at Orion with a sly smile.
"Or a cosmic joke."
"Cybertron?" Elphaba interrupted, not raising her voice, but letting the word fall like a stone.
Both men stopped. Orion looked at her with renewed attention, while Dee tensed slightly.
"I read about it," Elphaba added. "Armed conflict in the Cybertronian Lands. Not many come back. Or even talk."
Orion nodded slowly.
"Yes. We were there. We call it 'conflict,' but it was much messier than that. Much older, too. Too big for anyone to really understand."
"And they took sides?" she asked, her tone neutral. Not accusingly, but curiously.
"They sent one of us," Dee answered harshly. Then she added, with a bit of dry venom in her voice. "No one asked us if we wanted to."
Orion looked at Dee with something resembling guilt, but said nothing. It was Glinda who broke the tension:
"And now you're on retirement?"
"Technical break," Orion replied. "Reassignment. They have names for everything. We call it: getting away before we go crazy."
There was a moment of silence. Not awkward, but thick.
"We left Mission City almost a month ago," he continued. "With no destination, just driving. We didn't know if we were going north, west, or hell. But the idea was simple: get some air. Something that didn't smell like shrapnel."
"Mission City..." Glinda said thoughtfully. "Wasn't that where..."
"Yes," Dee interrupted, without looking at her. "It was there.
And nothing more."
The conversation then turned to lighter matters. Orion and Glinda began talking about the differences between the northern and southern seasons. Dee mentioned a town they'd stopped in that served an amazing peach cobbler, and for a while everything felt... normal. Comfortable, even.
But Elphaba was still watching.
They weren't just friends. The way Orion leaned slightly toward Dee when he spoke. How Dee took a drink but always made sure Orion had his own nearby. How when one spoke, the other didn't interrupt, but their face followed, completing the sentences without saying them. How they didn't need to look at each other to know what the other was thinking.
No, they weren't friends.
At one point, while Orion was talking about a storm in the Colorado mountains, Dee took off his jacket for a second to stretch. And Elphaba saw it. On the inside of his wrist, barely visible, was a small tattoo. A fragment of a symbol she recognized on Orion's dog tag. Two halves of the same emblem, separated. Led by two different men. United by a secret they didn't shout. But they didn't deny either.
"How long have you been together?" Elphaba asked bluntly, without raising her voice.
Orion blinked. Dee looked at her as if she'd just passed a test.
"What makes you think..."
"The same thing I can tell a knife from a switchblade," Elphaba replied tersely. "The way you use it."
Orion smiled. Not mockingly, but with relief.
"Five years ago," he replied. "But we hid it for two."
"Three and a half," Dee corrected.
"Depends on how you count it." Orion smiled.
"I count it from when you almost broke my jaw trying to kiss you on a base in the Atlantic," Dee said, without a trace of resentment.
Glinda giggled. Elphaba looked at her, then back at the soldiers. She said nothing, but her shoulders drooped slightly. Acceptance. Respect.
"And you?" Orion asked, his tone casual but open.
"Don't ask what you don't want to answer," Elphaba said.
"That's exactly why I'm asking," Orion replied.
Glinda took Elphaba's hand across the table, as if that were answer enough. And it was.
The four of them stared at each other in silence. For the first time, the noisy, decadent, and hostile bar seemed distant. Four strangers. Four soldiers from different causes. Four survivors of wars that had shaped them... and that maybe, just maybe, weren't over yet.
But at least that night, in that place in the middle of the desert, they were safe. And among equals.
Time passed unnoticed. The food, though mediocre, had already been devoured. The drinks—mostly—were empty. The bustle of the bar continued in the background, with the same rude comments, the television repeating biased news, and the preacher half asleep in the corner, like an ancient, forgotten curse.
But at that table, in that dim corner where the light didn't quite fall, something else felt different. A bubble. A refuge. A truce.
Glinda was laughing with her fingers on her lips at a story Orion had just told, in which he accidentally left his communications equipment on during a mission and the headquarters ended up listening to his entire argument with Dee about how to properly hang hand towels. Dee, beside him, rolled her eyes as she sipped her beer with theatrical resignation.
"I was right," Dee grumbled dryly.
"Towels don't roll up! They hang from the center!" Orion protested, laughing.
"And risk the moisture not draining properly? You're crazy."
Glinda looked at him, laughing.
"So this was your first big fight as a couple?"
"No," Elphaba chimed in, resting her chin on her hand with a small smile. "I'm sure it was about politics."
Dee gave a wry grunt. Orion nodded with a half smile.
"How did you know?"
"No one survives that many years together without disagreeing about more than decor," Elphaba said. "Especially if one of you is Prime... and the other... Megatron."
Elphaba waved her hand, as if that explained everything. Dee gave a low laugh.
"We met on opposite sides of the training grounds," he said, almost nostalgic. "Literally. I was with the dissident squad." Orion with the regulations.
"We called them 'The Bibles,'" he added sarcastically. "Because they seemed to believe the military manual was the word of God."
Everyone laughed. Glinda leaned gracefully back in her chair and breathed a contented sigh.
"It's been ages since I've been able to talk to someone else... like us," she said with a sweet smile. "Without meaning every word. Without having to edit myself."
"So you also have a habit of pretending to be just friends when you walk into a bar," Orion commented with a tired smile? "What a relief. I thought we were the only professionals at emotional disguise."
"Years of experience," Elphaba replied, crossing her arms. "We're basically method actresses."
"And did you ever have a bad time?" Dee asked, curious.
"Once," Glinda replied, amused. "At a seedy hotel where we accidentally booked a room with only one bed." It was glorious.
Elphaba brought her hand up to her face.
"There was a mirror on the ceiling, Dee," she said, resigned. "A mirror. And a Bible taped to the fan."
Orion chuckled as his hand discreetly slid down to touch Dee's on the table. Their fingers didn't intertwine, but they reached for each other naturally. With that quiet trust that comes from having been on the same side of hell.
"And you?" Glinda asked, lowering her voice a little. "How did you survive so long in... that?"
"Codes, cryptic language, sleeping with one eye open. And luck," Orion said.
Dee looked at her glass. She turned it slowly on the edge of the table before answering.
"And when there was no luck... we were each other's. Nothing more. No one else."
Elphaba looked at him, silent. There was a hardness in her eyes that wasn't aggressive. It was something older. Something she didn't need to defend because she'd already lost everything before.
"On the front lines," Dee added, "having someone who truly sees you is more valuable than armor. And more dangerous, too. Because if you lose it... there's no replacement."
Glinda swallowed hard. Elphaba wasn't looking at anyone. She just stared at the rim of the glass, drawing invisible circles with a finger. Finally, she spoke.
"I didn't think I'd find that in another couple. The feeling of being naked without having to take anything off."
"How did you meet?" Orion asked, with genuine interest.
Glinda and Elphaba looked at each other. A pause. A complicity. And then, like a story they've learned to tell from opposite sides, they began together:
"We hated each other," they said in unison.
Everyone laughed.
"School?" Dee ventured.
"Office," Glinda clarified.
"She called me a witch," Elphaba said, taking a sip.
"She called me 'mask with legs,'" Glinda replied with mock indignation.
"It wasn't love at first sight, clearly," Orion joked.
"No," Elphaba replied. "But it was love when I least expected it. When I needed it most. And... it scared me."
"It scared us all, at some point," Dee said.
The silence returned. Not awkward. Thoughtful. As if the night itself were listening.
Then Glinda leaned a little toward the soldiers.
"And you? How did it start?"
Orion smiled.
"In a freight elevator. Eleven floors. Absolute silence. Until he"—he looked at Dee tenderly—"said to me, 'You'll be sorry if you don't do something.'"
"And you did?" Glinda asked.
"I kissed him," Orion shrugged. "Three seconds before the door opened."
"A supervisor caught us," Dee added. "I had a discipline order before lunch."
"And it was worth every damn second," Orion finished.
Everyone laughed again, this time with genuine warmth. The kind of laughter that soothes and disarms.
The waitress passed by, glanced at them out of the corner of her eye, but said nothing. Perhaps it was the drink, or the laughter, or the glances they shared, but for a brief, brave moment, neither couple hid.
The conversation had reached that particular temperature where the outside world seems to pause, as if the laughter of the other customers, the buzzing of the television, and the creaking of the wooden chairs had become but a distant echo. At the couples' table, the atmosphere was different. More intimate. Sharper. More honest.
Orion, holding the glass between his fingers, looked curious and respectful as he asked,
"And you? What do you do?"
Glinda opened her mouth first, but Elphaba was quicker—something not so unusual.
"We're unemployed," she said, with a smile that was half resignation, half defiance.
Orion blinked, a little surprised, while Dee frowned cautiously.
"Was that because of... you know...?" Orion began, with a vague gesture between them. "I hope it wasn't because of that."
"Why? Having exquisite taste?" Glinda interrupted, with a charming smile. "No, no. That part, surprisingly, was never the direct problem."
"Although it did play a role," Elphaba added bluntly.
Glinda nodded.
"We worked for Shiz.Corp," she explained calmly. "Although at different times. I was there first, as head of image. Elphaba was later hired for internal audit."
Dee raised her eyebrows at the name. She recognized it.
"Oh," she said, like someone finding a familiar fragment in a distant history. "Of course. The Emerald City Renovation."
Elphaba looked at him, interested.
"Did you know?"
"I was stationed on the outskirts. We guarded some routes that connected with areas under civilian surveillance." We had satellite TV and we watched a lot. That told us everything: the border closure, the conflict in Maracoor, and even what was happening in the country… Including the extreme reforms in Emerald City. Many weren't comfortable with what they saw… or what was being kept quiet. You... did you oppose it from within?
"That's right," Elphaba said, her tone hardening with the weight of memory. "We tried. But the system is designed to swallow and spit out anyone who holds a mirror up to it. I managed to document enough to put together a public complaint. But that was after… everything. It was Glinda who helped me finish that process."
"I dragged her back, actually," Glinda replied humorously, but the look between them was a silent declaration that it had been something much deeper.
Dee nodded, sipping a sip from her glass.
"I used to think something could be done from within, too." But there comes a point where you can no longer obey without betraying yourself.
"Exactly," Elphaba replied firmly.
And, little by little, the conversation between them transformed. Dee, usually terse and reserved, loosened up, confident that he was talking to someone who not only understood the words, but also the weight that sustained them. They talked about social class, the relationship between defense systems and private companies, education as a tool of control, exhaustion as a method of domination. Dee spoke with furious clarity, Elphaba with piercing philosophical acuity.
"You want to tear down the castle," Elphaba said, looking him in the eye. "I want to make sure they never build it again."
"We both know one doesn't exist without the other," Dee countered.
From the other side, Orion had leaned back in his chair, watching the scene with a half-smile. He leaned toward Glinda and murmured, "So it begins." First they talk about justice, then chaos... and at three in the morning they're planning a revolution from a musty motel.
Glinda laughed, covering her mouth with her hand.
"And it bothers you?"
"Bothers me?" Orion feigned indignation. "It's my fetish."
They both let out a quiet laugh that contrasted with the growing intensity between Elphaba and Dee. It was like watching a high-voltage intellectual duel: not hostile, but electric. With each argument, each shared glance, they recognized each other more. Two soldiers in different wars. Two traumas with complementary ideologies.
"You know what I think?" Dee said, after a brief silence. "That you're not so angry with the system. You're disappointed. Because some part of you, deep down, believed it could work."
Elphaba lowered her gaze, and for the first time that night, she seemed to waver a little.
"And you," she replied in a low voice. Aren't you tired of fighting in wars that aren't yours?
Dee held her gaze. Orion glanced at him. Glinda held her breath, as if something were about to explode.
"That's why I'm here," Dee finally answered. "Because I'm starting to wonder what else I could do. And what else I could be."
Elphaba nodded.
"Me too."
They both fell silent. The conversation slowed down, not for lack of words, but because what needed to be said had been said.
Orion took a drink of water and turned to Glinda.
"So... what are you going to do now?"
Glinda shrugged, relaxed.
"That's the million-dollar question. We're traveling, resting. And when the world ends, we'll figure out what we have to rebuild."
"We're... redrawing the map," Elphaba added, more gently this time.
"I like that," Orion said. Redrawing the map. We need more people to do it.
The conversation continued, now slower, more intimate. They talked about books, music, the things they missed when they were away from home. Four people—so different and yet so similar—sharing stories in a bar where no one would have bet on them.
"Do you play darts?" Orion asked, with that charming mix of calm energy and friendly defiance.
"Are you implying I can't beat you at a sharp-edged marksmanship sport?" Glinda countered, raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms.
"I implied it, I affirm it, and I'm about to prove it."
"We'll see, soldier."
They both stood up laughing, putting down their half-empty glasses and walking to the center of the bar, where an old metal dartboard hung, illuminated by a wobbly neon sign. The atmosphere was still heavy, but the bubble they'd created at that table seemed to hold, as if they'd conjured a silent truce with the place. Elphaba and Dee followed them with their eyes, each holding their glasses with a certain calmness. Dee rested her elbows on the table, her chin in her hand, with a barely formed smile. Elphaba, for her part, watched Glinda with barely concealed tenderness. Seeing her like that, relaxed and bright even in the darkest surroundings, provoked in her that impossible mix of admiration and desire that she still couldn't fully tame.
But then her attention shifted. Orion had leaned toward the dartboard to arrange the darts, and something in his gesture—small, almost imperceptible—caught her attention. It was a slight creak in his body, an unconscious reflex: his left arm trembled slightly, as if a cramp had been unresolved. He extended it again, but it felt tense. He tried to hide it with a smile as he passed a dart to Glinda.
"Did you see it too?" Dee asked without looking at her, still focused on the scene. Elphaba barely nodded.
"Yes. Is it recent?"
Dee was silent for a few seconds before answering.
"Not entirely. He has damage to the tendons in his forearm. He covers it well; he's learned to compensate with his other arm. But after certain shifts or in the cold... it shows."
"And he doesn't say it?" Elphaba asked, lowering her voice.
Dee gave a short, dry laugh.
"Say it?" Orion would talk about the emotional stability of his companions before admitting that something in him had broken.
"Oh," Elphaba said, in a sympathetic, almost resigned tone, "One of those."
"One of those," Dee repeated, turning the glass between her fingers. "He thinks if he's no longer useful to his men, he's no longer anything. As if all he has to offer is his leadership to others."
"I've heard that before," Elphaba whispered without thinking, before looking back at Glinda. She saw her laughing, her shoulders relaxed, her curls falling around her face. There was something redeeming in her mirth.
"I was never in a war," she said after a second. "But my father was. He was a minister—a Unionist, to boot. They sent him to the front lines in the Ev Desert, as part of the spiritual combat corps. He never wanted to talk much about it, but I think it... left marks on him that you can't see. Sometimes I think it destroyed him more than the faith he preached."
Dee didn't respond right away. He took his glass, swirled the ice inside slowly, as if searching for the depths of an idea. Then he spoke, his voice low.
"My father was also a man of faith. Not a kind one. Not a broken one. He was one of those who felt strongest when others were afraid."
Elphaba lowered her gaze, recognizing that type.
"When I enlisted," Dee continued, "it was to run away from him. I thought I'd rather face bombs than that man at the breakfast table. Ironic. I ended up commanding units with more destructive power than he ever dreamed of. And yet... I still can't sleep peacefully."
Elphaba looked at him, and for a moment, she saw beyond his restrained, stern face. She saw the lines of fatigue that weren't from the journey, but from the years. The control. The weight of all that's left unsaid.
"Does Orion know?" she asked.
"He knows quite a bit," Dee replied. "He knows how to stay silent when he needs to, and how to stay when the storm passes. Sometimes, that's all I need."
Elphaba nodded, feeling a lump in her throat.
"Glinda knows how to stay, too."
They were both silent for a second. At the back of the bar, a dart hit the wood just off target, and Glinda exclaimed, "It was the wind!" with a ridiculous dramatic flourish that made Orion burst into a hearty laugh.
"They're brilliant," Dee said, half smiling. "And ridiculous."
"I know," Elphaba replied, her smile warmer than usual. "I don't know what I'd do without her." I'd probably be locked in a government office, feeding my misanthropy with weekly reports.
"And I'd be dead," Dee said, without nuance. She said it as a processed truth, without drama, only with the certainty of someone who'd already accepted it.
Elphaba looked at him. There was nothing more to add. No comforting words, no corny reflections. Just the knowledge that, despite everything, they were still there. Sitting. Talking. Laughing, even, amidst the end of the particular world each of them had experienced.
The third round of darts was starting to get out of hand. Glinda, the heel of her boot dramatically resting on the edge of the platform, stretched out her arm as if aiming for the moon, not the center of the target.
"Prepare your pride, Prime," she said with a radiant smile. "Because I'm going to destroy you with elegance."
Orion raised his hands in mock surrender, his smile calmest but most sincere.
"I'm beginning to suspect you set me up."
"Only now?" Glinda replied, throwing the dart, which hit... the top of the board, bouncing to the floor with a sad "thok."
"Impressive," Orion joked. "Was that the 'final elegance' move?"
"I was calculating the wind," she countered with mock disdain.
They both laughed. The tension from before had dissolved in the bar's dim smoke and low lights. In the distance, Dee and Elphaba seemed deep in a silent, dense conversation, something about their faces that seemed to belong to another kind of war.
Orion looked at them for a second before turning to Glinda.
"I should ask Dee for reinforcements," he said with a smile as he picked up his dart, "though it would be useless. That man wouldn't recognize fun even if it hit him in the face."
Glinda gave a short laugh and looked back at the table.
"I know someone like that perfectly well."
Orion glanced at her, not speaking immediately. Then he lowered his arm, still holding the dart, and leaned lightly against the wall next to the board.
"And does it worry you?" he asked softly, as if afraid of breaking something with the question.
Glinda was silent for a moment, her gaze still fixed on Elphaba.
"Of course it worries me," she answered finally. "It always worries me. Even if she never asks me to. Even if she says she doesn't need looking after."
Orion nodded, his eyes lowering to the floor.
"I knew Dee in the mines, when we were still recruits." Orion's voice became more intimate, heavier. "He was sent there for fighting with a superior officer. It was a punishment, and a warning at the same time. But he... he never complained. Not a single word. He just worked. Always loyal, always efficient." As if he owed the world something and that was the only way to repay him.
Glinda slowly turned her head, her attention completely on him.
"And then?"
"Then came the missions, the campaigns, the impossible decisions. At first, it was anger that drove him. But now... I don't know." Orion pursed his lips, as if he didn't want to say it. "There are days when I feel like I'm losing him. That that ironclad loyalty has become a cage. He no longer fights for ideals, not even for us. He fights because he doesn't know how to do anything else."
The silence settled like a knot. Glinda took a deep breath.
"That sounds more familiar than I'd like," she said finally, with a sincerity she didn't often use with strangers. "Elphaba... she also carries things that I can't fully see. Sometimes I feel like she wants to redeem herself for a crime no one blamed her for, for a failing only she sees. As if everything she does has to justify her existence."
Orion nodded slowly. He pressed his lips together, looking at her with genuine understanding.
"And no matter how much you love them, or how many times you tell them they don't have to carry that burden... they still do it." He stared at the dart between his fingers for a few seconds. "It scares me to think of the moment they convinced themselves they didn't deserve to be saved."
Glinda swallowed.
"It scares me... that deep down they don't want to be."
They looked at each other. Just for a second. They didn't need more. It was the kind of silent bond that forms between those who care for someone who doesn't know how to be cared for.
"Well," Orion said, straightening and turning back to the board with a somewhat more relaxed smile, "we can cry or we can throw darts. Which would you prefer?"
Glinda took a new dart, twirling it between her fingers like a scepter.
"I can do both," she replied, winking at him. "But first... I'm going to regain my honor."
"That remains to be seen, Your Highness."
And as the laughter returned, something had been shared between them. An understanding. A different kind of complicity, woven not by desire or attraction, but by the harsh, immense tenderness of holding someone who doesn't know how to ask to be held.
Suddenly, the preacher's raspy voice cut through the air like a rusty saw:
"The Lord of the Unspoken Name sees His reflection in every soul! And you, misguided ones, may mock... but He does not mock!"
Orion and Glinda turned around uncomfortably. The man staggered with a half-empty glass in one hand and a pocket Bible in the other, his eyes bloodshot and his tongue emboldened by alcohol. He had the bearing of someone who had spent the night proclaiming absolute truths to empty tables, until he found an audience with the courtesy (or misfortune) to listen.
"Good evening," Orion said calmly, polite but firm. "Perhaps this isn't the best time for sermons."
"And when would be the best time for salvation, soldier?" the preacher retorted, staggering a step closer. "When it's too late and the fires are consuming them, eh?"
Glinda frowned, instinctively taking a step back, and Orion raised a protective hand between them, still maintaining his composure.
"We're just having a conversation. We're not seeking to offend anyone. But I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your distance."
"That's what those who are already damned say!" "The man shouted, pointing a trembling finger at Orion. "Look at your arm! What kind of man of faith paints himself like a woman? What kind of soldier dresses like a clown?"
Orion took a deep breath. His eyes didn't harden, nor did his voice rise. He spoke with such calm authority that it made some of the nearby patrons lower their conversations.
"I am of the faith of Primus," he said clearly. "I learned it in the mine tunnels, and I carried it with me across the ice wastes and onto the battlefields. My faith is not to condemn, but to build. It's not to frighten, but to uphold. And if that shocks you... you may not understand your own god."
Silence fell for a moment. Glinda glanced at him, visibly impressed. The preacher, on the other hand, gaped, confused at having been answered with logic and conviction rather than aggression.
"Primus is a heretic from Cybertronian land!" he finally shouted. "You are a false prophet! A traitor of the soul! A…"
"…..One of the few people who still retains the dignity to respond without spitting in your face, so I'd take advantage of the courtesy," a firm voice interrupted from the table.
It was Elphaba.
She stood slowly, placing her glass with a soft "tap" on the table, and walked with that poisonous elegance that made her look like a snake in heels. Dee watched her silently, with the smile of someone who knew something interesting was about to happen.
Elphaba stopped between Orion and the preacher, crossing her arms, her head slightly tilted.
"You know what's interesting about guys like you?" she said quietly. They can spend their entire lives talking about an invisible god... but they find it impossible to see the real people in front of them.
The preacher tried to respond, but Elphaba raised a finger.
"I didn't finish." He took a step further. "You always claim to speak out of love. Out of redemption. But when someone truly asks you for help... you don't see it. Because they don't bleed in the right language. They don't pray in the tone you want. They don't love the person you expect. So you turn your back on them... and you dare to call that mercy."
The entire bar had fallen silent.
"If your god is so fragile as to be offended by two men holding hands, or two women kissing on their doorstep, then your god isn't the one who needs a temple. He's the one who needs therapy."
A couple of muffled laughs escaped from a table in the back. The preacher paled, searching for words that wouldn't come.
"And before you start yelling again," Elphaba added, "remember that you're in a place with enough alcohol, testosterone, and pent-up frustration for two trained soldiers to stand up and turn you like an omelet... no one should stop them."
Dee raised an eyebrow, not moving. He didn't need to.
Elphaba looked at the preacher with an icy smile.
"And the next time you feel like saving someone, start with yourself. Because you've been lost for a while."
The man mumbled something unrecognizable, stumbled backward, and retreated, tripping over a chair in his flight.
Elphaba sighed, turned to Orion and Glinda, and said matter-of-factly,
"Sorry. It took me a long time to shut up."
Glinda looked at her, her mouth slightly open, somewhere between proud and stupidly in love.
Orion smiled and nodded respectfully.
"That was... very Primus of you."
"Nah," Elphaba said, returning to her glass. "It was very me."
And they all sat back down, the air lighter, as if the bar itself were breathing a little more freely.
The atmosphere in the bar had lightened after the confrontation, and for the first time since they'd entered, she allowed herself a brief moment of relief. Elphaba, Orion, and Glinda were laughing with that tinge of disbelief that accompanies small moral victories in hostile places, the kind of laughter that serves to relieve the pressure in the chest, like steam from a pot that was about to burst.
But then, it happened.
A tall man with a beer belly, dirty boots, and a tight T-shirt emblazoned with the Confederate flag, walked right past Elphaba. The shove was hard enough to make her stagger slightly. At first, it seemed like an accident, until he opened his mouth:
"Pardon, miss. Or should I say 'sir'?" And he laughed to himself, as if he'd said something witty. Then he looked at Glinda and added, "Though I imagine it's hard to get anything better around here."
Elphaba remained still. Very still.
She didn't look at him immediately. She just listened, let the words slide over her skin like ground glass, as her blood began to boil in the center of her stomach. Then she raised her gaze, slow, steady, icy. And the guy, like any self-important coward, stood before her, puffing out his chest with the false confidence of those who think a stroke of luck and testosterone makes them invincible.
"Got a problem, witch?" he spat, defiant, quite certain he wouldn't get an answer.
It wasn't Elphaba who answered.
It was Dee.
Before the idiot could utter another word, Dee stood up. Her movement was crisp, efficient, brutal in its simplicity. A flick of the wrist, a surgical use of the shoulder, a clean twist. The guy's body hit the floor with a thud, the air leaving his lungs in a miserable gasp. The bar fell silent again.
Dee didn't look at him as he lay on the floor. She just adjusted her jacket and said, without raising her voice, "Excuse me. You seemed tired of standing."
No one in the bar said a word. Not because Dee inspired fear, but because her presence spoke of something else. Something earned. An authority that not even the thugs dared question.
Orion was the first to react.
"Good," he said as he stood up. "I think it's an excellent time to go before someone calls a sheriff who's too eager to use his nightstick."
Glinda was already picking up her bag. Elphaba, saying nothing, looked at Dee.
She knew him.
Not in the literal sense. She didn't know his memories or his history. But she knew him. She knew that set of his jaw, that barely perceptible tremor in his right hand, the way his chest heaved as if he were breathing out of instinct, not necessity. Rage. Not the kind that flares up quickly and is extinguished with an apology, but the other kind. The kind that ferments. The kind that grows from daily injustice, from a lifetime of being forced to swallow words, humiliations, blows, because speaking or responding is more dangerous than remaining silent. It was the kind of rage born of accumulated disappointment, of the helplessness of knowing that the world doesn't change just because you want it to... and sometimes it doesn't change when you try with all your might.
And Elphaba understood. Because she carried it inside her too.
As Orion approached the counter to pay the bill, Glinda followed him. Dee stood for a moment beside Elphaba, still breathing as if she'd just run a marathon she hadn't asked to run.
"Are you okay?" Elphaba asked softly, without condescension, only with humanity.
Dee didn't respond right away. She just nodded, her gaze fixed on the door, anywhere but her. But then, as if he knew Elphaba wasn't the type to settle for knee-jerk responses, he murmured, "There are days when I don't know if I'm more tired of fighting... or having to justify why I fight."
Elphaba looked down and smiled faintly, with a sadness that was almost tender.
"I understand you more than you know."
A second later, Orion returned with Glinda.
"The bill's settled," he said. "But if we stay any longer, one of us will end up on the news. Shall we?"
"Come on," Elphaba replied.
As soon as they stepped through the bar's door, the desert air hit their faces like a bucket of ice water: not from the cold, but from the brutal difference with the stifling interior. Orion ran a hand down his neck as he descended the steps of the wooden porch.
"Well," he said with a forced optimism, "if we can't fix that tire, maybe we can load the car onto our truck and take you to the next service station."
But his voice trailed off as soon as he finished the sentence. In front of them, illuminated by the rusty lanterns of the parking lot, three men were viciously beating on the front of the huge red truck without a trailer. One of them was wielding what looked like a crowbar; another was tearing off the windshield wipers with pure hatred, and the third was spitting on the grille as if that had any effect.
"HEY!" Dee roared before anyone could move.
The three men turned around, and for a second, doubt flashed across their eyes... until Orion walked beside them with the same posture you'd expect from a commander who'd just decided he was no longer in the mood to be diplomatic. Between the two of them, the image was enough. The attackers didn't wait to check if the pair was armed. They ran off with the clumsiness of someone who knows they've crossed a line.
Elphaba and Glinda, just a few steps behind, ran to help. The front of the truck looked like a minor battlefield: loose wires, a cracked fender, pieces of carcass scattered on the ground. Dee crouched silently, not saying a word, but it showed in her body: every fiber of muscle tensed, her jaw set, her hands clenched until the knuckles turned white. Orion reached out to place a hand on her shoulder, but said nothing. There was no need to. I knew if I spoke, maybe Dee would break... or maybe I'd break something else.
"We can help," Elphaba said, already crouching on the ground, picking up chassis parts like puzzle pieces.
"Please," Glinda added, dragging a panel that probably didn't fit anywhere, but which she was determined not to leave behind.
It took ten minutes of searching, picking, checking every corner with flashlights and cell phone lights. Until Orion frowned.
"Something's missing," he said as he checked the engine frame. "The ignition coil... without that, it won't start even if we push it ten kilometers downhill."
Everyone started looking around. Glinda, walking to the side of the lot, was the first to notice.
"Um... guys?"
Elphaba turned around.
"What's wrong?"
Glinda pointed a finger.
"I don't want to sound dramatic, but... is that a coyote?"
And sure enough, about 15 meters away, at the edge where the parking lot light was beginning to fade, a coyote was watching them in a haughty pose, like a wild sphinx. Between its jaws was something metallic that gleamed clearly in the moonlight: the stolen part.
"Oh, for the love of—" Elphaba murmured, dropping her hands to her thighs.
"Are you sure it's that part?" Orion asked, half curious and half incredulous.
"Unless that creature has a fascination with stealing random mechanical parts, yes," Glinda replied.
Elphaba crossed her arms.
"So what now? Are we going to negotiate? Do we offer him some chicken wings in exchange?"
Dee took a step forward. She said nothing. She just started walking, without fear or haste.
"Dee!" Orion called after him, but didn't stop him.
Elphaba took a step too, but Glinda grabbed her arm.
"Wait. Look."
The coyote watched with the calmness of someone who had seen too many humans waste their time. Dee stopped about ten paces away, crouched down slowly, and... whistled. Not like someone calling a dog, but like someone greeting the desert. His hand slid into his pocket and pulled out a small object: a protein bar. He broke it in half and threw it at the animal's feet.
Dee's attempt was noble, almost mythical... but it failed.
The coyote, after looking at the humans with that typically animal mix of arrogance and disdain, took the metal piece between his teeth and ran off, disappearing into the shadows like a breath of wind.
Orion let out a frustrated snort as he scanned the parched terrain.
"Looking at the marks..." she crouched down, analyzing the tracks with almost scientific seriousness, "I'd say the burrow must be nearby, maybe in that rock formation." She pointed to a distant silhouette on the horizon.
No sooner had she finished her sentence than Dee was already walking back toward the truck. She didn't say a word, nor did she look at anyone. When she opened the door and pulled out the duffel bag, Elphaba and Glinda instinctively approached, only to freeze in place when they saw what Dee was pulling out.
Two hunting rifles.
Not automatic, not military: they were old, heavy, and made of worn wood, but no less imposing for that. Glinda instantly sat up, horrified, and took a step forward.
"What are you doing? It's just a coyote!"
Dee, impassive, checked the scope of one of the rifles and spoke without looking up.
"We're not going to kill him. We'll just recover what he took."
"Then why the hell are you carrying a gun?"
"Because the desert isn't a tearoom, Princess."
"I'm vegan, thanks for asking."
Dee finally looked up. Something in her eyes seemed amused, though her voice didn't lose its gravity.
"And I'm a vegetarian. And the rifles are my grandfather's. Family heirlooms... and useful tools when you're in the middle of nowhere."
Orion intervened, with the calm he usually imposed in critical moments:
"Glinda, we're not shooting any animals." But if that coyote is territorial, or if it has pups nearby, it could react dangerously. We can't go without protection. It's just a precaution.
Glinda crossed her arms, still uncomfortable. But it was Elphaba who spoke.
"You're right," she said seriously, taking the verbal weapon away from Glinda. "This isn't a game, Glin. This is a wild animal with a piece of metal that can ruin our trip if we don't get it back. And what's worse: it's probably going to bite her, swallow something, and hurt itself. Everyone loses."
Glinda pressed her lips together. She didn't like it. She didn't like it at all. But she couldn't argue with him.
"They won't go alone anyway," she declared.
"Glinda..." Orion began diplomatically.
"Don't even dream about it," Elphaba finished firmly. "We're already in the middle of this."
"It's dangerous," Dee said, but Elphaba interrupted him with a half smile.
“We live in Emerald City, work for Shiz.Corp, and survived a university reunion of mine. You want to talk to me about danger?”
Orion chuckled. Dee, after a moment of silent assessment, nodded.
“Then we’ll need other transportation. We’re not following the coyote on foot across the desert.”
“I saw something behind the bar,” Orion said, zipping his jacket as he walked back from the back of the building. “It might come in handy.”
Twenty minutes later, the unlikely posse advanced… on horseback.
Two sturdy beasts, old but noble, their coats worn by the sun and their patience hardened by rural life. A broad-backed chestnut horse led the way, Glinda standing like a golden Amazon wearing a cowboy hat she’d found beside the horse. Behind her, clutching the makeshift belt around her waist tightly, rode Elphaba. Even more tense. More skeptical. And less delighted with the uneven trot that kept shaking her inconveniently.
"Since when have you known how to ride like that?" Elphaba asked, barely catching her breath.
"Since I was six," Glinda replied with an arrogant smile. "Riding lessons, twice a week. Between piano and fencing. Mother said every refined young woman should know how to ride."
"Sure... the usual."
"And you?"
"I fell off a mule when I was ten. It'll count as a traumatic experience."
Glinda giggled.
"Then shut your mouth and hold on tight, my love. You'll enjoy it more if you stop fighting the universe."
"It's not the universe. It's this damned donkey's back with hooves."
On the other side, a few feet away, the other horse was advancing, a chestnut with a more serene gait but just as stubborn. Dee rode silently, her eyes straight ahead. Orion rode behind, smiling casually, whistling something that sounded like a military march slowed by nostalgia.
"Remember the last time we rode something with more legs than wheels?" Orion asked, gently resting his chin on his companion's shoulder.
"Yeah," Dee replied dryly. "It ended with you on the ground and me with a broken rib."
"Ah... the good old days."
"Your definition of "good" is very generous."
Silence settled over the four of them again as their hooves pounded the night-hardened sand. The horizon was beginning to lighten, barely an orange veil tearing through the dark blanket of the sky. Dawn crept in with that sacred slowness that only the desert could allow.
Elphaba, for once, didn't protest.
The air was cold but not hostile. The wind smelled of dried sage, earth, and something else: the feeling of leaving behind the noise of a world that didn't understand them.
In that instant, the two couples were neither soldiers nor fugitives, neither icons nor traitors. They were neither anger nor hurt, neither irony nor posturing.
They were just bodies crossing the desert in search of a piece stolen by a coyote.
And that was enough.
"Are you seeing any footprints?" Glinda asked over her shoulder.
"More or less. Elphaba, pass me the flashlight."
"The one that barely lights up two and a half paces?"
"That one."
"Oh, right. Cutting-edge technology."
"If we're lucky," Orion chimed in, "we'll find the burrow before the sun is up. After that, it'll be like looking for a needle in a burning haystack."
"And if we're not lucky?" Glinda asked.
"Well," Elphaba said, glancing up at the increasingly clear sky, "at least we'll have a good story to tell the mechanic when we get there."
"Assuming we get there."
"You and your natural positivity," Glinda replied, nudging him.
They both laughed. Dee barely smiled, but reached down to touch Orion's hand, who held it tenderly for a few seconds as they rode side by side.
The ride continued.
Between jokes, tiredness, the promise of a new day, and the certainty that, somewhere ahead, an animal was waiting for them... with an engine part dangling from its teeth like a trophy. Four souls under an immense sky, riding not only toward the coyote, but toward something else they still didn't know how to name.
They had been riding in silence for a long time, following a series of fine tracks, sometimes interrupted by the undergrowth or the patterns of the wind. Dee led the way, his eyes half-closed, focused. Elphaba followed him with her gaze, admiring the confidence of his movements. For a moment, she wondered if she herself had ever felt like this, so determined, so sure of a cause. She wasn't sure of anything anymore.
"Are you okay?" Glinda asked softly, brushing her cheek against hers.
"Yes. No... I don't know," Elphaba replied after a long silence. She settled against his back. "It's strange. This is all ridiculous." We're chasing a coyote with a car part in the middle of the desert... But I haven't felt this at peace in weeks.
Glinda smiled.
"Sometimes absurdity is the only place where you can breathe easy."
A few yards ahead, Orion stopped. He gracefully dismounted and crouched beside a low bush. Dee got off as well. They examined the tracks. Dee muttered something quietly, almost to himself, then looked up at the two women.
"They fork," he announced. "Two paths. One goes east, between the bluffs. The other toward the dry riverbed."
"So what do we do?" Glinda asked, already dismounting, stretching her legs with feline grace.
"We split up," Dee said.
"Is that a good idea?" Elphaba chimed in, crossing her arms. "What if the coyote is armed?"
Orion laughed.
"He probably just has teeth." But if we're lucky, one of the two paths leads directly to their burrow.
The four of them looked at each other. No one said it out loud, but everyone felt it: there was something about this division that felt necessary. Not just for the strategy, but because sometimes, walking for a while without the usual presence of the other… also reveals things.
"I'm going with you," Glinda said to Orion.
"Then I guess I get the taciturn soldier," Elphaba murmured, giving Dee a sidelong glance, who barely raised an eyebrow.
"I can be more taciturn if you prefer," Dee replied in a deep voice.
"Nah. Your natural, concrete-wall charm is enough for me."
They parted ways. Orion and Glinda took the path between the cliffs, climbing slowly among stones and elongated shadows. Elphaba and Dee, on the other hand, walked toward the dry riverbed, where the earth cracked like ancient porcelain beneath their steps. The heat was beginning to beat down.
Long minutes passed without speaking. Until Dee, without turning around, said:
"Your girlfriend is luminous."
"Yes. Like a flare. Unbearable. Beautiful. She almost kills me with love every day."
"It must be difficult for someone like you... to let someone like that take care of you."
Elphaba looked down and kicked a rock.
"Sometimes. But I've learned that what's difficult isn't always what's wrong. Sometimes what's difficult is simply what we're not used to accepting."
"You know, you have a very strange way of speaking. As if you think of every word as a confession."
"And you have a very strange way of not speaking. As if every word were a risk."
Dee stopped. She turned slowly toward her. For a moment, the wind blew away anything but those two exchanged glances in the middle of the desert. His, tense, charged. Hers, ironic, but vulnerable.
"Did Orion say anything to you?"
"About you?" Elphaba tilted her head. "No... but I imagine he cares about you."
"Sometimes I don't know if I'm becoming everything I swore I would destroy."
"Sometimes some of us think that every day. You for the war, me for the companies, for my family, for... my silence." The trick is to stop. In time. Sometimes that saves more lives than any heroic act.
Dee nodded, very slowly. In her sun-hardened profile, Elphaba saw something akin to relief.
They kept walking. Up ahead, a shadow beneath a rock formation made them stop. Both lowered their voices. Elphaba took out her flashlight, Dee loaded her rifle. Silence. Expectation.
And in the distance… a screech. The coyote.
Elphaba walked a few steps behind Dee, keeping the steady, sure pace he set with his rifle in hand. The desert wind swirled around them, carrying with it the distant echo of the bar's muted music, now reduced to a distant silhouette against the horizon.
They had been silent for a while when Elphaba spoke, not raising her voice too much.
"You didn't say anything after that jerk who pushed me."
Dee didn't respond immediately. She only tensed her right shoulder slightly, the same one Elphaba had noticed was stiff since they left.
"There was nothing to say," she murmured. "I already took care of the idiot."
"I know," Elphaba replied with a small sigh. "It's just that... those things always stick with me. Like I've been hit in the chest with something invisible. No matter how many times it happens."
Dee nodded slowly, not looking at her.
"No matter how many times you experience it. It still hurts."
"And yet we pretend we don't," she added. "That we're already hardened, that it doesn't affect us. As if what's killing us inside isn't worth mentioning."
Dee took a deep breath.
"Because if you do it every time, you'll break."
"And if you don't do it at all, you'll poison yourself."
Silence returned for a moment, heavy but thoughtful. Elphaba pressed her lips together, then spoke again, more slowly.
"I couldn't stop seeing your face after they pushed the truck. That rage... I know it."
Dee glanced sideways, but didn't deny anything.
"You accumulate it over the years. First it makes you angry. Then it hardens you. And then..."
"Then it turns you into what you swore to destroy," Elphaba finished.
They both paused for a few seconds. The desert breeze was warm, but not oppressive. Just a constant reminder that they were far from everything. And perhaps because of that, they could speak with a freedom they'd never had in the cities.
"I used to believe I could change the world," Elphaba said, resuming her stride. "That if I worked hard enough, if I was smarter, stronger, if I suffered more than the rest, I would achieve it."
"And now?"
"Now I'm not sure it's worth the sacrifice," she said with raw honesty. "I tried so hard... and ended up fired, alone, broken. Wanting revenge, more than justice."
Dee smiled mirthlessly.
"I understand you more than you know. I wanted justice too. And when I didn't find it... I settled for fighting for revenge."
"And that worked for you?"
"It kept me alive."
"But it kept you?"
This time, Dee stopped completely. She turned to her, her dark eyes reflecting a mixture of storm and clarity.
"You want to fix the world because you still have faith in it. I just want it to stop screwing me over."
"That's not faith," Elphaba said gently. "It's stubbornness. And I don't know if mine is any better. Maybe... we're both equally broken. But we keep searching."
"What?" Dee asked. "Redemption?"
"Maybe. Or something resembling purpose."
Dee lowered her rifle a little, and with it, her guard.
"You're different from what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"An idealist without flaws."
"And you're deeper than you pretend," Elphaba countered.
As the horses' hooves pounded the sand in a slow, steady rhythm, Glinda reined in to adjust their pace and settled with a grimace of discomfort, unsure if her back, her legs, or her pride hurt more. Orion, a few yards ahead, rode with an ease that felt irritatingly natural. He seemed carved by the desert winds, with that quiet calm that only someone who has seen too many storms knows how to maintain.
"Tell me something," Glinda said, breaking the silence as she tried to rearrange the sticky bangs under her hat, "what's it like to be in charge? And please be honest, don't tell me it's 'a blessing' or some corny gimmick they embellish in biopics."
Orion let out a warm laugh, the kind that starts in the chest.
"A blessing? No, not at all. It's like having a compass in the middle of a sandstorm... and everyone looking at you like you know where you're going."
Glinda smiled.
"I knew it. It's just like in the movies... only with less Angelina Jolie and more dust in your eyes."
Orion turned his head with a raised eyebrow.
"Do you follow war movies with hot actresses?"
"Obviously." If Angelina can disarm a bomb in heels, I can face the world with a smile and a lip gloss.
Orion laughed, louder this time. Then, gently, he said,
"I was promoted to major last year. I led a platoon in several campaigns. Young people. Too young. Sometimes I wonder if I made all the right decisions. Or if I was just... the one who broke the least."
Glinda looked at him silently for a moment. It wasn't easy for a man like him—so stoic, so even-tempered—to speak of doubts. But he did so with the same honesty with which he'd probably ordered soldiers forward.
"And why do you do it?" she asked, not with judgment, but with genuine curiosity.
"Because someone has to do it. And if I can prevent someone else from bearing that burden... then it's worth it. Even if I don't always think I'm up to it."
"That," Glinda said, "is exactly what scares me."
Orion frowned slightly, attentive.
“A few months ago, I worked for a senator,” she explained. “Very charismatic. He talked about the future, about hope, about order. And I… I could have led. I could have been the shining face of his cause. I had the resources, the attention, the support. But… I didn’t believe in his vision. It was pretty on the surface, but inside… it was another form of control.”
Orion nodded, as if he understood exactly what she was talking about.
“So I left,” she continued, looking down at the reins. “And ever since then… well, I’m here. Riding through the desert, aimlessly, with the woman I love and without a damn map of what comes next.”
Orion watched her for a moment in silence before speaking.
“Maybe that’s not so bad.”
“Having no direction?”
“Having no map.” Pause. “Sometimes what hurts the most isn’t being lost, but following a path someone else laid out for you.”
Glinda let those words sink in. The wind blew lightly, stirring some sand in the distance.
"You're good at this," she said, more gently. "At calming people down. At putting things into perspective."
"Maybe. But that doesn't mean I don't shake inside. Leadership isn't about having answers. It's about admitting you don't have them and moving on anyway."
"What if I'm not that kind of person?"
Orion looked at her, serious but not stern.
"Then maybe you are the kind of person who changes things not from above, but from alongside those who need it. And that's leadership too, Glinda. Just... with a different kind of flag."
Glinda sighed, but this time with a smile.
"That was poetic, Prime. If I ever run for president, I'm going to hire you to write my speeches."
Orion laughed and nodded toward the horizon.
"In that case, we're going to need more horses."
They both laughed. For a few minutes, the desert didn't seem so vast, nor the future so uncertain.
Meanwhile, Elphaba and Dee had continued walking for a few minutes in silence since finding the footprints. The desert was a constant whisper of wind and sand, and although their feet moved in the same direction, the air between Elphaba and Dee had become thick, almost electric.
"What are you going to do when this trip is over?" Dee asked suddenly, without turning around. "When you get back to the city. If you get back."
Elphaba looked up at the horizon, thoughtful.
"I don't know yet," she admitted. "It's strange. All my life I believed I had to be useful, to have a cause. That if I wasn't fighting for something, I was worthless. But now..." she paused, searching for words, "now I think maybe I don't have to live to change the world. Maybe if I start by changing myself, that'll be enough."
Dee let out a dry, humorless laugh.
"What a luxury it is to be able to think like that."
"'Luxury'?" Elphaba repeated, turning to him. "Do you think it's easy to look at everything I've done and say 'I'm going to change'? I'm not talking about inner peace and magic crystals. I'm talking about surviving without losing myself completely."
“Surviving without breaking is a myth, Elphaba,” Dee countered, a shadow in her voice. “You don’t leave this world unstained. Unbloodied.”
“So what? Do we have to give up then? Become what we hate?”
“I’m not saying that,” he muttered, but Elphaba faced him, rage rising in her throat.
“Yes, you are! You’re saying there’s no redemption, no way out, everything is rotten, and the only thing left to do is burn it all down. You don’t want justice, Dee. You want to watch the world burn because it failed you.”
Dee’s eyes narrowed. The sun was barely rising, slicing their faces with lines of red light.
“So what do you want? A revolution of good manners and pretty speeches? A polite protest with signs and hashtags?” she snapped. You want to change the world from the inside, but they won't let you in, and do you know why? Because the system isn't broken. It's made to break you.
"I know!" Elphaba cried, her voice cracking. "Of course I know! But that doesn't mean we have to destroy ourselves with it."
They stared at each other, still, tense, two black silhouettes silhouetted by the light of a new sun that barely illuminated the ground beneath their feet.
"Orion was always like that," Dee said suddenly, her voice lower. "I always preach ideas like yours. Hope. Faith. Even in myself. And I..."
She stopped.
"You what?"
Dee swallowed. The wind whipped their faces. Then she said it.
"I was the one who shot him."
Elphaba felt as if the wind had stopped. Her breath froze. She said nothing at first. His body was tense, on guard, but not out of fear of Dee, but from the brutal weight of what he had just heard.
There were many ways to narrate a war, many versions that could be adapted to the listener, but Dee hadn't softened anything. He had delivered the unvarnished truth, as if he no longer had the energy to pretend.
The silence of the desert surrounded them like a dome.
Dee walked a few more steps, without looking back. Finally, he stopped, staring at the distant line of hills in the golden light of dawn, and his voice sounded again. No longer like someone confessing, but like someone surrendering to memory.
"We had a commander. Sentinel. A slicked-back bastard with a voice like thunder and a flag tattooed on his soul. No one shouted better than him. No one inspired more fear. Or respect. I admired him." Dee lowered her gaze and gave a short, humorless laugh. "I followed his orders like they were commandments. I believed he was leading us toward something greater. A purpose." A new world.
She ran a hand over her face, as if trying to peel the memory from her skin.
"But it was a lie. Everything. Sentinel... was selling information to corporations, sabotaging treaties, sending men to die just to keep the machine running. We were all numbers in their game. Carnage in uniform."
Elphaba clenched her fists. She felt Dee's fury like a current around her, powerful and suffocating.
"When I found out, I wanted to roust the squad. Break the silence. Serve justice," Dee continued, her voice getting lower. "But not everyone saw it the way I did. Orion... he opposed it. Not because he believed in Sentinel. But because he knew what would happen if we did it that way. Chaos. The pointless spillage."
There was a pause. The wind blew hard, kicking up a swirl of dust in the distance.
"In the middle of the fight, I shot him. No... I didn't think about it. It was instinct." As if hatred had swallowed everything I was. She looked at him for the first time, her eyes dull. Orion fell and looked at me as if he already knew what was coming. Not with anger. With... sadness.
Elphaba swallowed, feeling a thick lump in her throat.
"And yet...?"
"He waited for me." Dee nodded, almost in disbelief. "As I sank deeper and deeper, he grew. He grew stronger. Clearer. He faced me when he had to. He held me when he could. He never tried to save me. He just... stayed close, as if he knew that, little by little, I would come back. As if I were worth waiting for."
Elphaba lowered her gaze, but Dee wasn't finished. There was something else, something else that needed to come out.
"Eventually, we retreated. We agreed that neither of us wanted to keep fighting over something that no longer meant anything. That fighting was pointless if the fire consumes you whole. But even today, there are nights when I wake up... and think about the possibility that one day I'll drag it down with me.
He turned to her. His expression wasn't harsh or aggressive. It was a question that still had no answer.
"And you know what the worst part is? I don't care what the world does to me anymore. I'm not afraid of that. I'm broken, Elphaba. More than I can perhaps fix. But sometimes... sometimes I'm afraid of what I might do to him." Her eyes glittered for a moment, not with tears, but with something deeper, rawer. "Because love doesn't always save. Sometimes love... is what hurts the most when you can't live up to it."
Elphaba felt a chill run down her spine. For a second, she saw herself reflected in it. That same fear had haunted her for years. It had been the reason behind her walls, her running away, her silences with Glinda. Not because of what the world did to her. But because of what she herself was afraid to do... to the one she loved most.
"So what do you do?" she asked softly. When do you know there's a part of you that could ruin everything?
Dee stared at her. The wind ruffled their clothes and hair.
"I don't have the answer. But as long as Orion stays, I force myself to keep trying. To not lose myself completely. Not for me. For him." Pause. "But I also know that one day, if he gets tired... I won't be able to blame him."
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She just nodded softly. The words were piling up in her chest, but it wasn't time yet. In the distance, the coyote's tracks were still etched in the earth, as if the desert wanted to remind them that the story wasn't over yet.
And as they walked forward in silence, each carrying their wound on their backs, something had opened between them. A shared rift. It wasn't redemption. But it was a beginning.
The sun no longer set; it settled. Like a weary god reclining on the horizon, he tinged the desert with a golden, reddish warmth that seemed straight out of a dream. The wind carried with it a scent of warm earth, living stone, and the nostalgia of something ancient.
Orion crouched down, one hand on the sand, examining faint marks among the thorny bushes. Glinda watched from the saddle, leaning forward, her arms resting on the saddle with genuine attention.
"Tracks?" she asked.
"Yes, recent," Orion replied without looking up. "Small claws, firmly set in. The coyote was here recently. Maybe it's still nearby."
Glinda nodded with a small smile.
"Impressive."
Orion turned to look at her, amused.
"I didn't expect you to understand so much with such little explanation. Do you have experience tracking?"
"Something like that," Glinda replied with a shrug. When I was little, my dad used to take me hunting on the family ranch. Deer, birds, foxes... the classics.
Orion raised an eyebrow.
"Did you like it?"
"I loved it. The tracking, the strategy, the connection with the environment, not so much the wounding part, which is why I never did it. To me, it was like a game. Until I discovered that..." He paused, almost laughing, "half of those 'hunts' were rigged. My father hired people to lead the animals to the trails I walked along. Everything was set up so the princess would get it right every time."
Orion smiled.
"That sounds very much like you."
"Get it right every time?"
"No. That the world secretly arranges itself to make you feel safe. Even if you don't need it."
Glinda looked at him, half amused and half touched by the accuracy of the comment. She lowered her gaze to the ground for a few seconds.
"He was like that," she added in a softer tone. "He always knew how to make me laugh when I needed it. Or how to hold me up when everything was falling apart. He was a much more tender man than his name and his position allowed him to admit."
Orion nodded silently.
"And your mother?"
Glinda hesitated. She didn't pause, didn't tense... she just delayed her answer. As if she wasn't sure if it was right to talk about it, or if it was worth it.
"It wasn't the same," she finally said. "It's not that she was cruel... she just didn't accept it. Or couldn't. When she found out about my relationship with Elphaba... it was as if everything in me was called into question."
Orion said nothing. Not because he didn't know what to say, but because sometimes the only wise thing to do was to listen.
"Since then," she continued, "when I see her, it's like... walking through a minefield. There is affection, yes, but it's shrouded in a fog of things that can't be said. And that's tiring."
Orion lowered his head, understanding all too well.
"Family has this strange ability to hurt you unintentionally," he said. "Or to think they're protecting you while disarming you."
Glinda looked at him.
"And in the army?" she asked. "What was it like... being with someone like Dee in that world?"
Orion took a deep breath. Not with discomfort, but with a quiet solemnity.
"Complicated. At first, we didn't even know what was going on between us. We were soldiers. Brothers in arms. And then... comrades. The 'couple' thing came with the years, with the war, with the pain. With the nights when we didn't know if we'd ever wake up."
Glinda watched him carefully. Not with pity, but with silent respect.
"And did the others know?"
"Some did. Others sensed it. Others... better off not knowing. But we never really hid it. We couldn't. We were there, back to back. If that's not love, then what is?"
Glinda smiled tenderly.
"And they never told you anything?"
Orion shrugged.
"Some did. Some insulted us. Judged us. Mocked us. And then there were those who respected us more for it. Because the truth is... when you're in the middle of hell, love isn't seen as a threat. It's seen as a miracle."
Glinda felt that phrase hit her chest.
"That's beautiful," she said.
Orion stared at the horizon for a moment, then looked back at her.
"I read something once. We repeat it like a mantra among soldiers who no longer believe in flags or anthems. We say: 'Freedom... is the right of all sentient beings.'"
"Is that from a philosophy?"
"It's from a hope," he replied. "That one day, no one will have to explain who they love. Or who they ride with at dawn."
Glinda felt her eyes water. And not from the desert wind.
"I wish more people thought that way."
Orion smiled.
"Some already do. Starting with you."
Glinda lowered her gaze, shy for the first time that night.
At that moment, the sound of falling rocks alerted them. Orion raised his hand, and they both stopped. The engine part was still in play... and the coyotes were close.
But between them, something had taken hold. An unexpected connection. A friendship in hostile territory. A complicity that felt like the first brick in a new future.
The terrain opened up toward a high rock formation, a kind of narrow plateau that looked down like a natural balcony. From there, the world looked like a chessboard of sand and brush. Glinda and Orion dismounted, tying their horses to a dead log.
"There," Orion whispered, nodding his chin toward an area of rocky crevices and loose earth. The coyote was huddled in the shadows, the metal piece still between its teeth.
"He's got it," Glinda said, a knot of anxiety tightening in her chest.
At that same moment, on the other side, among the lower recesses of the terrain, Elphaba and Dee were reaching the burrow from an opposite angle. Dee crouched between two stones while Elphaba stood a little further back, watching the crouching position of the animal, which had already spotted them.
"You're not going to do what I think you're going to do, are you?" Elphaba whispered, lowering her voice to a minimum.
"I just want to try," Dee murmured, without looking back.
“It’s a wild coyote, Dee. It’s not a stray dog. It’s protecting its den. And it has teeth!”
“I’ve faced worse.”
“It’s not about what you can face!” she snorted. “It’s about not having to.”
But Dee was already moving, dragging the body cautiously through the gravel. Elphaba saw him coming and cursed under her breath, just as, from above, Orion raised his rifle. He focused on it. Not on the animal, but on the air just above it. His voice was barely a whisper:
“Damn you, Dee…”
And he fired.
The dry, explosive sound of the report shook the silence. The bullet struck a rock directly above the coyote’s head, and it shot out like a shadow, leaving a trail of dust and a howl.
But Dee… didn’t stop.
“What are you doing, idiot?!” "Orion shouted, watching him launch himself after the animal.
"Dee!" Elphaba screamed too, but it was too late.
The coyote ran, zigzagging between rocks and thorns. Dee chased after him, without thinking, without restraint, with that same mixture of fury, need, and something deeper that even he couldn't name. Then he stumbled.
A loose rock knocked him off balance, and he fell heavily on his left arm, the one already scarred.
Orion cursed, throwing the rifle to the ground. Glinda ran up to him.
"Let's go down! Now!"
The two of them descended the slope almost blindly, dodging rocks, dead branches, slipping. When they arrived, Dee was already getting up, sore but stubborn as ever.
"Are you okay?" Orion panted, moving closer.
"I'm fine. You didn't need to shoot," Dee replied.
"I was going to bite you, idiot!" Orion shoved him with his shoulder. "You always have to do things your way, don't you?"
"You're not my commander!"
"No, I'm someone who loves you, damn it!"
The argument between Dee and Orion raged in low voices, whispers laden with years of history compressed into seconds, suppressed screams that stabbed each other more with memory than words. They stood facing each other, panting, sand splattered on their boots and the desert heat piercing their skin. The sun beat down brutally, dyeing the sky copper and crimson, as if the world itself were holding its breath.
Suddenly, a movement broke the silence.
The coyote, until now confused by the presence of so many intruders on his land, glared at them with his yellow eyes filled with nerves and primitive fury. He snarled, baring his teeth, and without warning, launched himself straight at the two men. It was a savage leap, a flurry of muscle and teeth driven by pure instinct.
Dee didn't think twice. In a reaction older than fear, she threw herself at Orion, pushing him with her entire body and sending them tumbling across the hot earth. Elphaba shouted something that the wind swallowed. The scene turned chaotic: dust, screams, the crunching of stones beneath the rolling bodies.
The coyote stopped abruptly, disconcerted by the movement, and then turned. Its snout sniffed the air, searching for easier prey.
And there it saw her.
Glinda had just emerged from the burrow. She had dirt on her hands, her knee scraped, her hair disheveled, and her eyes still shining with triumph as she held the piece of metal they needed between her fingers. But at the sight of the animal, her whole body froze.
The coyote tensed.
The muscles in its hind legs compressed like a spring. Everything in it screamed attack.
"Glinda!" Elphaba yelled from behind, but her voice came out broken, helpless.
Glinda couldn't move. She couldn't tell if it was fear or astonishment, but her body betrayed her. She stood there, holding the game, her heart beating like a war drum, her pupils dilated, watching the animal's mouth open, its fangs flashing in the last light of day.
And then, a shot.
The sound was sharp, brutal, a whiplash that tore through the air. It wasn't a direct hit, it wasn't a bullet meant to wound. But the roar was enough.
The coyote shrieked. An instant later, it spun on its paws and ran, disappearing into the bushes with spectral speed. The silence it left behind was deafening.
Glinda stood. She blinked. She felt a trembling in her legs, her arm still extended with the game in her hand. She looked in the direction of the shot.
And she saw her.
There, between two rocks, her feet firmly planted on the ground, was Elphaba. The shotgun smoked in his hands, and his eyes, usually sharp and observant, were now filled with a mixture of fury and love, fear and relief. His left hand trembled slightly, but he didn't lower the weapon.
"Are you okay?" he managed, his voice still raspy, barely a whisper of sound.
Glinda nodded. She couldn't speak.
Meanwhile, on the ground, Orion and Dee were still body to body. Orion, breathing heavily, looked down at Dee from below. For a second, neither of them said anything. The whole world had stopped. Their bodies were covered in dust, their faces streaked with sweat, and yet... there was something else in their eyes: a spark that didn't come from rage or pride. It was fear. Fear of losing. Fear of being lost.
"Are you crazy?" Orion whispered, unable to hide the broken emotion trembling in his throat.
"Yes," Dee replied, with just the hint of a bitter smile. "But not for what you think."
Orion looked at him.
"Then why?"
Dee swallowed. And, for the first time in a long time, he answered without hiding:
"Because I can't bear for anything to happen to you. Not even after everything I did."
Orion said nothing. But her arms closed around him, and for a second, it was as if the world had stopped in that embrace, dirty, bloody, unsteady, but true.
Glinda walked slowly toward Elphaba, who was now lowering her gun.
"Did you fire?" she asked with a mixture of disbelief and astonishment.
"You crawled out of a burrow with your legs covered in dirt?" Elphaba replied, putting her gun aside.
The two looked at each other. And then Glinda, without thinking, threw herself at her in a tight, awkward hug, letting out a nervous, euphoric, broken laugh.
"You're my hero!" she exclaimed between giggles, kissing her cheeks with a rapid-fire rhythm. "My Harriet Tubman! My Desert Fury! My butch with a rifle!"
Elphaba could hardly resist. She wanted to make a sarcastic objection, a condescending comment, something like "You're overreacting," but Glinda was already kissing her. Hard. Intensely. Hungerously. With the taste of fear still in her throat and adrenaline pumping through her blood like a flooded river. It was the kind of kiss born from the brutal certainty of what one almost lost. Elphaba held her firmly, not letting go, and let that moment consume them.
A few feet away, Dee and Orion had already sat up, dusting themselves off and composing themselves as best they could. Both were watching the scene of the two women kissing as if they'd just survived a scene from one of those old war movies they watched back in the barracks.
Orion raised an eyebrow, hiding a smile.
"This reminds me of what happened in the trenches at Tyger Pax," he commented, crossing his arms.
Dee glanced at him, relaxing her jaw with a lopsided smile.
"That time we hid in the communications tower during the shrapnel storm?"
"The same one," Orion nodded, feigning solemnity. "You said that if we died, at least you wanted to do it with your mouths full."
"And you made sure it was true," Dee laughed, for the first time without bitterness.
Elphaba and Glinda separated slightly, Glinda's face still pressed against her companion's neck. They both looked at them. There was a pause. And then, the four of them let out a collective laugh, brief but genuine, like a release valve finally opening.
However, as the girls hugged in the distance, the soldiers let the curtain fall on the jokes.
Orion took a deep breath. No one was around. The sun was still going down, tinting the horizon an amber that seemed to remind him that time, even though it advances, doesn't heal everything.
"Dee..." he began, in a low, intimate tone. "We need to talk."
Dee nodded bluntly. They both knew what he meant.
They moved away a few steps, just a little. Enough to have their own piece of the world. Orion ran a hand down his neck, thoughtful, while Dee watched him with her usual intensity, but this time without shields.
"I didn't abandon you," Orion finally said. "Not when you shot. Not when you ran. Not when you came back. Not when you decided to keep quiet."
"I know," Dee replied, her voice raspy. She lowered her gaze for a second. "That's the problem."
Orion looked at him, but didn't interrupt.
"I don't understand why. Why you're still there. Why you're looking at me like we still..." He swallowed. "Like we still believe in something."
"Because I know you," Orion said gently. He took a step closer. "Because I know that what you did doesn't define you any more than what we did together. Because I still believe in who you were. And who you could be."
"What if that doesn't exist anymore?" Dee asked, almost angrily. But it was a rage directed at himself, desperate.
"Then I'll stay," Orion said, moving closer. "Until it exists again. Until you believe in that too.”
They stood face to face. They didn't embrace. It wasn't necessary. They had already learned to speak with their breath, with the way their fingers trembled, with their unblinking gazes. And then they moved swiftly closer, their lips meeting in a kiss more powerful than any explosion they'd ever seen.
From a distance, Glinda squeezed Elphaba's arm and murmured, "Sometimes loving is also waiting. And not everyone knows how to do that."
Elphaba said nothing. But she looked at her. Long. As if something were opening inside her.
And in that corner of the desert, at the edge of night, among old weapons, salvaged parts, wounds still healing, and silences that spoke louder than a thousand screams, the two couples understood that sometimes war doesn't end with a shot.
Sometimes, it ends with a decision.
An hour later, the scorching heat of the day began to dissipate, carried by a warm breeze that caressed the desert like a gentle farewell. The golden light of dusk bathed the bar's parking lot, tinting the remains of the chaos amber. Beside the red truck, Elphaba and Orion knelt beside the engine, tangled in wires, grease, and the faint mechanical whir that announced the salvaged part was finally doing its job.
"Well, that should do it," Orion said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Then he looked at Elphaba with a smile that balanced gratitude and admiration. "That was a great shot, by the way."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, feigning indifference as she wiped her fingers with a dirty rag.
"It wasn't much. It was still. It's not difficult when the target isn't moving," she murmured.
Lie. She had loved it. She had loved feeling the controlled heartbeat, the precise aim, the precise adrenaline. She had loved seeing Glinda safe. He'd loved the fact that, for once in his life, he wasn't running away from fire but facing it head-on.
Orion laughed, that open, honest laugh that seemed to come from someone who'd had to learn to laugh to survive.
"You're not bad with this weapons business. Though I suspect your real talent lies elsewhere," he said, standing up. But as soon as he stretched his left arm, a pang of pain shot through his shoulder. He paused for a second, taking a deep breath.
Elphaba noticed it instantly.
"Does it hurt?"
Orion pretended to stretch naturally, but he wasn't a very good actor.
"Not as much as when it happened, if that's any consolation."
His tone was light, but something thicker crept into his eyes. Some of that accumulated fatigue that not even comedy can dissolve.
"Although..." he added, looking at the orange sky, "one way or another, we all end up carrying our wounds." Whether they're the ones we suffer... or the ones we cause. For ourselves. Or for those we love.
Elphaba looked at him from the side, her dark eyes reflecting the same light as the metal of the engine.
"Yes..." she murmured. "And sometimes we don't even know which is which."
There was a pause. It wasn't awkward. It was the kind that weighs, but doesn't suffocate.
Orion studied her for a moment, then smiled again.
"You're good with words."
"Oh?"
"Says the world champion of motivational speaking. My medal is in a box somewhere, among odd socks and letters from soldiers I never saw again."
Elphaba gave a short, unexpected laugh.
"You're not the first person to say that to me in the last twenty-four hours."
Orion raised his eyebrows, curious.
"And have you thought about doing something about it?"
"I don't know. Maybe." "He shrugged with feigned indifference, but the thought was already brewing like a restless seed.
"Look, words..." Orion said, tightening the final nut and patting the engine. "They're the best way we deal with our own wounds. Hopefully, they also serve to lighten the wounds of others."
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She just looked at him.
And then, for the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to consider quietly:
"Maybe I do have something to say."
Meanwhile, at the other end of the parking lot, Glinda crouched beside her car, covered in dust and sweat, struggling with the lug wrench while Dee watched with her arms crossed, leaning against the truck's bumper. The scene would have been picturesque if not for the sun still beating down strongly and Glinda's small, frustrated grunts whenever the screw seemed to resist.
"Are you sure you want to continue doing this alone?" Dee asked for the third time, her voice calm, almost amused.
"Absolutely," Glinda replied, tightening her grip. "I'm not going to let a tire ruin my empowerment narrative."
Dee gave a very slight smile, one that barely raises a corner.
"Narrative approved. But it wouldn't hurt to twist the wrench the other way."
Glinda frowned, did as she was instructed, and with a dry squeak, the last bolt gave way. She was silent for a second. Then she looked at Dee.
"...Thanks."
"Technically, I didn't help," he replied with a shrug.
"Yeah, well," Glinda sat up, wiping her hands, "that's not going to save you from being part of my speech about how self-sufficient I was today."
They both smiled. The moment felt easy. Honest.
As Glinda put away the tools, the roar of the truck starting up on the other side confirmed that everything was ready. Elphaba and Orion were approaching. Elphaba went straight to Glinda and gently took her arm, her fingers barely caressing the skin exposed beneath her sleeveless shirt. For a moment, her eyes strayed.
Dee, standing a few feet away, had taken off his military jacket and was now wearing only a tight gray tank top, his defined arms catching the sunlight as if they were part of the landscape.
And yes, Elphaba liked what she saw. Not in a covetous way, but like someone observing a hand-carved marble masterpiece.
Glinda, an expert at detecting these averted gazes, said nothing. She just gave her a small, precise pinch on the hip, right where it hurt.
"Ouch!" Elphaba looked at her with a start.
"Nothing, just swatting at a fly," Glinda replied with a heavenly smile.
"Yes. A very specific fly," Elphaba murmured, trying not to laugh.
Both couples finally met by their respective vehicles. Dee and Orion stood side by side, the former with his eternally stormy eyes, the latter with that serenity that seemed to come from his birth.
Dee moved a little closer, her steps firm but calm. She had left her jacket on the passenger seat and felt lighter without it. She stopped in front of Elphaba with her hands in her pockets.
"I'm not going to lie to you," she said bluntly. "I'm not much of a chatterer. And when I do, sometimes it's not pretty."
Elphaba nodded, not taking it the wrong way.
"No, he isn't. But he is honest."
Dee lowered her gaze for a moment, as if that were a compliment she didn't know how to take. Then she looked up again.
"You have good ideas. Strong ideas. You think like someone who still believes the world is worth fixing... and that's rare, you know?" She took a deep breath. "Don't bottle them up. Share them. If only in case someone, somewhere, still needs to hear them."
Elphaba stared at him. There was a moment of mutual recognition. Not of equals, but of opposites staring at each other across the same chasm.
"Thank you," she said finally. And she meant it.
A few feet away, Glinda and Orion walked slowly toward the side of the parking lot. Glinda had her jacket slung over her shoulder, and Orion looked more relaxed than he had seen all night. They both stared off into the distance as if they hadn't yet decided to leave it behind.
"Do you have plans for later?" Glinda asked, with a barely playful smile.
"Find a decent motel. Get about sixteen hours of sleep. After that… I don't know." Orion paused. "Maybe go back to working with refugees. Help with village reconstruction. Something useful."
"Sure, something 'light,'" Glinda joked, crossing her arms.
Orion laughed, but then looked at her more seriously, his voice lowering a bit.
"You have the makings of a leader too, you know? The good kind. The kind who don't impose from above, but make people want to follow them."
Glinda lowered her gaze, uncomfortable with the compliment.
"I tried to do it right once. It didn't quite work out as I expected."
"That doesn't mean you can't try again," Orion insisted. "If you still want to help people... do it. However you can. Not everything has to be grand." Sometimes, just one person listening... you've made a difference.
Glinda took a deep breath and nodded, swallowing more words than she dared say.
"Thank you, Prime."
"You, Lady G."
They both laughed.
The two couples met again in the center. There were handshakes, a couple of shy hugs, and a final exchange of glances that held more than what was being said aloud.
"I don't think this place has a zip code," Glinda said, looking around, "but if it ever happens again... promise to bring wine."
"And a better flashlight," Elphaba added.
"And a spare tire," Dee declared, looking directly at Glinda.
"Hey!" Glinda raised an eyebrow. "I took care of that. Redeemed."
Orion gave a two-fingered salute and started to climb into the truck. Dee followed. Elphaba and Glinda climbed into their car.
Both vehicles roared with life. For a moment, they shared the same lane, like two stories intersecting for a single night. Then, on a dusty detour, the truck turned west and the car turned east.
Glinda glanced in the rearview mirror. The sun was lower, more golden, and the dust in the air seemed to float as if it didn't want that intersection to end.
"Have you been told you're good with words?" Glinda asked, turning to Elphaba with a smile.
"Lately, yes. Too often, I'd say."
"Well, lucky you," Glinda said, taking a notebook out of the car's compartment and placing it in Elphaba's lap. "Because I think it's time you started writing that famous book of yours."
Elphaba looked at her. Then at the notebook. Then at the road.
"Maybe that's not such a bad idea," she said, taking a pen out of her pocket.
And the journey continued.
Notes:
Quick note: I'm going to start updating more often, at least more than once a week. I have almost twenty more chapters written, and if I don't hurry, I won't finish any more. Just that, I hope you're enjoying the story.
Chapter 28: WHY DOES WICKEDNESS HAPPEN?
Notes:
Warning: This chapter includes references to domestic harassment, repressed trauma, and suicide attempts; discretion is advised.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Chapter Prologue Chapter… – (Is it worth writing?)
from “Invisible Bonds – Reflections on Her and Me”
I don't want to write this chapter.
It's not that I don't know what happened. I know it too well.
It's that I don't know how to write it without going back there.
Sometimes one remembers with anger, other times with sadness, other times with… a weariness that has no name.
(What if I don't write it down? What if I leave it out? Would anyone notice?)
But that would be lying.
Because there was a house.
A chair I wasn't allowed to sit on.
A prayer before dinner where my name wasn't included.
A conversation in the kitchen that made me "she" even when I was in the room.
Crossing all this out afterward. It's a trap of memory. Writing it down doesn't correct it.
Glinda was beautiful. She... always looks beautiful when she's walking into a battle she didn't choose.
I...
(How do you write a night when you feel like you're fifteen again?)
(What are you supposed to do with love that's useless?)
…….
……..
……..
Shit, just... Why could you never see me any other way?...... It was all I asked of you...
CHAPTER 28: Why does Wickedness happen?
There was something almost poetic about the twilight reflected on the windshield. Glinda had always believed that the perfect trip didn't require expensive hotels or precise itineraries, just an endless highway, a good playlist, and someone to love in the seat next to her. She had dreamed of this road trip for years, idealizing it with the almost neurotic precision with which she planned her college speeches. She visualized shared sunrises between cups of coffee stolen from gas stations, unhurried conversations, silent pauses that didn't weigh her down. A place, finally, where she and Elphaba could be themselves—without masks, without roles, without the constant shadow of having to prove something.
She saw it as a liminal, floating space between what they had been and what they didn't yet know they could be. Elphaba could stop carrying the world on her shoulders, and she could let go of the compulsion to always have an answer, always have a plan. This trip was their respite, their no-man's-land. A sacred place.
The last thing she expected was to be in this position: on her knees, tied up, hands behind her back, butt pointing at the ceiling of a college classroom decorated with Sailor Moon posters and slogans like "Empower yourself or shut up."
"Mmmphh!" Glinda moaned, her words completely muffled by the fuchsia-colored pacifier sticking out of her mouth like a personalized insult to her dignity.
"I don't want to sound dramatic," Elphaba said beside her, resignedly spitting a strand of hair out of her face as she shifted uncomfortably onto her bound knees. "But this may be the most absurd moment of my entire life... and that includes the time a drag queen mistook me for the director of the FBI."
"Mmmhffmh!" Glinda protested, furiously pointing her chin at her, her eyes glazed over. Her expression was that of someone who had just seen her social standing bleed dry in slow motion.
“Silence, system bitches!” exclaimed a voice dripping with false authority and cheap glitter.
The leader of the “FEM-OMEGA” sorority marched through the ranks of her fellow members like a prom queen with a Mean Girls villain complex. She wore dark glasses inside the building, a purple sequined crop top, and a pleated skirt that no sane mother would have approved of. In one hand, she held a pink phone with a unicorn case; with the other, she gestured as if giving a TED Talk on performative punishment and selective empowerment.
“This is going straight to our private Instagram, @LilithJustice69,” she announced while recording a close-up of Elphaba’s perky rear end. “Because no one makes fun of our sacred anthem… which, by the way, won a prize in the state feminist choir competition.”
“You were the one who laughed at the anthem!” Elphaba snorted, turning her head toward Glinda with difficulty. The pacifier wobbled in her mouth like a declaration of defeat.
"It was a mix between a mantra and a goat yoga vocalization!" Glinda protested, finally spitting out the pacifier. "I couldn't help it!"
"Girls, girls!" the leader chimed in, zooming in slowly on her phone. "Don't fight amongst yourselves... yet. First, you must pay for your disrespect to the sisterhood. Second, this will get you thousands of likes. Third, "soul!" she shouted, theatrically lifting a giant purple pillow with gold embroidered letters.
The room erupted in cheers. The sorority members raised their sacred pillows with improvised choreography while someone in the corner blasted feminist electro-pop music.
"Are you watching this...?" —Elphaba muttered as she received the first gentle smack on her bottom, painless but with the humiliation of a goat in a Halloween costume.
“Don’t talk to me now! I’m grieving for my dignity!” Glinda shrieked as she was rhythmically pummeled by a pillow that read “GIRL POWER” in Comic Sans.
“One, two, three! Make them regret being so… mainstream!” another sorority member shouted, slapping Elphaba’s bottom with comical fury.
Elphaba simply closed her eyes. All was lost. Her story would end up in a documentary about “Powerful Women Who Allowed Themselves to Be Humiliated for Ridiculous Reasons.” Maybe Netflix would want the rights.
The leader continued recording.
“This is emotional education and symbolic punishment, reparative narratives!” she said, looking at the camera as if she were the host of a reality show. “And this is our ‘consensual slapping’ section!”
Glinda, panting, her face completely red from laughter and embarrassment, turned to Elphaba.
"I hate you! I hate you for dragging me into this!"
"I just said let's go in for a beer! I didn't know lesbians here haz like in 'Legally Blonde, directed by Tarantino'!"
"Silence, glitter haters!" the leader shouted once more. "The punishment is over! May their butts stand as a testament to the power of performative sisterhood!
The ropes fell with a soft snip, freeing them from their shameful imprisonment. They barely had time to shake off the dignity in their hair before they were forcibly pulled to their feet by two girls dressed in cropped T-shirts that read "Brat Patrol" and "Daddy Issues, PhD." Glinda stumbled, her golden locks covering half her face, and Elphaba instinctively grabbed her arm.
"Are we... free?" Glinda whispered, her voice still trembling, like someone who had just survived a glitter-decorated medieval punishment.
"Not so fast, my little babies of aesthetic betrayal," the leader intoned, approaching with steps punctuated by neon-colored platform sandals.
The cell phone was still recording. Her smile stretched like a devilish cheerleader's, and her tone had now mutated into something sweeter... which made it even more disturbing.
"You still have the second part of your redemption to go: the liquid punishment," she announced, as if presenting dessert from a gourmet menu.
The girls on either side applauded excitedly as two sorority members emerged from the back of the room with something that shouldn't exist: two ridiculously colossal baby bottles, adorned with pink bows and unicorn-shaped straws. The contents were cloudy, greenish, and gave off a smell that hit like an existential slap.
"Pickle...juice?" Elphaba murmured, horrified.
"Kosher, honey. We respect minorities," one of the girls replied with a smile so white it hurt.
Glinda was already backing away in pure panic.
"No! No! Please! I'm vegan, I don't deserve this! Good Lord, if you're listening, stop this!"
"Hold them down!" the leader shouted. And several members jumped with choreographed energy.
Four hands grabbed Glinda by the arms, two others grabbed Elphaba. The unicorn-shaped straw slowly descended like a divine decree.
"No, no, no, no!" Glinda screamed, her eyes desperate, struggling as if her soul were at stake.
And then... Elphaba screamed,
"WAIT!"
A sudden silence. Even the music player seemed to falter.
The girls froze, the bottle hovering inches from Glinda's lips.
"What's wrong?" the leader said, squinting behind her heart-shaped glasses.
Elphaba took a breath, her mind racing. She looked around, testing the hidden language of this absurd sorority: a mix of performance art, symbolic power, and a great, great need for aesthetic validation.
And then, with a theatricality that would have shamed Glinda herself in her golden years, she spoke:
"They can't make us drink that... yet!" But not before hearing our song of redemption. Because, like any sororal sisterhood worthy of the name, we know that every mistake must be followed by... liberating artistic expression.
There were murmurs among the girls.
"A what...?" one asked.
"Like a poetry slam...?" ventured another, chewing gum.
Elphaba nodded solemnly, with an authority as convincing as it was improvised.
"Of course. An ancient chant. From our ancestors. From our... queer aunts disinherited for wearing low-rise jeans. It's a tradition. Very little known. But powerful."
The leader raised an eyebrow. She crossed her arms. Then she smiled.
"Okay..." she said slowly, raising her still-recording phone. "But if you don't make me laugh... I'll shove the baby bottles right into your souls!"
Elphaba swallowed. She looked at Glinda, who was looking at her as if she'd just proposed choreographing a summoning of Satan. But Elphaba just smiled. And sang.
Or at least... something close to it.
"It's not our fault, it was the cold beer..." she intoned, making a ridiculous hip movement.
"It was the confusing anthem and the very pink light..." Glinda continued, somehow, but getting into the rhythm.
"We didn't know the rules, we dressed up..." Elphaba twirled around.
"And now we pay like girls at sleepovers..." Glinda finished, in a high-pitched voice with a final bow as ridiculous as it was adorable.
A silence.
And then... an explosion of laughter.
The leader staggered backward with laughter. One of the girls fell to the floor, giggling. Her cell phone shook from the lack of a pulse. Elphaba felt her knees stop floating in panic, and for the first time in half an hour, she thought maybe she wouldn't die from a soaking in pickle juice.
"Okay, you guys... you're completely broken," the leader said, wiping tears of laughter from under her glasses. I love them. Official release!
"Really...?" Glinda stammered, still traumatized.
"Really! Let the partyyyyy begin!" the leader shouted, raising her cell phone like a magic wand.
And then the lights dimmed, feminist reggaeton turned on, baby bottles were replaced by red cups of peach vodka, and the sorority of queer college girls went from symbolic punishment to alcoholic catharsis as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
Elphaba, panting, raised her glass to Glinda.
"Do we promise never, ever to tell anyone about this?"
Glinda took a sip, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and replied,
"Only if you swear you'll teach me that choreography when we're sober."
And with that, the two of them hit the makeshift dance floor, surrounded by girls dancing on furniture, biodegradable confetti floating in the air, and the absurd—but real—feeling that even the most outrageous ridicule can be an act of healing.
The party exploded as if someone had lit a sparkler inside a blender filled with glitter, alcohol, and repressed bisexuality. The barn, until a few minutes earlier the scene of one of the most ridiculous punishments Glinda and Elphaba had ever suffered, was now a carnival of neon lights, thrown mattresses, moving bodies, and laughter that was lost amid the music and the smoke from a machine that was clearly not allowed for indoor use.
The sorority girls scattered like swarms, dancing on tables, shooting foam from a fire extinguisher turned into a whipped cream gun, and embracing each other in a heady mix of affection and chaos. In one corner, someone began reading erotic poetry in a soap opera voice, while another offered shots lined up on a hula hoop.
Glinda, wearing a flower crown (placed by someone claiming to be "the priestess of feminine chaos"), danced with her eyes closed, twirling with the enchanting grace of a Disney princess in the midst of a millennial meltdown. Beside her, Elphaba wasn't exactly dancing... she was moving. Her mouth was pressed into a half-smile, her body rigid as if resisting, but her eyes shone. Glinda dragged her along, took her hands, and she pretended to resist until, without realizing it, she was moving with her, caught in the rhythm, in the laughter, in that unique way Glinda looked at her as if she'd invented her.
At one point, they ended up cuddled on a pile of giant fruit-shaped pillows, sharing a sip of something that tasted like radioactive bubblegum and tequila. The music lowered for a moment, and they sat in silence, enveloped in the electric hum of the party, looking at each other. Glinda caressed Elphaba's cheek with soft fingers and a trembling smile.
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She just looked at her. And then she leaned in to kiss her.
It wasn't a passionate kiss from a movie, nor a comical one like the ones they'd shared earlier that night. It was a slow, calm one. As if they were clinging to something true in the midst of the delirium. As if they remembered that, beyond the absurdity, they were there for a reason.
The night continued between pillows and laughter, between absurd games and whispered confidences. Glinda ended by making a toast from the barn roof, proclaiming Elphaba to be “her witch, her crusade, her pacifier gag.” Elphaba tried to hide her humiliation, but she was laughing too hard to do so.
The air smelled of damp grass, pink sparkler smoke, and something even harder to name: the collective hangover of sin. In the distance, the first rays of the sun caressed the silhouette of the old barn turned sanctuary of debauchery, its splintered wood adorned with rainbow flags, strings of extinguished lights, and the still-lingering echo of a throbbing bass. In the tall grass, among empty bottles, bras hanging from posts, and heels forgotten like the remnants of a war without victims, lay Glinda and Elphaba. Or rather: lay Elphaba, because Glinda was already awakening.
The blonde moaned as if emerging from a charming nightmare. Her makeup was smeared like watercolor under her eyes, her lips were chapped, and her blouse was wrinkled in a way that told more than one story. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was, and then another to remember who she was with. When she turned and saw Elphaba beside her, face down in a leather jacket that wasn't hers, she let out a harsh chuckle.
"Oh, honey," she murmured, gently shaking her shoulder. "Wake up. Come on. This isn't a living museum of wild lesbians. We've had our share of queer history for one night."
Elphaba let out a growl, neither human nor witch, a guttural sound that could be interpreted as "Five more minutes" if one had an active enough imagination. Her hair, always impeccably messy and stylish, was now an apocalyptic nest of tangled curls. A sticker of a pill with a smiley face decorated her left shoulder blade, and her pants were inexplicably on backward.
"Elphie, I'm telling you this with all the love in the world." Glinda dragged a shaky leg to her feet. "Either we leave now, or we're going to have to stay and help clean up, and frankly... I don't have the moral strength to wash other people's toys."
Elphaba didn't respond. Glinda looked around: two girls were sleeping, each other's arms around a beer table, another was hanging from a makeshift hammock made from what looked like a Texas state flag, and a faint red light was still coming from the barn, with sounds best left uninvestigated.
She turned back to Elphaba.
"I'm going to tell you what you did last night if you don't get up."—pause—"No! I'm going to tell Tibbett, and then you'll be in trouble, young lady. With all the adjectives. Do you want to?"
That did the trick. Elphaba jerked her head up, her eyes glassy and her soul absent.
"T... Tibbett?"
"Yes, and it's not an empty threat. I can handle it."
Elphaba muttered a curse in a dialect that was probably extinct by now and tried to sit up. Her legs buckled. Glinda held her under her arm like a war heroine rescuing her witch wife.
"Come on, you degenerate witch, before the Amazons wake up and offer us a ritual breakfast or something," Glinda said as they started walking toward the car, weaving through the sleeping bodies.
“Were there…?” Elphaba blinked. “Were there… flames last night?”
“Yes. And an impromptu Greco-Roman wrestling match in an inflatable pool. You also made a toast quoting Audre Lorde and then kissed a girl wearing a T-shirt that said “I am your karma.”
“Oh… gods.”
“Don’t worry. You were brilliant. And then you threw up in a unicorn-shaped flowerpot.”
“Oh. Gods.”
“Yes, but I still love you. Now hurry before I pass out from hunger.”
By the time they reached the car, Elphaba was shuffling her feet as if they weighed tons of liquid shame, her body barely held together by the residual will of a night that had made history—a history that, hopefully, no one documented. The morning breeze stirred her hair as if trying to clear her mind, but all it succeeded in doing was stirring her discomfort.
"I'm driving..." she muttered, staggering to the driver's side.
Glinda turned her head with a snort.
"Really?" She crossed her arms. "Are you going to drive in this state? You can't even focus on your own shoes."
Elphaba gave her a crooked smile that combined guilt, pride, and nausea. She leaned against the roof of the car and then slumped back in the seat, still determined. But she didn't even touch the steering wheel. Glinda was already at her side, opening the door.
"Stop it, you stubborn witch. I'll shove you if I have to."
"It's my car..." she protested weakly, her eyes half-closed. "My steering wheel..."
"Your steering wheel's going to be no use if we end up crashing into a corn silo."
More firmly than gently, Glinda slid her into the passenger seat. Elphaba offered no real resistance. As her body slumped like a puppet without strings onto the seatback, she let out an existential snort that seemed to come from the very roots of her soul. Glinda, with a patient and focused gesture, fastened her seatbelt with careful hands, as if tying a promise.
"You're secure. I don't care if you faint or see unicorns again. You're not falling out of this car," she murmured.
"Unicorns?" Elphaba whispered in a raspy voice. "Were there...? Was there again?"
"No. But from the way you smell, I wouldn't be surprised if you've seen the end of the rainbow."
Elphaba laughed, and then that laughter transformed into something more fragile. A laugh that trembled and cracked, until her eyes watered. Glinda watched her hold it in as she bit the edge of her sleeve.
"I'm... fine," Elphaba said in a tone that convinced no one. Just... it was an intense night. I think I kissed... a drag queen who read my aura and told me I was the reincarnation of Sylvia Plath.
"Sounds pretty accurate, actually," Glinda replied with a smile, gently brushing a strand of hair from her forehead.
Then she walked around to the other side of the car, sat behind the wheel, and closed the door with a sigh that seemed to summon all the road gods and divine patience she would ever need. She started the engine. The car's trembling roar sounded more sober than they did.
"This is a bad idea..." she muttered as she placed her hands on the wheel. "I hate driving on the highway. I hate driving a car that feels like a mechanical creature that hates human logic. I hate driving with you unconscious beside me, probably minutes away from throwing up."
"I love you..." Elphaba whispered in a sleepy delirium.
"I know," Glinda replied, without looking at her, with a tired smile. "But if you throw up on the seat, it's over."
She pressed the accelerator. The wheels spun through the dry morning dust. The barn was left behind like a wild, blurry queer dream, an explosion of colors dissolving in the rearview mirror as the road opened up like a line of destiny they didn't yet know was leading them... back to the past.
Elphaba, her head leaning against the glass, murmured disjointed fragments. Sometimes a song, sometimes a stray thought. And in between, words Glinda couldn't or wouldn't quite decipher. There was something in her voice that seemed to portend a storm.
Every mile she advanced was a new leap of faith. Glinda gripped the wheel as if she could suck some of the steering out of the cracked plastic itself. The road stretched like an endless ribbon between golden fields and a dull steel sky, and although the hangover was mild compared to the catastrophe that was Elphaba at the moment, the constant pounding in her temples did nothing to calm the nervousness that grew with each impromptu detour.
There were no clear signs, no GPS—because according to Elphaba, "technological dependence is a form of modern slavery"—much less a map. The blonde simply drove forward as if fleeing the past wasn't, eventually, a way to bump into it head-on. At some point, she had decided not to stop and trust that civilization would appear on its own. So far, that faith remained unrewarded.
Elphaba, beside her, emitted murmurs disconnected from the physical plane. Sometimes she'd say things like, "Dolphins know secrets we forget," or "Grapes have unfinished business." Other times she'd giggle and curl up against the seatbelt as if it were a blanket of universal affection.
"You could help me a little, you know?" Glinda said to the bundle of Elphaba dozing in the passenger seat, her head resting on the glass, one leg lightly propped up on the dashboard, completely surrendered to the universe. "Tell me if you see a sign... a gas station... a divine sign..."
Elphaba muttered something unintelligible. Something like "Velvet dragonfly" or "Glinda, don't touch my salad."
"Perfect. My copilot is a post-drunk poet. Phenomenal."
Glinda took a deep breath and looked again at the horizon. The sky was clear, but the ground seemed to melt in the distance with the ripples of the heat. Not a soul in sight. Not a Wi-Fi signal. I had no idea what I was doing.
And then, suddenly:
"Cow..." Elphaba whispered, barely opening one eye, like a medium connected to the afterlife.
Glinda frowned and looked at her out of the corner of her eye.
"What did you say?"
"A big... cow... coming..."
Glinda gave a wry chuckle.
"Yeah, right. And I'm sure there's a pink dragon and a salsa-dancing unicorn, too." She looked straight ahead. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
A cow. Literally. In the middle of the road."
"Oh, by Frank Oz!" Glinda exclaimed, sharply turning the steering wheel.
The wheels squealed on the dirt as the cow stared at her with utter, Zen-like disinterest. Glinda missed the animal by inches, her heart in her throat... just as another cow emerged from the cornfield.
"REALLY?!" —Glinda shouted, maneuvering like a rural action movie heroine. —WHY ARE THERE COWS IN THE ROAD?
Three, five, eight cows. As if they'd summoned a chaotic choreography. Glinda dodged them one after another, like in a poorly optimized farming video game.
—What is this?! A bovine religious procession?! —Glinda shouted as she dodged a particularly disoriented calf. —Who leaves all these cows loose in the middle of nowhere?!
Elphaba settled back, half awake.
—They're... on their ancestral land... don't disturb the spirit cows... —she stammered, closing her eyes again.
—I'm going to run over their spirituality in five seconds if you don't hurry!
Finally, after a vehicular dance of brakes, swerves, and screams that would never be remembered with pride, Glinda managed to cross the last edge of the herd.
And when the last moo faded into the dust of the road and the herd dispersed like a bovine cloud in the wind, Glinda let out a nervous laugh that rose in pitch until it transformed into a triumphant chant. Her blond hair glistened with the sweat of exertion and pride that swelled in her chest like a violently raised flag. She had survived a cow ambush on the road, with a simmering hangover and a semi-comatose girlfriend by her side. If that didn't make her a desert hero, nothing would.
"Did you see that, world?!" she shouted, raising a fist. "You can throw cattle, storms, cosmic disorientation, and vengeful ex-girlfriends at me, but I'm going to win you over just the same!"
She slammed the accelerator hard, leaving a cloud of dirt in her wake as the car sped forward like a drunken stallion in a budget Western. Elphaba, still in her dreamlike limbo, let out a snore that sounded dangerously like "You missed the signal," but Glinda ignored it.
The road opened up before her, and although she had no idea where it was leading, for the first time in hours she didn't care. She was in charge. She was free. And the adrenaline was winning over the headache.
Until...
"What's that noise?" she murmured, turning down the volume on the makeshift radio (a pop song remixed with real crickets flying through the window).
A siren. Red. Blue. Reflected in the rearview mirror like a message from karma.
"No... no, no, no, no, noooo," she said, gently tapping the steering wheel.
The patrol car followed, blinking, patient as a southern shark. Glinda slowed down, looked for the side of the road, and stopped with the dramatic panache of a diva in her final act. The car squealed one last complaint before coming to a standstill in front of a weathered wooden sign.
Glinda read it with a raised eyebrow, still not grasping the magnitude of the geographical and emotional accident she'd just fallen into. Beside her, Elphaba was still asleep, her mouth half-open, a trickle of drool threatening to betray her dignity.
"Perfect. Wonderful. A fine, killer cows, and now... a deleted scene from a medieval version of Thelma & Louise," she murmured, adjusting her neckline and rummaging through her handkerchiefs to look less drunk, more "caught in the act."
The patrol car stopped behind them. The car door opened. Footsteps approached.
Glinda closed her eyes for a second and clasped her hands as if invoking all the deities in the eternal pantheon.
"Please, let him be young. Let him be straight or at least bi. Let him have a fetish for unkempt girls. And for heaven's sake... let him like blondes."
Elphaba snorted from her seat. Glinda ignored it. She smiled like a rodeo queen with emotional botox. The game had just begun.
The officer strode up to the car window with a firm stride, wearing dark glasses, a neat uniform, and a neutral expression so meticulously sculpted it could have been carved from wood. Glinda rolled down the window with a pageant smile, perfectly aligned teeth, and a radiant energy that tried—unsuccessfully—to hide the cold sweat of her hangover.
"Good morning, officer! How are you? What a lovely day, huh?" A little warm, but the sun looks so good on your complexion…' she said in a single breath as she handed her papers to him with carefully rehearsed choreography.
The officer took the papers and began to review them without haste.
'Did you know you were speeding, Miss... Upland?'
'Yes? I mean, no. Or... maybe. You see, Officer, it's a very complex story,' she said, raising a finger as if she were about to give a lecture. 'It all started with some cows. A lot of cows. Violent cows, I'd say. It was like a biblical scene. There was mooing. Panic. Then, well, I was forced to take the wheel because my partner'—she gestured subtly to Elphaba—'is in a... vulnerable state. Not because of drugs, of course, never. Just... a very intense social event last night, let's say. Have you ever been to a barn party, Officer? It's quite a spiritual experience.'
The officer watched her silently. Glinda's smile redoubled.
"And she always wears her hair like that? I love it. It's like something out of a retro crime movie, but with a modern sensibility. Very True Detective with facial moisturizer."
As Glinda's incessant rhetoric floated through the air like verbal confetti, Elphaba, sprawled across the passenger seat with her head lolling to the side, began to make faint sounds of life: a high-pitched grunt, a stifled sigh, and a murmur that sounded vaguely like "no more tequila named after flowers." She stirred barely, her forehead beaded with sweat, her eyelids glued shut with a hangover.
Then she opened her eyes.
The sky blinded her for a second. Spots danced across her vision, and her mouth tasted bitter with regret and hot sauce.
"Where... what... what time is it...?" she managed to rasp out, bringing a trembling hand to her forehead.
That's when she turned her head toward the opposite window and saw it.
The sign.
"Welcome to Rush Margins — Gillikin Estate — Founded in 1872 — Land of Tradition, Order, and Faith."
Elphaba's heart stopped for a second. She blinked. She blinked again. She tilted her head. No. It couldn't be. It shouldn't be. But the sign was still there, like a sentence.
Suddenly, the hangover wasn't her biggest problem anymore. She bolted upright with a groan, her breathing quickened, and the cold sweat covering her back turned to emotional ice.
"No..." she whispered, looking around as if the landscape itself were playing a macabre joke on her. "No. No. It can't be..."
Her face paled beyond green. Panic rose in her throat in a thick wave.
"Rush Margins?" she said aloud, as if the act of saying it would dispel the nightmare. "Glinda!"
Glinda, who was still explaining the name of her favorite shampoo and how difficult it was to handle under female emotional pressure, turned around at the sound of her name.
"Yes, darling?"
"Where are we?"
"What?"
"WHERE ARE WE?"
Glinda looked at the sign, then at Elphaba, then at the officer who was looking at her with an "is everything all right in your world?" expression. She smiled with a mixture of guilt and confusion.
"Rush... something... Margins?" she replied timidly.
"We have to go, Glinda, now! NOW!" Elphaba screamed with a mixture of urgency and horror, as if she were seeing the Grim Reaper appear in the rearview mirror with a Bible in one hand and a leather strap in the other.
"Elphie, stop it! You're delusional!" Glinda smiled through gritted teeth, as if enough teeth whitening could avoid arrest. "Officer, it's okay! Just a little... morning emotional breakdown, don't you sometimes?"
The officer didn't respond. His jaw tightened as if he'd just smelled foul play.
"Have you consumed any illegal substances, miss?" he asked, while Elphaba shouted something about "corn cults and armed nuns."
"Of course not! Never! Just perfectly legal alcohol in a consensual lesbian college setting!" Glinda replied, which didn't help at all.
"Miss, I need your companion to calm down immediately," the officer said, taking a step toward Elphaba's door, who was still muttering "Rush Margins, Rush Margins, Rush Margins" as if casting an arcane curse.
Glinda, desperate to avoid being handcuffed in front of the most humiliating sign in the country, looked at her partner pleadingly.
"Elphie, please, I'm asking you as your girlfriend and the only person in this world who knows where your toothbrush is: calm down!"
But Elphaba was beyond human language. Her blank stare and labored breathing were the manifestation of a trauma so dense it could have been used as a renewable energy resource.
The officer had already reached for his uniform radio.
"I'm going to have to call for backup if this keeps up."
And it was at that instant, that fatal second of pure domestic chaos, that Glinda—trying to maneuver with the clumsiness of a rally newcomer—hit the brakes, released reverse gear... and in an unfortunate twist of fate, the rear wheel ran right over the officer's left foot.
The scream was immediate.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH, MY FOOT!"
Elphaba and Glinda froze instantly. The former, her eyes wide as if she'd just witnessed a murder. The latter still had her hand on the gearshift, in a state of absolute denial.
The officer let out a low, guttural groan that slowly mutated into a scream.
Glinda turned to him, her expression unearthly.
"Is he okay?" she asked in the thinnest, squeakiest voice of her life.
Elphaba murmured, her eyes wide, "Did you... kill him?"
"No, no! She's still screaming! That's a good sign!" Glinda replied, white as a sheet of paper, her hands over her mouth.
The officer was screaming while trying to pull out his radio with one hand and hold his foot with the other.
Suddenly, everything happened in a flash, a succession of fast-moving frames like a bad dream told in fast motion: Glinda's fingers leaving a black print on gray paper; Elphaba emptying her pockets with trembling hands, dropping a pen, two coins, a crumpled ticket from the roadside museum; the sharp click of the shutter of an old police camera as they took a picture neither of them ever wanted to see again. Then, the squeak of the padlock. The gate closed behind them with a thud that resounded in their chests like a final judgment.
"I can't believe this!" "Glinda stammered, twirling around in the tiny cell, which smelled of cheap disinfectant, pent-up fear, and mint gum. 'I'm in prison! This is a real cell! There are bars! There's dried urine! THERE'S A YOUNG MAN WITH ACNE!'
"Shouldn't you be in class?" Elphaba murmured to the teenager sitting on the cement bench, drawing her name and the name of someone named 'Tristan' on the wall with his fingernail.
The boy looked at them, nodded solemnly, and went back to his cement vandalism.
Glinda plopped down on the opposite side of the cell as if she'd been launched from an emotional catapult.
"I'm not cut out for this," she said, staring up at the ceiling, one hand on her heart. "Girls like me don't survive in prison! I don't even have lip balm! I have no allies!"
"You have a girlfriend who shares a cell with you," Elphaba retorted, knees drawn up and elbows resting on them, rocking slightly back and forth.
"A girlfriend who's having a mental breakdown and keeps shaking like an overfilled kettle!" Glinda exploded, turning to her. "Want to explain to me what the hell has been going on with you since we saw that poster? What's wrong with this place, huh? Did a vengeful cow attack you? A nun bite you? What?"
Elphaba swallowed. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but her voice cracked before it came out. She closed it again. She tried again. Nothing. Her gaze was a storm of unspoken emotions. The words were building up in her throat, beating toward the exit without finding a way out.
And then, just when it seemed she was finally going to confess everything, a burst of laughter was heard on the other side of the door.
A loud, grotesque laugh, redolent of midday beer and stale rolls.
"Shit, look at this!" came from the counter where the officers were searching the belongings. One of them, a man with a generous belly, a patchy beard, and teeth more yellow than white, held up Elphaba's open wallet.
"What's wrong?" asked his companion, approaching curiously.
The first one wiped away tears of laughter with the back of his hand.
"This little girl is a Thropp!"
Elphaba stiffened as a statue.
Glinda, her eyes still wide with previous indignation, slowly shifted them to her girlfriend.
The officer laughed again.
"The Thropps! Remember, Hank? Reverend Thropp, the one who talked about the green plague and said feminists were instruments of the devil. The one who gave his sermon with shouts and threats!"
"Nah!" Hank said, also laughing now. "Is this girl old man Thropp's daughter?"
"Look at the ID! The full name is here. 'Elphaba L. Thropp.' The prodigal daughter came home!"
Laughter spread like a sickness in the small administrative room.
In the cell, Elphaba had shrunk as if her own skin weighed too much. Her fists were clenched and her lips sealed with silent rage. Beside her, Glinda blinked as if she were trying to translate everything into real time.
When the officers' laughter finally died away like an off-key song, Glinda understood everything.
The sign. The panic. Elphaba's silent fury. The glances she avoided. The silence like a wall. They were there. In that damned town she'd only heard mentioned in broken whispers, on the nights when Elphaba let memories overtake her. Rush Margins. The cesspool of the map. The epicenter of the wound.
And the worst part… the worst part of all was what that implied.
Family.
Glinda swallowed, looked at her girlfriend, who was sitting in a corner of the cell as if she wanted to merge with the walls. Her legs together, her hands in her jacket pockets as if the touch of her own fingers kept her whole. She wasn't looking at her. She wasn't looking at anyone. As if looking were a betrayal.
Without missing a beat, Glinda turned to the bars.
"Officer!" she called, her voice firm, but high-pitched with anxiety. "I have money. Seriously! I have a joint account, I have cards, I even have cryptocurrency on my phone! We can pay for anything. Just tell me how much."
The officers exchanged a glance and a half-smile, the kind that knew they weren't in a hurry.
"That sounds very good, miss," one of them replied, wiping the corner of his mouth with a greasy napkin. "But it doesn't work that way. You need someone else to come get you and post the bail. You can't do it yourselves."
Glinda lowered her arms, turned slowly as if a weight had fallen on her shoulders. She whispered, in a thready voice,
"We're screwed."
"Yes," Elphaba confirmed, without looking up.
"We don't know anyone. No one we trust, at least. No one who's close. No one who..."
"I know someone."
Elphaba's voice was a knife, dry, cutting, unadorned. She stood up slowly, as if she had difficulty moving. As if every part of her body was being pulled back, down, toward memories she didn't want to touch again.
Glinda looked at her in surprise.
"Who?"
But Elphaba was already walking toward the gate. An officer led her out of the cell, down the hallway lit by flickering neon lights, to a small booth with a landline phone.
She sat down.
She looked at the phone. She dialed slowly. She waited.
One ring. Another.
A third.
And then… a voice.
"Hello?" a woman answered pleasantly, though with a husky voice that spoke of years of cigarettes or screaming while putting out house fires.
Elphaba closed her eyes.
"It's me," she said simply.
There was a second of silence on the other end of the line. And then, a burst of words:
"For heaven's sake, Elphie! Where are you? Are you okay? Who…?"
"I'm fine. So-so," Elphaba interrupted, her voice weary. "I'm… at the Rush Margins North station. I don't have anyone else to call."
A deep sigh from the other side. A silence that didn't hurt, but rather felt like an old blanket pulled from the closet, still warm with memory.
"Give me ten minutes," the voice said. Warm. Firm. Like a promise kept many times before.
Elphaba hung up. She didn't cry. But she breathed as if she'd been holding her breath ever since they'd seen that cursed poster.
When she returned to the cell, Glinda approached her.
"Who was that?"
"Dulcibear," Elphaba replied, slumping back onto the bench. "My nanny. My..." she paused, as if the word didn't know where to start. "...only real family, I suppose."
"Dulcibear?"
"Her name is Dulcina Beatrice Margaret, but when I was little, I couldn't pronounce it. So that left Dulcibear."
Glinda sat down beside her.
"Is she coming for us?"
Elphaba nodded.
"She always comes."
Just fifteen minutes later, the metal cell doors opened with a creak that seemed almost ceremonial to Glinda. Elphaba stood up without a word, silently gathered her things, and followed her out, her shoulders hunched as if afraid someone else would recognize them.
In the police station reception area, under the harsh white light of the fluorescent tubes, a figure was waiting for them who seemed strangely out of place: Dulcibear. His round silhouette, dark complexion, wrapped in a lilac jacket faded with age but neatly clean and ironed, stood like a maternal statue in front of the counter. His eyes shone even before he saw them.
"Elphie!"
Elphaba stood rooted to the spot for a second, as if the sound of that childhood nickname had taken the breath away. Her lips moved slightly, but only emitted an almost inaudible sound:
"Hello, Dulcibear..."
And then, before she could fully compose herself, Dulcibear hugged her. Tightly. Both arms wrapped around her as if time hadn't passed, as if the loneliness of the past few years didn't exist, as if no distance—neither geographical nor emotional—could obscure the fact that this was still his little girl.
"Look at you, gods! You're as thin as ever! And taller, apparently... and those eyes are still just as bright, even though today I'm bringing you dull ones, eh?"
Elphaba chuckled, nervous, uncomfortable, but also a little happy. Dulcibear was a piece of her history that she hadn't had to destroy to survive.
"I'm fine, Dulcibear. Honestly."
"Yes, yes," the woman said, gesturing as if she didn't believe anything. "Of course you're fine. They drag you out of a police station in handcuffs, and you have the face of a wet cat. You look wonderful!"
Then Glinda cleared her throat slightly, still somewhat confused by the tenderness of the moment.
"Sorry," she said. "I'm Glinda. Elphaba's... Elphaba's companion."
Dulcibear turned, and when he saw Glinda, his face lit up in a completely different way. Not just with sympathy, but with that special glow of someone who is genuinely happy to know their little girl isn't alone.
"Dulcibear!" he introduced himself, opening his arms for a warm squeeze. "Even though Elphaba used to call me 'Dulce-Pear' when I was little, don't ask why. It's a pleasure to meet you, dear. Really."
Glinda, relieved, allowed herself to be hugged, though her eyes soon returned to Elphaba, who was already taking a step toward the door.
"Well... thank you for coming, Dulcibear. But we must be going. Really. That's enough Margins for one day."
The disappointment on Dulcibear's face was immediate, but it barely lasted a blink. She was a woman accustomed to concealing sadness on behalf of others.
"Of course, of course... I won't stop you, Elphie. I know this place isn't easy for you. I know that."
But Glinda wouldn't allow it.
"Can't we stay just a little while longer?" she asked Elphaba, gently taking her arm. "I'm not saying stay all day... just... I don't know. Tea. A chat. Does that seem so terrible to you?"
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She looked toward the street, toward the parked car, toward the distant hills that seemed more familiar than she cared to admit. She looked pale, even beneath her green skin, as if fighting this place took years off her life.
"I want to leave, Glinda. I don't want to be here."
Dulcibear, who until that moment had respected the exchange without interrupting, took a step forward. Her voice, though soft, held a sweet and inescapable firmness:
"Not for your father, Elphie. I understand. But... what about your sister?"
Elphaba froze.
Glinda felt the tension, saw her partner's jaw clench.
"No, Dulcibear. I can't."
"You don't have to forgive anything today," the woman replied, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Just seeing her. Because I know... I know she's still waiting for you."
The silence that followed was thick, dense like clouds before a storm. Glinda looked at Elphaba, wishing she could decide for her, wanting to know whether to push her away or protect her. But she said nothing. It was Elphaba who had to decide.
Finally, Elphaba lowered her head and took a deep breath.
"Just for a while."
Dulcibear smiled, his eyes moist.
"Just for a while," he repeated.
And together, the three of them left the police station, their scars still raw, but their steps a little less lonely.
The car moved slowly through the uneven streets of Rush Margins, as if each curve were a scar that Elphaba recognized with her bones before her eyes. She was at the wheel, her knuckles white from gripping, as if the only way to stay in control was to hold on with brutal force. She said nothing. There was no need to. The silence was as eloquent as the murmurs of neighbors peering from rickety porches, as if the mere presence of the vehicle stirred echoes.
Dulcibear was in the passenger seat, holding a thermos that rattled with every bump. He spoke constantly to Glinda, in a low but warm voice, with that practical sweetness only possessed by women who have raised other people's children with a mother's love. Glinda nodded, smiled, and responded kindly. But every now and then she glanced at Elphaba, worried by her silence. She knew this wasn't the silence of tranquility. It was the silence of resistance.
Turning down a side street, they passed a white chapel, one of those wooden ones, with a bellless belfry and steps eroded by time. Elphaba stared a second longer than necessary. The windows were boarded up. The door was studded with rusty nails in the shape of a cross. And on the side wall, someone had written in black paint: "Xenophobe. Fascist. Guilty. False prophet."
She didn't need to read it. She knew it. She knew it would be there.
"The chapel?" she asked quietly.
Dulcibear lowered his head slightly. His tone deepened, almost maternal.
"It closed a few months ago. After what happened with the Lurch brothers and the market. There were a couple of bad nights. Broken glass, screams... Your father hasn't preached since. He says he no longer has a flock. But that doesn't mean he's stopped believing."
Elphaba took a deep breath, tightened her grip on the wheel. Glinda noticed she said nothing. Not a word. The pain was in the details: in the way she blinked slowly, in how her back stiffened with each curve. The chapel was dead, yes. But the ruins, as always, still stood.
Ten minutes later, they arrived at the house.
The house.
Glinda had imagined it so many times that she already had her own version: a dusty little cottage, perhaps modest, even endearing in its neglect. But the reality was different. A large, two-story structure, covered in a layer of white paint that crumbled like eggshells in the sun. The windows had old curtains, and empty wooden chairs stood on the porch, all facing the street like tired-eyed retirees.
Elphaba stopped the engine. But she didn't get out.
Dulcibear noticed and said nothing at first. He just turned his face, placed a loving hand on her forearm, and gave her a small smile, the kind you hold without pushing.
"They're waiting for you, even if they don't say so. They're inside. They already know you're coming. I spoke to them."
Elphaba nodded slightly, but still didn't move.
Dulcibear opened the door and got out. With a firm but calm step, he moved toward the entrance. Glinda and Elphaba remained inside the car. Elphaba was breathing as if the air had nails in it.
Glinda, not knowing whether to speak, finally moved a little closer.
"Do you want me to go in first? Or..."
Elphaba shook her head, though she was still staring straight ahead.
"No. We're going together."
Then, as Glinda reached for the door handle, Elphaba turned and stopped her with a gesture.
"But Glinda," she said softly, almost pleading, "if you don't want my father to hate you from the first second... don't tell him we're a couple. Not yet."
Glinda stared at her. With a mixture of surprise, discomfort... and something deeper. It wasn't anger. It wasn't pain. It was a pang in the chest of someone who knows they love someone with scars that can't always fit with their own.
"Are you sure?" she asked, no judgment in her voice. Just a question.
Elphaba nodded.
"It's not out of shame," she clarified, her throat tightening. "It's strategy. This house... this town... everything here is a minefield. I have to tread carefully."
Glinda breathed, closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them, she smiled.
"Okay," she said. "I'll introduce myself as your... uh... philosophical travel companion."
"Is that a fancy way of saying 'forbidden lover'?" Elphaba murmured, with a broken spark of humor.
"Exactly," Glinda replied. "Pure discretion."
And then they both got out of the car.
Dulcibear was waiting for them at the door, his arms crossed over his chest and a half-smile that seemed to anticipate more than he was saying. From inside the house, an old radio and someone's footsteps could be heard upstairs. The door was open.
So was the past.
Elphaba stopped a step from the threshold, her breathing becoming erratic and her shoulders tense. The past had a physical weight, and she felt it pressing against her back like an invisible hand. Glinda, standing beside her, felt the trembling in her clasped hand and squeezed it gently. It was her way of saying: I'm with you. Until the end. Elphaba nodded slightly, swallowed a dry lump, and together they walked through the door.
The house was large, larger than Glinda imagined. It had high ceilings, dark furniture, creaking wood under every footstep, and that coldness that comes not from the weather but from a lack of affection. Elphaba took a deep breath. The air smelled of old incense and wood infatuated with silence. Glinda noticed it immediately: it was decorated with religious images, sepia-toned portraits, crucifixes, phrases carved into bronze plaques, and above all... lots of photos. Smiling children. Weddings. Dusty country landscapes. Formal studio portraits in ornate frames. But none of Elphaba. None.
Glinda glanced at her partner, who scanned those walls as if confirming once again that the omission had been intentional.
The two stood in the middle of the hall, together, their hands still intertwined like two girls at a new school. Dulcibear had disappeared toward the back of the house with a "Wait here, I'll come get you." The echo of her footsteps in the hallway was the only sound. Until it wasn't.
From the back, the scrape of wheels on the polished floor was heard first. And then, a voice.
"Dulci? Where...?"
But she stopped, interrupted by something she could only have seen.
Elphaba let go of Glinda's hand by reflex. It was instantaneous, as if a shock had run through her. She straightened her back, her gaze steady. Around the corner, turning slowly, was Nessarose.
Her dark hair was styled in soft, defined curls, framing her face with a care that revealed discipline and pride. She wore a beige dress with simple lines, unadorned except for a wooden cross hanging from her chest. Her tanned skin glowed in the dim light. The wheelchair moved forward with confidence, as if it knew every crevice of that floor. She didn't look much younger than Elphaba, but the difference was in her eyes.
Nessarose stopped when she saw her.
And in that instant, the years were erased.
Elphaba, who had trained every muscle in self-control, felt the burning in her eyes before she could stop it. She had imagined this moment so many times: with anger, with indifference, with fear. But nothing had prepared her for what she actually felt: a surge of raw emotion, a tide impossible to name. Her sister. Her sister was alive, in front of her. And she was looking at her with eyes filled with something that wasn't judgment. It was emotion.
Nessa was the first to speak.
"Elphie..."
Elphaba stilled, her lips parted.
"Nessa."
"I thought you were never coming back."
Nessa's voice was soft, undramatic, but it trembled as if she were holding back too much. And then, without another word, Elphaba took a step. And another. And crouched down to the level of the chair, in front of her.
"I thought so too."
Nessa stretched out her arms, and Elphaba let her embrace her.
It wasn't a perfect hug. It wasn't a comfortable hug. It was awkward, nervous, like two people who still haven't forgiven each other but don't want to stop loving each other. But it was real. And in that gap of silence, Glinda felt she was witnessing something deeply intimate. She lowered her gaze respectfully, stepping back a little.
"Are you okay?" Elphaba whispered.
"I'm... alive. And you?"
Elphaba chuckled, her voice rasping with the weight of the past.
"Too much for some people's liking."
They both smiled. It was a crack in the wall. A gap.
"Dad's in the back," Nessa said later. "He heard the car. But he didn't want to come yet. You know how he is."
"Yes," Elphaba replied, her eyes dark. "I know exactly what he's like."
Nessa lowered her gaze slightly, but didn't insist. Instead, she rested her gaze on Glinda, who was still waiting with a shy smile at the side of the hall.
"And her?" Nessa asked, with genuine curiosity.
Elphaba hesitated for a second. Glinda felt the air tighten in her chest.
"This is Glinda," she said finally. "My... companion. We travel together."
Nessa studied her, with the expression of someone silently scanning something. Then she smiled with impeccable politeness.
"Pleased to meet you, Glinda. Welcome to Rush Margins... though I imagine not by choice."
Glinda approached and extended her hand politely.
"Thank you. It's nice to meet you, Nessarose. I've heard... a lot about you."
"A lot of good or a lot of bad?" Nessa asked, with a playful sparkle.
"A bit of everything. Normal for sisters."
They both smiled at each other.
Elphaba looked at them, still standing next to the chair, and for a moment—just a moment—her posture relaxed. As if for a second she could believe this wasn't an emotional trap disguised as a family reunion.
The hallway was long and dark, with the slightly damp air found only in houses that haven't changed in decades. Every few feet, an unlit lamp hung from a loose cord, casting shadows on the walls lined with floral wallpaper that seemed to refuse to die. But Nessa didn't seem to notice any of this. She gracefully spun the wheels of her chair, moving forward with a dexterity that made it clear she didn't need help from anyone, least of all her older sister. With a mischievous smile that never left her face, she spun with style around each corner, as if taking her visitors on a theatrical tour of a personal museum.
"And here," she said in a hostess's tone, "is where Dad used to keep his sermons in folders neatly arranged by date and Bible passage. Until one morning while cleaning, I decided to throw everything into disarray out of pure teenage rebellion. He never noticed." Glinda let out a shrill laugh, covering her mouth with her hand as she glanced sideways at Elphaba, who was pacing behind them, stiff as a grumpy coat rack.
"And you?" Nessa asked, turning slightly toward her sister while still moving. "Do you still have that horrible habit of sleeping with your feet dangling off the bed? I was always terrified some demonic creature would bite them."
"Never happened," Elphaba snarled, shifting her gaze to the ceiling. "And I still don't understand why you were so obsessed with it. Feet can't be exorcised."
"But they can be washed!" Nessa retorted. "And that was miraculous when we shared a room."
Glinda laughed more than she should have. Elphaba gave her a look that said, "You're having too much fun to be the foreigner here," but Glinda only responded with a radiant smile, completely fascinated by this living portrait of the past her girlfriend had so jealously avoided showing her. The contrast between the adult Elphaba—firm, critical, and filled with a cynicism tempered by struggle—and this adolescent version Nessa portrayed with such affection was simply irresistible.
It was then that Nessa stopped abruptly, deftly turned her chair in a semicircle, and pointed to one of the hallway walls.
"Ah, you can't leave without seeing this," she said, already stifled with laughter.
Glinda and Elphaba approached, and there it was. A framed photo in a corner: clearly taken in a cheap studio, with a painted background of a meadow and flowers. In the center, a man with a stern expression, a perfectly trimmed beard, a closed Bible in his hands, and a cross behind his neck. Beside her, a young Nessarose, with her chair, wearing a white blouse and impeccable hair. And to the left… Elphaba. Small. Uncomfortable. Dressed in one of the most old-fashioned and conservative dresses Glinda had ever seen: elbow-length puffed sleeves, a high collar, an ankle-length skirt, and a bow so large it looked like an editing error.
“Oh. For. All. The. Gods,” Glinda murmured, bringing both hands to her mouth in a gesture of pure delight.
Elphaba covered her face with one hand, exhaling in despair.
“This is cruel. This is malicious. This should be punishable by law.”
“Father insisted,” Nessa said with a mischievous giggle. “He said a respectable lady couldn't look like a ‘wayward teenager’ in a family photo. And since you had painted your nails black the week before, well… exemplary punishment.”
"She looked like a Latin teacher from the 1850s," Glinda stammered, giggling. "The bow! That bow is illegal!"
Elphaba, red-faced to the roots of her hair, turned with theatrical speed and began walking down the corridor.
"Please, let's move along before you have a choking fit from laughing so much," she said, without looking back.
"Oh, Elphie," Nessa retorted, still smiling. "You have no sense of domestic humor."
As they followed, Glinda noticed that Elphaba, although puffing like a dragon wounded in her pride, had relaxed a little. The family tensions hadn't disappeared, but at least for that moment, something of their childhood had emerged. A vulnerable corner.
But as they passed another wall decorated with old portraits, Elphaba paused for a moment, barely a second, when she saw a more recent photo of her father. Already older, her face serious, still with that penetrating gaze that could split you in two without saying a word. She lowered her gaze for a moment. And then continued walking.
Finally, the three of them reached the living room.
It was spacious, with a non-working fireplace, shelves filled with religious books and newspaper clippings laminated in folders. An old piano rested in one corner, covered by an embroidered cloth. In the center, a sofa with stiff cushions and a glass coffee table with neatly arranged lace. Nessa settled down opposite them.
"Well... now that we've relived all our youthful embarrassments and you've survived the tour of decorative horrors," she said, "would you like some tea? Coffee? Holy water?"
Glinda smiled. Elphaba snorted.
The clinking of the porcelain and the delicate steam rising from the teapot filled the room with a calm and deceptive atmosphere, as if this house, this town, this past could remain untouched by what was about to be unleashed. Dulcibear, always so silent and efficient, placed the tray precisely on the coffee table, nodding a slight bow to Nessa and then disappearing without a word, like a gentle ghost accustomed to moving among old wounds without making a sound.
Nessa, with careful but determined movements, took the teapot and began to pour precisely into the arranged cups. Her face, serene but not cold, held a focused expression, as if the art of serving tea was also a way of controlling emotion. Elphaba sat next to Glinda, rigid as a steel beam, holding the cup but not drinking, her eyes fixed on the pattern of the tablecloth as if she could lose herself in it. Glinda, trying to maintain a friendly and light facade, took a sip of her tea and said softly:
"It's a beautiful house, Nessa. It shows the care you put into everything."
"Thank you," Nessa replied with a small smile. "After Mom died, Dad wanted to move to a smaller house, but... This house holds too much for this family... and some of it I still don't want to let go of."
The comment hung for a second. Elphaba looked away. Nessa inhaled slowly, then lowered her cup with a sharp tap on the saucer.
"Elphaba... I know things didn't go well the last time we spoke."
Glinda remained still. She knew what was coming.
Elphaba didn't respond immediately; her face remained motionless, tense. But Glinda could feel the slight movement in her leg, a nervous, involuntary jerk.
"When you called me shortly after Christmas," Nessa continued, "I was angry. I was hurt. And I didn't know how... I didn't know how to handle it well." I told you things I shouldn't have said. And the letter I sent you before that was even worse. I was angry because I felt you had abandoned us. But now... now I see that I abandoned you too.
Elphaba looked down, her fingers around the cup tighter than necessary. But she didn't argue. She didn't deny. She didn't run away. And that, for Glinda, was a powerful sign in itself.
"It wasn't easy," Elphaba said finally. "Hearing your voice that night... and it wasn't you, at least not the voice I remembered. It was like talking to the echo of another person. And... I understand you. I really do. But it hurt."
The silence that followed was deep and necessary. Then, as if something loosened in the air, Elphaba looked up and added, her voice a little softer:
"I know Dad's been through hard things. And I know you have too. I didn't come here to blame you, Nessa. I really do." Just... I didn't know how to approach again. And now that I'm here... I don't know how to stay either.
"Then let's start with this tea," Nessa said, with a smile that now felt more genuine. "Then we'll see if you survive dinner."
Glinda chuckled, letting the moment soften. She watched intently as the broken threads between the two sisters began, at least, to align again. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
And then.
A deep, masculine voice, heavy with authority, sounded from the threshold of the living room, not aggressively, but with the kind of weight that can make a room sink two feet.
"I didn't expect such... unexpected visitors."
Elphaba froze. Her entire body seemed to clench in an instant. Glinda, who had seen many emotions on her face—anger, sarcasm, passion, even desire—saw something else entirely: fear.
With a slow movement, as if every second were an internal battle, Elphaba turned her head. And there, standing in the doorway of the hall, his hands in the pockets of a worn brown coat, was he.
Frexpar Thropp.
Tall, thin, with a carefully trimmed gray beard and eyes as dark as the judgment of an ancient god. His face showed neither surprise nor joy, only a quizzical, restrained disapproval that seemed habitual to him, as if he had been born with that expression.
Glinda swallowed. Nessa lowered her gaze.
Elphaba didn't say a word. She immediately stood up as if every muscle in her body were a taut string about to snap.
Her spine remained straight, her shoulders firm, her chin slightly raised in a gesture that, at first glance, might have seemed like pride, but that Glinda, who knew every part of this woman, recognized as a desperate defense. A mask she had built up over years to survive.
The man before them was the very image of ecclesiastical power, who doesn't need to raise his voice to strike a blow. Tall, wiry, with a dry and uncompromising elegance. His clothes were sober but well-cared for; his collar was closed, his cross embroidered in gold thread. His beard was neat. But the most remarkable thing was his gaze: a mixture of silent judgment and impenetrable condescension. And that smile... that smile that wasn't a smile, but the gesture of someone who believes himself above the world and the people who inhabit it.
"Father," Elphaba said, her voice firm but barely audible. "Good afternoon."
Frex didn't respond immediately. He scanned her from head to toe, like someone examining someone else's object at an auction.
"I see you retain your taste for... the eccentric."
The comment, disguised as an observation, struck a velvet-wrapped knife.
"Thank you for having us," Elphaba added, ignoring the provocation.
"I didn't know you'd decided to visit your home," Frex said, without inviting her to sit down. "Let alone in company."
Glinda, who had until then watched silently, stood gracefully, instinctively smoothing her blouse and extending her hand with a polite smile.
"Glinda Upland," she said, her voice clear and friendly. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Thropp."
Frex shook her hand briefly, with an almost imperceptible inclination of his head.
"Miss Upland. A pleasure. Although I'm surprised you chose to do... family sightseeing. I hope Rush Margins isn't too disappointing."
"It isn't," Glinda replied, her smile never faltering. "Some things are even... enlightening."
The ambiguity of the sentence lingered like stale perfume. Glinda maintained her smile, but inside she felt a spark of anger. She knew exactly what he was talking about. And she recognized that way of manipulating politeness into a trap: she'd seen it in more than one hypocritical politician.
Frex returned his attention to his daughter, as if Glinda no longer existed.
"I take it you didn't come with the intention of staying long."
"Just as long as necessary," Elphaba replied.
"Dulcibear told me you ended up at the police station," Frex added with a slight nod. "You always had a unique ability to make entrances... memorable."
Elphaba took a deep breath. Her jaw tightened, but she didn't reply.
"It was a misunderstanding," Glinda chimed in gently. "A combination of a hangover, loose cows, and bad luck."
Frex looked at her with a slightly raised eyebrow, as if he didn't understand—or didn't want to understand—the humor.
"How quaint," he murmured. "Although it is still troubling, two young women traveling alone on the road with no clear direction. Elphaba... is this what you're doing with your life?"
The question wasn't a question. It was a judgment. Glinda felt it keenly. But Elphaba remained silent for a moment, before responding with the calm before a storm.
"I'm finding my way."
"And that way involves... this kind of company?" Frex asked, glancing sideways at Glinda.
The comment was gentle, almost casual. And yet, Glinda felt the blow like a slap. But before she could reply, Elphaba spoke. Not with fury, not with shouts. With something much worse for her father: with firmness.
"Yes. That's precisely why he's worth following."
A thick silence fell over the room. Even Nessa, who until then had remained silent in her corner, looked at the two with a mixture of surprise and expectation. Frex held his gaze for a few seconds longer, as if he expected his daughter to lower her eyes, to shrink, to back away as she had so many times before.
But Elphaba didn't.
Glinda, who felt her heart in her throat at that moment, took a step closer to Elphaba. She didn't touch her. It wasn't necessary. The gesture was enough.
Frex looked away at the grandfather clock that read six o'clock.
"Dinner will be ready in half an hour," he said, as if nothing had happened. "I hope you can join us. It would be... the right thing to do."
And without waiting for a reply, he turned and disappeared down the hall.
Elphaba let out a breath she'd been holding. Glinda, without saying anything, took her hand. Elphaba didn't look at it, but she held it tightly.
Nessa cleared her throat.
"That was... better than I expected."
Elphaba gave a bitter laugh.
"We're not even at the table yet."
And Glinda, her stomach churning, couldn't help thinking: How do you survive a dinner with a man who turns every word into judgment, and every silence into condemnation?
Glinda approached Elphaba as Frex disappeared down the hall, leaving behind a silence so thick it seemed embedded in the walls of the house. With gentle movements, as if he didn't want to break something fragile, he took her hand. They didn't need to look at each other. The touch was enough.
"Do you want us to leave?" Glinda whispered, barely audible, as if she didn't want the house to hear.
Elphaba felt a pang in her chest. Her first impulse was to say yes, to please get out of there, to take the car, even if she had to drive with her eyes closed, her hands shaking. She wanted to get out of that place where every wall knew a piece of her pain, where the furniture reminded her that she hadn't been enough.
But then her eyes strayed toward Nessa. Her sister was speaking to Dulcibear in a low voice, swiveling her chair briskly, with a carefree familiarity that almost seemed like happiness. And for a moment, Elphaba wondered if some part of her had come here looking for this. Not reconciliation. Not forgiveness. Just… evidence that some part of their history still stood, even if it was in ruins.
She sighed.
"I can handle dinner," she murmured, still holding Glinda's hand.
Glinda nodded, still watching her. She disagreed. She didn't want Elphaba to sacrifice herself again. But she understood that sometimes there are battles one has to fight alone. So she simply said, "If at any time your answer changes, let me know just by looking at me."
Then Nessa turned to them with a smile and an energy that contrasted with the tension of the moment.
"Elphaba's room is the same," she announced, as if she were offering a tourist attraction. "Father never touched it. He never let anyone use it. If you want, you can rest a while before dinner."
They both nodded slightly in thanks. Nessa gestured for Dulcibear to accompany them, but when she saw them walking together toward the stairs, she fell behind. She turned to the woman who had raised her as much as her sister, and in a firm, inquisitive, but nonjudgmental voice, she asked, "What's going on between them?" Dulcibear looked at her out of the corner of his eye, with that mixture of complicity and prudence that only a true nanny knows how to manage. But he said nothing. He just shrugged with a gesture that said "you know it," even though his lips were silent.
Upstairs, the stairs creaked with each step as if the house itself were protesting her presence. Elphaba opened her bedroom door with a mixture of resignation and dread, as if she were turning the handle of a time-sealed capsule.
And she wasn't wrong.
The room was... untouched. Frozen. A still photograph of her adolescence, as if someone had stopped the clock in the worst possible year. The walls were painted a dull lilac that had once tried to be comforting. There were posters of subversive bands stuck with aged tape, books stacked in columns that defied gravity, and a crooked owl-shaped lamp that seemed to look at them suspiciously. And in one corner, like a curse: a desk covered in papers with diagrams, underlined philosophical phrases, notes, diagrams of utopian political systems... and a small, poorly molded clay dragon figurine.
Glinda entered slowly, with a mixture of reverence and awe, like someone visiting a mythical room.
"Good heavens... this is incredible," she said, whirling around as if she'd entered a museum of radical gothic adolescence.
Elphaba, behind her, had already covered her face with her hands.
"Oh my God, kill me. Please. Kill me now."
"No! This is... adorable!" Glinda laughed, holding up an old notebook filled with political stickers and drawings of demonstrations in the margins. "It's like your fifteen-year-old soul is screaming at me from every inch of it!"
"That's not a compliment," Elphaba snarled, collapsing onto the bed with a sigh. "Why didn't they burn this place down?" Glinda sat down beside her, still smiling.
"Because, deep down, even he knew this was real. That you were real. And that must have scared him."
Elphaba fell silent. Not because she had no answer. But because what Glinda had just said was... too true.
The room was filled with her past. But also with everything she'd ever wanted to be. And now, with Glinda by her side, it didn't seem so frightening.
With the weight of the day heaped on their backs, they both sank down onto the bed with a long, weary sigh. The mattress creaked with an ancient, dusty sound, as if unused to visitors. Elphaba stretched her arms out at her sides and stared up at the ceiling, wishing she could disappear into the shadows of her own childhood bedroom. Glinda, for her part, closed her eyes for just a second... until something beneath her back made her give a small yelp and bolt upright.
"Ow! What the hell was that?" "I'm sorry," she exclaimed, rubbing her shoulder blade.
She moved the pillow and found an old wooden cross underneath, with hand-carved edges. Glinda took it gently, as if she feared it might still pass judgment.
"Oh, no," Elphaba said, not needing to look. "That damn cross. My father made me keep it in my room 'to protect my soul.' I hid it all the time, but it seems it's risen again... like all good crosses.”
Glinda laughed, albeit awkwardly, and placed the object on the nightstand. When she did, she noticed the drawer was barely ajar. Her curiosity was immediate and evident, like a mischievous glint in her eyes.
"What do we have here...?"
"Glinda..." Elphaba warned, without moving. "Don't open it."
"This? This innocent, worn little notebook? No, of course not... I would never invade your privacy," Glinda replied, opening the cover with a dramatic, malicious gesture.
The scream she let out a second later shook the windows.
"AHHHHHHHH!"
Elphaba laughed out loud, a full, raw, and unrestrained laugh, as she barely sat up to look at her partner.
"I warned you! It's a notebook from my adolescence... I used it to draw when I couldn't talk to anyone. Or, well... about anyone."
Glinda turned the pages with a mixture of horror, fascination, and pure morbidity. Sketches in pencil, ink, and pen filled every inch. Some were caricatures of teachers with severed heads, classmates at the stake, others were self-portraits with bat wings or intense gazes and black tears. But the most disconcerting were the "romantic portraits."
"Is... is that you hugging the Raven?" Glinda asked, her eyes wide open. "The one from the movie??"
"Yes. Eric Draven. He had an obsession. So what?"
"And this is..." she continued. "Alucard?! From Castlevania?!"
"It was a phase."
"And this is Faye Valentine! Kissing you? And you drew lip shadow on her?!"
"Glinda, stop!" Elphaba exclaimed, blushing like never before, snatching the notebook from her hands with a swift movement and hiding it under her pillow.
"I can't believe you were such an intense teenager. It's beautiful. Horrible. Perfect." Glinda laughed with tears in her eyes as she threw herself back onto the bed.
Elphaba rolled her eyes and snorted.
"Well, since you're at it..." She bent down, opened the lid of an old compartment under the bed, and pulled out a rectangular object covered in black cloth. "Here you go. You'll have more fun with this."
Glinda bolted upright and snatched the album from her hands with the enthusiasm of a child at Christmas.
"A photo album? With photographic evidence of your fashion crimes?!"
"And your future nightmares," Elphaba said, resigned, lying back down on the bed.
Glinda opened the first page and let out an adorable squeal.
"Look at those teeth! And those blunt bangs! Oh my gods, you were a bat in a school uniform!"
"Perfectly gothic," Elphaba corrected, closing her eyes. "Not everyone could afford to shine like you, princess of hairspray and raspberry gloss."
"You were so... intense! Even when you were happy, you seemed to suffer," Glinda laughed, leafing through the album devotedly. Then she stopped. "Oh... this is lovely."
It was a photo of Elphaba, clearly taken without her knowledge. She stood on the porch of the house in the summer, reading a huge book with her legs crossed. She had a furrowed brow, her hair was longer and messier, and the faintest hint of a smile appeared. Glinda thought it was the sweetest picture in the world.
"Who took that of you?"
"Dulcibear. Secretly. She said that one day she would want to remember that I ever sat still."
Glinda had already adopted the ceremonial pose of the explorer of secrets: legs crossed, the album on her lap, and an expression that alternated between theatrical mockery and genuine tenderness. She turned the pages as if opening windows to another world, a world where Elphaba was not the firm, rough, and resilient woman she knew… but a little girl with scraped knees and a brow furrowed with childish indignation.
"Look at this!" "Glinda exclaimed, pointing to a picture of seven-year-old Elphaba, wearing a skeleton T-shirt, messy pigtails, and a look of utter contempt for the birthday cake in front of her.
"That was the party where I invited two people and six came because they were lost. The cake was shaped like a cross. Exquisite irony, isn't it?"
"My favorite fashion statement... you were so miserable and adorable. A demonic baby with incipient trauma," Glinda joked, kissing her cheek as she turned the page.
"Better than being a porcelain doll with repressed trauma. At least I used to see a psychologist. Although he quit after six months," Elphaba replied with a crooked smile.
Glinda stuck her tongue out at her and kept looking.
There was ten-year-old Elphaba, dressed as a vampire with plastic fangs, next to Nessa dressed as an angel. Then at fourteen, with smudged eyeliner and a T-shirt of a local punk band that had been kicked out of church for screaming at a funeral. Then at sixteen, standing next to a political mural painted at night, paint on her hands and a furious look on her face.
Each stage had a tone, a gesture, an aura. And Glinda found beauty in all of them. As if between each photo, she could see the Elphaba before her grow.
"I can't believe how much I'm falling in love with each version of you," Glinda murmured, not thinking too much, just letting herself go.
The next photo showed her in full goth phase: poorly applied black makeup, headphones bigger than her head, a mesh scarf, and a tragically intense expression.
"And this one! This is my favorite! What were you listening to? Evanescence? My Chemical Romance?"
"Björk's '90s album, but thanks for the stereotype."
"You look beautiful. In an apocalyptic sort of way, of course."
"Which is a compliment coming from you!"
Elphaba looked away, uncomfortable with such direct tenderness, but she didn't let go of his hand.
Then Glinda turned to the last page.
And the world stopped for a second.
There it was. An old photograph, almost sepia, faded with age. A baby Elphaba, small even for her age, wrapped in a blanket embroidered with tiny green leaves, in the arms of a young woman.
Her mother.
The woman wasn't looking at the camera. Her face was turned toward the baby with an expression of calm, almost ethereal tenderness. Her hands were bony but firm, protective. Her dark hair fell over the sides of her face like a soft curtain, and a religious medal hung around her neck.
Glinda stopped breathing.
"That's her..." she whispered, almost as if invoking a forbidden name.
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She just stared at the image, silent.
"I was afraid you wouldn't remember her face anymore," she said finally, her voice cracking but calm. "I always thought I made up parts. But that photo... Dulcibear gave it to me. He kept it because he knew my father would make it disappear."
"She's beautiful," Glinda said, gently squeezing her fingers.
"Was," Elphaba corrected. "No one ever held me like that after her... until you."
Glinda turned her face toward her and, without saying anything, rested her forehead against Elphaba's. The room fell silent, save for the faint creaking of the old house and the sound of a slowly turning fan on the ceiling.
The scrapbook lay open between them, the image still on the page. Like a small, secret altar. Like proof of something that should never have been forgotten.
"Do you want to keep the photo?" Elphaba asked suddenly, her voice raspy.
Glinda blinked, surprised.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I don't know why... But yes."
Glinda nodded and carefully removed the photograph, placing it between the pages of her scrapbook as if she were holding a charm.
"Thank you," she whispered, then smiled. "And by the way... you were a beautiful baby. Green, but beautiful."
"Shut up," Elphaba said, lying back down and covering her eyes with her forearm. "I hate you."
"I know," Glinda murmured, lying down beside her. "And I hate you."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was thick, intimate, like a warm blanket thrown over shoulders after a storm. The laughter subsided, and in its place was something softer: their even breathing, the way their bodies touched without any intensity, as if the touch were more than enough.
Elphaba turned her head toward the ceiling. For a second, she seemed to revert to that teenager locked in that same room, wishing for something impossible. But she wasn't alone now.
"The last time I was here," she said quietly, without looking at her, "was after I graduated. I'd gotten a job at a small firm in Chicago. It wasn't much, but... it was mine. A life I was building for myself with my own rules. I thought... I thought maybe my father would congratulate me. Or tell me he was proud."
Glinda didn't say anything. She just turned to her and laced their fingers together.
"He never did," Elphaba continued. "Not a word. He just said, 'At least you didn't end up on the streets like I feared.' As if that were the best he could hope for from me."
She paused for a second, swallowing.
"I promised myself never to come back. To close that door. But... being here now, with you, in this room... in this body of mine that he tried to make small... I don't know." Something feels different. As if I no longer owe her anything. As if... finally, someone could look at all of this—the room, the photos, the books stacked in the corner, the old desk—and not laugh, or judge, or ignore it. Just... see it.
Glinda, her eyes shining but her smile firm, stroked her thumb over her knuckles.
"I don't just see it, Elphie. I admire it. Everything. Everything you did to you."
They both looked at each other. And in that look, there was no trace of the shame from a moment ago. Only a profound understanding. As if suddenly, being there—at the epicenter of all the old pains—was a victory.
Glinda leaned down and kissed her, gently. Then deeper. Elphaba responded, almost with a mixture of relief and desire that made her moan in her chest. The tension of accumulated days, the repression of painful memories, the vertigo of having returned to an ancient hell with an ally at her side... everything mingled in that moment, where even the air seemed thicker.
"Do you want to commit sin in your childhood bed?" Glinda murmured hoarsely, barely parting her lips.
Elphaba chuckled, laced with fire.
"I've had fantasies in this bed... but none like this."
Their lips sought each other urgently, when suddenly...
"Girls!" Dulcibear's voice hit the door like a lace-wrapped hammer. "Dinner will be ready in five minutes."
They both froze.
Glinda stifled a laugh, burying her face against Elphaba's neck. Elphaba cursed softly in a mixture of embarrassment, frustration, and adoration for that nosy old woman who always knew when to ruin the moment.
"Do you realize?" Elphaba snorted, sitting up. Not even as an adult can I have peace in this house. It's like a curse.
"It's a screwball comedy with crucifixes," Glinda said, straightening up as well and straightening her clothes. "But admit it: you kinda like it."
Elphaba snorted and stood up.
"A little," she admitted, looking at her out of the corner of her eye. "But only because you're here."
"I always am."
And with that, the two of them prepared to go down to the dining room.
They went down in silence. Not the awkward silence of a fight, but a heavier one, tempered by the memories that papered the walls of the house like invisible wallpaper. Glinda was struck by the decor in the dining room: the hand-carved verse paintings, the clean, symmetrical crosses, the banner of the Unionist Church hanging on the far wall as a constant reminder of where they were. It was spare, meticulously clean, and yet oppressive. As if each object had been placed not to please those who lived in that home, but to ensure they were done correctly.
The table was long but not ostentatious. Made of dark, well-polished wood, it was just the right size for a family to share bread without straying too far from each other… although Glinda didn't miss the way Elphaba, without thinking, sat almost at the edge, far from her sister and even farther from her father. As if the years hadn't passed and her place in the family hierarchy was as engraved as the verses on the wall. Glinda, with a hint of silent rage, sat next to her without asking.
Dulcibear entered from the kitchen carrying the main tray. The aroma was as warm as she was: freshly baked bread, vegetables simmering in broth, some kind of spiced meat pie. Glinda almost stood up to help her, but Dulcibear handled the trays with the authority of someone who had carried this household far longer than any of its supposed owners. What surprised Glinda, however, was seeing her take a seat at the table, right between Elphaba and Nessa, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
In her childhood mansion, the servants ate in the kitchen, silently, grateful for every crumb. Seeing Dulcibear there, napkin neatly tucked in, shoulders squared, seemed not only right, but deeply comforting.
Elphaba's hand reached up to take a piece of bread, but Dulcibear—without even looking at her—gently tapped her knuckles with his fingers, firm but affectionate, and then gestured with his gaze to the end of the table.
Frexspar Thropp had settled himself gravely at the head of the table. His posture was perfect, his neck erect as if he still wore the minister's stole around his shoulders, even if he wasn't wearing it that evening. The expression on his face wasn't stern, but neither was it warm. It was that measured, well-rehearsed smile of someone who believes it is their duty to teach with every word, even when they haven't been invited to do so.
"Before we share the bread," he said in a temperate, husky, but articulate voice, "it is only right that we give thanks. And since this is a... special occasion, I propose that he who returns home after so long lead our prayer."
Elphaba, who still had her hand halfway to the bread, froze. Glinda felt tension run down her spine like a shiver. Frex's gaze was direct, as if challenging his daughter to dare reject him in front of everyone. Nessa lowered her eyes. Dulcibear sighed faintly.
As soon as Frex raised his voice and suggested in his velvet-wrapped tone that "she who returns home should say thanks," the gaze of everyone at the table slid, almost as if guided by a single current, toward Elphaba. The movement was subtle, but charged with an electricity that not even the upholstery of the seats could dampen. Nessa, who had maintained an expression of moderate enthusiasm until that moment, let out a mumbled whisper, heavy with pity:
"Oh no…"
Elphaba stiffened, her shoulders slightly tense, her jaw firm, her chin high. Her gaze flickered between resignation and defiance as she tried to compose a polite smile, the one she used when cornered at institutional meetings or academic conferences.
"I think... it would be better if someone else did it," she said, feigning politeness. "I don't want to... look out of place. It's been a while since I've practiced, after all."
Frex maintained his smile, the one that always seemed to say, "How disappointing you are, but I'm not surprised," as he turned his head slightly in Nessa's direction.
"Elphaba, you don't need to rehearse faith to express gratitude. Just sincerity."
Elphaba swallowed an insult and took a breath. The tension was palpable.
It was then that Glinda, who had been sitting with her back as straight as a platinum rod and her eyes wide, decided she'd had enough of this stupid emotional civil war between the Thropps. With the restrained grace of a woman on the edge of her patience, she gently placed her fork on her plate and smoothed her hair with one hand.
"I'll do it."
The statement cut through the tension like a razor, but with a rosy, polite glow. Everyone at the table looked at her in surprise. Elphaba turned to her so sharply that she almost knocked over her water glass.
"What are you doing?" she whispered through her teeth.
"Oh, it can't be that difficult," Glinda replied softly, smiling at her as if they were discussing the rules of bridge.
She stood calmly, clasped her hands as she had seen the others do, and closed her eyes for a moment.
"Thank you," she began, her voice firm but trembling. "Thank you to the Unionist God for... for this food, for the vegetables that grew healthy in the fertile soil, and for the animals that... uh... graciously decided to become our dinner."
Elphaba looked down at the mash with an expression of restrained horror.
"Thank you for this house, which has endured so many seasons. And for this family, which... despite its differences... still has seats at the table for everyone."
Nessa turned her face and bit her lip, her shoulders shaking with barely suppressed laughter.
"And thank you for the paths we cross, even when we least expected it, because... sometimes, what we don't plan... is what we need most."
Frex raised an eyebrow with calculated slowness, as if appraising a flawed diamond at a religious auction. Glinda finished with an angelic smile:
"Amen... or was that at the end?"
Silence. Glinda sat back down, fighting the urge to clink her glass with someone. Elphaba was petrified. Nessa buried her face in her napkin, trying not to explode. Frex... simply breathed, slowly and deeply, before picking up his knife with ceremonial precision.
It was Dulcibear who broke the spell. He clapped softly, as if he had just witnessed a school play that warmed his heart.
"That was beautiful, my dear. Very... refreshing."
Glinda blushed, genuinely. Elphaba leaned toward her and whispered,
"You kindly decided to become our dinner?"
"What? It's a spiritual metaphor!"
"It's a tribute to sacrifice, not a vegan fable," Elphaba murmured, covering her face.
And with that, dinner began. Plates were moved, hands were stretched. The battle for prayer was over, and Glinda had survived—had even gained ground. Though the mashed potatoes now tasted a little jittery.
Dinner had begun, and despite the tense atmosphere, Glinda struggled to maintain her composure. She smiled charmingly, nodded modestly, and politely accepted each dish offered to her: spiced meatloaf, potato salad with homemade mayonnaise, buttered onion bread, and a corn cake so dense it probably required a diplomatic treaty to digest. Every time a platter was brought to her, Glinda accepted it with a wide smile, as wide as it was forced.
Elphaba, however, didn't miss a detail. Whenever no one was looking—whenever Frex looked down, Nessa made a comment, or Dulcibear stopped to get more sauce—she would reach for her fork and, with a precision that only comes from training an adolescence spent surviving in that dining room, almost artfully steal the contents of Glinda's plate.
"Does this have... meat?"
"Of course it has meat," Elphaba murmured, without looking up. "It's called meat pie. What did you think that was? A metaphor?"
Glinda paled.
"I'm a vegetarian! I don't want to offend anyone..."
"Relax," Elphaba said, reaching for her fork. "No one will notice."
And, with quick, mechanical movements, she began transferring the portion to her own plate. Glinda was pretending to serve herself more salad while, under the table, Elphaba was efficiently removing the meat from her plate. It was almost moving. Devotion made into a farce.
Everything was going relatively well—if you could define "well" as having to lie, feign someone else's religious beliefs, and hide a romantic relationship under a mountain of potato salad—when Frex, his voice polished like church marble, decided to upset the momentary equilibrium.
"Tell me, my dear," he said, addressing Glinda with a smile that seemed etched with a scalpel. "Does your beautiful name have any connection to our saint Galinda? I've always thought it a... redemptive name."
Glinda, who was just chewing a piece of stale bread, choked briefly and raised her eyes like an actress caught in an unscripted comedy sketch. She tried to hide her shock by swallowing hard.
"Um... yes. Yes, yes. Of course. My mother... she named me after the saint." What a... blessed inspiration, isn't it?
Elphaba slowly turned her head toward her, eyebrow raised, expression somewhere between disbelief and panic.
"Since when?"
Glinda murmured to her, her mouth barely open.
"I don't know. It just came to me!"
“Your family was Lurlinean. I literally saw you bless a soup with jasmine petals.”
“Shh! I improvise under pressure. Isn’t that your thing?”
Frex nodded solemnly.
“It’s good to know there are still young people who value tradition,” he said, crossing his fingers as if stroking his own ego. “Names are given on a whim these days. Things like… Zinnia or Wren.”
“Or Elphaba!” Nessa said, her tone innocent but dripping with mischief.
Elphaba looked at her sister with the same expression one might give a cat about to knock over a glass. Nessa just smiled.
“And you… how did you meet?” Dulcibear asked, with that smile that seemed innocent but was sharper than a scalpel hidden in a biscuit.
Glinda and Elphaba froze. It was like watching two fawns frozen in the headlights of a truck of truth.
"In..." said Glinda.
"A..." said Elphaba.
"Supermarket," they said in unison, in flat voices.
"Supermarket?" repeated Frex, clearly unconvinced.
"Yes," insisted Glinda. "She... I needed help with... a box of cookies that had fallen in the bulk aisle."
"I was... organizing the fruit," said Elphaba.
"And she helped me pick it up..." added Glinda.
"The plums," finished Elphaba.
"Weren't they cookies?" asked Dulcibear.
"Yes! But also plums!" said Glinda, smiling. "It was a combination promotion. Fruit and fiber, I think it was called."
"A very... contemporary story," said Frex, taking his glass.
Nessa watched them with her arms crossed, clearly enjoying the spectacle.
"So what do you do now?" she asked, tilting her head curiously.
"We study," they both said, again in unison.
"But you work," Glinda whispered to her.
"And you don't study!" Elphaba whispered back.
"So we travel!" they said together, now decisively.
"Travel," Nessa repeated with a smile. "How modern."
The rest of dinner passed like an impromptu timing competition. Every question was a ticking time bomb disguised as politeness, and every answer, a tightrope walk between a convenient lie and a veiled truth. But as the spoons clinked and the bread broke between fingers, there was also something deeply tender in this shared charade. A secret dance between two women in love who, though they disguised their bond with clumsy metaphors and furtive glances, protected each other as best they could in the hearts of enemies.
The meal unfolded like a play no one had rehearsed, but where everyone pretended to know their lines. Glinda and Elphaba, still frayed from the previous culinary interrogation, dodged questions with the grace of two drunken tightrope walkers, holding plates and smiling as they avoided falling into the web of dangerous truths woven by the table.
It was then that Nessa, leaning her elbows on the table like a casual conspirator, turned to Glinda with an innocent smile that fooled no one.
"So tell me, Glinda... what is it like living with my sister?"
Elphaba raised her head slowly. Glinda blinked. A fork fell onto the plate with a sound too loud to be accidental.
Elphaba spoke before her girlfriend could get tangled up.
"Nessa, how many times do I have to tell you we don't live together?"
"Ah, sorry, travel," Nessa said, inflecting the word as if placing it in invisible quotation marks. "Even more intimate."
Glinda swallowed. She smiled. She couldn't tell the truth, but she didn't want to lie too convincingly either. Every word was a potential trap. She measured her response like a tightrope walker on a slack wire.
“Well, Elphaba is… organized. Not… too organized. More like methodical. She’s… independent, very thoughtful, and… well, unique,” she said, giving a fake laugh like someone throwing a fishhook into the void.
“Wow, that’s interesting,” Frex commented without looking up from his plate, cutting into his meatloaf with the precision of a surgeon. “Considering that as a child, she couldn’t tolerate anyone touching her things.”
“Better if they threw rocks at me, huh?” Elphaba said with a sarcastic smile. “Sometimes I wonder if they invented recess just to give the other kids time to hone their aim.”
Nessa gave a short, pitying laugh.
“Elphy, not all of them were bad. They just… didn’t understand you.”
“Oh, please,” Elphaba replied, leaning back a little in her chair. Most of them didn't understand me, and the rest understood me too well and didn't like what they saw. There's no great mystery there.
That's when Frex spoke, without emotion, without raising his voice, without even giving her a glance.
"You threw stones too."
Elphaba blinked. Her jaw clenched.
"Yes. But I threw them at this house. It's not the same."
Glinda squeezed Elphaba's hand under the table. Nessa, ignoring the growing ice in the air, smiled with the air of someone stroking a knife under the table.
"I think you really only had one true friend when you were a girl. What was his name? Killyjoy?"
Elphaba froze. All traces of sarcasm vanished from her face. Glinda noticed how her partner's expression paled, and for the first time that evening at the theater, Elphaba seemed disarmed, not angry or ironic, just... scared.
"I don't remember," she finally replied, looking down at her plate.
"How could you not remember? You even ran away from home to see him. You were thirteen," Nessa said, with that perfect smile of someone feigning innocence while dragging an emotional dagger across the tableware.
"I said I don't remember," Elphaba repeated, more firmly, without looking up.
Glinda swallowed. She didn't know that story. She had never heard that name before. But she didn't need to hear it. What she needed was to take her hand again and let her know she was there. She did so, without looking at anyone else.
Nessa shrugged, as if she hadn't noticed the tension, and returned to her cake. Dulcibear watched them silently, with the gaze of someone who knew much more than he was letting on and chose the prudence of silence out of respect... or fear.
Frex finished cutting a piece of bread, spread it with butter, and just before bringing it to his mouth, he muttered disdainfully,
"That boy was never a good influence."
Elphaba slowly raised her eyes, and Glinda saw a dark gleam in them, not of anger, but of something much harder to swallow: guilt.
"Nor was this place," she replied quietly.
Glinda's fork hovered halfway to her mouth as Nessa, in her best younger sisterly but relentless chronicler voice, smiled and said with relish,
"Remember when you and Killyjoy snuck out of Mass to smoke in the confessional?"
Elphaba closed her eyes as if a centuries-old migraine had just manifested in her skull. Glinda let out a surprised giggle that she quickly hid behind a polite cough. Frex raised his head slowly, his frown as severe as a cathedral carving in stone.
"You were fifteen," Nessa continued, savoring the story like dessert. "I think that was the first time you were grounded for life."
"First of many," Elphaba replied humorlessly, poking at her mashed potatoes with her fork without eating them. "Though technically, I was the only one who got grounded. Killyjoy's parents didn't even notice. The worst that happened to him was that his lighter ran out."
"That boy was a good-for-nothing," Frex said, his voice deep, as if the sentence were a curse carved in stone.
"We agree on that," Elphaba replied with a crooked smile that didn't reach her eyes. A true visionary of futility.
There was a brief silence, until Dulcibear, who had remained silent for most of the time, looked up from his plate and murmured with innocent curiosity:
"Wasn't it that same young man who took you to the prom?"
Elphaba's eyes snapped up as if someone had just thrown a bucket of ice water on the table. Glinda turned to her with a flash of almost childish enthusiasm.
"You went to the prom with him? Really? Elphaba at a ball? I want to know everything about that!"
"I never should have let you go to that mundane thing!" Frex snarled, almost spitting the word "mundane" like it was poison.
But before the conversation could spiral into a moralistic argument, Elphaba raised her voice, red with shame and suppressed fury.
"I didn't go to the damn ball!" she exclaimed, putting her fork down hard on her plate. Because that idiot Killyjoy dumped me for someone else... at the last minute. I found out when I already had the dress on and everything.
An awkward silence sat among those present, like a fifth diner.
Nessa looked away, uncomfortable at having brought up the memory. Glinda, wordlessly, took Elphaba's hand under the table gently, tenderly. Frex, for his part, barely bowed his head, as if the confession confirmed something he'd always known.
"It was for your own good," the man said, in that tone that turns every word into a judgment.
"Of course," Elphaba murmured, withdrawing Glinda's hand to take the glass of water and avoid looking at anyone. "It was always for my own good."
Glinda, who until then had been only a witness, spoke in a firm but kind voice.
"I'm sorry..."
Elphaba looked at her with a mixture of gratitude and barely concealed vulnerability, barely managing a smile.
The silence was thick, viscous, filled with everything left unsaid. The cutlery barely clinked, and even the sound of the clock on the wall seemed louder than usual. There was little of the food left, only the cold remains on the plates and a hint of tension in the air that made it impossible to continue feigning normalcy.
It was then that Frex, as if the demon of judgment were speaking through him, slowly wiped his mouth with his napkin with ceremonious slowness and, without even looking at Elphaba, commented:
"I'm glad to see that, despite your years of absence, you still retain the ability to turn a family dinner into an act of provocation."
Elphaba slowly lowered her glass of water. Her jaw tensed. Her knuckles whitened the rim of the glass.
"Sorry?" she said in a low, dangerous voice.
"There's no need to feign surprise," he added, with that paternalistic half-smile that disguised his poison as virtue. "You know as well as I do that your decisions have always been... difficult to understand. To accept. You walked away from your faith, your community, your family... And now you come to sit at this table as if all of that held no weight. As if you hadn't betrayed everything that shaped you."
Glinda squeezed Elphaba's hand under the table, feeling her entire body begin to tremble. But Elphaba didn't let go. Not this time.
"What shaped me was having to hide every day of my life," she said, her voice still controlled, but on the verge of overflowing. "What shaped me was hearing that the love I felt was a mistake, that my way of thinking was dangerous, that my existence was inconvenient. If that's betrayal to you, then yes: I betrayed you. And I would do it again."
Frex didn't blink. She took another piece of bread with glacial slowness.
"I'm not bothered by your rebellion. I'm worried about your soul."
"No. What bothers you is that I'm no longer ashamed of who I am," she retorted, her eyes blazing. "What hurts you is that I no longer need your approval to breathe."
"You bring shame into this house every time you talk the way you talk, act the way you act... or show yourself in... company," she said, and the pause before "company" was a barb disguised as courtesy.
It was then that Glinda let go of Elphaba's hand. Not out of anger. But because she needed both hands to lean on the table, stand up with dignity, and speak.
"With all due respect, Mr. Thropp," she began, with a polite smile and a gaze sharper than a dagger. "Your house is beautiful. Your table, impeccable. But your way of speaking... leaves much to be desired."
Frex barely raised an eyebrow. Glinda continued,
"You speak of morality as if it were armor you could use against your own daughter. But I know you. I know what you've been through. And I assure you, your moral compass is more calibrated than that of most men who boast of having one. Including you."
"Miss Glinda…"
"I haven't finished," he said, still politely, but making it clear there was no room for interruptions. "Elphaba doesn't need your approval. But she deserves your respect. And if you can't give it to her, at least have the decency not to disguise your contempt with religiosity."
Frex fell silent. The entire dining room held its breath.
Nessa stared at Glinda as if she'd just watched a heroine from a romance novel defend her castle. Dulcibear smiled softly, with a silent satisfaction he dared not express. Elphaba… she couldn't stop staring at Glinda. As if she couldn't believe what she'd just seen. As if his chest had just been opened, not to hurt... but to breathe.
Silence reigned again, but this time it wasn't as thick as before. It was a different kind of silence. One born when words could no longer hide what they were. Frex gave a short, sarcastic laugh, laced with disdain.
"How touching," he murmured, lifting his napkin and dabbing the corner of his mouth theatrically. "A pity modern compassion mistakes courage for insolence."
He stood slowly and looked toward Dulcibear without bothering to address anyone else.
"Please clear the table. I'm tired of this circus."
And without further ado, he disappeared down the hall with the haughtiness of someone who believes the last word always belongs to him.
For a moment, no one moved. The table seemed to have been bombed: half-empty plates, glasses still trembling with the echoes of the conflict. Nessa, with quiet dignity, began turning her wheels toward the kitchen.
"I'll help you," she said, before Dulcibear could intervene.
Glinda also stood up, gathering plates as if she needed the movement to shake off the remnants of the emotional tremor they had just experienced. As she moved toward the kitchen, she felt something in the air change: she was no longer welcome, but she didn't feel strange either. Something had been named at that table, and now it couldn't be unnamed.
Elphaba, on the other hand, didn't say a word. She stood up, checked the trembling in her jaw, and left. Not at a hurried pace. Not with a slam of the door. But with the firm gait of someone who no longer needs to discuss what is clear. Glinda followed her with her eyes, but not with her body. Not yet.
When they reached the kitchen, Glinda and Nessa began placing their plates on the sink, their movements synchronized for the first time all evening. They shared a silence that wasn't awkward, but rather dense, as if both were processing something much larger than themselves.
It was Nessa who broke the air:
"You're probably the first person in this house to stand up for Elphaba," she said plainly, without emotion, but with an honesty that trembled in her voice.
Glinda, still holding a plate, stopped.
"Really?"
Nessa nodded.
"She was always stronger than anyone gave her credit for. But also lonelier than anyone wanted to admit."
She turned to her and added:
"Most of us... learned to survive in here by obeying. Elphaba... chose otherwise. And even though it pained me, I always admired her for it."
Glinda set the plate down carefully.
"I don't think she knows that."
"No. Of course not," Nessa replied, with an almost sad smile. "When has anyone in this house ever said something nice to her without having to?"
Glinda felt something stir in her chest. As if she understood more than she was ready to process.
"Maybe... it's time I started listening," she said.
Nessa nodded, turning her chair back toward the hallway.
"Maybe so."
And with that, she left Glinda in the kitchen, amid the murmur of running tap water and the distant echo of a door closing.
In Frex's house, for the first time in years, silence was no longer obedience.
It was resistance.
The water ran warmly down the sink as Dulcibear rinsed a plate with slow, meticulous movements, almost as if this household chore were a ritual of restraint. Glinda, at her side, arranged the dry plates with a clumsy rhythm, distracted by thoughts that couldn't find form. They didn't speak, but it wasn't awkward. It was the kind of silence that only exists between those who, without fully knowing each other, recognize that there are things that can only be said in whispers.
Then Dulcibear spoke. He didn't look at her, he simply said:
"It's obvious you love her."
Glinda blinked, surprised. The ceramic plate she was holding hung in the air for a moment before she placed it back on the shelf.
"I..."
She didn't know what to say. Because there was no short, clear, or sufficient way to respond to that.
"Thank you," Dulcibear continued gently. "For loving her."
Glinda looked away, as if afraid that this thanks would hurt her skin. And perhaps, a little, it did.
"She... she loves you too," she said timidly. "It speaks well of you." He says you were the only one who was there when he needed it.
Dulcibear smiled, but it was a broken smile.
"I tried my best. But I don't know if it was enough. She was a child who had lost her mother... and needed her father. And he..." Her voice faltered for a moment, and she swallowed before continuing, "he never saw her. Not the way she needed to."
Glinda felt something stir inside her. A mixture of rage and compassion, a quiet fury that boiled in her chest like water about to boil.
"He still doesn't see her," she said, her jaw clenched. "He knows how to hurt her with every word. And yet... Elphaba rarely speaks of her family. But when she does... she thinks of Nessa, of her mother... and even of him."
Dulcibear let out a small sigh, barely a murmur that was lost in the dripping faucet. Then she rinsed one last plate, let it drain, and stood still, her wet hands barely trembling on the marble edge.
"Did he ever tell you... what he said about his mother?" Glinda asked, as if apologizing for the words. Her voice dropped to a whisper as she added, "That she died because of him."
Dulcibear froze.
He didn't even blink. He just stood still, as if that memory, that dark echo, had bitten the back of his neck. Then he slowly turned his face toward Glinda. And what was in his eyes was an old pain. Deep. The kind that doesn't heal with time because it's born of what should never have been said.
"I was there," she said, barely audible. "Elphaba was six years old. She was crying, like any little girl who doesn't understand why her mother doesn't come back. And he... he needed someone to blame. So he looked at his daughter... and found the easiest thing.
Elphaba.
Glinda felt something inside her break. Dulcibear continued, his voice growing ever lower, as if he were confessing to the universe rather than to his interlocutor:
"I wanted to take her that very night. I wanted to grab her and run. But I'm not family, and in this house the law has always sided with the name, not with love."
Another silence. A bitter pill to swallow.
"I'm so sorry..." Glinda said, because there was nothing else to say. And she remained rigid, her arms crossed and her jaw set.
Dulcibear's words still swirled around in her head, like thorns she couldn't remove. How could someone say that to their own daughter? How could they fabricate such a cruel, destructive lie and leave it in the heart of a child who only asked for comfort? Glinda didn't understand. She couldn't. She'd had her own family conflicts, with impossible expectations and her mother's icy silence, with a father who loved her only in public. But never, ever had anyone made her believe she was responsible for a death. That... that was monstrous.
"I can't understand it," she said suddenly, almost spitting out the words. "How do you say something like that to a child? What kind of man can saddle his own daughter with that guilt?"
Dulcibear stopped. She leaned on the counter with one hand trembling, the other still clutching the dishcloth. Then she looked at her with a strange mix of tiredness and something deeper: resignation, but not submission.
"Because the truth... was harder to accept than a lie."
Glinda looked at her, perplexed.
"What do you mean?"
Dulcibear sighed.
Meanwhile, Elphaba walked silently through the hallways.
The house was smaller than she remembered. The ceilings were lower, the lighting dimmer. But every corner retained the echo of her childhood, as if the years hadn't been enough to erase the shadows of things never said.
Her steps guided her by inertia, aimlessly. She brushed against the hallway wall, where the family portraits still hung. Nessa, in a blue dress too formal for a child. Dulcibear, with a tired smile. Her mother, a faded image of time, holding her in her arms with sad but sweet eyes. Elphaba stopped.
The wedding photo.
There they were. Frex, standing tall, proud, his hand on Melena's waist. And her, dressed in white, but with a look that didn't tell if it was joy or resignation. Elphaba couldn't tear her eyes from her mother's face. She wanted to tell her so many things. She wanted to ask her if she was happy. If she loved her. If she forgave her.
"She was very beautiful," a voice said behind her.
Elphaba turned with a shudder.
Frexspar Thropp was there, standing in his immaculate gray robes, his hands clasped behind his back, and that thin, controlled smile, as if every gesture had been rehearsed in front of a mirror.
"I always noticed you had that look in your eyes... when you're not so angry, of course."
Elphaba didn't respond. She just looked at him. A tense silence settled between them, filled with unspoken words and wounds never healed.
Frex took a step forward, still with that serenity that to others might pass for pity... but she knew better. She knew that tone. That condescension disguised as concern.
"I suppose it's only natural that you've come back," he said. "Though I'm sure it wasn't easy. But after all, this is still your home."
Elphaba clenched her fists at her sides.
"This place stopped being my home a long time ago."
Frex tilted his head, almost amused.
"And what is it now? A hotel? A way station for your... adventures?" He paused, weighing each word with cruelty disguised as interest. "They say the road always leads back to where you started. Perhaps life is showing you that you can't escape your roots."
"Or is it just reminding me why I left?" "Elphaba replied, not raising her voice, but with an intensity that welled up in her chest.
Frex just smiled.
"No matter how fast you run, child. You'll still be a Thropp. And that weight... isn't so easily relinquished."
Elphaba remained silent. Not because she had nothing to say. But because she knew that, with him, it didn't matter what she said. It never had.
Frex had already turned away, his hands clasped behind his back like a minister satisfied with his sermon, when Elphaba's voice rose with a dangerous calm, like the edge before a collapse.
"Why?"
The man stopped. He didn't turn around immediately. He seemed to be considering whether it was even worth answering.
"Why do you hate me?" she repeated, and this time her voice held a suppressed tremor, not of weakness... but of a rage so old and entrenched it could barely find a form.
Frex sighed in annoyance, as if his daughter were repeating an old lesson, poorly learned. He turned slowly and looked at her with that same expression he used when he scolded the ignorant parishioners who didn't understand his parables. That mixture of superiority and false patience he had always directed toward her. Toward living disappointment.
"Elphaba..." he began, in a lecturing tone. "Always dramatizing. Always looking for blame outside, when the truth is simpler. It's not hate, child. It's consequence. You alone chose to live this way. You know very well what you did. How you constantly chose to disappoint me. To disappoint God."
Elphaba looked at him, her eyes boring into him like daggers. She didn't back down. She didn't blink. She had waited years for this conversation. And she wouldn't let it slip away in a cloud of gaslighting disguised as pity.
"So what did I do?" he demanded, taking a step forward. "What was that so terrible? Being born with green skin? Not being like the others?" Have questions instead of blind obedience? Tell me, Father! Before I could even speak, you were looking at me as if I'd been born cursed. What did you see in me that disgusted you so much?
Frex shrugged slightly, his smile slightly tilting.
"You know the answer. You were always... different. Difficult. Rebellious. Unbearable from day one. You didn't listen. You didn't obey. You never had faith."
"I was six!" she shouted, the sound echoing off the walls like a broken bell. "What could I do at that age to justify your rejection? What crime does a girl commit for her father to stop loving her before he's even met her?"
Frex shook his head. He wasn't smiling anymore. Now his gaze was a mixture of disgust and self-pity. It had always been like this: he was the victim in his own narrative.
"It's not my fault if God made you... defective."
The word hung in the air like a smoke bomb. And in that instant, something broke inside Elphaba forever.
Her laughter came out muffled. A hollow, humorless sound that turned into a stifled sob. She forced herself to swallow it. To swallow all the sobs that followed.
"No. I'm not a flaw," she said firmly, even though her throat ached from suppressing her anger. "I never was. The problem isn't me. The problem is that you could never see anyone but yourself and your rotten doctrines. You never saw Mother. You never saw Nessa. And you never saw me."
Frex lifted his chin haughtily, but there was a slight hesitation in his eyes.
Frex wasn't smiling anymore. But he didn't seem affected either. His face was stony.
"I don't need to hear you blame me for all your mistakes, Elphaba. You know exactly what you did. How you disappointed every person who tried to trust you."
She looked at him. Long. Steady. And for the first time in a long time, she let her eyes speak for her. They trembled. Not from sadness. Not from weakness. From fury. From exhaustion.
"No. You don't know anything about me," she said, her voice low, but firm as steel. "You never knew. Because you never wanted to know. You turned me into an idea, a punishment, a divine lesson to justify your own pain. But I'm not that. I'm a person. And I'm not your mistake. I'm not your penance. And I'm not going to continue living as if I were."
The kitchen was silent, interrupted only by the soft clinking of water draining from the dishes and the distant murmur of raised voices from the dining room. Glinda, standing by the sink, slowly dried a ceramic bowl. Her mind wasn't there. She was with Elphaba, in that adjoining room where every word must have hurt like a splinter under the skin. She felt she should be with her, but at the same time... something in Dulcibear's gaze urged her to stay.
The older woman, wordlessly, dried her hands on her apron, walked with her patient gait to a low cupboard, and from it took out a small, time-worn purse. She sat down at the table, inviting Glinda to do the same with a nod. Glinda obeyed, with that mixture of respect and nervousness that Dulcibear aroused in her.
The woman opened the purse and took out something wrapped in yellowish tissue paper. When she unwrapped it, a printed photograph with worn edges appeared, in sepia tones, almost faded with age. The image showed a young woman—beautiful in an almost ethereal way, with translucent skin and deeply sad eyes—holding a greenish-skinned baby in her arms. The woman wasn't looking at the camera. She was looking down at her daughter, her expression unreadable.
Glinda recognized her instantly.
"I've seen this photo..." she whispered. "In Elphaba's album. It's the last page."
"Yes," Dulcibear agreed, his voice deep and quiet. "It's the only photograph that exists of the two of them together."
Glinda stroked a finger along the edge of the image with reverent delicacy.
"She was beautiful," she said, more as if she were thinking aloud.
"She was. And much more than that image shows."
There was a brief silence. Dulcibear took a deep breath and put the photo away with the same care one uses to close a still-feeding wound. Then he looked up and at Glinda with unusual intensity.
"I'm going to tell you something I never told Elphaba. And maybe you think she doesn't love me back, that I should wait. But if you love her—truly love her—you need to know. Because if she ever finds out... she's going to need someone who won't break when she hears the truth."
Glinda felt her body tense. She nodded slowly.
"After Elphaba was born... her mother changed. It wasn't immediate, but it was obvious. At first, they thought it was exhaustion, the pain of childbirth, adjusting. But no... it wasn't that. It was something deeper. Something dark."
"Postpartum depression?" Glinda ventured.
"Yes," Dulcibear replied, "but with deeper roots. She stopped talking. Stopped eating." Sometimes I wouldn't even look at Elphaba when she cried. I was there… I was the one who fed her, the one who cradled her. Her mother…" He paused. "Her mother started drinking. To shut herself up. To hurt herself. She argued often with Mr. Thropp, and he… often hit her to make her quiet. And when she found out she was pregnant with Nessa, instead of getting better, she got worse."
Glinda stared at her, her eyes wide open. Her skin had lost color. Something inside her clenched as if she already knew the ending to the story, but needed to hear it for it to be real.
"One day…" Dulcibear continued, lowering his gaze, "she tried to end it all. Her life. The pregnancy was advanced. The doctors were called. They managed to save Nessa from premature labor… but not her."
"My God…" Glinda whispered, putting a hand to her mouth.
Dulcibear wasn't crying, but his voice was laced with a sadness that seemed to have waited decades for that moment.
"They never told Elphaba. No one ever explained it to her clearly. They only hinted at it... in the worst ways. Frex... her father... always blamed her. Not just with words. With gestures. With looks. With omissions. He always let her think there was something broken inside her from the moment she was born. But the truth..."
Glinda swallowed, barely able to speak.
"The truth?"
Dulcibear looked at her with a mixture of rage and pity.
"The truth is, her mother was ashamed..."
Glinda covered her face with both hands in horror. But at the same time, in the other room, Elphaba stood, her fists clenched, her heart beating like a broken drum in her chest. Her gaze fixed on her father's upright figure, like a cornered animal, but not weak. No more so. She was fed up with the evasions, the half-truths, the judgmental silences.
"Stop me with your sermons and your false mercy!" she roared in a voice that surprised even her. "I want the truth! The real truth! Not your pious reinterpretations of the facts so I can sleep peacefully every night. Why? Why did you treat me like a disgrace my whole life? Why did you make me think Mom's death was my fault? I was a little girl!"
Frex remained motionless, his lips pressed into a line that seemed sewn with years of resentment. Finally, he spoke, with the sharp tone of someone who believes every word is a sacred dagger:
“You knew from the beginning that you weren't like the others. That you were… different. Dark. A sign. Your birth was a punishment. And she knew it.”
“Lie!” Elphaba cried, taking a step forward. “You don't know what Mother thought! You don't know what she felt! No one knows! Least of all you! You used her as a shield all these years to justify your hatred!”
“She was ashamed of you!” Frex blurted out, without raising his voice, but with the firmness of a judge.
Elphaba stopped. The air left her chest as if she'd been struck. Her lips trembled.
“You can't know that…” she whispered. “It's not true. You're the only one who was ashamed of me! The only one who couldn't bear to look at me because I reminded you of something you couldn't even name!”
And then Frex snapped.
His voice was no longer that of a shepherd. It was that of a fed-up man, cornered by his own lie, sustained for so many years.
"Because you're not mine!" he shouted, and silence fell like a lightning bolt.
Elphaba blinked. The world stopped for a second. The weight of those words took a while to reach her body.
Frex was breathing heavily. He had crossed the threshold and could no longer turn back.
"You're not my daughter. You never were. You were the fruit of a betrayal, of a sin. Your mother... your mother had an affair with another man. A foreigner. A stranger who came with strange ideas and bright eyes. She fell. She fell into that temptation and then... she made me raise its consequence!"
Elphaba took a step back. She couldn't feel her legs. Her face was completely pale, as if her green skin had vanished to reveal something much more vulnerable.
"What are you talking about?" he whispered.
Frex looked at her with a mixture of contempt and liberation. As if this confession, instead of shaming him, relieved him of a burden he never wanted to carry.
"I always knew you weren't mine. From the first moment. Your skin, your eyes, the way you spoke, the way you looked. There was nothing of me in you. Nothing I could love. And every time I looked at you, I saw her betrayal. I saw living proof that my wife... had cheated on me."
Elphaba breathed heavily. Everything inside her was collapsing. All the versions she had built of her childhood, of her mother, even of herself... were crumbling like sandcastles under a violent wave.
Elphaba didn't listen with her ears. She listened with her chest, with her throat closed, with the blood frozen in her veins. Every word was a stab, and every syllable pushed her closer to the abyss. She felt her heartbeat pounding like a war drum between her temples. The air was leaving him. His legs gave way, and his back hit the wall with a thud. Tears, warm and shameful, fell unbidden down his face.
Frex didn't stop. He couldn't stop, as if his hatred was driving him toward final destruction.
"Your mother knew," he spat, his voice like a sentence hurled from a stone altar. "She knew what she had brought into the world. She knew you were the living mark of her shame. Every day it consumed her more... the certainty that she had destroyed this family, that her sin walked on small legs through this house. You were the reason! And when she could bear it no longer... she did the unthinkable.
Elphaba gasped, clutching the doorframe as if that piece of wood could hold her broken soul. Everything blurred, as if the world had been plunged into an eclipse. The idea formed in her mind without her being able to stop it. The horror. The pain. The guilt that had haunted her since childhood, which she had thought buried, resurfaced with murderous force.
And then, before Frex could pronounce the final sentence, before he spat out that final, terrible word…
"ENOUGH!! "Glinda screamed, bursting into the room like a golden lightning bolt of fury and love.
It wasn't a graceful entrance. Not even a planned one. She had heard everything from the threshold. Every word had opened a wound in her chest, and now she ran toward Elphaba, as if she could cover it with her body, as if she could intercept the damage with her arms.
"Don't you dare!" she roared as she knelt beside Elphaba, taking her in her arms. Don't say another word!
Elphaba could barely hold his gaze, her eyes unfocused and her body shaking like a leaf in a storm. Glinda held her tightly, feeling her breath come in ragged gasps, her chest rising and falling without rhythm.
But Frex didn't stop.
"It's the truth! The only truth he's refused to accept! His mother didn't die by accident! She took her own life because she couldn't live knowing what she'd done, knowing what she'd given birth to!"
A strangled sound escaped Elphaba's throat. It wasn't a scream. It was more like the echo of a soul cracking.
And that was when Glinda stood up. Slowly. Her eyes shining. Not with tears, but with pure, burning fury.
"You..." she said, her voice low, steady as the edge of a sword. "You are a sick man."
Frex paused for a moment, perhaps at the unexpected force of those words.
"Do you think you have the right to judge her? To pass judgment on her soul, on her existence? You're not God, Frex! You're not even a father. You're a coward with a book in your hand and a cross on the wall that you use to hide your own misery."
"Watch how you speak in this house!" he roared, finally losing his composure, his voice filling the room like thunder.
"And did you ever watch how you spoke to your daughter?!" Glinda took a step toward him. "Have you ever wondered what it's like to grow up believing your own existence is a mistake? What it's like to carry the guilt of something you couldn't even understand as a child?"
Frex stepped back, bewildered, as if Glinda's sweet voice had turned into a devastating wave.
"You raised her on an altar of shame and threw her into the world without love, without guidance, with nothing but the weight of your own frustrations. And now you want to justify it all by saying she's not yours? That doesn't absolve you, Frex! It condemns you even more. Because it didn't take your blood for you to have an obligation to treat her with love. But you couldn't even do that."
Frex didn't move. Glinda's words might have been sharp, they might have been true, but they didn't draw even a shred of compassion from him. His expression remained firm, hardened by years of blind faith and a pride armored against all tenderness. He looked at them both with that mixture of disdain and fanaticism that only the truly lost can sustain, and then he spat out his verdict.
"Of course they're together. They're the same. Two daughters of sin. One broken soul uniting with another twisted soul. That's why they're attracted to each other. That's why they understand each other. Because they're made of the same impure clay."
Glinda turned to him in disbelief, her face still flushed with fury, but also with compassion. She wanted to speak, wanted to scream at him that he didn't know what he was saying, that his words were ancient, blind poison. But Frex continued, his eyes burning with a fanaticism that was no longer merely ideological, but deeply personal.
"It wasn't just your conception that doomed you, Elphaba," he said, each word falling like a stone on her heart. "It was your choices. You chose to embrace that which corrupts you. You chose to make your existence an affront to the natural order. You chose to be an aberration."
Glinda tensed. Her entire body vibrated with indignation.
"We are not," she murmured, "an aberration."
But Frex wasn't listening anymore. Or he was, but he chose not to. He took a step toward them, his eyes blazing with a rage that came not from the moment, but from decades of frustration. He raised his hand. Not as a warning. Not as a symbol. He raised it to strike her. Glinda.
And in that second... time shattered.
It was a loud thud, a body colliding forcefully against a wall. Frex didn't know what had pushed him until he opened his eyes and found himself face to face with her. With Elphaba. She was clutching her chest with one hand, her breathing ragged, her teeth clenched, her eyes blazing. But not with fear. Not even with anger. They were pure fire.
"NO!" he screamed. His voice wasn't a roar. It was an internal explosion, the echo of a thousand words never spoken. "Don't you dare! You don't touch anyone else again! Don't touch me again! YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TOUCH HER!”
Elphaba was trembling, but not from weakness. It was the shaking of a dam collapsing. Of everything she'd bottled up for years, now gushing out like lava.
"I hate you!" she screamed. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! I hate you for every time you ignored me! For every time you made me feel like I was wrong! For every look! For every word disguised as correction when it was really pure contempt! I hate you for letting me grow up without a single damn drop of love! And even more... for making me believe I didn't deserve it!"
Her clenched fists trembled at her sides. Frex, still against the wall, looked at her for the first time with something he'd never directed at her before: fear. Because for the first time, he had no power over her. For the first time, Elphaba stood. Firm. Naked and whole before his judgment.
"I am not your mistake! I am not your curse! I am me! And finally, finally, I don't care if you'll never see me! Because now I see myself!"
Silence fell like a heavy cloth. And then Elphaba stepped back, her eyes fixed on him, like someone escaping from a ruined temple. She stumbled a little... and then she felt Glinda's arms supporting her.
No words were necessary. Glinda hugged her with the gentleness that a heart rebuilt through blows deserved. She held her as they left the living room, the house, the past.
Dulcibear watched them pass and lowered his gaze, hiding a tear of respect and sorrow. Nessa stood on the stairs, paralyzed, her fingers clenched on the railing and her throat closed by all she hadn't said.
Glinda hugged Elphaba with all her strength.
"That's it... You don't have to come back... ever again..."
Elphaba nodded. She said nothing. She didn't look back.
Together they crossed the threshold of that house.
For the last time.
Some Time Later The car engine was off, the world stopped in an instant where everything seemed to have frayed a little. The vehicle was parked on the side of the road, with the town of Rush Margins fading behind them like a wound still burning in the darkness.
Glinda sat in the passenger seat with the door open, her legs stretched out, her hands hesitantly clutching her phone. The screen glowed dimly in the darkness, revealing a list of contacts… and one in particular paused under her thumb: “Mother.”
She sighed.
She didn’t dial. She wouldn’t. Not that night.
She turned her head.
A few steps from the car, Elphaba sat on the floor, barely a silhouette against the night horizon. Her legs stretched out in front of her, her elbows resting loosely on her knees, her head slightly tilted. She had a cigarette between her fingers, but she didn’t bring it to her lips. She just let it burn slowly, as if it were the only thing that made sense at that moment.
She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t speaking. She wasn’t breathing angrily. She just existed there, immersed in a state that wasn’t sadness or anger, but something deeper, more insidious. A different emptiness. More real.
Glinda placed the phone on the seat without looking at it and got out.
The night air hit her softly on the face. She walked silently, as if any sound could shatter the fragile scene of his partner on the edge of her own consciousness. When she reached her, she said nothing. She offered no empty words, no encouraging speeches, no hackneyed phrases that didn't fit in that end-of-the-world silence.
She just sat beside her, feeling the cold earth beneath her thighs, and without asking permission or explaining his reasons, she put his arm around her and hugged her.
Elphaba didn't move. For a long moment, she didn't react at all, as if the hug were something from another dimension. But slowly, her body seemed to yield a little to Glinda, like a rock finally allowing itself to be worn away by the waves. She didn't cry. But her shoulders slumped. The cigarette fell to the floor, smoking at her side.
They remained there. Embraced. In silence. In a kind of limbo where the pain still couldn't find its way out, but the love was present... resisting.
In the distance, crickets chirped as if nothing had happened.
Meanwhile, the Thropp house seemed suspended in time.
The dining room was empty, the chairs askew, the plates still on the table. The lights were off. A funereal stillness enveloped everything, as if the walls themselves had witnessed something they'd rather forget.
Upstairs, a faint sound broke the silence. The creak of a wheel turning.
Nessarose moved slowly in her chair down the hallway. Her face expressionless, pale. Her mouth set. She entered her room without turning on the light. With hands familiar with her path, she opened the top drawer of the alcove. She searched among old papers until she found what she wanted.
A photograph.
Two little girls in it. Nessa and Elphaba. Hugged awkwardly, forced by someone who had said "smile!" behind the camera. Both wearing dresses they hated. Both with a smile that was nonetheless genuine.
Nessa looked at her for a long time. Her expression cracked slightly, a slight tremor in her chin, but her eyes held no tears.
She opened another drawer.
She took out a small box wrapped in gray velvet. She placed it on her lap and gently lifted the lid.
Inside, wrapped in a cloth handkerchief already yellowed by the years, lay a single silver slipper. Small. Still shining, despite the passage of time. A symbol of something that once seemed magical.
She held it in her hands like someone holding the memory of a broken promise. Her gaze was lost in it, and for a second—just a second—she seemed about to say something. To whisper a name. To cry.
But she didn't.
There was no one in the room to hear her.
The car came to a soft stop in front of a wrought-iron gate, old but well-maintained, its rounded corners and symmetrical curves giving it the air of a portal to another world. Glinda turned off the engine and, in the new silence that enveloped them, turned to Elphaba, sitting next to her, her gaze fixed straight ahead. The breeze coming through the window played with a few loose strands of Elphaba's dark hair, which she didn't bother to brush away.
"Are you sure about this?" Glinda asked softly, without judgment, only with the gentleness of someone offering a way out.
Elphaba nodded slowly.
"Yes. I have to do it."
Without waiting any longer, she opened the door and got out of the vehicle. She didn't have any flowers in her hand, but she did have a small bouquet wrapped in newspaper, simple and wild, in her backpack. She pulled it out as she crossed the iron threshold, pushing the gate, which protested with a metallic squeak.
The garden was beautiful, more so than she remembered. She hadn't been there in years, perhaps since she was a teenager. The layout was simple but harmonious, and the white stone paths wound between well-tended gravestones, surrounded by precisely trimmed shrubs and reverently arranged flowers. Elphaba moved forward slowly, as if her steps had to relearn how to touch that soil.
When she reached the gravestone, she recognized it immediately, not by the name carved into the stone—Melena Thropp—but by the slight hollow in the grass in front of it, where the roots didn't grow as deep. She bent down. She arranged the flowers, removing those that had already wilted. Then she fell silent.
For a moment, she didn't know what to say. The wind stirred the leaves around her, but time seemed to stand still.
“Hi, Mom…” she finally whispered, in a voice she hadn’t used in years, a low, almost shy voice. “I have no idea why I came, really. I don’t know what I expected to find. But I had to be here. After everything I knew… after everything I was told. I had to tell you. Or maybe I had to tell myself.”
Elphaba looked down at the freshly placed flowers. Her fingertips trembled slightly.
“I know now that… you weren’t perfect. That you made terrible choices. That you couldn’t bear the guilt. That you left because… you didn’t know how to stay.” She swallowed. “And there’s a part of me, a tiny, very fucking broken part… that understands that. That understands how despair can swallow you whole. And another, larger part… that doesn’t know how to forgive you. Not yet. Because you left me here. You left me with him. You left me alone. As if I deserved it.” As if I were that, the mistake, the consequence, the cross you couldn't bear.
Silence returned for a moment. A bird sang somewhere in the background.
"If you had waited... if you had stayed a little longer... maybe the two of us would have found another way out. Maybe we could have saved each other. I don't know. I'll never know."
She rubbed her hands together nervously, taking a deep breath.
"I don't know if I can forgive you, Mother. Maybe someday. Maybe when I forgave myself first."
At that moment, Glinda appeared at her side. She said nothing at first, just placed a gentle hand on her back. Elphaba didn't turn, but she knew it was her. She stayed that way, motionless, until Glinda bent down and laced her fingers with hers.
"You don't have to forgive her now," Glinda said softly. "Or ever, if you don't want to. But the important thing is that one day you understand... that you don't need to forgive yourself... because you never did anything wrong."
Elphaba closed her eyes. She nodded slightly. She felt Glinda's warmth at her side, the only anchor she had left in that sea of jumbled memories.
They stayed there for a few more minutes. Elphaba didn't speak again, but in her silence there was no longer anger, only a deep weariness. A momentary truce with her own pain.
Then they stood up. And without looking back, they slowly returned to the car, to the road, to the journey. But it was when they were about to reach the entrance that Elphaba saw her.
Sitting in her wheelchair, perfectly upright despite the wind that lifted her long gray coat, was Nessa. Beside her, as always, silent and steady like a maternal statue, Dulcibear. They both looked toward the entrance as if they knew Elphaba would come. And they knew. Of course they knew.
Elphaba stopped dead in her tracks. For a second, she considered pretending she hadn't seen them, lowering her head and moving quickly toward the tombs. But she couldn't. Not this time. She knew it as soon as she felt the knot in her stomach, so similar to the one she'd felt as a child when she made a mistake she knew would have consequences. Only this time the mistake was deeper. And there was no external punishment to point it out. Only that look.
She crossed the gate without looking at Glinda, without asking her permission or explaining. She walked straight toward them, her steps heavy, the icy air cutting her cheeks. Dulcibear nodded gently and stepped back a few steps, leaving them alone.
"So you're leaving," Nessa said before Elphaba could even open her mouth. It wasn't a question.
Elphaba swallowed, her dry lips parting only slightly.
"I have to go, Nessa."
"You always have to go, don't you?" Nessa replied, her voice low, but with the force of a well-aimed blow. "There's always something that pulls you away. Something that won't let you stay."
Elphaba closed her eyes for a moment, the weight of the cemetery behind her feeling almost lighter than the one building in her chest.
"I can't stay. Not now. Not after everything that happened, everything I... discovered."
"Because Dad isn't your real father? Does that change anything about me?" Nessa's voice cracked slightly at the end, but she held the thread firmly. "Because I am your sister. That doesn't change anything."
Elphaba took a step closer, wanting to find the right way to articulate what she felt, but everything tangled inside her, like rotten roots that refuse to rise from the mud.
"I'm not leaving you," she murmured. "I'm leaving this place. This... weight."
"This place is all I have!" Nessa burst out suddenly, her cheeks flushed, her eyes blazing with a mixture of fury and pain. "You can choose to leave. You always could. I can't." This place, this house, these walls... they've surrounded me since the day I was born. I have no choice, Elphaba. But beyond that... no one let me go. Not even you.
Elphaba looked at her silently, feeling her lungs contract.
"I... I tried to protect you, Nessa. I sent you letters, tried to help you from where I was..."
"But you weren't here!" Nessa cried, slamming her closed palm against the arm of the chair. "You weren't here when I turned fifteen. You weren't here when I had a fever for a week and Father wouldn't even look in my room, thinking it was some kind of 'divine, redeeming plague.' You weren't here when I wanted to die and Dulcibear had to sleep in my room so I wouldn't get hurt. You weren't here!"
Elphaba took a half step back as if those words had been a whiplash.
"And you know what the worst part is?" Nessa continued, trembling. "That you did know her. Mom. That you spent a few years with her. That you remember her. I... I have nothing. Nothing but a grave and a chair. And now you do the same. You're leaving. You're leaving me. Just like her."
Elphaba felt the world tilt beneath her feet. Her body wanted to run, escape, get in the car and leave everything behind. But her soul couldn't move. Not with that look.
"It's not the same," she whispered, barely audible. "I'm not leaving because I don't love you. I'm leaving because if I stay... I'll collapse. I can't breathe here. I can't live under this shadow, Nessa. But if I could... I'd take you with me."
"Why?" Nessa laughed bitterly. "To be your burden? To continue being the sister everyone looks at with pity while you do great things?"
"Don't say that!"
"It's true. It was always like that. First, I was the sister of the weirdo, the cursed one, the one everyone pointed at. Then I became the cripple, the one they had to take care of. And now... who am I, Elphaba? What am I to you?"
Elphaba looked at her with tears that hadn't yet fallen, held back by a suppressed rage and a sadness as old as her bones.
"You're my sister. The only thing I have that matters to me from this place. And I don't know how to fix this."
Nessa turned her chair slightly, moving away a little.
"Then stop fixing it. It's too late. I just wanted a sister. One who would stay. But you... you can't even be that."
Elphaba stayed still. She didn't try to touch her. She didn't try to promise anything. Because she knew she didn't have the right. Not yet.
Elphaba walked slowly toward the car, hands in her pockets, head bowed. Every muscle in her body ached, not from physical exertion, but from the strain on her soul. Her legs felt shaky, as if walking were also an act of betrayal. The earth felt foreign, and yet she couldn't stop feeling it embedded in her bones.
Glinda's hand was already on the car door handle when a voice stopped everything.
"I knew you had it."
Elphaba turned, confused, her eyebrows furrowed in surprise. Nessa was still there, a few feet away, in her chair, unmoving. Her eyes shone with a strange hue, as if she'd been holding those words back for years.
"What?"
"The silver slipper," Nessa repeated, her tone low, almost casual. "The only thing Mother left me. I only have one. The other... 'disappeared.' Or so everyone said."
Elphaba paled. Her mouth barely opened. She had no way to deny it.
"It was you," Nessa said, without accusation, without anger. "I always knew. For years."
An icy silence fell between them. Elphaba lowered her gaze. It was true.
"I took it when I left for college," she admitted, her voice cracking. "I was angry, hurt... and I don't know why I did it. Maybe I thought if I kept something of hers, something real, tangible, then I could convince myself that she belonged to me too... even if that wasn't entirely true."
Nessa nodded slightly, saying nothing for a few seconds. Elphaba looked at her, with genuine guilt, like a child caught in a cruel and foolish act that, unwittingly, had left an indelible wound.
"I've kept it," Elphaba added honestly. "I take care of it. I looked at it a few times... but I couldn't give it back. I felt so far away. So disconnected." But I promise that as soon as I can... I'll send it to you. It's yours.
"I know," Nessa said with gentle, almost tired resignation. "It always was. But I suppose you needed something too. Even if it was borrowed."
There was no hug. No immediate reconciliation. Just that truth spoken aloud that burned but healed a little.
Elphaba held her gaze for a few more seconds, until she couldn't hold it anymore. She turned her face, trembling, and took the last steps to the car.
Dulcibear was waiting for her there, hands clasped in front of her, as always. The woman greeted her with a faint smile, the kind only offered by those who have loved someone their entire lives.
"Take care, my little one," she said, wrapping her in a hug that smelled of flour, cheap perfume, and comfort.
"Thank you for everything," Elphaba whispered, her eyes moist as she hid in that embrace as if she could be a child again for just one more moment.
Glinda was about to open her passenger door when Dulcibear stopped her with a light hand on her arm.
"It's obvious you love her very much," she said bluntly.
Glinda nodded. She didn't need to say it.
"Then don't let her pain be the only thing that defines her," Dulcibear continued. "She's had enough. She doesn't need someone to save her, but she does need someone who won't run away when she can no longer stand on her own."
Glinda swallowed, feeling the gravity of those words.
"I know," she replied in a small voice. "I'm not going to let her go. Not after all this."
Dulcibear nodded approvingly, stepped back, and watched as both women climbed into the car.
Elphaba sat in the passenger seat, silent. Glinda started the engine. They both knew there was nothing more to say for now.
The vehicle slowly moved away along the road, leaving behind Rush Margins, the Thropp house, the graves, the screams, the unspoken words... and a sister sitting in her chair, watching the dust of the road wash away the shadow of the one she had always wanted to be close to.
The road in front of them stretched like an endless line of asphalt between dry fields and a cloudy sky. The sun barely filtered its last rays over the horizon, casting long shadows on the windshield. Elphaba kept her gaze fixed on the window, her chin resting on her hand, her eyes fixed on some distant, invisible point. Glinda drove in silence, her hands tense on the wheel, her jaw clenched with the effort of saying nothing. The air inside the car felt thick, as if it carried the full weight of what they had left behind.
Miles passed without speaking. Just the noise of the engine, the hum of the tires, and the faint rattle of an occasional loose stone against the body.
Until Glinda couldn't take it anymore.
"You know..." she said, her voice soft but firm, without taking her eyes off the road. "I know we took this... trip to disconnect, to get away from the world and be alone, just the two of us, away from everything that hurt." But maybe... maybe it's time to go back. Go home. This time for real. Both of us. Together.
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She continued staring into space, not moving a single muscle on her face. Silence fell again like a wet cloth between them. And when she finally spoke, her voice was so low that Glinda almost didn't hear it. But she heard it. And she didn't like what she heard.
"I don't know if I have a home to go back to," Elphaba murmured, without looking at her. "After everything that happened in Rush Margins... after everything I heard, everything I felt... I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what part of me is real and what was a lie I told myself to keep going."
Glinda tightened her grip on the wheel, but remained silent, waiting.
"Emerald City seems like a mirage to me now," Elphaba continued, almost wearily. "A reflection we built together to escape everything." And I don't know if that's enough. I don't know if I can put that mask back on and smile like nothing's happening. I need... I need to be away. From everything. From everyone. And try to find something... something that tells me there's still something true in me.
Glinda turned for a second to look at her, but what she saw stopped her. The seriousness on Elphaba's face wasn't anger, nor distance. It was emptiness. Pure, formless pain. She was a broken woman trying not to break anymore.
"And... and me?" Glinda asked in a small voice. "Do you need to get away from me too?"
Elphaba finally looked at her. Her eyes were red but dry, as if they had no tears left.
"I don't know," she answered with brutal sincerity. "I don't want to lose you. But I also don't want to drag you down with me when I don't even know if I can hold on. I don't want you to sink trying to save me. I don't want you to destroy yourself trying to love me."
Glinda felt something tear inside her chest. The road blurred in front of her, but she couldn't stop. Not yet.
Elphaba looked back at the road, her silhouette silhouetted by the last light of dusk, and added with a sigh, "Perhaps... it's best for each of us to discover who we are on our own. Before we decide if we can continue together..."
Notes:
As you can see, this is one of the most important chapters of the story so far. I was really excited to get to this part of the story and be able to allow Elphaba to face her past. I hope you enjoyed it.
Chapter 29: BIRDS FLY OVER THE RAINBOW
Notes:
Warning: This chapter includes references to abuse and toxic relationships; discretion is advised.
Chapter Text
FIVE YEARS EARLIER…
The Gillikin State University cafeteria was almost empty at that hour. Outside, the night crept damp and dark through the fogged-up windows, and only two young women remained in the farthest corner of the room, next to a table lamp that cast a warm, yellowish light. The empty coffee cups, the remains of muffins, and the crumbled plates were silent witnesses to the fact that they had been there for hours. Words pooled between them like steam on glass.
Elphaba was hunched over the table, wearing a gray sweatshirt that fell slightly off her shoulder, her inseparable glasses casting two small shadows on her face in the light. She didn't smile easily, but at that moment, a smile stretched her lips with sincerity. On the other side, Dorothy played with the spoon in her already cold latte. The light dress she was wearing seemed out of place for the weather, but it suited her personality well—carefree, earthy, with a simple beauty that didn't demand attention but attracted her all the same. She wore worn boots that had seen too much road, and next to her seat rested a backpack with hand-stitched patches.
They were laughing. In that way you laugh when you discover that the other person not only understands your references, but completes them, subverts them, improves them. When one says, "I thought that too," and the other replies, "but I was embarrassed to say it." It was their first night together. Technically, it was a tutoring session—Dorothy had signed up as a freshman looking for guidance—but the formality had vanished after the first ten minutes.
"You know, you don't need a tutor?" "Elphaba said, leaning an elbow on the table and rubbing the bridge of her nose with amusement. "You're going to be fine. Probably much better than most of the second-year students, let alone the idiot third-year students."
Dorothy smiled and looked down, with that mixture of modesty and mischief that seemed so characteristic of her. In a soft voice, she replied, "Well... maybe I just wanted someone to talk to me without looking at me like I was some strange creature from the countryside. You're the first kind person I've met since I arrived."
Elphaba chuckled, tilting her head slightly, her dark hair falling over one of her eyes.
"That's sad," she replied. "Because I could say the same thing about you. And I've been here four years."
They looked at each other for a second longer than casual conversation required. It wasn't awkward. It was as if, for a moment, amid the laughter and exhaustion, they both found themselves reflected in each other with a dangerous clarity.
The conversation continued to flow naturally, but at one point Dorothy asked gently:
"And you... where are you from? Do you live here?"
Elphaba lowered her gaze. It was barely a second, but long enough. Her fingers tapped the rim of her cup and her body tensed slightly. When she answered, her tone no longer held the warmth it had before. It was functional. Mechanical.
"From a village. Not far away. A forgotten place, like so many others."
"Ah," Dorothy murmured, instantly regretting having asked. She looked down at her spoon and fiddled with it uncomfortably. Then, as if to make up for it, she spoke without looking directly at her. "I'm from Kansas. I suppose I could also say it's a forgotten place... but I'm not complaining. There's something beautiful in simplicity."
Elphaba watched her, her eyebrow raised.
"'Something beautiful in simplicity'?" she repeated, half mockingly, half curiously.
Dorothy shrugged with a smile. "Not everything simple is silly. Sometimes complexity is just... poorly distributed pain."
That made Elphaba give a small laugh—genuine, surprised—and for a moment she seemed to stop thinking. She seemed to stop protecting herself. She looked at her, beyond the conversation, and said:
"Do you always talk like that?"
"Like what?"
"As if your words came to melancholy background music." As if you were about to become a literary character.
"Only on Tuesday nights," Dorothy replied with a shy grimace. And then she lowered her gaze again. "Does it bother you?"
"No. Not at all. In fact, I like it."
There was a silence. Not awkward. A comfortable silence. The kind you share when you no longer need to talk to feel accompanied.
Elphaba broke the spell of silence with a fleeting glance at the digital clock on her cell phone. She clicked her tongue.
"Shit, I have class at eight," she murmured, stretching her long arms like a lazy cat suddenly returning to the real world. She picked up her backpack, slipped her headphones around her neck, and began arranging her things with quick movements, almost guilty for having wasted so much time. As she did so, her tone returned to its previous lightness, as if trying to make the goodbye less burdensome.
"Anyway, I think you're going to be okay," she said, still not fully looking at her. I know the first year is a mess... and that this university can feel like a soul crusher, but if you ever need anything, have any questions, or if you don't understand a professor or anything... you can write to me. I'm not a good mentor, but I guess I know how to survive. That should count for something.
Dorothy nodded with a small smile, but her fingers gripped the edge of the table more tightly. Her body didn't move. There was something unresolved in her expression, an invisible tremor behind her eyes. Something was struggling inside her, something that didn't seem to have a name yet, but was asking to come out. And just as Elphaba turned to leave, Dorothy spoke.
"It wasn't that," she said. Not very loudly, but loud enough.
Elphaba stopped. She turned around slightly, confused.
"Pardon?"
Dorothy took a deep breath. Like someone drawing momentum from the bottom of her chest, her eyes fixed on an invisible spot on the grimy tablecloth.
"Tutoring," she repeated, more firmly now. "That's not why I sought you out."
Elphaba frowned, slowly lowering her backpack from her shoulder without even noticing. There was no anger or suspicion on her face, but rather a growing puzzlement, as if she'd suddenly found herself in the middle of a book she thought she'd understood until she turned the wrong page.
"So...?" she asked. A simple nod, somewhere between curiosity and caution.
Dorothy swallowed. The tremor in her voice was carefully contained by an iron will. But her cheeks had flushed, and for the first time all evening, she couldn't meet Elphaba's gaze.
"I heard about you. Some people on a forum. One of those... ones that don't show up if you don't know what to look for. They said... you could help me."
Elphaba narrowed her eyes, still not understanding.
"Help you with what?"
Dorothy looked up, and for the first time there was something rawer than shyness. There was a kind of urgency in her face. An uncomfortable mix of fear and hope.
"I have... certain interests. Things I've had for a long time. But I didn't know how to name them. Or if they were normal. Or if I was alone. And someone said you were... well, that you understood... And could help me find what I was looking for..."
A silence fell like a curtain over the scene. Elphaba stared at her. She knew perfectly well what the young woman was talking about... What she didn't know was what she was about to unleash...
CHAPTER 29: Birds fly over the rainbow…
PRESENT:
The wind smelled of rust, warm gravel, and frozen time. Dorothy stood in the lonely West Hollow train station, a forgotten stop in the middle of nowhere, trapped between dry hills and worn promises. Behind her, an iron structure covered in old graffiti and faded signs. One in particular caught her eye: a smiling “Munchworthy Dairy” ad featuring a cartoon cow and a picture-perfect family toasting with glasses of milk. Dorothy stared at it for a long time. Her gaze wasn't nostalgic or sad. It was… frozen. As if the sign had touched something inside her, but she didn't yet know whether it hurt or not.
Beside her, her moss-colored suitcase rested like a faithful dog, old but resilient. The screech of the approaching train broke the silence, followed by the high-pitched whistle that announced it, cutting the air with authority.
"Aboard!" a male voice shouted from the entrance to the main car.
Dorothy blinked as if emerging from a trance, grabbed the handle of her suitcase, and walked toward the platform, her boots making a hollow sound on the aged wood. The ticket seller was waiting for her at the entrance, a man with a weathered face and a dusty uniform, his eyes squinting in the sun.
"Traveling alone?" he asked as he took the ticket from her.
Dorothy smiled. Not a genuine smile, but one she'd learned to perfect over the years, like a stylish hat you put on to hide your disheveled hair.
"Always," he replied with disarming gentleness.
"Where are you from?"
"Emerald City... sort of." "I had to make a detour," she said, as if the phrase contained more than it said.
The ticket seller seemed to accept this with a slight nod and pointed toward the interior of the train.
"Get on. It's not full yet."
Dorothy thanked him with a nod and climbed the metal steps of the car, feeling the weight of the sun on her back, the past on her shoulders.
The interior of the train was a mix of the functional and the nostalgic: seats upholstered in a faded blue, dim lamps hanging from the ceiling, large windows covered in dust, and that constant murmur of distant voices and metal wheels on rails. Dorothy moved down the aisle, pulling her suitcase leisurely, as if inspecting every face she passed. She smiled at some; at one woman who looked at her suspiciously, she winked cheekily. At a boy staring at her from his seat, she stuck out her tongue with complete seriousness, causing the boy to laugh and his mother to shudder in shock.
Finally, she found an empty seat by the window and sank into it with a barely audible sigh. She placed her suitcase between her legs, leaned back, and rested her forehead against the cold glass for a few seconds. The train started moving with a slight jerk, and the world began to recede through the window.
Her eyes blinked slowly. She was alone. But she wasn't empty.
As the train pulled away, something inside her settled and tensed at the same time. The journey wasn't improvised. Nothing was, really. Every step had a purpose. And though no one else knew it yet, Dorothy Gale was exactly where she was supposed to be.
The train moved forward with an almost hypnotic cadence, the tapping of the wheels on the rails composing a monotonous symphony that accompanied Dorothy's thoughts as if the universe had decided to set the beat for her. Sitting by the window, with the sun filtering through the dusty glass and bathing her notebook, Dorothy turned the pages with an ink-stained finger.
Each page contained symbols, single phrases, diagrams of possible routes, and meticulously arranged lists. There were entire columns dedicated to cities traveled, key people, artifacts tracked, names with question marks, and others crossed out in red ink.
A couple of lines were double-underlined:
- Emerald City — No sign of Elphaba.
- Recovered item. Potential allure.
- Fate uncertain.
- Will she come back for it? Likely.
She turned the page, and there it was, written firmly in black ink:
Glinda.
She'd circled it with an oval. Arrows radiated from the name in all directions. Around it were phrases:
Public Figure — Influence.
Emotional bond with Elphaba.
Accomplice? Obstacle? Victim? Catalyst?
Dorothy sighed and rested the pencil against her lower lip. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, as if trying to visualize something she couldn't see. Glinda intrigued her, challenged her. She was too perfect, too visible, too... impenetrable. And that was the kind of person who fascinated her the most. You couldn't foresee what you couldn't decipher.
But then, a voice came out of nowhere.
"Are you planning a revolution or just keeping a very dramatic diary?"
Dorothy blinked, startled, and looked up.
Standing in front of her in the hallway was a young woman about her age. Her body had that form of language that needs no translation: square shoulders, a lopsided smile, defiant eyes like a fox's. She wore a tight-fitting red and black leather jacket over a short black top that revealed a silver-ringed navel. Her dark hair fell in unruly strands, interrupted by streaks of scarlet that seemed to be lit by the light in the train car.
Her eyeliner was as aggressive as her tone.
"Pardon?" Dorothy replied with an automatic smile, though her eyes were appraising.
The young woman nodded at the open notebook on her knees.
"That's it," she said, sitting down without waiting for an invitation, as if the space next to her belonged to her by divine right. "You look like you're planning something... big."
Dorothy calmly closed her notebook, still smiling.
"And do you look like you're looking for trouble," she retorted, "or is that just makeup?"
"What if it's both?" the girl replied, crossing her legs with elegant ease. She stretched a little, as if settling in for a long chat, and then held out her hand. "Ruby."
Dorothy studied her for a moment before accepting the shake. Firm. Warm. But brief.
"Dorothy," she replied, still measuring each word.
"Dorothy, Dorothy... like Dorothy. The one in the stories."
"Something like that," she replied in a neutral voice.
Ruby laughed. A deep, charming laugh, as if she were secretly flouting all the rules in the world.
"Charming. I've always wanted to meet someone with a name like a fairy tale character. So, Dorothy, where are you going with such mystery?"
"Far away," Dorothy replied.
"Running away or searching?"
Dorothy turned her face slowly to look at her, for the first time betraying a hint of discomfort. Or curiosity. Or danger.
"And you?"
Ruby smiled.
"Both of you."
They stood in silence for a moment, facing each other, the clatter of the train for company. Two figures in motion, like chess pieces who have just recognized each other on the board.
Ruby spoke as if the concept of boundaries didn't exist. Every comment was a provocation wrapped in velvet, every glance a mixture of mockery and desire for conflict. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, letting the barely visible cleavage and the sweet perfume play their part.
"You have that good-girl-with-dark-secrets vibe," she said, as if listing an endangered species. "Like any moment you're going to blurt out that you accidentally killed someone and buried them under a bookcase."
Dorothy simply raised an eyebrow without looking up from her notebook. She flipped a page. Calmly jotted something down. Ruby tilted her head and let hers fall on the top of the seat, looking at her brazenly.
"Or maybe you're writing a novel. Though I doubt you have that much imagination. You have the face of a perfectionist. You have to experience everything yourself to understand it."
Dorothy sighed. She closed the notebook, placed it on her lap, and slowly looked up. Her eyes were large and bright, yes, but at that moment they fixed on Ruby with surgical precision. Her smile appeared, slowly, like a snake emerging from the leaves.
"Secondhand leather jacket, smells of cheap cigarettes and expensive perfume," she began gently. Chipped nails painted black, clearly biting them. Hair dyed at home, probably by a friend, after an anxiety attack or a breakup. Perfect makeup... but if you look closely, the dark circles under your eyes are covered, not corrected. You sleep little. You wear a snake pendant around your neck, but you don't believe in anything other than your ability to make sure no one notices. And your boots... they're from someone who walks more than they stand still, so you're either running away or chasing something.
Ruby blinked. Her smile began to fade. She said nothing. She just looked at her.
Dorothy continued, leaning forward slightly.
"You're not talking to me because you like me. You're talking to me because you want to know how dangerous I am. Because you have secrets too... but you know they're not as interesting as mine. And you're bored. Very, very bored.”
Ruby clenched her jaw, but her gaze seemed shaken, almost surprised. Still, her smile returned, this time more tense.
"Are you a witch or what?"
"No," Dorothy replied, with the same smile. "I'm just good at reading people. People talk, even when they don't want to."
Ruby leaned forward. The game had stopped being funny. Her fingers shot out quickly and precisely toward the notebook, trying to snatch it away.
"What if I read you?" she snarled. "Let's see what you're hiding in there, you wise-ass witch."
Dorothy held the notebook in both hands. Ruby tugged. The train lurched slightly at that moment, and the two bodies jostled awkwardly against each other. An elderly passenger, sitting a few rows ahead, looked up from her newspaper.
"Will you let go?" Dorothy said through gritted teeth, her composure intact, though her arm was clearly straining.
"What if I don't?" Ruby challenged, her fangs showing again.
"You'll be sorry."
"I'm used to that."
"Perfect," Dorothy said, and with a sharp jerk she retrieved the notebook and pressed it to her chest.
The two of them stared at each other for a moment. Labored breathing. Silence. The friction between them could have been cut with a knife.
Finally, Ruby leaned back in her seat with a theatrical sigh and a bitter laugh.
"You're worse than I thought," she murmured. "I like you."
Dorothy didn't respond. She opened her notebook again, as if nothing had happened, and scribbled something without looking up.
Ruby watched her for a few more seconds, and then...
"What the fuck?" "Dorothy exclaimed, feeling the cold air on her thighs as Ruby, with a speed she didn't seem entitled to in those worn boots, lifted her skirt as if it were a high school game.
But it didn't end there.
"Hey!" Dorothy shouted, immediately pulling it down, just as she noticed her hands no longer felt the weight of the notebook. "No... no no no!" she muttered. She turned her head. Ruby was already running, a laugh escaping her throat as she held Dorothy's diary like a trophy.
The door to the next car opened with a metallic screech. The diary almost flew from her hands in the rush of movement, but Ruby caught it with euphoric laughter, as if she'd just won a bet with herself.
Dorothy gritted her teeth, bolted upright, and her seat creaked as if the train was also complaining about the unfairness.
"Why do psychopaths always have to follow me?" —she snorted through her teeth, and shot out after her.
FIVE YEARS AGO…
The door to classroom 12C at Gillikin College opened with a soft creak as a stream of students poured out like a bustling river of laughter, gossip, and backpacks clattering in time with excitement. Inconsequential comments flew between the halls: a test that went badly, a date that went worse, a party that promised more than it would deliver.
Elphaba Thropp sat until the last moment, as usual. Not out of shyness—although that was what they thought—but because she preferred not to have to navigate the human tide. She closed her notebook neatly, smoothed the edges with a nervous hand, and stood up, crossing her arms over her books like a makeshift shield. She had barely taken three steps when a group of girls passed her in the opposite direction.
A shoulder bumped into hers. It was no accident.
Elphaba swayed slightly, still holding her books, and settled back without a word. The laughter continued uninterrupted; the girls didn't even turn around.
She took a deep breath. Nothing new.
It was then, when she looked up, she thought she saw a figure half-hidden behind one of the columns in the hall that connected the classrooms. A barely perceptible movement, a shadow retreating as if it didn't want to be seen. She frowned. But before she could move forward to investigate...
"Miss Thropp." Professor Worley's nasal, condescending voice stopped her in her tracks.
Elphaba suppressed a grimace and turned around.
"Yes, Professor."
He approached with that air of self-sufficiency that only an academic with useless medals could cultivate. He held his clipboard as if it were a holy Bible, and his raised eyebrow promised an unsolicited lecture.
—Regarding your intervention today… the questioning you raised regarding Aldróvenia's theory of moral equilibrium—she pronounced the name as if blessing the air—was, well… interesting. Although I must point out that it would be more appropriate, in your position as a student, for you to limit yourself to studying before passing judgment on authors who have been references for generations. It's not healthy for intellectual development to believe in unearned authority.
Elphaba stared at him silently for a second. Not because she was hesitant, but because she already knew that answering such men was like speaking to a marble column with an ego.
"I understand, Professor. But if the authors of the past can't withstand the questioning of a twenty-one-year-old student, then perhaps they don't deserve such respect," she said calmly.
He raised both eyebrows this time.
"Twenty-two," Elphaba added coolly. "I turned two weeks ago."
Worley forced a smile. He clearly didn't like being answered logically.
"Well, if you're so confident in your ideas, you should consider the mentoring program. You could convey your opinions to younger students... instead of trying to re-educate your professors."
Elphaba's mouth twisted. A barely ironic smile.
"I tried that," she said. "But it didn't come out very well."
The professor couldn't tell if this was an admission of failure or elegant sarcasm. Either way, he left with a slight nod, annoyed at not having won.
It was then, as she turned once more toward the exit, that she saw him clearly.
Behind the column, standing as if part of the architecture itself, was Dorothy. The same light dress, worn boots, flowered backpack slung over one shoulder. Dorothy. Her hair was blown out in a perfectly calculated mess, and her eyes watched Elphaba like someone watching a statue move for the first time.
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
Elphaba tilted her head, and Dorothy took a step back... just enough to confirm that she was there to spy on her. Not as a game, but as a conscious decision. Frowning, Elphaba improvised some sort of excuse to leave the hall, turning into the side corridor without looking back.
But she knew it. She felt it. The footsteps behind her weren't an echo. They were the soft, firm steps of someone unwilling to be left out of the loop.
Dorothy followed her.
The hallways were almost empty. The fluorescent lights flickered in some sections, emitting a faint hum that accompanied Dorothy's determined steps. She wasn't walking: she was chasing. Her backpack gently bumped against her back as she turned each corner, searching among the scattered silhouettes of straggling students. Every now and then, she whipped her head around, trying to catch a glimpse of a gray sweatshirt or a solitary figure striding away.
But Elphaba was faster than she looked. Or maybe she just knew how to disappear into shadows.
Dorothy bit her lip in frustration as she dodged a group arguing over a reading. She turned right, crossed a small covered patio, and made one last determined turn...
"Are you going to follow me all night, or are you going to stop acting like a rookie stalker?"
Dorothy let out a small squeal and stopped in her tracks.
Elphaba was behind her. Leaning against a concrete column, her arms crossed and her eyes tired, she had clearly circled around it to wait for her there. An unexpected, calculated strategy. Her tone wasn't aggressive, but cold and sharp, like a scalpel wielded with surgical precision.
"I'm sorry!" Dorothy exclaimed immediately, fluttering her hands nervously. "I didn't mean to make you feel... harassed, really. It's just..."
She hesitated, swallowed, searching for words that wouldn't sound as pathetic as she felt. Elphaba raised an eyebrow with irritating slowness.
"I knew if I wrote to you, you wouldn't answer." Dorothy finally got the sentence out. "So this... this was the only thing I could come up with."
Elphaba gave a dry laugh, one of those that didn't contain even a spark of joy. More like a gesture of disbelief. She moved away from the column with a resigned sigh.
“Look, kid. Go back to your dorm, to your freshman dramas and your traumatized high school teenage friends. This”—she gestured vaguely to the space between them—“isn’t for you.”
“I’m not a kid!” Dorothy snapped, her voice coming out firmer than she’d expected.
Elphaba stopped. She turned on her heel slowly, and for the first time, she really looked at her. Not with disdain, not sarcasm. She just watched, gauging. That same phrase, that same tone, that way of demanding to be seen. It was familiar.
That was the mistake. That pause. That second of hesitation.
Dorothy took advantage of it.
“I didn’t come looking for you on a whim,” she continued, calmer now, more measured. “I… I heard things. From some girls on the forums, in the private sessions. They said… that you were different. That you didn’t do any harm. That you didn’t take advantage. That you understood things other people don’t.”
Elphaba pursed her lips.
"And what are those things, exactly?"
"What it feels like." Dorothy lowered her gaze slightly, a blush that wasn't entirely embarrassed. "To have something about you that no one else understands. Not knowing if you're wrong or if everyone else is just in denial. To feel like there's something more... more real, deeper, darker at times, but... honest."
The silence between them stretched like a cord.
Elphaba looked away. When she spoke again, her tone was firm.
"What I do with my life is my business. I'm not interested in... initiating anyone. I'm not a mentor, a spiritual guide, or a damn cult leader, is that clear?"
"What if I'm not asking you for that?" Dorothy took a step forward. "What if all I want is... not to be alone?"
Elphaba swallowed. She closed her eyes for a second. A different girl's face appeared in her mind. Another hallway. Another attempt. Another injury.
"My answer is the same as in the cafeteria," she said finally. "No. Don't drag me into this."
She turned, ready to leave.
"Then why didn't you report it?" Dorothy exclaimed quickly. "If it really bothered you so much, you would have had me kicked out by now. You're Elphaba Thropp." Everyone here is afraid of your tongue and your essays. Why didn't you do it?
Elphaba stopped. She didn't answer.
"Because you know there's something." Dorothy's voice was soft now, almost pained. "You know. And that's worse than a no."
Elphaba leaned against the cold wall, one hand to her forehead as if the weight of the night—and the conversation—were falling on her face. Her fingers covered her eyes for a moment as she exhaled sharply through her nose.
"Look..." she began, and her voice had that roughness that comes when you're trying not to scream from emotional exhaustion. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into. You don't even know how... what these things are like, how they really feel. It's not a game. It's not a sexual fantasy with a pretty filter and a playlist playing in the background. It's not..."
She interrupted herself.
She was about to say "baby." Dorothy noticed. Elphaba noticed. They both pretended not to.
Dorothy clenched her jaw, but she didn't move. She didn't flinch. She didn't run away.
"You're right." She said it without bitterness, without defense. Only truth. "I don't know. Probably... probably what I understand about this is only one percent of what you know. Of what you've experienced. I have no idea of everything that could happen... but I'm going to keep going."
Her eyes were fixed on Elphaba's. Not defiant, but sincere. Unstoppable in their naive resolve.
"I'm going to keep going because I can't not. Because something inside me"—she touched her chest—"asks me to. And if you don't want to help me, that's fine. But I'm going to do this anyway. Even if I make mistakes. Even if I fall." She hesitated for a second, and then continued, her voice a little lower. But if you were to advise me... if you were to give me even one real warning, one single guide... I might do this with more than blind courage. I might know what I was getting into, truly.
Elphaba looked at her. Long. Silence. It was the gaze of someone who saw not only the person in front of her, but also the person she had been years ago. The one whom no one had guided. The one who had also insisted when she shouldn't have. The one who had entered of her own free will into a world that didn't forgive innocent mistakes.
That long, sad, resigned gaze.
The gaze of someone who knew she couldn't avoid the storm, but perhaps she could offer an umbrella.
With a slow sigh, Elphaba lowered her gaze. Then she raised her hand with a slight gesture, as if shooing away an invisible fly, and spoke:
"All right. One conversation. Just one."
Dorothy held her breath.
"But listen carefully." Elphaba raised her index finger threateningly. "This isn't a tutorial." This isn't a Pinterest guide. Don't call me again. Don't follow me. Don't make me your moral compass. This isn't an invitation, it's a warning. Is that clear?
Dorothy nodded immediately, perhaps too quickly.
"A chat," she said, with a smile that tried not to look victorious.
Elphaba shook her head.
"My God, you have death written all over you," she muttered to herself, resigned.
"What?"
"Nothing. Let's go."
And without another word, Elphaba started walking down the hall toward her room, Dorothy following silently behind her, her heart pounding like a drum.
She had crossed the threshold. There was no turning back.
PRESENT:
Dorothy moved down the narrow aisle of the car, her steps quick but firm, her eyes scanning each passenger. She wasn't running anymore: running was admitting she was losing. But she did feel her heart pounding in her throat, squeezed between fury and ridicule.
Where had that idiot gone?
Then she heard her. A clear, mocking voice, as if she were sitting on a terrace with a coffee in hand, not hiding on a train with a stolen notebook.
"What is this? A punishment? A ritual? It sounds like something out of a Tumblr art cult in 2008..."
Dorothy turned her head slowly.
There was Ruby, leaning shamelessly back in one of the individual seats in the side car, Dorothy's notebook open on her lap, one leg dangling casually. She was flipping through the pages like someone flipping through a magazine in a waiting room, one eyebrow raised and the tone of someone not expecting serious answers. She had her headphones on, but no music playing, as if they were part of her aesthetic armor.
"What's this, huh?" Ruby repeated, turning the notebook over and pointing at a drawing: a dark diagram, some kind of human figure trapped in a strange medieval prison instrument, drawn with obsessive precision. "I thought this was going to be full of tragic secrets like 'I kissed my best friend and she didn't speak to me for a week' or 'I dream about my Ethics teacher,' but this..."
She clicked her tongue, delighted with the discovery.
"This is... weird. Are you a witch? Or are you starting a demon torture club?"
Dorothy lunged forward and snatched the notebook from Ruby's hands. Ruby barely moved. In fact, she smiled even wider, as if she found it all exquisitely amusing.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Dorothy snapped, her voice trembling, but not with fear. "You don't know who you're dealing with." And it would be very, very smart of you not to continue crossing that line.
Ruby tilted her head as if she were assessing a painting. Her smile narrowed, sharpened. She didn't answer right away. She let her speak.
"You have no idea what you're reading, or why it's there. You don't know where I came from, or where I'm going, or why I do what I do. This isn't a game. And you don't want to be in the way of someone who knows what they want," Dorothy continued, with a tense, lethal calm. "So... if you have any sense of self-preservation, get off this mental train. Now."
Ruby was quiet for a few seconds. And then, in a low voice, as if she were more intrigued than scared:
"Wow. Are you always this intense? Because I'm starting to like you."
Dorothy took a step back, her jaw clenched.
"I'm not one of your carnival conquests, Ruby. Find another backpack to check."
"What if I don't want to?" Ruby asked, sitting up, almost face to face. There were no more broad smiles. Only a subtle, electric tension. Like two storms recognizing each other from afar.
Dorothy looked into her eyes with that cold gleam so few ever saw and whispered, "Then you're going to find out what it's like to fight with someone who has nothing to lose."
Ruby blinked. For the first time, she seemed unsure of what to say.
Dorothy took another step back, clutching the notebook to her chest like a locket. She turned without another word and strode off, leaving Ruby standing there, not knowing whether to laugh, run after her, or... simply watch her back.
Dorothy already had one hand on the handle of the door between cars. The creaking of metal, the rhythmic sway of the train, and the muffled sound of lost conversations filled the air, but in her head there was only one word: idiot. And she didn't know if she was saying it to Ruby... or to herself.
She was about to push the door and disappear among the other passengers when she heard hurried footsteps behind her.
"Hey!" The voice was recognizable, even though she was panting slightly from running. "Wait."
Dorothy stopped, but didn't turn around. She closed her eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and opened them again before turning around.
Ruby was there, her hair disheveled, her jacket slung off one shoulder, and a half-smile that oscillated between sincere apology and ironic defense.
"Look..." she began, scratching the back of her neck with an awkwardness that didn't seem entirely staged. "You're right. I am an idiot. I always am. It's my hidden talent. Maybe not so hidden, right?"
Dorothy watched her silently. Ruby lowered her gaze slightly, exhaling with a short, dry laugh, as if she were dismantling her own facade in real time.
"I don't know. I saw your notebook and... I thought it was kind of funny, a little silly. I never thought I had... weight. That you had weight. And I was wrong."
Dorothy narrowed her eyes, not entirely trusting the tone.
"Is this an apology or your punk version of a Hallmark card?"
Ruby laughed, throwing up her hands.
"A mixed bag. I'm new to this whole not-being-a-complete-asshole thing. But seriously. I didn't mean to screw up so badly."
There was a brief silence. Then Ruby shrugged with a mixture of resignation and unsolicited flirting.
"Besides... you're definitely the most interesting thing I've encountered on this train so far. So I thought... I don't know... maybe we could hang out. A shared car, a little existential chit-chat, intense gazes..." She smiled, tilting her head theatrically. "It could be fun. And I promise not to turn up any more skirts. Unless you ask me to."
Dorothy rolled her eyes, but half her face held a traitorous smile. It was stupid. A waste of time. A risk.
And yet...
She sighed, closed the car door, and leaned against it, her notebook still tucked under her arm.
"It's a stupid idea."
"So?"
"So... what does it matter?"
Ruby smiled like someone who'd gotten the toughest girl in the class to agree to a party. She didn't say anything else. She just walked beside her, keeping just enough distance to avoid intruding... and making it clear she had no intention of leaving.
As the two walked back down the hallway, amid suitcases, murmurs, and the flickering lights of the night train, something invisible, subtle, but inevitable... was beginning to form.
Not a friendship. Not yet.
But a collision.
FIVE YEARS AGO...
The wood creaked beneath Elphaba's boots as she shouldered against the door. The sound of the rusty latch giving way echoed in the darkness like an ancient sigh, and the moonlight, filtering through the tall stained-glass windows, bathed the interior of the clock tower in a soft, silvery-blue hue, almost otherworldly.
"Is this your secret hideout?" "Dorothy asked as she crossed the threshold with timid but eager steps, looking around with eyes alight with suppressed excitement. "It's missing a gas lamp and a black cloak to complete the look."
Elphaba barely let out a laugh through her nose, not looking at her directly.
"It's the clock tower of the old science faculty," she explained. "Apparently closed for maintenance for years. But if you know which maintenance door to push on the stairs, this place opens." She placed the heavy suitcase on one of the tables in the corner with a thud.
Dorothy approached slowly, looking around. There was dust, but also signs of use: a blanket forgotten on a chair, a desk lamp that didn't belong in the original decor, a couple of books piled up with bookmarks between the pages. It was a place where someone had sought refuge, not once, but many times.
"He used to come with... someone," Elphaba murmured as she opened the suitcase, avoiding Dorothy's gaze. "We were close." We explored things together. But… he's gone now. He's gone. And I haven't been back much since.
Dorothy said nothing. She watched the movement of Elphaba's hands, which were now opening the old suitcase with a mixture of care and resignation. Elphaba took a deep breath, as if she were opening something more than a suitcase. As if it were a door to herself.
Inside, arranged with almost clinical precision, were several objects: a neatly coiled red hemp rope, a small black leather flogger, a satin eye mask, a simple necklace with a metal buckle, an unused candle, a notebook with notes and drawings.
Dorothy swallowed. The emotion was visible in her body, but it wasn't simple excitement or teenage nervousness. There was something deeper: respect, genuine curiosity. Elphaba noticed it and was inwardly grateful that she didn't mock, that she didn't ask morbid questions.
"This isn't a game," she finally said, her tone gentle but firm. It's not just lingerie with spikes and provocative phrases. It's not a way of being special. It's a way of... being. Of connecting. And of giving. And that—she finally looked at her—is not something to be done lightly.
Dorothy nodded, barely.
"I know," she answered honestly, though her voice trembled slightly. "But no one ever... talked to me about it like this. All I know is what I looked up on the internet. And what I felt, without being able to explain it."
Elphaba handed her the rope, without judgment, as if it were a book. Dorothy took it between her fingers, gently running it through her hand.
"There are beautiful things in this," Elphaba continued. "Trust, support, discovery. But there are also dangers. Not just physical, but emotional. If you're going to enter this world, you have to know who you are. What you want. And what you're willing to give... and receive."
"And you knew all that when you started?" Elphaba smiled, almost sadly.
"No. But I learned. Sometimes in a good way. Sometimes… not so much."
There was a pause. Dorothy was still scanning each object, no longer like someone rummaging through a mysterious trunk, but like someone trying to understand something deeply human. Elphaba, for her part, had sat back down and was watching her with a mixture of protective distance and involuntary affection.
"I'm not going to play mentor to you," she said finally. "It's not my role. But if you need… guidance, I can show you things. Explain what I know. And then… you decide."
Dorothy looked up. Her eyes shone with something more than admiration. It was a strange mix of respect, vulnerability, and something that didn't yet have a name. Perhaps it never would.
"Thank you," she whispered. "You don't know what it means when you take me seriously."
"I do," Elphaba said. "Because you take yourself seriously. That's what matters." The moon rose a little higher in the sky. The clock chimes echoed inside the tower. And for a moment, between the dust hanging in the air and the gravity of everything left unsaid, Elphaba thought that maybe… she was teaching again. Not just to someone else.
But to herself.
The rope lay on the table like a silent promise. Dorothy kept running her fingers over it, almost reverently. Elphaba stood up and walked calmly to the center of the room. There was a kind of thin mat rolled up in a corner, which she stretched out with her foot until it lay flat on the wooden floor.
"Do you know what the most common mistake is when someone gets into this for the first time?" she asked as she unwound another rope, this one beige, thinner. "Wanting to appear strong."
Dorothy raised an eyebrow.
"Isn't that part of the charm? Dominance, strength, power?"
Elphaba smiled without turning around, concentrating on sliding the rope through her hands as if it were speaking to her.
"Yes. But not like they portray it on forums or in pulp novels. Being strong in this... isn't shouting orders or wearing high boots. It's knowing how to read the other person." And trust yourself enough to let go.
Finally, she turned to Dorothy and extended the rope with a gentle gesture.
"Give me your wrist."
"Pardon?"
"Calm down. I'm showing you something. I'm not going to do anything without telling you exactly what it is and why."
Hesitating for a second, Dorothy stepped closer and raised her hand. Elphaba took it gently, as if it were porcelain, and began wrapping the rope around her wrist with measured, almost rhythmic movements.
"The pressure should be just right. Not too loose, not too tight. Just enough to be felt. So there's contact... but never pain without consent." She showed her. "See? This isn't a trap. It's restraint."
"It feels... odd," Dorothy admitted, moving her tied hand slightly. "But not bad. It's as if..."
"...you're being held without meaning to be caught," Elphaba added.
Dorothy looked at her in surprise. She nodded.
"Yes. That's it."
Elphaba untied the knot with a controlled tug and rewound the rope.
"That's what many don't understand. That in all of this, nothing exists without the conscious surrender of the other. There is no dominance without trust. There is no submission without choice."
"And you?" Dorothy asked cautiously. "Were you always... dominant?"
The question hung in the air. Elphaba didn't answer right away. She sat in a chair, thoughtful.
"No. Nor do I think it works that way. It's not a title, it's a dynamic. Some people inspire you to protect them. Or to guide them. Or to provoke them. Or to surrender."
"And the person who came here with you... what did she inspire?"
A silence. Long. Almost solemn.
"She made me want to be better," Elphaba said finally. "But she also made me understand that not all connections last." Some only come to show you a part of yourself. And then they leave.
Dorothy lowered her gaze, as if that answer spoke more directly to her than she was prepared to admit.
"And me?" she whispered. "What do I inspire in you?"
Elphaba looked at her for a moment. Then she stood up and walked to the table, picking up the black mask.
"Curious." She handed the mask to her. "Do you want to try what it feels like?"
"Aren't I supposed to trust first?"
"Exactly. That's why I'm asking."
Dorothy took the mask. She put it on slowly, tying it awkwardly behind her head.
"Well..." she said. "I'm in your hands."
"No," Elphaba corrected her softly. "You're in yours. I'm only here if you need me."
Dorothy nodded, seeing nothing, her lips barely curving in a new smile. Elphaba picked up a fine quill she'd left in the suitcase. She leaned closer and, noiselessly, let the tip barely graze Dorothy's collarbone. The young woman flinched, surprised.
"What was that?"
"Something gentle. Harmless. Annoying?"
"No. Just unexpected."
"That's how it works," Elphaba whispered. "You learn to tolerate the unexpected. And to trust that whoever causes it... cares for you."
They continued like this for a few minutes, exploring with minimal gestures, few words, many silences. When Dorothy finally removed her mask, her eyes searched Elphaba's with a mixture of gratitude, wonder, and something harder to name.
"And now?" she asked.
"Now you go to your bedroom, reflect, and if you're still interested... you go on your own."
Dorothy blinked, incredulous. She took a step forward.
"What?"
"That's what we agreed on. I'll show you the basics, warn you of the risks, and you decide whether to continue," Elphaba replied without looking at her, now busy fastening the suitcase's clasps with a somewhat cruel efficiency.
"And that's it? Are you going to wash your hands?"
Elphaba straightened, finally turning to face her. Her eyes, dark and measured, showed no emotion.
"I told you from day one that this wasn't a game. That it wasn't something you could just jump into without consequences. You saw what you needed. The rest is up to you."
Dorothy frowned. Her cheeks were beginning to color, a mixture of anger, embarrassment, and bewilderment.
"But that's not fair," she said, lowering her voice, as if she had suddenly found herself naked. "You... you had people. You had someone to share this with. I have no one."
Elphaba narrowed her eyes. She crossed his arms, tilting his head in almost mockingly skeptical.
"So what? You want me to stay and be your spirit guide through the world of whip and rope?"
Dorothy pressed her lips together. The tension in her hands betrayed her effort not to tremble.
"No. What I want is... someone to understand me. To help me understand this. Because if I can't share it with anyone, what's the point?"
There was a second of silence. Then, as if she couldn't resist the opportunity, Elphaba let out a dry, short, and somewhat cynical laugh.
"Oh, I see," she said. "This is an innuendo. You want me to be your... what, initiation mistress?"
"No!" Dorothy protested, a little too quickly, too loudly. "It wasn't that... quite."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Look, Dorothy, you're pretty. You're smart. But you're not my type. Besides... I'm too old for you," she added sarcastically, crossing her arms, though a sour smile trembled slightly on her lips.
Dorothy was as red as a poppy in direct sunlight.
"I didn't mean... that. Not necessarily," she muttered. "I'm just saying... I still need some guidance. A conversation. A reference. A... something."
"And I'm telling you, I can't. I'm not going to be responsible for what you do with all of this," Elphaba said, more serious again. "Because this isn't a workshop. It's your wish, your burden, your decision."
Tension built in the air like a storm that couldn't find a vent. Dorothy looked at her, hurt, as if something she'd only just acquired had been taken away from her.
"Perfect. Then I'll do it my way," she blurted out.
She turned and strode across the room. She opened the door awkwardly, pushed it too far, and let it slam shut.
Elphaba stood there, alone in the twilight, her suitcase closed, her ropes put away, and the distant sound of Dorothy's footsteps fading up the stairs.
For a moment, she said nothing. Then, very quietly, she ran her hand over her face, exhaled, and muttered,
"What the hell did I just do?"
And she knew, as one only knows in silence, that this would not be the last time she would see Dorothy. But she also knew that the next time... would be different.
PRESENT:
The dim light in the carriage flickered intermittently as the train wound its way through the nothingness. Outside, only blurred trees and dim shadows could be seen in the night. Inside, the car was almost deserted except for two figures sitting on the floor, their backs against the padded seats: Dorothy, her legs crossed and her arms resting on her knees, and Ruby, perched on a seat, rummaging through other people's suitcases without remorse.
"You do know that's illegal, right?" Dorothy commented from the floor in a languid voice, picking an imaginary pebble out of her shoe. "But please don't let the law stop you. I can see you're quite the high school rebel."
"Shhh, focus," Ruby murmured, nudging a backpack she had no interest in with her elbow and deftly unzipping a dark suitcase.
"What are you looking for? A confession? The head of a spurned lover? Someone's dignity?"
Ruby smiled, without turning around.
"Very funny, Kansas."
Dorothy snorted, but something about this ridiculous situation was starting to strike her as funny. Perhaps it was the tiredness, perhaps the absurd tranquility of that empty carriage that seemed oblivious to time, but she let the smile slip away.
"Aha," Ruby said triumphantly. "What did I tell you?"
She turned around with a half-full bottle of whiskey in her hand, holding it up as if it were a war trophy.
"I swear it's just a matter of time. There's always, always a functioning alcoholic in economy class."
"Are you sure it's not yours?" Dorothy inquired, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course. I don't travel economy. I infiltrated economy class," Ruby replied, unsealing the bottle with her teeth.
"Sure. International spy. Luggage thief. Small-time criminal with narcissistic tendencies."
Ruby passed the bottle to Dorothy without responding, though her lips were curved in a smile that wouldn't budge.
Dorothy watched her. She hesitated for a second. Then she took a short drink, as if simply accepting that the night couldn't get any stranger.
The whiskey was cheap and burned like hell.
"You know what the saddest thing is?" Dorothy said, handing the bottle back. "This doesn't surprise me."
"What?"
"You. Your... existence. You're literally a living, breathing version of every annoying character in the third season of a teen show."
Ruby laughed and took a longer drink.
"And yet, here you are. Drinking with me."
"I'm bored."
"You're fascinated."
Dorothy snorted. But she didn't deny anything.
They passed the bottle back and forth. The silence between sips wasn't awkward. Ruby slid down the seat until she was also sitting on the floor, stretching her legs and letting one of her boots lightly touch Dorothy's ankle. Neither of them moved.
"Do you know why I left home?" Ruby asked suddenly, staring up at the ceiling.
"Because they wouldn't let you dye your hair with unicorn blood?"
Ruby laughed, more quietly this time.
"My mother walked in on me with her boss's daughter. In her bed. In the middle of the afternoon. Very much in her bed. Let's just say it wasn't the kind of scene a mother dreams of when she gets home early from work."
Dorothy barely turned her face toward her.
"So she kicked you out then?"
"No. She told me she expected more from me. That if I was going to sleep with someone, at least I should be rich." Ruby made a face that mixed mockery and melancholy. "So I left anyway. Before she started calling me 'her financial disappointment.'"
Dorothy was silent for a second. Then she took the bottle and took another drink.
"My parents are dead," said Dorothy, as lightly as she had said, like that someone would comment on the weather.
Ruby blinked. For a second she thought she'd heard wrong. The way she said it was so natural, so charming, as if she were talking about an old family recipe she'd forgotten.
"Pardon?"
"Yes," Dorothy repeated, turning the bottle between her fingers. "They died when I was very young. Accident... or something like that. I'm not entirely sure. I guess that wasn't exactly the most important thing for me."
Ruby looked at her sideways. Her instinct was to laugh, not out of mockery, but out of pure bewilderment at the way this girl dropped emotional bombs like they were birthday balloons.
"You're such a classy son of a bitch," Ruby said with a gesture that was half mockery, half admiration. "You say that as if you were talking about losing a pair of tights."
Dorothy shrugged, playing with the whiskey label.
"I don't like to make a drama out of it. That's what the world is for."
Ruby clicked her tongue. "And then what? Were you adopted by eccentric millionaires?"
"Not exactly," Dorothy laughed. "I was raised by my aunt and uncle, in a field in the middle of nowhere."
"God, you're like Spiderman," Ruby said, holding back a laugh. "Raised by uncles, childhood trauma, occult powers, questionable morality..."
Dorothy chuckled, tilting her head.
"I lack the powers, but the questionable morals... well, I've got that covered."
"And your aunt and uncle?" Ruby asked, her tone a little more serious now. "Were they good to you... or did they make you work the land until your innocent hands bled?"
"Emma and... the other one." Dorothy waved her hand. "I can never remember his name. Something like Henry, or Harvey, or... Howard. I don't know."
"How sweet."
"They were... nice," she said after a pause. "But basic. Field, harvest, breakfast at six in the morning. I swear if I saw another damn chicken I was going to turn into one."
"And that's why you ran away," Ruby said, taking another swig from the bottle, more slowly now.
"And that's why I found... ways to entertain myself."
Ruby raised an eyebrow. The crooked smile returned to her face.
"I thought so."
"Not like that!" said Dorothy, pushing her with her shoulder, though not very hard. "Or... not just like that."
"Uh-huh."
Dorothy took the bottle from her hands.
"Do you want to hear my story or come with your fantasies?"
"Both, if I have the choice."
They laughed together, and for a second the carriage felt warmer, more human. The world was still turning out there, but inside it was all a moving limbo.
"Eventually," said Dorothy, lowering her voice as she set the bottle down on the ground, "I found things I really liked. That made me feel like I wasn't wasting my time. That I wasn't just a country girl with a sad story. Something... different. Something that didn't have a name, but was like a map to getting out of myself."
"Is that what's in your strange diary?" Ruby asked, with genuine interest. "Poems? Masochistic fantasies? Recipes with code names?"
"They're really just... things. Ideas. Plans. Theories..." Dorothy hesitated for a second, but continued. "Memories, too."
Ruby narrowed her eyes.
"Memories of what kind?"
"Of people." She took another swallow of whiskey. "Of someone who taught me many things. Who helped me understand myself."
"A mentor? A lover? A forest spirit with a whip?"
"Not all at once," Dorothy replied with her classic ambiguous smile.
They both laughed.
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. Ruby looked up at the ceiling and then turned her head toward her.
"Did you ever go back to the country?"
"No."
"Would you?"
"No," Dorothy repeated confidently. "There are places you just don't go back to."
Ruby nodded silently and then looked at the now-closed notebook on the seat, as if it were suddenly not just paper and ink but a kind of mirror or warning.
"I never had a diary," she said, crossing her arms. "I'd be afraid to see all the blanks I can't say. Or that someone would read it and understand more about me than I do."
"You don't have to write to be read," Dorothy murmured. "Sometimes your life writes itself. With every decision, with every person you don't get out of your way in time..."
Ruby looked at her. Something changed in her expression, barely a flicker, but it was there. Vulnerability disguised as annoyance.
"You're weird."
"Thanks."
"And dangerous."
"I try."
"And definitely not like the others."
"Is that good?"
"I don't know. But you don't bore me." Ruby took the bottle and held it in front of her. "That's why I'm still here."
"Then let's not toast," said Dorothy, raising her hand but not touching the glass. "I don't want this to become symbolic."
"Too late," Ruby said, and drank.
The bottle was already half empty, resting on the floor like a silent witness. The air in the carriage had grown thick, not from the alcohol, but from everything that wasn't being said. Ruby spoke less now. And Dorothy, who almost always had something sarcastic or witty at hand, was silent. They looked at each other, but avoided doing so for too long.
Until Ruby avoided it no longer.
With a simple movement, without warning or exaggeration, she leaned closer. And kissed her.
It was quick. Not abrupt, but not planned either. A touch of lips that was more a question than a statement.
Dorothy said nothing.
She just looked at her. With those fathomless eyes that held more history than a girl her age should. She could have backed away, made a joke, downplayed it. But she didn't.
Ruby understood.
She leaned in again, this time with a little more time. The second kiss was more honest. More curious. As if they were trying to understand each other through their mouths because words were no longer enough.
And then, Dorothy responded.
She leaned toward her, her hand on her waist, and kissed her back. The taste of whiskey, the touch of the cold metal floor beneath her legs, the subtle vibration of the train... everything seemed distant compared to that. What happened next was inevitable.
The laughter dissolved between the kisses. Their hands began to explore timidly, unhurriedly, as if time had stopped just for them. Ruby stopped pretending to be tough. Dorothy stopped pretending to be in control. And for the first time in a long time, the two of them stopped playing roles.
That car became a refuge. The train's destination didn't matter, nor the wounds they both carried. All that mattered was that, for one night, in the middle of nowhere, someone had chosen them. And they chose each other back.
It was awkward, it was warm, it was real.
And in that instant, it was enough.
The train wheels whirred in the distance like a mechanical lullaby. Most of the passengers were asleep, lost in dull dreams, but in that empty, dim car, two girls were laughing as if there were no tomorrow.
Dorothy was lying on her back, her shirt open to her navel, one strap hanging loose, her hair tousled like a storm. Ruby lay on her side next to her, her leather jacket half-pulled and her top barely hiked up below her chest, lazily nibbling at the sleeve as her fingers played, intertwined with Dorothy's.
The whiskey bottle, a dying witness to her confessions, rested a few inches away, tilted, almost empty.
"Do you know this is probably the dumbest thing you've ever done?" Ruby murmured with a drunken, cheeky smile, gently pinching her pinky finger.
Dorothy let out a low, husky laugh, one of those that no longer needed defenses.
"Pfff... not even close," she replied, still staring at the dusty ceiling of the train car. "There are three stupid decisions in my life, and you... barely crack fourth place."
FIVE YEARS EARLIER...
The cool evening breeze rustled the papers Elphaba clutched to her chest as she crossed the central courtyard of Gillikin State University. The murmur of the students was distant, irrelevant, as if she were walking inside a bell jar. Her mind was elsewhere. Days had passed since her last encounter with Dorothy, and although the silence reassured her—at least on the surface—it also unsettled her. There was something about that girl that had stuck to her skin like wet ink. A persistence. A curiosity too dangerous. And now... an emptiness.
As she reached the building's exit, she paused for a moment on the threshold, gazing up at the clock tower. As if the place had spoken to her. She frowned. Something didn't fit. The door, always closed and somewhat rusty, hung ajar. Elphaba felt a lurch in her chest. She quickened her pace without thinking, quickly crossed the lawn, and climbed the steps with firm, impatient steps, the echo of her boots filling the stone staircase.
When she pushed open the door of the shelter at the top of the tower... the scene she found was a surreal mix of stupidity and tenderness.
Dorothy was kneeling on the floor, her face red with exertion and embarrassment, struggling clumsily with a silk rope she'd managed to tie around her wrists—but in such an impractical and ill-designed way that one hand was now numb, one leg trapped underneath, and her hair ruffled and tangled, obscuring half her face.
"Oh, for the gods' sake, don't come in!" she cried when she saw her, unable even to get up.
Elphaba stood in the doorway, arms crossed, her expression hovering between disbelief and existential exhaustion.
"What on earth are you doing?"
Dorothy tried to turn, but that only sent her tumbling two feet onto the carpet. She whimpered like a cat caught in a bag.
"I'm exploring!" she protested indignantly. "Responsible self-exploration! That's what you said to do!"
"I said be cautious," Elphaba corrected, moving forward to help her. Not that you were tying yourself up like a sausage with anxiety.
Dorothy opened her mouth to reply something sarcastic, but Elphaba had already knelt beside her. With quick, expert hands, she undid the clumsy knots while shaking her head.
"Do you know how many things you did wrong? This, for starters"—she indicated the pressure point on her wrist—"could have cut off your circulation. And this..."—she indicated the rope wrapped around her ankle in a ridiculous spiral—"this is just plain stupid."
"Well, not all of us have a master's degree in sexy bondage!" Dorothy exclaimed, offended, though her cheeks burned with humiliation.
"It's not about sexy," Elphaba snarled as she untied the last loop. "It's about control. Precision. Intention. This isn't a game."
"What if it is?" Dorothy murmured, sitting up slowly as she rubbed her now-free wrists. She looked up at her. "What if it's a game that makes me feel less... broken?"
Elphaba stopped. The rope dangled from her fingers like an unanswered question. For a moment, neither of them said anything. Outside, the clock struck six o'clock, and the metallic echo vibrated in the room like a warning.
"You're an idiot," Elphaba whispered at last, almost tenderly.
"But you're here," Dorothy replied, smiling faintly, her eyes twinkling.
Elphaba closed her eyes for a second, begging the universe for patience. Then he ran his hand over his face, exhaling with exhaustion, not only physical but spiritual, as if the weight of every one of his past decisions—including the mistake of having responded to that first message from Dorothy—had suddenly fallen upon his shoulders at that very moment.
"Why am I still doing this...?" she muttered, more to herself than to her.
She looked around the old room at the top of the clock tower. The dim afternoon light filtered through the stained-glass windows tinged everything with shades of red and violet, a gothic beauty that seemed to mock the ridiculousness of the moment. She was trapped in a dusty room, helping a stubborn teenager play with ropes without killing herself. Wonderful.
"And tell me something, Gale," Elphaba hissed, not looking at her directly. "Why did you have to come right here? If something happened to you, no one would hear your screams."
"That's exactly why I came." Dorothy shrugged, as if it were the most logical thing in the world. "My roommate can't see anything wrong, and besides... it feels... different here."
Elphaba glanced at her. Dorothy scratched the back of her neck timidly, her eyes lowered, almost guilty for once.
"Different how," Elphaba asked softly.
"As if..." she hesitated. "As if something could start here."
Elphaba pursed her lips, annoyed by what the sentence provoked in her. She didn't know if she wanted to hit her or hug her.
"Look," she said, kneeling down in front of her again and picking up the crumpled rope Dorothy had left. "It's clear you're not going to stop. You're a mule." She looked at her with resignation. "Just like me."
Dorothy smiled with that victorious air that came to her when she knew she was right. Elphaba avoided smiling back. She straightened her posture and spoke with the severity of someone who didn't want to feel involved, but was already more involved than she should be.
"First. There are rules. And they're not optional." "She looked gravely into her eyes. "Safety, consent, communication. Always. If you ever feel uncomfortable, even a little... you don't continue. Understood?"
"Understood," Dorothy nodded, serious for once.
"Second..." Elphaba paused deliberately. "I'm going to help you. But I'm not going to be your dom."
Dorothy raised her eyebrows. Her smile turned into a mischievous half-smile.
"Does that mean you're not going to tell me what to do?"
"It means," Elphaba said firmly, "that there will be no power relationship between us. No emotional or physical bond of that kind. This is education. Are you following me?"
"So... like a private lesson?" Dorothy murmured, biting her lower lip.
"Exactly. A lesson. No touching. No nonsense. No weird interpretations."
Dorothy nodded, though she didn't seem entirely convinced. But she accepted it.
"And third," Elphaba said as she took one of the finest ropes and bent it skillfully. "You need a safe word. Something you can say if you sense something is wrong. It has to be something you wouldn't say in a normal scene. Something clear. Loud. Easy to remember."
Dorothy thought for a moment. Then she smiled mischievously.
"Rainbow."
Elphaba looked at her silently for a few seconds.
"Rainbow?"
"It's colorful, unsubtle, and rather ironic considering what this is about, isn't it?"
"You're insufferable," Elphaba muttered.
"But I'm your student now," Dorothy crooned.
"I deeply regret all this."
But as Elphaba began to teach her how to hold a rope, how it should feel against the skin without cutting off circulation, how to always look into the other's eyes to verify their true condition, something changed between them. The tension eased, a little. And amid the technical instructions, there was laughter. Moments when Elphaba's fingers accidentally crossed Dorothy's, and both fell silent, barely breathing. Small flashes they couldn't name.
The scene wasn't romantic. Or sexual. It was something else. A shared learning experience. A kind of unintentionally sealed pact between the wounded old soul that was Elphaba... and the unbearably alive young woman that was Dorothy.
And so, amidst knots, warnings, and sarcastic comments, the night in the tower continued.
PRESENT:
The car remained almost silent, interrupted only by the metallic sway of the train gliding over the rails. The dim lights cast long, flickering shadows across the empty seats, as if the entire car breathed with them. Outside, the night was a dark mass that stretched on forever, and inside, two girls remained lying on the floor, tangled in misplaced laughter, whispered confessions, and the shared warmth that comes from stolen kisses between strangers.
Ruby spoke enthusiastically, waving her hands as she sarcastically recounted her most embarrassing exploits, as if each one were a medal hanging around her neck. She boasted about sneaking into a concert, escaping from reform school for an all-nighter, painting graffiti in a police station bathroom. And she said it all with that crooked smile, that twinkle in her eyes that wanted to scream "I deserve attention," even though her tone suggested she couldn't care less.
But Dorothy... she didn't seem to be quite there. She still lay with her face slightly upturned, staring at the car ceiling with a strange fixity. Her expression was vacant, as if the world had taken a few steps back and left her at the center of something more intimate. Ruby kept talking until, finally, she noticed her silence.
"Hey... are you back on planet Earth, or am I still racing against the moon?" Ruby teased, gently pushing her cheek with a finger.
Dorothy blinked and looked back at Ruby, a small smile barely visible, as if the gravity of her thoughts still weighed on her eyelids.
"I'm here," she whispered.
"So? The most idiotic thing you ever did? What was it?"
Dorothy sighed and looked to the side for a second, as if seeking permission from a ghost in the darkness. Then she turned back to Ruby and said it with a simplicity that struck harder than any shocking revelation:
"I tried to have a relationship with one of my teachers."
Ruby looked at her, uncomprehending at first. Then her eyes and mouth opened wide at the same time, as if she'd swallowed a slap.
"What?!"
"Yes." Dorothy shrugged. "It was a few years ago. I was in college, feeling... confused, invisible, full of ideas I didn't know where to put them." He seemed intelligent. Gentle. He listened to me. And I...' She paused. 'I wanted to be heard. Or so I thought.'
Ruby sat up slightly on one elbow, frowning. There was a brief silence. Ruby didn't know what to say, so for the first time that evening, she fell silent.
It was Dorothy who changed her tone.
'But that wasn't the stupidest thing of all.'
Ruby raised an eyebrow.
'Oh, wasn't it?'
'No.' Dorothy sat up too, crossing her legs. 'The stupidest thing was thinking someone else had to validate me to understand what I wanted.'
Ruby studied her for a moment, her expression different. Less defiant. More human.
'Well, that's the most philosophical thing I've heard while I'm unzipped,' she joked.
Dorothy gave a soft laugh, and with that, the tension dissolved for a moment. Ruby straightened her top, returning to her uninhibited demeanor.
"So tell me..." she said, tilting her head like a curious cat. "Is that weird writing in your diary from that time too?"
"Not exactly. But it's connected."
"So what is it, anyway?" Ruby leaned toward her. "Fantasies? Lists of people you're going to murder? Meatloaf recipes?"
"You want to know?" Dorothy asked, in a neutral tone that was more proof than offer.
"Of course I do."
"Okay." Dorothy smoothed her hair and suddenly became serious. "But if I'm going to show you, there are rules."
"Rules?"
"It's not a joke. This isn't a sexy game or a midnight tease. It's... something else." She stared at her. "There are rules. And the first is that you need a safe word."
Ruby burst out laughing.
"What?"
"It's not optional." Dorothy's voice was firm. "If at any time you don't feel comfortable, just say so and everything stops. That's how it works."
Ruby looked at her, somewhere between surprised and fascinated. For a moment, she seemed to want to laugh again, but held back. Perhaps because she realized Dorothy meant it. That this seriousness, this exact control of her tone, wasn't a game.
"All right," she said finally. "My safe word is..."
She paused to think. Then she smiled.
"Wolf."
Dorothy narrowed her eyes, curious.
"Why?"
"I don't know. I like wolves. They're wild, misunderstood, and won't let themselves be tamed."
"Of course not," Dorothy said with a half smile. "Nor do you."
"Exactly."
The two of them stared at each other for a moment longer. There was no sexual tension now. It was something else. A kind of unspoken agreement, an intimate ritual that didn't require a bed or underwear. Just glances, words, and the slow construction of something neither of them knew where it would lead.
Dorothy went to her bag, opened it, and carefully took out the notebook.
"Then listen carefully, Wolf," she said with a half smile.
And the night continued. And the game began.
The empty whiskey bottle lay on its side, turned like a sleeping witness. The carriage was deserted, the seats lonely, the night moved on outside like a dark river that never stopped.
Ruby sat cross-legged on the floor, her hair a little disheveled, her lips still wet from previous kisses, but her eyes were now fixed on Dorothy. A mixture of curiosity, defiance, and desire trembled in them. Dorothy, on the other hand, had straightened, with her back was straight, her face calm, her gaze sharp. She held her own hair tie in her hands, a black strip of soft, almost harmless fabric.
"Ready?" she asked, approaching slowly.
Ruby didn't respond with words. She just nodded.
Dorothy knelt in front of her. With a gentleness that belied her firmness, she took Ruby's wrists and began to tie them, a simple knot, with enough pressure to hold but not to hurt.
FIVE YEARS EARLIER.
"Don't squeeze too tightly," Elphaba said softly, almost whispering. "The restraint isn't in the pain. It's in the choice to give in."
Dorothy watched with almost reverential concentration. In front of her, a handcrafted wooden mannequin had its arms secured by soft straps.
"What if I can't read the signs?" Dorothy asked uneasily.
"Then you're not ready." Elphaba looked at her seriously. "You have to learn to read breathing, gestures, the slightest tremor. The safe word is a last resort, not a first." Pay attention before you get there.
PRESENT:
Ruby gave a small, stifled laugh as she looked at her bound wrists.
"You're more than you see, Kansas," she murmured.
"I know." Dorothy smoothed back her hair. "But now... you're going to be quiet. Just for a while."
The sentence wasn't a curt command. It was an invitation wrapped in silk. Ruby swallowed. She nodded.
FIVE YEARS EARLIER.
"What is this?" Dorothy asked with fascination as Elphaba showed her a box filled with objects: scarves, straps, a small riding crop, a blindfold.
"Instruments," Elphaba replied. "Nothing more, nothing less. The power isn't in them. It's in what they generate, in how they're used."
"And you? Were you always like this?"
Elphaba looked at her, the kind of look that doesn't provide immediate answers.
"No." I was like you. Someone who believed they had to ask permission to feel.
PRESENT:
Dorothy stood up and slowly circled Ruby, who was now sitting with her arms behind her back, breathing more deeply than usual.
"Are you all right?" Dorothy whispered, in a tone that wasn't uncertain, but cautious.
"Yes," Ruby replied, almost breathless.
"Then give me your word."
"Wolf."
"Good. Don't forget it."
Dorothy took a dark handkerchief from her notebook and folded it slowly.
FIVE YEARS EARLIER:
Dorothy walked with Elphaba through a room with mats, mirrors, and an almost monastic atmosphere. It wasn't a sex club. It was a space for exploration, where several people trained, talked, and learned. There was respect. There was complicity.
"What is this place?" Dorothy asked, awed.
"A safe space," Elphaba replied. "I discovered it thanks to someone who also guided me once."
"And why are you doing it with me?"
Elphaba didn't answer right away.
"Because you won't stop. And I'd rather you at least do it with someone who won't judge you."
PRESENT:
Dorothy carefully placed the handkerchief over Ruby's eyes. The cloth fell like an artificial night, silent and closed. Ruby smiled slightly.
"Now what are you going to do to me?"
"Nothing you don't want."
"Sounds boring."
"You'll change your mind."
And then, Dorothy leaned in. It wasn't a sexual gesture. It was a light touch on her cheek, a caress of her lips. A provocation that came from somewhere else. Ruby trembled. Not from fear. From anticipation.
FIVE YEARS EARLIER:
"Do you know what I feared most when I started this?" Elphaba asked her, as they both sat on the floor after a long conversation.
"What?"
"Believing that if someone wanted me, then I had value. And if not... I was nothing."
Dorothy looked at her silently.
"And you learned not to think that way."
"I learned that desire isn't validation. It's choice. Power. Play. But never judgment."
PRESENT:
The train continued on its way into the night, like a metallic snake that never stopped, advancing through sleeping fields and darkened cities. Inside the almost empty car, the world was another world. A clandestine universe enclosed within four walls of steel and time. And in that universe, Ruby was on her knees, her wrists tied, the blindfold still over her eyes, her body tense, but her face resolute.
"Are you sure?" Dorothy asked once more. Her voice was soft, but something in it had already changed. Like a lower note on a piano that hadn't sounded like that before.
"Yes," Ruby replied with a nervous smile. "I'm not a baby, Kansas."
Dorothy nodded. She took a step back. She took a deep breath. And something inside her fired like an engine.
She walked slowly around Ruby. Her steps were measured, her voice no longer soft. It was precise. Sharp.
"So you like to tease," she murmured, like someone sharpening a knife with words. "Teasing. Playing the mean girl. You act tough... but look at you now. On your knees. With your hands tied. Blind. Waiting to be told what to do."
Ruby swallowed. She smiled, but with less certainty.
"Maybe I like it..." she answered, trying to sound playful.
"Do you like it?" Dorothy leaned close to her ear. Or did no one teach you to keep your mouth shut when ordered to?
Ruby shuddered. Her tone had changed. The tension was growing, thick, like a string stretched too far.
Dorothy began to give orders. Small ones at first. I moved my hands. I opened my mouth. Say you're a good girl. But each word came with a harshness I hadn't expected. And then the comments began... the put-downs.
"Look how pathetic you look. So rebellious a moment ago and now... like this. You don't even know what you want. Isn't that right? You're just a confused little girl looking for attention. That's it, isn't it?"
Ruby didn't respond. The silence weighed heavily.
"Tell me I'm better than you. That you need me to correct you. That without me you don't know who you are."
The air turned cold. Something cracked. Ruby began to tremble.
"Say it," Dorothy insisted, and her voice was no longer a game. It was an invisible whip.
And then...
"Wolf!"
It was barely a whisper, but clear. Unmistakable.
Dorothy froze. A second. Two. The train lurched slightly.
"Wolf," Ruby repeated, louder this time, her voice cracking.
Dorothy blinked. It took her a second to react, but she walked over and removed the blindfold. She undid the knots, her breathing labored. Ruby backed away at once, scrambled to her feet, straightening her clothes. Her face was a mixture of rage, shame, and fear. The same fear she had tried to hide all her life, and now, for the first time, it oozed out of her pores.
"You're crazy," she muttered, and then, more loudly. "Leaving me alone, crazy!"
And without looking back, she ran out of the car, her footsteps echoing like hollow thuds in the night.
Dorothy stood still.
The car was now an empty, silent place, as if all the air had left with Ruby. The lights flickered. Dorothy breathed heavily. She sank slowly to the floor, as if her knees could no longer support her.
She hugged herself. The train continued. Not her.
And through her teeth, like a prayer that could no longer save her, she said to herself:
"You're not ready... you're not ready... You're not ready..."
The same words. Elphaba's. The ones she had hated. The ones she now understood all too well.
FIVE YEARS AGO...
Elphaba's room smelled of cheap incense and old books, with a lingering hint of poorly hidden marijuana mingling with the air behind a closed window. The walls, covered with books stacked in unsteady rows and printed clippings of academic texts, contrasted sharply with the unmade bed and the cold cup of coffee on the desk. Sitting cross-legged, shoeless, her sweatshirt pulled down to her elbows, Elphaba flipped through a book on political theory with one eyebrow raised, the joint still between her fingers. She was coughing through a dry throat when she heard the knock on the door.
"Who the hell...?" she managed to utter through her teeth, raising her voice. "Who is it?"
"It's me! Dorothy! I have news!"
Elphaba rolled her eyes in exasperation that was more theatrical than genuine. With a snort, she stood up, swatted the joint off on the rim of the coffee cup, threw it neatly into the toilet in the adjoining bathroom, and muttered something that sounded vaguely like "shit." Then she walked barefoot across the icy floor to open the door.
Dorothy burst in like a storm: bursting with enthusiasm, her backpack half-zipped, her eyes shining as if she'd just discovered the Holy Grail.
"Found it! Elphaba, found it! My first session!"
Elphaba blinked. "What?"
"My first real session!" Dorothy repeated, tossing her backpack onto the bed without asking. She paced back and forth with such youthful energy it felt like pent-up electricity. “I was looking through forums, you know, the ones you sent me”—Elphaba growled softly—“and I found someone. We talked privately, and he seems super serious. He gave me all the information: experience, boundaries, agreements... everything! He wants to see me this weekend! It's perfect, Elphaba. I'm going to do it!”
The room seemed to shut down in a second. Elphaba's shoulders slumped, the book still in her hand, as if a bucket of ice water had just been dumped over her.
“Are you... kidding?”
Dorothy stopped. “What? No... this is good! This is what I wanted! Isn't that what you taught me? To explore? To seek out who I am?”
“No,” Elphaba replied, putting the book down on the table with a thud. “No. This isn't what I taught you.” I told you to read, to get to know yourself, to think. Not to jump headfirst into the mouth of the first lion that grins at you from a poorly moderated forum.
"He's not the first! And I'm not jumping headfirst! I'm ready!"
"Ready?" Elphaba took a step forward, crossing her arms, her voice dropping to that dry tone she used when someone was about to do something irreparable. "Dorothy... you're eighteen. Less than a month ago you didn't even know how to tie a safety knot. And now you want to mess with a complete stranger who claims to have experience. What if he doesn't respect your safe word? What if he doesn't listen? What if he doesn't stop?"
"It's not going to happen!" Dorothy insisted, raising her voice. There was anger on her face now, a taste of frustration, of feeling treated like a child. "I'm not stupid. I checked his profile. There are people who know him. I looked into him." Not all of them are monsters, Elphaba!
"Not all of them," she repeated, sighing. "But even one is enough."
There was silence. Only the sound of distant cars passing on the avenue in front of the university.
Dorothy crossed her arms. "Why does it bother you so much that I do this?"
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She looked away. For a moment, her lips trembled. But then her expression returned to normal: her usual closed face, with that melancholy she never spoke out loud.
"Because I know how this ends. Because I was you too. And I thought having someone to tell me to stop... would have saved me from certain things."
"And if I don't want to stop?" Dorothy asked defiantly.
"Then you're making an irreparable mistake," Elphaba insisted, sitting on the edge of the bed with her arms crossed. "You're inexperienced, you can't read signs, you don't know your limits." You're playing a game that can hurt you, and I don't think it's fun.
"So what do you want me to do?" Dorothy retorted, standing, her fists clenched at her sides. "Study all the theory in the world, practice with ropes on stuffed animals, and never try anything? Why are you teaching me all this if I can't put it into practice?"
"Because it's not a race to see who gets there first. It's not about proving anything to anyone," Elphaba said, her voice more tired than angry.
"It is!" Dorothy cried, frustrated. "Because if I can't practice, then I'm nothing! Everything you showed me is useless if I'm alone! How am I supposed to learn to be a dom if I don't have anyone to be one with?"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow slowly. She couldn't help it. The laugh burst from her chest before she could stop it: a dry sound, somewhere between laughter and disbelief, tinged with a faint echo of the joint still coursing through her veins.
"A dom?" she repeated ironically. "Dorothy, you barely know how to braid a braid without getting your fingers in knots. And now you want to be giving orders? What's next, are you going to buy your leather throne on Amazon?"
Dorothy blushed instantly. Not from embarrassment, but from fury.
"You know what?" she snapped, taking a step toward her. "That's the problem. You don't take me seriously. You never take me seriously. You're always one step higher, looking down from your tower, feeding me crumbs of information as if I were a silly little girl."
"Because you're a silly girl," Elphaba said, more out of habit than with any real intention of hurting her. "At least not in this. You have no idea how much control it takes. How much can break if you don't know how to read the other person. This isn't a fantasy, Dorothy. It's not a sexy movie."
"No, of course not," she replied through gritted teeth. "It can't be because you won't let me. Because you can't not be in control. You're not capable of giving it up. That's the real problem."
Elphaba stood up, her jaw tight. "What did you say?"
"That's why you won't accept. Because you could never be submissive. Because you can't bear not having the power. Because even though you pretend to teach me... you don't want me to reach you. You don't want someone like me to be more than you."
The silence that followed was like an open wound. No one spoke. No one moved.
Elphaba opened her mouth, as if to reply, but closed it again. The right words didn't come. Dorothy wasn't listening anymore.
"You know what," Dorothy said, her voice hurt, almost trembling. "If you're so worried something might happen to me... why don't you have a session with me? Just one. You make the rules. You control everything. But at least this way I don't have to mess with a stranger."
"Don't even dream about it," Elphaba replied, with a mixture of alarm and rejection. "I'm not going to be your sub. Not in my life."
That seemed to be the final blow.
Dorothy took a step back, her jaw clenched. She lowered her gaze, as if she finally understood. Or thought she understood. And that was worse.
"I see," she whispered. "Now it all makes sense. It's not that you don't want something to happen to me. It's that you don't want me to become better than you. It's that you're scared that I might be in control."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Elphaba said, her voice breaking for the first time.
"Yes, I do," Dorothy replied, no longer looking at her. "Because it's the only explanation that fits with how you treat me. You always keep me at a precise distance. Just enough to make me dependent on you. But never enough for me to reach you."
And without waiting for an answer, she turned, opened the door, and left with a sharp slam.
Elphaba didn't follow her. She remained alone in the room, her hands on her hips and her head bowed.
"Damn it," she muttered. "She asked for it..."
But as the light in the hall faded and the door trembled with the echo of the knock, a part of her—the one that always knew the truth first—whispered otherwise.
It wasn't Dorothy who was wrong.
It was her.
As always.
PRESENT...
The car's bathroom door closed behind her with a rusty squeal. Dorothy leaned her back against the metal panel, breathing raggedly, her palms still clammy and her lips tight. Her knees felt weak, and her heart was pumping uselessly. When she forced herself to take the first step toward the train aisle, she stopped dead in her tracks.
There, at the far end of the car, two uniformed figures stood. One, his security hat tilted to one side, was inspecting the overhead compartments where the suitcases had once been. The other, a younger attendant, held a flashlight and muttered something about "damage and vandalism." They hadn't yet noticed the remnants of tape, the empty bottle under the seat, or the red ribbon in Dorothy's hair, which had been hanging from one of the metal handles like a flag of surrender.
Until they saw her.
"Hey! You! Stop right there!" —the guard shouted in a deep voice, already advancing toward her.
And then, as if a spring had been activated deep within her, Dorothy began to run.
She ran without thinking. Each car was a makeshift trench. She passed seats occupied by passengers who barely glanced at her, surprised by the rush of legs and backpacks. She pushed through sliding doors, tripped over loose rugs, clung to handrails like lifelines. She had to find her. She had to find Ruby.
But she couldn't outrun the voices in her head. The voices of her first encounter with her familiar "date" from internet forums. The same one Elphaba had warned her about…
“So your name is Dorothy? What a classic name. I like it. There's something... theatrical about it.”
The voice was soft, polite. Seductive. The Nome, the alias of Dorothy's contact, had chosen a dark coffee shop to meet for the first time. An older man with a trimmed beard and sharp eyes. His way of speaking was like the sound of ruffled velvet.
“Do you like literature? The philosophy of power? You’re a brilliant girl, Dorothy. It’s obvious you’re not like the others.”
A compliment. A flattery. A hook. And she’d taken it without resistance.
One more door, another car. Her breath burned in her throat. Dorothy clutched the doorframe and looked around. Nothing. No sign of Ruby. Damn. Had she gotten off? Had they arrested her already?
No, no, no. I kept going. Just one more.
“We’ll take it slow,” he’d said in her room, a few weeks later. “Only if you want to. You're in control. Always.”
And at first, it seemed true. He let her choose the accessories. He asked her to give the orders. He referred to her as “Mistress Dorothy,” and she blushed at the false authority that slipped through her fingers but made her believe she was someone.
“Do you want me to kneel?”
“Do you want me to call you Mistress?”
“Do you want to play with the blindfold?”
But suddenly, the games began to change. Subtle, at first. He no longer waited for so many orders. He reversed roles without warning. He corrected her. He told her how to do it “better.” She laughed uncomfortably, believing it was part of the game. Until one day...
“The safe word? Oh, right. I remember it.”
But that night, when she said it—“Rainbow”—he didn’t stop. He looked at her with a smile, as if he hadn’t heard her. As if he found it adorable that she thought she had power.
Dorothy stopped dead in front of an open carriage window. The night air hit her face like a slap. She needed to focus. Find Ruby. She needed…
“You’re all right, aren’t you? It wasn’t that bad. You’ll learn. Don’t be melodramatic, Dorothy. You wanted this.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but she refused to let them fall.
“You wanted this.”
The words pounded like a drum in her chest. The echo of a lie disguised as truth. The justification of so many like him. The voice she'd been taught to swallow so as not to appear weak.
And then she saw her.
She was in one of the economy-class cars, sitting by the window, her legs crossed, her arms wrapped around her torso, her gaze lost in the darkness passing on the other side of the glass. That expression was so different from the haughty, provocative, and mocking expression Dorothy had known, that for a second she thought it wasn't her. But it was. Without her mask, Ruby looked younger, more fragile, almost... out of place.
Dorothy stopped dead in her tracks. Fear and guilt mingled in her throat. She took a step forward, then another, and called out in a broken voice:
“Ruby…”
The young woman turned suddenly, startled. A mixture of alarm and anger flickered in her eyes, as if she'd been expecting this confrontation ever since she'd run out. But that wasn't what unnerved Dorothy…
Next to Ruby was an older woman stretching, adjusting her reading glasses and neatly smoothing out the imaginary wrinkles in her cream-colored coat. Her hair was neatly pulled back in a silver bun, her face flawless with barely-there makeup. Her every gesture spoke of control, decorum, and a rigorous upbringing that brooked no lapses. A lady.
The woman blinked a few times before turning to Ruby in a voice of tempered authority:
"What is it, Ruby? Who is this young woman?"
Ruby's shock was immediate. Her eyes widened in ill-disguised panic, and she instinctively turned to Dorothy as if her mere presence threatened to shatter an entire facade. The sarcastic smile, the rebel-without-a-cause stance, the insolent confidence she'd displayed a few hours ago… everything trembled for a moment.
"Nothing, Grandma. Just… a girl asked me where the bathroom was," Ruby murmured lamely, standing up awkwardly.
"And why was she running? Why was her face pale, Ruby?"
"Because…" Ruby swallowed and could no longer meet her grandmother's gaze, "because it's none of your business, okay?"
"Don't raise your voice at me," the woman said, without needing to change her tone to set the tone.
Ruby closed her eyes for a moment. Dorothy didn't need more. In that resigned, overwhelmed gesture, she understood everything.
The charade of the aimless girl. The rootless seductress, escaped from a family that didn't understand her. It was a lie. Ruby wasn't a runaway or a free roamer looking for adventure: she was a girl with a solid, perhaps stifling, but very present family. An upper-class family. With rules. With reputation. Everything she claimed to detest.
Ruby got out of her seat and, without looking at her grandmother, took Dorothy's arm tightly, leading her swiftly to the back of the car, to the aisle between two doors. There, surrounded by the roar of the wind and the sway of the train passing beneath their feet, the tension exploded.
"Are you happy now?" Ruby snapped softly, trembling with suppressed rage. "Did you have to come all the way here? What part of 'leave me alone' didn't you understand?"
"I couldn't leave you alone. You were scared. I was scared too," Dorothy replied calmly, but not gently. Her gaze pierced Ruby's like a scalpel.
Ruby gritted her teeth and looked away.
"I didn't need your pity."
"It wasn't compassion, Ruby," Dorothy replied. "It was responsibility. Because what happened back there... was my fault too."
Ruby said nothing. Her hands tightened on the metal handrail. A heavy silence settled between them, broken only by the rumble of the train.
"Why did you lie?" Dorothy asked finally.
Ruby gave a dry, bitter laugh, devoid of humor.
"Why not? Did you think it would be more interesting if I told you I came from a mansion in the middle of Munchkinland? That my grandmother is richer than God and my parents are at some charity gala while I play the black sheep of the family?"
"Is that what you are?" Dorothy asked, her voice unexpectedly harsh.
Ruby hesitated. She swallowed.
"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I just wanted to be something different for once."
"And that includes acting brave until you say 'wolf' and run away like a little girl?"
Ruby looked at her, hurt. But she didn't respond.
Dorothy lowered her voice a little. She took a deep breath. There was no anger anymore, only disappointment.
"You came across as a force of nature, but in the end... you were just another one trying to play at something you don't understand."
"And you? Do you understand?" Ruby shot back venomously. "Are you mature and responsible? Or have you just learned to fake it better?"
Dorothy looked at her for a long second. Then she nodded, with cold resignation.
"You're right. I don't know if I understand everything. But at least I'm not making up a story to feel special."
Suddenly, voices began to get closer. Hurried footsteps and crackling radios from the other side of the car announced that the train employees were about to discover them. Dorothy didn't hesitate. Without time to explain, she grabbed Ruby's hand tightly, ignoring her resistance.
"Come on!" she whispered furiously.
Ruby stammered something, but she couldn't stop her. Dorothy dragged her to the end of the car, through the automatic doors just as the two guards entered from the other side. They ran through the next car—an empty dining room car—turned down a side passageway, and, after struggling to open a heavy metal door, fell into a freight car. Dark, silent, filled with crates, tarps, wooden frames, and the smell of rusty iron.
Dorothy closed the door behind her with a metallic groan. They were both left breathing heavily, illuminated only by the flickering light of a bulb at the back.
Ruby suddenly broke free.
"What are you doing?! Are you crazy?"
"They were going to catch us," Dorothy snapped, trying to control her breathing.
"They were going to catch you! I didn't do anything!" Ruby yelled furiously, pointing a trembling finger. "Nothing. You were the one who came up with that weird plan, the one who scared me, the one who pushed me into this. And now I'm hiding from security like a criminal!"
"And what did you expect?" Dorothy retorted with a cynical laugh. "That this was just some comfortable fantasy, where you don't have to deal with who you really are?"
"And you do know what you are?" Ruby shot back, without flinching. Do you think you've got the upper hand just because you've read a few books and use big words?
Dorothy looked at her silently, swallowing hard. She was about to say something, but stopped. Because in her mind, like a distant but sharp echo, she heard another voice again. A voice she could still hear with absolute clarity.
FIVE YEARS EARLIER...
Dorothy sat on the edge of a dry fountain, facing the university's central plaza. The evening light tinged her copper. Her gaze wasn't there. It was far away, as if everything around her was passing by. It wasn't sadness. It was something worse: emptiness.
"Please tell me it wasn't you," Elphaba's voice brought her out of her trance.
The young woman looked up and saw her standing a few feet away, her hands in the pockets of her long coat, flustered. There was an awkwardness in her posture that wasn't usual for her. They hadn't seen each other in weeks. Maybe longer.
"Yes," Dorothy replied, her lips barely moving. "I went."
"And...?" Elphaba asked, dreading the answer.
"It was... perfect," Dorothy murmured. But the tremor in her voice betrayed her. "It was. It was... just as it should be. Just as I imagined. And I'm going to do it again. I'm sure it will. It wasn't as you said. It was..."
"How old was he?" Elphaba interrupted sharply.
Dorothy blinked.
"What?"
"The guy. Your 'date'. The... Nome. How old was he?"
"That doesn't matter..."
"HOW OLD, DOROTHY?!" Elphaba cried, taking a step forward. Her face went suddenly pale, a mixture of horror and suppressed fury.
"I don't know... thirty-something... maybe," Dorothy whispered, looking down.
An unbearable silence fell between them. Elphaba was breathing as if she'd run a marathon.
"Oh my God..." she murmured, then took a step back, as if struggling to stay upright. "What did he do to you? Tell me what he did."
"Nothing!" Dorothy exclaimed instantly, defensive, like a trapped child. "He treated me well. He was gentle. He asked if I was comfortable. It was all consensual."
"He was almost twice your age, Dorothy! And you met him on a forum, for God's sake! Do you have any idea what that means?"
"You weren't there!" Dorothy yelled at her, her fury masking her fear. "You left me. You said you didn't want to go on. That you weren't going to help me. So I did what I could. Because I wasn't going to wait around!"
"I didn't leave you," Elphaba whispered, hurt. "I tried to take care of you." But you can't understand that because you're still...
"What? A child? That again?" Dorothy snapped.
"A child who thought being tied down was the same as being free," Elphaba said sadly. "And it isn't."
Elphaba could barely keep control of her voice. Her chest rose and fell with each word, choked by a mixture of fury, anxiety, and a fear that felt as visceral as it was unfamiliar.
"Tell me the name. Tell me who it was with!" she shouted, taking a step forward.
Dorothy took a step back. Her expression, which until that moment had been defiant, now cracked.
"You have no right to demand that of me. I can handle it. It's not your problem."
"It's not my problem?!" Elphaba's voice cracked in disbelief. "You're a child playing with fire! This isn't a game, Dorothy! This is wrong!" "It's a crime!"
"You don't know anything!" Dorothy spat, her eyes clouding with rage and something deeper, something that was pain, hurt pride, confusion. "I decided to do it! It was my decision! And I'm going to see him again. Whenever I want. You can't stop me."
"Yes, I can!" Elphaba bellowed, taking another step. But it was too late.
Dorothy spun on her heel and ran, her satchel strings whipping behind her as she disappeared into the throng of students, as if the entire campus could swallow her up and hide her from the world.
Elphaba stood rooted to the spot. For a second—just a second—her body froze. Then her reaction was immediate. She ran. Not after Dorothy, but in the opposite direction. She took the steps two at a time, colliding with students who were coming down laughing, unaware of the hell brewing inside her.
She entered her room like a cyclone. The door hit the wall with a thud. Her fingers trembled as she picked up her laptop and propped it on the bed. She sat on the edge, elbows on her knees, hands frantically on the keyboard.
Forums. Chats. Histories.
Every word she remembered, every casual phrase Dorothy had mentioned days before about that "contact," every insignificant detail was scanned through her mind like a puzzle on the verge of collapse. The nickname. "The Nome." A ridiculous name, yes, but also deliberately ambiguous. And yet, there was something about it, something in the way he wrote, in the way he spoke of "discipline" and "purity of power," in his choice of pseudo-philosophical quotes...
And then she saw it. A message on a closed forum, two weeks old. Elphaba enlarged the screen. A post by The Nome.
And just below it... a signature. Not his name, not quite, but enough.
Elphaba froze.
Her skin turned to cold marble. Her fingertips, still on the keyboard, turned white from the pressure. Her mouth opened slightly, as if a scream were about to escape... but there was no air.
Because now she knew.
She knew who The Nome was.
And it was someone she knew.
Someone who worked at the school.
Someone who had crossed lines before.
A sound escaped her throat, not a scream, but a kind of dry, angry sob. Elphaba bolted upright, accidentally knocking the laptop to the floor. She brought her hands to her hair, pacing in circles around the room. She had to stop this. She had to find Dorothy. She had to get there before him.
Because if not... She didn't know what that monster could do to her.
And the worst part was, Dorothy didn't know either.
PRESENT…
The darkness of the freight car was thick, heavy with dust and the two girls' labored breaths. Amid the jumbled boxes and suitcases, the distant echo of the train screeching over the rails was beginning to fade, foreshadowing the inevitable: they were about to reach the station.
Ruby paced in circles, pulling at the red strands of hair that fell over her face, her lips twitching, panic transforming her into something very different from her usual self. She muttered to herself, repeating a nervous litany as her footsteps echoed hollowly against the metal of the car.
"God, God, God... they can't catch me, they can't catch me. If my grandmother sees me... if she finds out... I'm dead! She'll lock me up until the end of time," she moaned, on the verge of tears.
Dorothy, still with her hands braced on a box, looked at her with growing annoyance. She breathed through her mouth, trying to hold on, but it was also clear that her limit was near. "Will you shut up for a second?!" she finally exploded, with a sharp crack that echoed between the floorboards. Ruby looked at her as if she'd slapped her. "We just have to get to the station and get off. They won't catch you, not if you think with your head for once."
"Think with your head?!" Ruby laughed, but it was a broken, broken laugh. "You got me into all this. You're a crazy woman with a diary full of weird drawings, with a thousand rules about magic words, and a scary look in her eyes, you know that? You have no idea what you're doing!"
Dorothy stood still. For a moment she didn't respond. She just looked at her.
The train began to slow down, its screech becoming more pronounced. The landscape that filtered through the gap between the planks sped by more and more slowly: poles, wires, buildings... and beyond, the first signs of the station.
Dorothy walked slowly to a small window. She looked out. She took a deep breath.
And then she spoke, with icy calm, each word chiseled like steel:
"You have no idea who I am. Or what I've done. Or what I'm capable of." Her tone was so calm it was more disturbing than any scream. "You underestimated me like everyone else... like she did, like he did, like everyone did."
Ruby took a step back, her laughter fading.
Dorothy turned to her, her expression neutral like a mask. Her eyes shone with determination. She pointed to a suitcase stacked on the side of the car, a small one with old stickers and a tag barely hanging off.
"Is that your suitcase?"
Ruby looked at her blankly.
"What...?"
Dorothy took a step toward the suitcase, bent down without breaking eye contact, and with a swift movement opened the main zipper.
FIVE YEARS EARLIER...
Night hung over the campus like a thick curtain, charged with electricity and the promise of a storm. The wind stirred the treetops with increasing fury, as if nature itself were reacting to the chaos brewing around the corner of the dorm. In the dim yellow light of a lantern, Elphaba stood motionless across the street, wrapped in a black coat that fell like a shadow over her figure. Her hands were tucked into her pockets, but if someone got close enough, they could see them trembling.
In front of her, two police cars blocked the way. Their revolving lights painted the building's bricks flashing red and blue. The door to the residence was ajar, revealing a hallway lit by cold white lights. And then, as if in slow motion, it happened: two officers descended the porch steps, escorting a man with his hands cuffed behind his back. Despite the distance, Elphaba recognized him instantly. Professor Jonathan Worley, The Nome.
His face showed no remorse. His head was bowed, but not defeated, but rather heated by a silent fury, as if he still didn't understand why he was being arrested. Elphaba swallowed. The buzz of adrenaline mingled with the pounding of her heart, which pounded against her chest as if it wanted to escape.
For a moment, she thought it was all over. That she had done the right thing by filing the anonymous report. That this monster would face the consequences. But then, something made her frown. She looked around, her body tensing. She didn't see Dorothy. Not a trace of her.
She crossed the street, her steps growing increasingly rapid. The officers were already placing the teacher in the back seat of a patrol car. Elphaba approached one of them in an urgent voice:
"Excuse me! Excuse me!" The officer didn't look at her, preoccupied with closing the back door. "Was there anyone else inside? A girl? A student?"
The policeman, annoyed by the interruption, tried to push her away with a firm gesture:
"Miss, you can't be here. Back up."
"But there was a girl! There must have been a girl with him!"
"We didn't find anyone else," another female voice said tersely.
Elphaba turned to her. A young officer, with a tired face but compassionate gaze, had watched her for a moment.
"Are you sure?" Elphaba asked, her voice cracking. "She was here. She had to be here."
The officer hesitated for a moment before answering, as if she knew her words wouldn't be enough.
"The house was empty when we entered. He was alone."
It was like a blow to the stomach. Elphaba staggered a little, but didn't fall. Her throat burned, her eyes scanned the scene as if she could will Dorothy to appear. No. It couldn't be. Dorothy must be there. Dorothy must have seen everything... or at least left first. But what if not?
Without another reply, Elphaba ran around the side of the building, her boots squelching against the wet grass, her thoughts like knives. Maybe she'd climbed out a window. Maybe she'd hidden. Maybe... something worse. She pushed through the side fence and ran to the backyard. She called out his name once. And again. Only the wind responded, blowing the dry leaves in its wake.
Finally, at the back of the house, away from the police car lights and the uneasy murmur of curious neighbors, Elphaba saw a small, rickety back door. Her fingers trembled as she closed her hand on the doorknob, and for a second, she felt her chest was too small to contain the heart that hammered as if it wanted to escape. The door creaked with a mournful groan, and the first thing she noticed was the smell: stale sweat, artificial leather, and a faint but unmistakable metallic tinge.
The room was narrow, poorly ventilated, with a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling like a blinking eye. And on the floor, discarded like a forgotten object, was Dorothy.
Elphaba didn't breathe. She couldn't.
Dorothy lay on her side, her ankles bent awkwardly, her arms strung behind her back with her wrists cuffed. Her skin was reddened in uneven patches, as if the air itself had punished her. A black latex mask, with a closed, crooked valve, covered her face and squeezed her jaw. Her chest barely rose and fell. Elphaba felt as if the world had contracted into a single, tiny, sharp, unbearable point.
"Dorothy!" she cried in a voice she didn't even recognize as her own.
She threw herself onto her knees beside her, pulling at the mask with both hands until the material gave way with a snap. Dorothy's face appeared drenched in sweat, her lips bruised. Elphaba held her face in her hands, crying her name over and over, moving it gently, desperately, as if her voice could open his eyes, as if loving him enough would make the universe take pity.
And then, suddenly, a small, broken gasp. Dorothy breathed.
It wasn't a romantic sigh of relief, nor a triumphant inhalation. It was a painful, convulsive breath, heavy with pent-up suffocation. Elphaba felt her own eyes fill with tears. She hugged her. She didn't think. He just held her as if he wanted to rebuild her with his touch. Her body was trembling. Elphaba didn't know if it was from the cold, the trauma, or the life that was clawing its way back into her.
"You're okay," she whispered through her teeth, almost like a desperate prayer. "It's over, it's over... I'm here. I did it. I have you..."
But then something changed. Dorothy wasn't crying. She wasn't screaming. She wasn't saying anything.
She sat up slowly, her wrists still manacled, her body trembling, but not from fear: from suppressed fury.
She looked at her. That look wasn't one of relief. It wasn't one of gratitude. It was a mixture of humiliation, of rage, of something broken that hadn't yet hit rock bottom.
"What did you do?" Dorothy whispered, her voice hoarse as a worn string.
"I saved you," Elphaba answered without thinking, without understanding why those words didn't sound right, why they didn't sound heroic.
"Save me?" "She repeated, with a bitter, empty laugh. 'Who asked you to save me?'
Elphaba stepped back slightly. Not out of fear, but because she didn't know how to hold on across the gap that had opened between them.
"He... he was a criminal," she stammered. "He was your teacher, Dorothy! He was over forty. He was using you! It was child abuse, for God's sake!"
"And what do you know about what I wanted?" she cut her off sharply. Her eyes were shining, but not with tears. "You don't understand anything. Nothing! You ruined everything. It was... it was mine."
"No!" Elphaba exploded. "Don't say that! That wasn't yours, Dorothy! That was abuse! It was exploitation! It was violence!"
But Dorothy wasn't listening anymore. Or didn't want to listen. Her words were daggers without precise direction.
"Why can't you just let me live my life?" Why do you always have to be the one who knows everything? Her lips trembled, her voice cracked, but she didn't back down. "You always have to be right! Always you and your damn control!"
Elphaba wanted to say something. To explain. To beg. But she couldn't.
Because she understood the true horror of this.
It wasn't just the act. It wasn't just The Nome. It was everything. It was Dorothy's loneliness. It was the need to be an adult at all costs. To have power over something. To never feel invisible again. And for her, Elphaba had stolen that mirage, that twisted fantasy where she thought she was in control.
Dorothy turned. The handcuffs clinked.
"I don't want to see you again," she said.
And Elphaba didn't stop her.
She couldn't.
The rain began to fall a few minutes later. Silently at first. And then furiously.
But Elphaba was already soaked long before she got wet. Because even when she'd done the right thing, the world seemed to hold it against her anyway.
PRESENT…
The air in the freight car seemed thicker by the second, with the train axles creaking beneath their feet and the rising hum of the approaching station. Ruby continued to breathe heavily, her cheeks flushed with adrenaline, tears, and fury, while Dorothy, crouching in front of the open suitcase, removed clothes, shoes, and miscellaneous items with surgical precision. She did so unhurriedly, as if she knew exactly what to look for, as if this moment had been planned long in advance.
Ruby frowned, her voice trailing off.
"What... what are you doing? That's my suitcase! What are you looking for?"
"It's not yours," Dorothy corrected without looking at her. "Technically, it belongs to your grandmother, who, by the way, has Platinum cards. You're just a parasite disguised as a punk."
Ruby took a step forward as if to snatch the suitcase from her, but stopped dead in her tracks when Dorothy looked up. That look... it wasn't that of a confused young woman or a scorned girl. It was cold. Clinical. Inevitable.
"What are you talking about?"
Dorothy pulled out a neatly folded wallet, engraved with gold initials. She opened it, examined the cards, and with a barely visible smile, murmured,
"Perfect."
Ruby hesitated.
"What are you doing with that? Have you gone mad?"
"Mad?" Dorothy repeated softly, savoring the word with a sour sweetness. "I told you. You don't know who I am. But don't worry... now you'll begin to understand."
She calmly closed the suitcase and stood up, facing her.
"Ruby Lynn Everstone. Born September 7. Only child." She lives in a three-story house in the Upper District of Munchkinland with your maternal grandmother, Viatrix. Your parents are always traveling on business, and they leave you in their care. Do you know how many photos there are on social media of you making mean bitch faces with empty bottles in public restrooms? Thirty-seven. But they all show you're always on the go. Everything about you is an act.' She looked her straight in the eyes. 'You're a pathetic supporting actress in your own life.'
Ruby took a step back as if she'd been hit.
'How...?' she stammered. 'How do you know all that?'
'Instagram. TikTok. Your school profile. Gillikin High's social media feed. Google. You weren't hard to track down. I checked you out as soon as I saw you at the station.'
Ruby blinked.
'What are you...?'
'I saw you with your grandmother at the station. I saw her hug you before you got on.' I saw how you obeyed her every word, and how she kept telling you to stand up straight. So when I saw you... I knew exactly who you were.
Ruby backed away, her mouth open, a thread of denial just beginning to show.
"A rich girl. Lonely. Spiteful. Wanting to be something else. Repressed. Who steals whiskey bottles from other people's suitcases just to see if someone will punish her. A girl who wants to be desired but never ignored," Dorothy interrupted, moving closer. "I know that whole directionless bitch facade is a poorly written lie. I know you saw me as a distraction. But now you know... I chose you. From the very beginning. From the moment I saw you taking pictures of the first-class carriage to brag about on your social media, I knew you'd be my hobby. You gave me everything: your attention, your drive, your idiocy. I was bored, Ruby. And you showed up just in time."
Ruby murmured weakly,
"Was this all a plan?"
Dorothy laughed softly. A hollow sound.
"Of course it was a plan. You were in my net from the first second. You helped me more than you know. But... we're not done yet."
"What do you want from me?" Ruby whispered, resigned. Her soul had drained from her.
Dorothy, still kneeling in front of the open suitcase, slowly lifted the cards and began fanning them in front of her face.
"Just one thing. And I want you to tell me slowly. Clearly. Without mistakes. What are the passwords to your credit cards?"
Ruby swallowed. Her gaze was no longer angry. No longer defiant. She was defeated. She understood everything: every step, every word, every glance on the train had been part of a play where she was never the protagonist. Only bait.
Dorothy leaned toward her. Very close. Her breath still had the faint sweet scent of cheap whiskey.
"And if you say 'wolf,'" she whispered cynically, "no one's going to come and save you this time."
"No... I can't do that," Ruby refused completely. "You crazy bitch!"
"Very well," Dorothy pointed at her with a slight nod, then pulled her cell phone out of her pocket with studied composure. "I imagined this would happen sooner or later."
The phone lit up, and Ruby narrowed her eyes when she saw the images. It took her a few seconds to comprehend, but when she did, her face froze. Photos. Photos of her, during their "game." Tied up. Vulnerable. Expressive. Humiliated. Some sensual. Others, downright dangerous. All taken from angles that could only have been captured with premeditation.
"You look so pretty in these photos," Dorothy said with a nauseating sweetness. "But I think it would be a shame if your parents and your grandma saw this... of course, that depends on you."
"No..." Ruby murmured. Her body recoiled as if she wanted to escape from herself. "No, no, no, you're sick!"
"I won't deny it," Dorothy said with poisonous sweetness. "But you know what's worse than being sick? Being alone. And I don't plan on being alone again. So... you're going to cooperate."
Ruby was trembling. Her chin moved as if her mouth was trying to form words it couldn't quite get out. She wanted to cry, scream, hit him. But she did nothing. Because she couldn't anymore.
"Why are you doing this?" she managed, her voice rending in her throat.
Dorothy tilted her head as if that question genuinely moved her.
"Because, Ruby... I'm not like you. I don't have a home to go back to. I don't have a grandmother who'll fall asleep next to me on a train thinking you're just another little girl who gets into trouble with bad boys. I left home a long time ago. Since then, I've only had one thing: one mission. One goal. And finding him... isn't cheap."
She put the phone back. The blackmail was sealed.
Ruby lowered her head. Defeated. She muttered something. Dorothy demanded that she speak clearly.
"I don't..." Ruby finally said. "The code is 1-9-3-7."
Dorothy typed it slowly, as if recording an oath, and when she clicked accept, the smile on her face was a lethal mix of triumph, relief, and a hint of rotten sadness.
"Good pup," she said, stroking her cheek as if she were a doll, a gesture as intimate as it was humiliating.
Ruby swallowed, but said nothing. She couldn't anymore.
Dorothy turned, ready to leave. But she paused for a second before opening the carriage door.
"Oh, one last thing."
Ruby raised her eyes. They were red-rimmed.
"From now on..." Dorothy said without turning around. "You're going to drop this stupid rebel-girl act. It's too big for you. From this moment on, you're going to be the model granddaughter, the princess of the family." You're going to smile, say thank you and please. You're going to wear the dresses they buy you, you're going to attend the dinner parties, and you're going to go to Sunday Mass if they ask you to. You're going to be a porcelain doll. Because whether you like it or not... that's the only thing you know how to do well.
Ruby stared at her, her eyes wide open, her breathing still labored. She wanted to insult her, she wanted to scream at her, she wanted to escape. But she knew it was too late for that. Dorothy had already won. And she, without knowing how or when, had handed over the weapons.
"And now," Dorothy continued, as if she were in an etiquette class, "be a good girl, perfect and polite, and say thank you for the 'clarity' I just offered you."
Ruby swallowed. She closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. And in a clear, soft voice, laden with carefully disguised helplessness, she repeated:
"Thank you for everything... Miss Dorothy."
Dorothy smiled like a queen at a coronation. She gave a small, mocking curtsy, like an actress acknowledging the applause after a triumphant performance.
At that moment, the train stopped with a final whimper. The doors beyond began to open with a click. People moving about, new lights coming in, platform noises seeping through the cracks. Without looking back, Dorothy turned around.
She walked past Ruby as if nothing had happened. She leisurely grabbed her suitcase from the compartment, smoothed her hair in front of a dirty window that barely reflected her silhouette, and stepped off the car like a shadow slipping into the crowd.
No one noticed her. No one stopped her.
She walked firmly among the bodies on the platform, mingling with the passengers, ignoring the loudspeaker announcements, the murmurs, the world around her.
Until, with the ease of someone who has done this many times, she spotted a taxi.
She approached. She leaned through the open window. And smiling, as if she'd just left a lovely breakfast, she said:
"Are you free?"
And when the driver nodded, Dorothy Gale climbed into the back seat.
The taxi moved along a dimly lit road as night began to thicken over the fields. Dorothy was in the back seat, alone, her head leaning against the open window, letting the wind ruffle her hair as if trying to blow away some of her confusion. There was no music, no conversation, only the intermittent sound of the engine and the scrape of the asphalt.
After a while, she looked away from the landscape and slowly turned to her backpack. She opened it carefully, as if there were something inside that could awaken just by looking at it. And indeed, after putting aside a few notebooks, she took out a small box covered in grayish velvet. It wasn't large, but its weight was heavier than expected: it had the melancholic density of things that survive time.
Dorothy held it in her hands for a moment, watching her trembling fingers around the clasp, and finally opened it.
Inside, as if asleep inside her like a forgotten memory polished by nostalgia, lay the silver slipper.
A smile appeared on her lips. But it wasn't a happy smile. It was a fragile, tremulous smile, like a line of ink threatening to run. And then, without meaning to, his mind flashed back to that day, five years ago, in the clock tower.
FIVE YEARS EARLIER...
Afternoon light streamed through the tower's dirty stained-glass windows, casting a sepia tinge on the brick walls and worn wooden beams. After another learning session between Dorothy and Elphaba, the latter sank down onto an old, threadbare velvet seat, exhaling heavily as if she'd just climbed a mountain. Her shirt was slightly wrinkled, her hair tied back in a loose bun, and her bare feet dangling from one of the armchair's arms.
"Definitely," she said in a tired, amused voice, "I'm never going to be a teacher."
Dorothy, sitting on the floor, silently arranged the leather ropes, carefully untangling them. There was an almost domestic serenity to the moment, a silent complicity that seemed to envelop them in a bubble outside the world. Dorothy smiled, without looking directly at her, and replied,
"A pity. You'd make a lovely sadist."
Elphaba gave a low laugh, neither denying nor confirming. It was then that Dorothy, searching for something else among the objects in the corner, noticed a small box half-hidden behind some blankets and books. She reached out curiously, but before she touched it, Elphaba's voice stopped her.
"No."
It was so quick and sharp that Dorothy froze. She turned to her, blinking uncomfortably.
"Sorry... I didn't know it was private," she said, lowering her hand.
Elphaba hesitated for a moment. Then she slowly stood up, walked over, and with a resigned sigh, removed the box from the corner.
"It's all right," she murmured, in a voice that wasn't the one she'd been speaking a second ago. It was lower. More human.
She opened it carefully, revealing its contents.
It was a single shoe. Elegant, small, made of silver leather. It had been carefully wrapped in white cloth. Dorothy looked at it, not entirely understanding.
"Whose is it?" she asked.
"From my mother," Elphaba replied after a silence. Then she clarified.
Dorothy didn't press the question. She just watched as Elphaba looked at the object as if it held more than the memory of a missing woman. As if it represented a question that still had no answer. Or a wound that had yet to heal.
"Did she leave it to you?" she dared to ask gently.
Elphaba shook her head.
"Well... technically it's more complicated than that, but... it's important to me, it's the only thing I have of her."
She didn't explain further. And Dorothy understood that it was one of those truths that weren't yet ready to be spoken. She sat closer to her, not touching her, but sharing the same silence. Nothing more needed to be said.
And for a moment, there were no lessons, no tension, no roles, no games. Just two young people finding each other in the middle of a world they didn't yet know would break them from within.
Chapter 30: DEFYING GRAVITY
Chapter Text
FUTURE:
The camera blinked three times before coming into sharp focus. For a second, the screen showed a blurry image: soft lights, a poorly framed teacup, moving lips, an out-of-focus smile. And then, with a gentle digital click and an automatic adjustment, the image stabilized. The frame revealed a studio decorated with restrained elegance—soft gold, muted emeralds, translucent curtains gently billowing from the air conditioning—and in the center, seated with perfect yet relaxed posture, was Glinda Thropp-Upland.
She wore an ivory ensemble that seemed tailor-made for her public aura: sophisticated, charismatic, carefully neutral. Her hair, delicately pulled back, let a few loose waves fall around her face. It seemed to glow in the studio light. She smiled with that studied blend of warmth and intelligence that had won over the electorate, the fashion magazines, and a generation of young politicians who now looked up to her.
The host—Fianna Lux, young, ambitious, almost trembling with emotion—leaned toward her, microphone in hand, smiling as if she had the privilege of standing before a figure from another era. In a way, she was.
"Representative Thropp-Upland, thank you for being with us today."
"Please call me Glinda," she responded with a smile that seemed both rehearsed and genuine. A well-oiled tool.
"It's a true honor to have you here. You represent so many things to so many people. A leader of the new progressive politics, a proponent of the education transparency law, an international ambassador for the Eastern Green Deal, and a spokesperson for the oppressed classes and minorities. How do you carry that symbolic weight?" Glinda laughed softly, with that laugh that knew how to take its place without monopolizing it.
"I try not to think of it as a burden. Sometimes it's just a consequence of being in the right place, with history pushing behind. But yes... there are days when I wonder how I ended up here."
"And what do you answer?"
"That it wasn't alone. And that I continue to learn. Every day."
Fianna nodded respectfully, as archive images appeared on the screen: Glinda signing a law surrounded by young students, Glinda at a peaceful march arm in arm with allied figures, Glinda giving a lecture at the United Nations in Westland. Then the image returned to the studio.
"You've spoken in the past about the concept of 'civil magic,' as you call it, that intersection of the symbolic and the concrete in politics. Do you still believe in that?"
Glinda narrowed her eyes thoughtfully.
"More than ever. I don't believe in politics that merely administers." I believe in politics that transforms. That touches something in people's imaginations, not just their bank accounts. Sometimes people tell me I'm too idealistic, but... well, that's what witches were for, right?
Laughter in the studio. A shared wink.
"And, speaking of witches..." Fianna said with a knowing smile. "I can't help but mention it. You're part of one of the most beloved and talked-about couples of recent decades. Elphaba Thropp, no less. Writer, activist, author of Control and Consent and the Defying Gravity trilogy. What's it like living with someone like her?"
"What's it like?" she repeats, as if struggling to condense it. "Well... it's many things. It's difficult and beautiful, like all things worthwhile. It's like living with a fire that knows when to turn into embers so you can sleep in peace, and when to burn so you don't fall asleep in habit."
The interviewer blinks, perhaps surprised by the poetic tone. Glinda notices and laughs.
"Too much?" she asks, crossing one leg over the other. "It rubs off on me. I married an author, and sometimes metaphors come to mind."
"No, it's beautiful!" the young woman assures sincerity. "And... how do you handle being such exposed figures? Are there challenges in sharing not only a private life, but also a public narrative? Moments of tension, perhaps?"
Glinda takes a little longer to answer.
She doesn't fake it. It's not out of indecision or discomfort. It's out of respect. Because she knows that what she's about to say, even if edited for the camera, carries weight.
"Yes," she finally answers. "Of course there are. We've had... our winters. Our storms. Some very public. Others that only know the walls of our house."
She pauses briefly. Not tragic. Just necessary.
"Look," she says, now completely abandoning her television persona, letting out a more intimate, more real tone. "I grew up believing that love was a matter of perfection. Of finding a story without flaws, a perfect portrait. And then I met her. And I realized that true love... isn't about the image you give. It's about what you can't see: the awkward conversations at three in the morning, the silence when you don't know what to say, the respect when desire hurts, the way you hold someone when they no longer believe in themselves."
The interviewer isn't smiling so much anymore. She listens.
"We had years when we almost lost each other," Glinda continues. "But we learned to choose each other again. To keep listening to each other, even when it hurt. To laugh. To play. To not ask the other to heal our wounds, but to hold our hand while we look at them."
And then, with that charming gesture she hasn't lost since her days as a spring festival host, Glinda leans slightly toward the camera. She looks directly into the lens. And, as if speaking to someone watching from another room, she says:
"If you're asking me if there were tense moments... of course there were. But that's not what counts. What counts is that we always wanted to go home. And to me... Elphaba is home."
The camera lingers a few seconds longer than usual. Then it fades to white.
CHAPTER 30: Defying Gravity
PRESENT:
The neon lights flickered as if they too were exhausted.
A fuchsia pink trembled on the rusted "Moonbeam Motel" sign, casting liquid shadows on the cracked asphalt. To the side, a gas station, closed for decades, offered its skeleton as a stopping place for skinny dogs, drunks without urgency, or couples who didn't want to be seen arriving together. The world didn't stop, but it definitely dragged on.
Leaning against one of the rusted posts in front of the reception desk, Elphaba smoked with her shoulders hunched and her head slightly tilted back. Every so often, she exhaled smoke toward the sky as if waiting for something to come looking for it. The half-finished cigarette trembled between her long, dry fingers like winter branches.
She looked at everything. A woman in a tight dress laughing exaggeratedly as she got into a car with a man too old for her. The motel night clerk, asleep behind the glass like a tired guard dog. A group of teenagers lighting firecrackers in the distance, running on the thrill of a small transgression.
She made a note in her head, or maybe not. Maybe she was just trying not to think about the closed door of room 212.
The cigarette burned down until it burned her fingers. She threw it away with a sharp gesture, as if the pain would do her any good, and ground it out with her boot without looking. Then she stayed still for a moment longer, feeling the dull tremor in her chest that she didn't want to call sadness.
She climbed the metal stairs soundlessly. A broken lamp sparkled in the second-floor hallway. Elphaba passed by rooms 210, 211… and stopped in front of her own.
212.
The key card hung from her back pocket, folded at the edges.
She entered body first, like someone afraid that on the other side lay a memory shaped like a trap. Inside, the air smelled of dampness, makeup, and a jasmine fragrance that didn't belong there: Glinda had sprayed it on the curtains as soon as they arrived, with the excuse of "not sleeping in a hormonal dump."
The room was divided into two areas: the main one, with the double bed and private bathroom; and a small space before the window, with a rickety sofa bed where Elphaba had slept for the past two nights.
Elphaba crossed the room almost without looking around. She stopped in front of the closed door of the inner room.
She put her knuckles on it. Knocked once. Waited. Knocked again.
Nothing.
"Glinda..." she said in a barely audible voice, as if she didn't want to be heard. "I just want to talk. I'm not... I'm not going to fight."
On the other side, silence.
Elphaba closed her eyes. A part of her wished he would at least insult her. Say something, anything. But not even that. The ice didn't creak. It just remained there, like a barrier without cracks.
She sighed, rubbed her face, and stepped back. She crossed the small living room, kicking an open backpack where pink tights that weren't hers peeked out. She sank down onto the sofa without taking off her boots, her long legs dangling halfway, her elbows on her knees. Her back arched as if she were carrying something she couldn't let go of.
She stayed like that for a few seconds. Then she let her body slump backward.
The ceiling bore damp marks that looked like maps of countries that never existed.
Elphaba's mind, without asking her permission, went back. To her father's house. To the argument in the great room. To the conversation in the car that went wrong before it even began. The exact moment Glinda looked at her like that… with disappointment. Not anger, not fury. Disappointment. That was the worst of it. Because if she'd hated her, it would have been easier to bear.
"I messed up," she muttered to herself, her voice barely audible. "Just like always."
She didn't need to go over the details. She knew exactly when everything had started to go wrong, ever since they left town. And it wasn't the trip's fault, or the stress, or the past. It was her fault.
And now, they wouldn't even let her apologize.
Inside the room, there was only one constant sound: the warm, melancholy murmur of an old television mounted against the wall, projecting scenes from Before Sunset with the washed-out colors of a poorly downloaded copy. The subtitles were crooked. Every so often, static would make the image flicker as if the past were trying to creep onto the tape.
Sitting on the bed, her legs crossed under a once-white quilt, was Glinda Upland. And nothing about her had anything like “Upland” about her that night.
Her blond hair was tied back in a shapeless bun, held together with a pen stolen from the lobby. She was wearing a promotional T-shirt for an electric company that said “We’re Lighting Your Future!” and cotton panties that had seen better days. Around her, like petals from a wilted flower, lay empty wrappers from cereal bars, chocolate peanuts, two industrial-strength potato chips, a water bottle that creaked every time she shifted, and practically an empty wrapper from every junk food item found in the vending machine at the motel reception desk.
She held the last bar in both hands, biting into it as if punishing someone.
The television was still playing. Jesse and Céline walked through the streets of Paris, talking about the weather, the decisions that drove them apart, whether there was still something between them or if it was already too late. Every word seemed directed at her, and that irritated her more.
Glinda wasn't crying.
It wasn't that kind of night. It was a night of anger. Of unspoken insults, of lying "I'm fine," of violent fantasies where she threw the remote control at the screen just to feel she had some power over something.
She hadn't responded when Elphaba knocked on the door. She wasn't going to now.
"Maybe I need time alone... to understand who I am..." Glinda repeated softly, parodying Elphaba's somber tone. "Pffff! Garbage. Pretentious philosophical garbage straight out of a freshman textbook."
She bit into another piece of the bar as if it were an argument.
Since they left Rush Margins, the air between them had become stale. But it was after that conversation—no, that declaration—that everything shattered.
"Perhaps... the best thing now is for each of us to discover who we are on our own."
The way she'd said it. It wasn't cruel. It was something worse: it was "thoughtful." As if it made sense. As if she were protecting her. As if by saying it, Elphaba was doing the right thing.
Glinda had remained silent, out of pride and fear. She didn't want to beg. She didn't want to scream. Because if she screamed, she might not be able to stop.
They hadn't spoken since then. They shared the motel space like untouched ghosts. Elphaba slept on the couch. Glinda stayed in bed, eating like a spoiled child who deliberately wants to get sick so she'll be cared for.
A scene on the screen caught her attention. Jesse was saying something like, "I miss you even though I'm not completely gone."
Glinda snorted.
"Pathetic," she said to the television, and then, as a defensive reflex, whispered with less conviction. "Not everyone has to go looking for themselves to feel real, you know."
Her voice trembled a little at the end. Or maybe it was the television.
From the other side of the door, there was no sound. And that was even worse. Because if Elphaba wasn't even insisting anymore, did that mean she really wanted to get away?
Was this the beginning of "alone time"? Or the beginning of the end?
Glinda swallowed, looked at her blurred reflection in the television, and didn't recognize herself. She was disheveled, untidy, angry, fragile. Vulnerable. She hated that more than anything in the world.
And yet... she didn't want to sleep alone.
Not that night.
But she wasn't going to say it. She wasn't going to open the door. Because if she did, if she opened it, then she would lose. And this time she didn't know if she was willing to lose first.
For an instant—just a flicker of will—Glinda looked at the door with something that wasn't exactly hope. It was more like a sudden, stubborn tenderness, a sliver of irrational compassion for that green idiot sprawled on a battered sofa on the other side of the wall.
She thought about opening it. About going out. About telling her that yes, everything she'd said was a load of late-adolescent existential rubbish, but that it didn't matter. That she would still be there. That she didn't need Elphaba to have all the answers about her identity, her place in the world, her father, her future, her shadow, her history. That having a shared bed and a decent breakfast every now and then was enough. That she could go away for a while to find herself if she wanted, but that she should come back. That she shouldn't forget that someone was waiting for her.
Glinda thought about saying all that.
But she didn't.
Something—pride, fear, a freshly scabbed heart—stopped her in her tracks. Instead, she snorted resentfully. A kind of sarcastic nasal cackle, thrown into the air like an untargeted insult.
And she grabbed her phone.
It was the sixth time she'd done this in the last hour. Scroll up, scroll down. Nothing. The same junky diet of content: recycled articles, celebrity scandals that embarrassed her, political fights that seemed like poorly written episodes of an institutional soap opera. Before, all of this would have amused her, provided fodder for tasty gossip, biting ironies, memes.
Now it all seemed equally unbearable.
She scrolled past an article about the succession disputes in Maracoor Abiding, with a bombastic headline about a disinherited prince, a sick queen, and a conspiracy that threatened the political stability of half the region. Glinda made an involuntary gesture. Maracoor. Thinking about foreign policy made her think of debates. In debates, she thought of books. And in books… she thought of Elphaba.
"Ugh, stop," she muttered, as if she could rebuke her own thoughts.
She was going to close the app. Put her phone away. Maybe watch the movie for real. Go to sleep. But then, it vibrated.
And the screen lit up.
“Popsicle is calling...”
Glinda froze.
Her body tensed with a physical reflex, as if someone had thrown a bucket of water over her back. The forgotten cereal bar slipped through her fingers and fell onto the bed without her noticing.
“Popsicle...”
The word flickered on the screen, bright, harmless. As ridiculous as it was endearing. "Popsicle" had been her nickname since she was a child. Because he always kept candy hidden in his jacket pocket. Because that's what she'd called him once, and he'd promised not to correct her. It was "Popsicle" instead of "Dad," "Father," or "Mr. Upland," words too rigid, too associated with protocol and legacy.
But seeing the name flashing on the screen, Glinda felt her chest tighten as if an invisible bow had been tied around her ribs.
Her breathing became rapid. Shallow. Like when she was a girl and had to hide her tears at a family gala because her mascara had run. She swallowed hard, rubbed her chest as if she could loosen from the outside what hurt so much inside.
"It's not the time," she whispered. "Not now..."
But the screen kept vibrating, insistent. Not like a cry, but like a hand extended from afar. A hand that didn't know it was broken. Who still thought she was “the perfect little girl traveling with her girlfriend across the country in search of adventures and expensive brunches.”
Throughout the trip, Glinda had kept in constant contact with her father. Photos of quaint motels, selfies next to ridiculous monuments, voicemails telling him that Elphaba had gotten lost again looking for a nonexistent bookstore. He responded with emojis, enthusiastic comments, and that warm tone of someone who didn't know much about the real world but genuinely loved his daughter.
Since Rush Margins... he hadn't written to her.
And now ... he was calling. Because he must have sensed something.
Glinda hesitated.
And then, as if she'd jumped into an icy lake without thinking, she answered.
"Popsicle!" she said, raising her voice with a fake smile as quick as a mask. "I was just about to call you, I swear."
The voice on the other end burst with relief.
"My crazy princess!" he exclaimed. "Finally! I thought you'd been swallowed by a tornado or that you were involved in some stone-healing cult... Are you okay?! Where are you?! Why haven't you answered me in days?! Are you eating? Is Elphaba with you? Are you...?
"Wow, wow! Dad, stop," Glinda said, laughing in a tone that almost worked as a defense. "You're going to explode."
"Don't fuck with me, Glinny!" "He said, his tone deeper, though still sweet. "I'm worried. You're the girl who used to send me three selfies a day, and suddenly... silence. You're my living travel diary, and you've left me blank."
Glinda took a deep breath, staring at the now-black TV screen.
"I'm sorry, Popsicle... a lot happened. The trip got a little more... complicated. But I'm okay. We're okay."
"Complicated how? Is Elphaba okay? Are you...?"
"Yes, yes, yes," she answered quickly, too quickly. "Everything's fine. Just... ugly places, poor Wi-Fi, you know. Nature wants me disconnected."
"Ha. Don't lie to me, Glinda. You're allergic to nature," he said, then lowered his voice a little. "Princess... are you sure you're okay?"
There, Glinda fell silent.
She felt that if she answered too quickly, she'd crack. That if she said "yes" firmly, he'd hear what was hiding behind it. But she couldn't say "no." She didn't want him to know. She didn't want to worry him more than necessary.
So she opted for a middle ground.
"I'm... surviving, Popsicle," she finally said, more gently. "Don't worry about me. I just needed a few days to sort things out."
He didn't answer right away.
Then a sigh was heard on the other end. The kind of sigh only parents make when they sense they can't resolve what's bothering them.
"Okay... But you know, if you need me, if you need to come back, or if you just want someone to listen to you mutter insults... I'm here, okay?"
Glinda smiled. This time, for a second, for real.
"I know. You're the best popsicle in the world."
"And you're the brightest and most stubborn daughter of all. Even if you have the bad taste to contradict everyone."
Glinda stared at the ceiling while hugging her cell phone to her chest. For a moment, she thought she'd escaped. That the call had been a small bubble of tenderness in the midst of the disaster, just the right amount of support without having to say too much. An emotional truce.
But then... the thought returned.
Like a drop on your forehead that you can no longer ignore.
Her cousin Frankini's voice echoed in her memory, mocking, venomous, but with that hateful precision with which close enemies know how to hit the right notes:
"Your parents are separating. Oops. You didn't know that?"
Glinda swallowed.
"Popsicle..."
"Yes, Princess?"
"How are... things at home?"
There was a barely perceptible silence on the other end. The kind of silence that lasts a second but says a lot.
"Oh! Wonderful, you know," he replied, perking up. "Fiyero's new club is incredible, by the way. They used that lighting system that projects stars on the ceiling, and..."
"Dad," Glinda interrupted gently but firmly. "I meant you and Mom."
The silence was longer now. And more sincere.
Highmuster was slow to respond. Glinda could picture him: sitting in the study chair, rubbing his forehead, staring at the mantelpiece where the family portraits still hung like memories trapped in glass.
"Oh, Glinny," he finally said, his voice weary. "Do you really want to know that now?"
"No," he confessed. "But I still need to know."
Another sigh.
"Things are... complicated. Very."
Glinda felt the pang like a rusty needle. Not because it was a surprise, but because hearing it from her father made it real.
"After that night... nothing was the same," he continued, more quietly. "Your mother doesn't... can't let go of certain ideas. And I... well, I try to strike a balance, as always. I don't want to lose her. But I also don't want you to feel like we're choosing just one of you. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Glinda said, though her voice barely came out.
She remembered it perfectly. The last time she saw her mother, everything collapsed. It was the night after the civil hearing… shortly after she had revealed her relationship with Elphaba to her parents. Her mother had disapproved of the relationship from the start, and that night she tried to convince Glinda that it was all a mistake and that what she had with Elphaba wouldn't be worth it.
"Your relationship with that girl will destroy you… The people around you won't accept it. Not now. Maybe never…"
That's what her mother had told her. As if her love were a mistake to be judged by others. As if Elphaba were an eccentric and unacceptable accessory.
Since then, silence. And now, she knew the silence wasn't just with her.
"Are you separating?" Glinda asked suddenly, without thinking.
On the other end, her father hesitated.
"I don't know. We don't talk about it like that. But… we sleep in separate rooms. We argue without saying things to each other. Or worse: we don't argue at all."
Glinda pressed her lips together. She felt her throat close, but she didn't cry. Not yet.
"And it's because of me?"
"No!" he replied, almost violently. "Don't say that. Never. What's happening between your mother and me... is the work of two adults who never learned to talk about certain things. But you... you are our daughter. Our joy. And there's nothing you can be or love that justifies breaking something. If it breaks, it's because we didn't know how to hold it together. Not because of you. Do you hear me?"
"Yes."
But he didn't quite believe it. He couldn't help thinking that her confession had been the beginning of a rift that only widened.
"Is she asking about me?" he ventured.
His father was slow to respond.
"Not the way you'd like. But... save your strength, Glinny. Sometimes people don't know how to love what they don't understand. That doesn't mean they don't want to. It just means they can't."
That sentence lodged in his chest like a bitter seed. Because she knew he wasn't just talking about his mother.
He was also talking about Elphaba.
"Thank you, Popsicle."
"Always, Princess."
And without saying it, they both knew the conversation was over. Not because they didn't have more to say, but because what remained was too big for this moment.
When she hung up, Glinda placed her cell phone on the mattress, to the side, as if it weighed too much. She curled up slowly, her eyes open, fixed on the black screen of the television that no longer emitted light or sound.
And in that darkness, her heart ached silently.
Between what she left behind and what she might be about to lose.
That night. Try as she might—and she really tried—Glinda couldn't fall asleep.
She rolled over once. She settled herself. She turned over. She kicked the sheets. She changed her pillow. She tried taking deep breaths, counting backward, imagining Elphaba's face telling her everything was going to be okay. Mistake. That only increased his heart rate.
Finally, with a frustrated groan, he sat up in bed. The room was dim, the only bluish light coming from a streetlight peeking through the cheap curtains.
He stood up and walked to the door.
He paused there, his hand on the handle.
For several seconds, he simply thought. Not so much about what he was going to say—that would come later—but about how he was going to say it without seeming like he was giving ground. He couldn't just open the door and say, "You were right." Because he didn't fully believe it. But he also couldn't continue ignoring her. He didn't want to.
He tossed around excuses.
"The power went out."
"I need my charger."
"Do you have an extra blanket?"
None seemed absurd enough or useful enough.
Finally, without further thought, he turned the handle and left.
The door opened with a long sigh, and the air of the living room hit her face like a reminder of all that had gone unsaid.
There, on the old, battered sofa, Elphaba slept badly.
On her back, one arm dangling over the edge, her legs bent awkwardly, and a blanket barely covering her torso. Her brow furrowed even in sleep, as if she were arguing with something even in her sleep. Her hair was a mess. Her boots were still on the floor, one on its side, one almost on the table.
Glinda looked at her. At first neutrally. Then with a hint of tenderness that escaped her without permission.
What a mess you are, she thought.
She wanted to go over and adjust the blanket, but her eyes strayed to something on the table: several scattered, crumpled papers with crossed-out lines and pens about to dry out.
Glinda approached cautiously.
The papers were clearly Elphaba's own writing. Sentences started and aborted. Some began with, "Glinda, I know that..." and then a blot of ink. Others had lists, loose ideas. One was covered in words in capital letters, all furiously crossed out: "IDENTITY / FAILURE / FEAR / YOU / ME / FATHER / NOT KNOWING / LOVE / LOVE / LOVE."
Glinda swallowed.
She picked up one of the less wrinkled papers. She read it quietly, as if it were something sacred:
"It's not that I don't want to be with you. It's that I don't know how to be with myself and still be enough for you. I don't want you to go down with me. But I also don't want you to leave me alone."
Crossed out, underlined, crossed out again.
Glinda held the paper a moment longer between her fingers. She looked at it. Then she looked at her. To that woman who thought she'd been so strong and who now seemed little more than a tired figure in the shadows of a cheap motel.
And for the first time in days, the anger subsided.
Not because Elphaba was right. But because Glinda understood that all of this—the fighting, the silence, the pain—came from a place deeper than pride. It came from fear. From love. From not knowing how to hold something so real without breaking it.
She stood silently, the paper in her hand, watching her.
"What the hell are we going to do now?" she whispered, not waiting for a reply.
And then, without realizing it, she sat down on the rug, right next to the sofa, still holding the paper, as if it were a letter she didn't dare return.
She leaned her head against the edge of the chair.
She said nothing more.
She didn't leave.
And for the first time in days... she didn't feel alone.
Hours later, the first rays of sunlight filtered through the faded curtains with an almost pious air, as if the universe were trying to caress with light what the night had left in shadows. The city was still asleep, cars were passing lazily, and in the small motel room, something resembling a mummy was beginning to stir on the sofa.
Elphaba made a sound that was half groan, half curse. She was a knot of contracted muscles, her neck twisted at an improbable angle, and one leg asleep from knee to toe. She turned with effort, blinking against the light, her mouth dry, her throat raspy.
"Mmmgh...?" she murmured, as if human language still wasn't quite working for her.
And then he saw her.
Sitting on one of the suitcases—closed, immaculate, perfectly aligned like soldiers before a war—was Glinda.
She didn't speak.
She didn't move.
She didn't smile.
Dressed in a wrinkle-free white blouse, her shiny hair pulled back in a high ponytail, like a relentless businesswoman, perfect makeup, cream-colored low heels. Arms crossed. Back straight. And that look.
That look.
The look that could make any president in the free world tremble.
The look that said, "Today's not your day, my dear. But if you behave, you might survive."
Elphaba swallowed.
"Good... morning," she tried to say, her voice raspy.
Glinda didn't respond immediately. She just watched her. Her eyes narrowed. As if she were considering whether to spare her life or not.
And then she spoke.
"I'm not spending another minute hiding in this room that smells of years-old fried food and emotional despair," she said surgically. "If you want to have an identity crisis, you can do it in the passenger seat like the rest of the world's dysfunctional adults."
Elphaba half sat up, her eyes still disoriented. The sofa released her with a resounding crack of sagging springs.
"Glin..."
"I'll give you 45 minutes," she continued, relentless. "You shower, you dress, and we'll leave. Because this trip isn't over. And if you think I'm going to let us become two clichés separated by ego and cheap poetry, you're delusional."
Elphaba blinked, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
"You didn't... leave?"
Glinda looked at him as if he'd just asked if the sky was green.
"And let this narcissistic delusion win by default? Never. I'm an Upland. I don't abandon an emotional war without putting on my makeup first."
Elphaba didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or throw herself at her feet. She ended by murmuring,
"Thank you."
Glinda lowered her gaze for a moment. Just a second. "Don't thank me, thank me when you know who you are," he replied. "In the meantime, you have forty-three minutes. And going down."
And with that, he gracefully rose from his suitcase and turned toward the door, clicking his heels softly until his back was to her.
"Oh, and one more thing," he said, without looking at her, "I ate your last granola bar. It was awful. Thanks for that, too."
And he left.
Elphaba sat on the couch, her hair tangled, the apology papers crumpled on the floor, and a smile appearing, tiny, like a shy sun behind the clouds.
She was lost.
But she wasn't alone. For the first time in days, that was enough to get her off the couch.
And so the hotel fell behind her, as slowly as a thick dream dissolves. Not a word while the suitcases were being stowed, not a joke while Elphaba tried to figure out how to configure the GPS on a newer model that spoke as if she'd smoked three packs a day. Not even a glance as the engine started.
The exit from the parking lot was tense. The first curve was silent. And when Elphaba stepped onto the road, the yellow lines already marking the rhythm of the voluntary exile they'd entered, she understood the obvious: there was a barrier between them. Not a wall. Something more subtle and crueler: a strip of emptiness filled only with assumptions and resentment. And it grew wider with every mile.
Glinda sat next to her, wearing the biggest sunglasses she owned. The kind of sunglasses that said "I'm not there for anyone" without opening her mouth. She didn't look out the window, at the landscape, or at her cell phone. She just stood there, arms crossed, lips sealed, and a posture that screamed: Don't you dare speak to me until you're ready to endure what I have to say.
Elphaba tried.
"Do you want coffee?" she asked, after twenty minutes of asphalt and wind.
Glinda didn't answer.
"There's a sign that says there's a restaurant with cinnamon rolls in ten miles. The big ones," he insisted.
Silence.
"I mean, in case you were interested in eating something other than cereal bars exposed to the motel air."
Nothing.
After five failed attempts and two resigned sighs, Elphaba realized she couldn't avoid him any longer. She was driving, yes, but Glinda was setting the course.
She took a deep breath, swallowed, and finally spoke.
"I know you're angry. And I know everything I said... at Rush Margins... was shit. I know I hurt you."
Nothing.
Elphaba glanced sideways, but her glasses were still in place. Her face was impassive.
"When I said I needed to be alone... I didn't mean I wanted to be without you. It was... it was a clumsy, cowardly way of saying I'm confused. Very confused." My history, my roots, everything I thought I knew... went to hell. And I didn't know how to process it. I didn't know how to continue being "us" when I don't even know who I am.
One more sigh. Her fingers trembled on the wheel.
"It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to you. But I swear, never, not for a second, did I want to leave you. I said it out of fear. And because I'm an idiot."
Elphaba waited. The engine whirred. A bird flew past the windshield.
And then, Glinda took off her glasses.
She turned her head. She looked at her.
And spoke.
"Are you done?"
Elphaba nodded shyly.
"No. But I guess I am, for now."
Glinda breathed in slowly. As if she were filling her entire body with the strength for what was to come.
"Good. Then you talk for a while, and now I'll talk."
Elphaba opened her mouth.
"No," Glinda said, firmly, sharply. "I'll talk now."
And without raising her voice, without crying, without gesticulating excessively, Glinda began to dismantle herself with surgical precision.
"You know what the worst part was? It wasn't what you said. It was how you said it. As if I were an accessory to your existential crisis. As if this journey wasn't also mine. As if I were part of the problem, instead of part of the solution. As if you had a monopoly on pain."
Elphaba gripped the wheel. She wanted to say something. She bit her tongue.
Glinda continued.
"And I understand, okay? I understand that you've been lied to, that your story has gaps, that you're facing ghosts I could never imagine. But it bothers me that you use that as an excuse to treat me like I don't matter. As if you can just pause this when it overwhelms you, and I have to wait for you with a sympathetic expression."
Elphaba said nothing.
“Do you know how many times I wanted to leave?” Glinda continued. “Since Rush Margins. Since that night at the motel. Since you told me maybe you needed “space.” Hundreds. But I didn’t leave. Because I’m stupid, yes, but also because… because I love you. Because I don’t want this trip to be just about you searching for answers. I want it to be about us finding each other. But it always seems like I’m the one who has to hold it together, isn’t it?”
Elphaba looked at her, this time. Just for a second. But her eyes were filled with guilt.
“And I want you to know something else,” Glinda said, lowering her voice a little. “I’m not here because I’m strong. I’m here because I’m tired of running away. Running away from what I want. From what I feel. From what hurts. I’m not going to keep acting like it’s easy. But I’m also not going to let you break us without fighting for what we have.”
The car kept moving. The road was straight, with no curves in sight.
Elphaba swallowed.
"I don't want to break up with you either."
"Then stop pushing me."
Elphaba nodded. She kept her gaze straight ahead.
"I'm trying," she whispered.
Glinda settled back in her seat. She put her glasses back on, but this time less stiffly. Then she rolled down the window. The wind blew in forcefully, barely ruffling her hair.
"I don't care that you don't know who you are. What matters to me is that you don't forget who you are with me."
Elphaba slowed slightly. There was no rush now. None.
"Thank you," she said. And this time, the word wasn't a common one.
"Don't thank me yet," Glinda replied, crossing her arms. "I haven't decided if I forgive you yet."
Elphaba smiled. Barely. With relief. With fear.
Because although the conversation on the road had been a breath of fresh air—thick, honest, almost life-saving—it hadn't meant complete relief.
The tension between them still lingered like a stale smell that didn't quite go away even with the windows open. Elphaba continued driving in silence, her shoulders tense, changing the radio station every three minutes as if the music were to blame for her discomfort. Glinda, at her side, remained an enigma: sometimes kind, sometimes distant, as if her affection were a flashing light that depended on impossible-to-predict variables.
They made a quick stop at a gas station. They bought foil-wrapped lunches that tasted like nothing and ate them in the car without words. Later, another bathroom stop at a roadside convenience store with wooden cowboy decor and a stand selling “Organic Honey from the Soul of the Forest.” They didn't even bother pretending it was quaint.
The conversations were basic. The kind of conversation you have with a coworker you like but don't really want to talk to.
"Are you hungry?"
"A little."
"Do you want to stop here or later?"
"I don't care."
Silence.
Elphaba felt like she was sinking back into a familiar mud: that place where everything cools but no one leaves. Where what hurts doesn't scream, it just accumulates. And she didn't know how to break it without exploding.
Finally, after a long curve and a failed attempt to comment on a goat that seemed to be climbing an electric pole, she exploded.
"What are we supposed to do now?" "She said, with more desperation than anger. "Do we find a couples therapist in the middle of the countryside? Do we abandon the ship and one of us stays at the nearest airport? Do we maintain the most awkward silence in history until we get home, and I continue sleeping on the couch for the next six months? Or what..."
Glinda didn't respond immediately.
She stared out the window, her cheek resting on her hand, her eyes lost in the horizon.
Elphaba thought she wasn't going to answer. That she was back in that floating state where nothing seemed to affect her. And just as she was about to apologize for yelling, Glinda spoke.
"I want a date."
Elphaba blinked.
"What?"
"A date," Glinda repeated, still without turning around. "It doesn't have to be romantic. Or special. Just... a date. Like the ones we used to go on at the beginning of the voyage. When we were laughing. When all this was just crazy fun instead of an emotional tragicomedy."
"A date?" —Elphaba repeated, still confused.
—Yes,— affirmed Glinda, now turning to her seriously. —You and I. We stop in the next town, look for something touristy, ridiculous or not, and make a date. As if we were two people who still want to meet. Because I do want to. Despite everything. I do.
Elphaba looked at her. For the first time in days, she saw something different in her expression. Not just anger, not just pride, but... hope. Tired, hurt, but real.
—Okay,— she said after a moment.
—Okay.
They fell silent again.
But this time... the silence was no longer a punishment.
The journey continued, and the roads began to widen. Elphaba noticed the first signs when the GPS stopped recalculating and finally announced a stable direction in that artificial voice that always seemed condescending. In the distance, the city's silhouette began to form against the sky: endless towers, silver domes, electronic signs that pulsed like neon hearts.
"It can't be..." Glinda whispered, her eyebrows raised.
"What?" Elphaba asked, glancing sideways.
Glinda sat up, taking off her sunglasses and pressing herself against the windshield like a child at a train window.
"It's Vinkus City! We're entering Vinkus City!"
Elphaba frowned.
"The city of skyscrapers named after fruits and five-story themed cafes?"
"That one!" Glinda exclaimed, as if it were the revelation of the century. "I used to come here as a kid with my parents. It was the only good thing about family vacations. Look at that tower! See that revolving restaurant? I choked on a cherry there once, and they had to call a doctor on a unicycle."
Elphaba blinked.
"Why a unicycle?"
"Vinkus City!" Glinda repeated, as if that explained everything.
The highway transformed into a monstrous avenue. They passed under illuminated bridges, giant advertising screens showing everything from perfume ads to live newscasts, and buildings so tall they seemed to buckle under their own weight. The traffic was organized chaos: taxis with colorful lights, flying rental bikes, people dressed as everything and nothing. It looked like a postmodern city built by a rich kid on too much sugar.
Elphaba swallowed. Her hands tightened on the wheel.
"Are you sure this is a good idea for a date? Can't we stop at, I don't know, a rural museum of cursed tapestries?"
Glinda ignored him. Her eyes were glued to something else.
A gigantic screen on the side of a building lit up with epic music. A golden lightning bolt graphic unfurled as the title appeared in glittering letters:
WIZOMANIA-CON 2025!
The nation's largest wizarding convention. A day of free events. Cosplay. Live shows. Panels. Surprises. And the debut of the musical "Defying Time."
Glinda gasped. She turned to Elphaba, her eyes wide as saucers.
"I want to go there."
Elphaba kept driving.
"What? To the... convention? Seriously?"
"Yes."
"Glinda, that seems crazy." There are thousands of people, cosplay, flashing lights, crowds... that doesn't sound like a date. It sounds like a collective anxiety attack.
"Exactly," Glinda said with a scary smile. "For once, I don't want to think about my partner, therapy, decisions, the future. I want to be surrounded by noise, ridiculous things, people dressed like cyberpunk wizards and muscle-bound elves."
Elphaba tried to counterargue.
"We can go to a park, an outdoor movie show, or—"
Glinda looked at her.
That look.
That look that froze oceans and melted the strongest will. That perfect blend of threat and charm, of capricious princess and emotional war general.
"I want to go there," she said in a low but forceful voice. "Now."
Elphaba swallowed. She changed lanes. She looked for the exit.
"We're going to the damn Wizomania-Con," she murmured.
"Thanks, honey."
Glinda smiled like a child who had just won a secret battle against the universe.
Elphaba didn't know if they were about to experience an epic reconciliation or a collective psychotic episode.
The search for parking was a test of faith, patience, and muttered curses.
For 45 minutes, Elphaba navigated endless aisles of badly parked cars, pedestrian traffic disguised as orcs with thermal backpacks, and conflicting signs leading to the same circular hell. But in the end, as if by divine intervention or sheer stubbornness, she managed to maneuver her car into a space so tiny it would defy the laws of physics and urban planning. She slammed the handbrake and let out a huff of exhaustion.
"How did you do it?" Glinda asked as she got out of the car.
"I sold my soul to a parking lot elf. He'll give it back to me when I find the exit without the help of Google Maps."
They both closed the doors with a loud bang and turned...
And there they were.
Surrounded.
Dozens, hundreds of people walked in all directions: in capes, in glittering robes, with pointy ears, with wands that lit up when waved, in cardboard armor, in leather suits, with colored contact lenses. Some walked alone. Others in perfectly synchronized groups, like uniformed fandom troops. There were children, adults, elderly people, couples, triads, mascots dressed as dragons. An entire parallel nation with its own rules.
Elphaba tensed instantly. Her brow furrowed.
"I can't believe you brought me to the nerdiest place on the continent."
Glinda smiled beatifically, like someone visiting an ancient church.
"And yet, here we are."
"You. You are. I was dragged along. Literally."
"Do you hear yourself, dear? You're judging a convention audience... you, who have an annotated edition of Magical Ethics and Civic Subversion Vol. II signed by the author on your nightstand."
"That's different. That's for intellectuals. This is..."
Elphaba looked around. A group of teenagers ran by, shouting "Arcane Fire at 300%! Level 8 Triple Protection!" while one of them shot confetti with a BB gun.
"...this is a living, breathing version of my high school nightmares."
Glinda laughed, amused.
"You never wanted to come to something like this?"
Elphaba raised an offended eyebrow.
"Of course I did. When I was fifteen and convinced I'd become a lonely, bitter, famous, bisexual witch... oh. Wait. Well, three out of four isn't bad."
"Aha!" Glinda exclaimed, pointing at her like a prosecutor. "You admitted it! You wanted to come!"
"When I was fifteen!"
"And how old do you think all these people are?"
"The same... but emotional."
Elphaba turned to continue walking... and then stopped. She looked at Glinda. She frowned, tilted her head, and her expression changed from sudden understanding to a slow, dangerously mocking smile.
"Wait. Wait a second. You... you came for this, didn't you?"
Glinda tensed. She adjusted her bag on her shoulder.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You came!" Elphaba burst into laughter. "You've come here before! Alone or with someone else! And you made me believe this was something spontaneous and casual and 'oh, look how fun'! You're a secret nerd!"
"I take back the 'nerd'!" Glinda exclaimed, indignant. "I came here once with my cousin. And I hated it. The portable toilet traumatized me. But that doesn't matter now."
"You were cosplaying?! Tell me the truth. Did you dress up?"
"Shut up!"
"As what? A crystal elf? A galactic princess?!"
"As a mystical ice prophetess, it was all the rage at the time!"
Elphaba doubled over with laughter. People passed by them, some looking at them curiously. Glinda pursed her lips, crossed her arms, and walked with her head held high as if parading down an invisible runway.
And for a moment, just one... they laughed together.
Elphaba, liberated. Glinda, resigned. And the space between them, lighter.
They walked toward the entrance, where a huge semicircular structure housed thousands of people. And right in front of them, in an arch suspended by cables and covered in LED screens, a rotating poster announced this year's theme:
WIZOMANIA-CON 2025
Official Theme: "A Tale of Two Witches"
Based on the acclaimed queer fantasy webcomic that took the world by storm.
They both stopped.
Elphaba read the title. She frowned.
Glinda tilted her head.
"Two witches?"
"How... literal is that story?"
They looked at each other.
And without another word... they moved forward.
The air inside the convention center was thick with lights, voices, and the smell of new plastic.
Hanging screens blasted epic music interspersed with ridiculous jingles. Life-size cardboard panels of characters in dramatic poses stood like sentinels along the hallways. Families, couples, entire cosplay groups moved like an enthusiastic procession toward auditoriums, themed lounges, mock magic duel zones, and food trucks with names like "The Vegan Cauldron" or "GriffinBurgers."
And in the middle of it all... there were them.
Glinda stopped in her tracks when she saw a group of girls dressed in sparkly dresses and moon-shaped earrings dancing in front of a giant screen, replaying a clearly unrehearsed musical. Elphaba, meanwhile, was distracted by a booth selling decorative potions labeled "Liquid Rage" and "Ghosting Antidote."
"This is... a lot," Elphaba said, barely audible.
"This is a convention, dear," Glinda replied. "There never are less."
The two of them started walking, weaving through crowds, dodging artificial smoke, keeping an eye out for children armed with inflatable swords. But something didn't fit. Seventy percent of the booths seemed... strangely similar. There were repeating patterns. Illustrations, merchandise, resin sculptures, pins, stickers.
Always the same two figures: a luminous blonde in a pink dress with pointy ears, holding a scepter or a flower. And another, green-skinned, dressed in black, with a giant pointy hat covering her eyes, and a mischievous smile, like someone keeping secrets.
Elphaba frowned. She turned around, searching for an explanation, and then she saw her.
She stopped. She tugged on Glinda's arm.
"Stop. Look at that."
Glinda turned... and froze.
In front of them, hanging from a central pillar, dominating the room with a drama that bordered on the theatrical, hung a giant promotional poster.
The image was unmistakable.
The blonde witch, at a three-quarter angle, was smiling and whispering something into the ear of the green witch, who was facing forward, her hat partially covering her eyes, but with a crooked smile that seemed to know exactly what the other was saying. The background was a magical storm, with spells floating like fireworks.
A TALE OF TWO WITCHES
The webcomic that redefined queer fantasy for a new generation
Chapter 123 now available – only on WizoWeb.
And above, in almost microscopic type, like a disclaimer no one would read:
"A fictionalized adaptation based on true events."
Glinda took a step back.
"What... what is this?"
Elphaba's eyes were glued to the image. A mixture of disbelief, discomfort, and something else... difficult to decipher.
"That's us," she muttered.
"This can't be possible!" Glinda exclaimed.
Before they could process it, a group of teenagers walked past them. Three girls wearing comic book T-shirts, one with a pink cape and the other with a black scarf. They stopped, looked them up and down... and let out a scream.
"Goddesses!" Your cosplays are perfect! You're the best modern WitchyWest and GoodGlim AUs I saw at the entire convention!
Elphaba opened her mouth to respond, but didn't know what to say.
Another girl approached them.
"Can I take a picture with you? Please! My girlfriend's a fan of you—well, of them, but you know!"
"We're not..." Glinda tried to say.
But the girl had already taken out her phone.
"Pose! The good witch whispering to the wicked witch, please!"
And before she could protest, Glinda and Elphaba were wedged side by side, the blonde leaning slightly, the brunette with one eyebrow raised, while someone took a flash photo.
"Thank you! You're iconic!"
And they left.
Elphaba blinked. Glinda's face was red with indignation.
"Did she just call me 'GoodGlim'?"
"And I'm "WitchyWest," apparently."
"It can't be," Glinda whispered. "What the hell is going on here?"
Determined to get answers, the duo headed toward the nearest sales stand they could spot.
The structure of the stand looked like a ceremonial altar dedicated to a recent but already fervent cult. On the tables, arranged with meticulous care, there was everything: metal pins, stuffed mini-witches, backlit posters, tarot decks inspired by the characters, T-shirts with phrases like "WitchyWest Did Nothing Wrong," and mugs with the faces of the protagonists kissing under a red moon.
And behind the counter, two goth girls, both with black eyeliner that looked like it had been drawn with a scalpel. One of them had ash-blue dyed hair and an expression of studied contempt. The other wore a corset with embroidered runes and held an order book like a grimoire. They both watched them approach like someone watching noisy tourists in an occult bookstore.
"Let me handle this," Glinda whispered to Elphaba, straightening with a professional air.
"I don't trust you to say that."
But Glinda had already activated her PR mode: a charming smile, a sweet, and studiously casual tone.
"Hey, girls! What a fabulous booth? We were wondering if we could chat for a second about the comic...?"
The girl in the corset looked her up and down.
"Yeah, right, nice try. But we saw better cosplays. Yours screams 'small-town princess on a budget.'"
Elphaba let out a nasal laugh and was glared at by Glinda.
"No, we're not into cosplay. We wanted information. We're... new."
The other girl, the one with blue hair, was chewing gum as if bored by time itself.
"You've never read Two Witches? Seriously?" Not even chapter 74, the one about the interdimensional kiss and the blood pact?
"The what of what," Elphaba said, taking a step forward. "Can someone please explain to us what that comic is about?"
Both Goths stared at her for a second. Then they exchanged a glance and smiled... as if they were guardians of a secret no one else understood.
"Wow," the rune girl said, slowly turning her notebook. "This is... cute. Do you really not know?"
"No," Elphaba groaned.
"Nothing? No idea who WitchyWest and GoodGlim are?" the other girl repeated, delighted.
Glinda was losing her smile at an alarming rate.
"No," she said through gritted teeth. "We have absolutely no idea."
The two girls settled themselves on the counter like hosts of a conspiracy theory show.
"Well, then brace yourselves," the blue-haired one began. "The webcomic A Tale of Two Witches started a few months ago." It's published for free on WizoWeb and already has over a hundred chapters. It's an epic, queer, magical, tragicomic story... I mean, everything that's good.
"It's about two sorcery students," the other continued. "WitchyWest is an outcast, green-skinned witch with behavioral issues and a mysterious history with forbidden magic. GoodGlim is the popular girl from the north, blonde, with light powers and under great family pressure. They're forced to share a room at the Emperor's Academy, and of course... they hate each other."
"But then they understand each other, they care for each other, they save each other," the blue-haired one added, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. "They fall in love! They start a rebellion against the corrupt magical system, face betrayals, loss, question their identity, and... well, it's a tremendous emotional journey!"
"All with lots of pretty clothes, tense dialogue, and chronic sexual tension," the other clarified, dramatically sucking on her straw.
Elphaba and Glinda froze.
Frozen.
As if someone had projected her diary in an IMAX theater.
"And you're saying... this is a made-up story?" Glinda asked, almost breathless.
"Well..." the rune girl said with a malicious smile. "In the prologue, it says it's 'based on true events.' But it never said which ones."
"And the author was never revealed," the blue-haired girl said, now twirling a WitchyWest keychain. "It's only known as GM-LightningTime95. Anonymous. Mysterious. Artist."
"And clearly, someone with a lot of access to quality lesbian drama," her companion added with a wink.
Glinda was speechless.
So was Elphaba.
The only one who managed to speak... was the corset-wearing goth.
"And if my question doesn't offend you... are you basing a performance on them?" Because there's a cosplay contest at six, and they really have a very canon vibe.
"Yeah, they look like something out of Chapter 32, when everything breaks," the other said.
Glinda turned to Elphaba.
"Chapter 32?"
"WHAT HAPPENS IN CHAPTER 32?!"
The two booth employees, faithful priestesses of the cult of A Tale of Two Witches, were fired up when they saw their audience showing curiosity. Or at least, what they believed to be ultra-committed cosplay and meticulous roleplay. With the pinpoint intensity that only a passionate goth can achieve, they began recounting moments from the webcomic with a vibrant yet meticulously contained energy.
"Chapter 4!" the blue-haired one exclaimed, her eyes wide open. "The first magic test in the Academic Tower. When they're pitted against each other due to a clerical error and end up unleashing a blizzard and firestorm in the classroom!" Ugh, art!
"And Chapter 9..." said the rune girl, almost in a trance. "The Solstice Ball. When GoodGlim, after weeks of despising WitchyWest, sees her walk in wearing that black ball gown with chains and the pointy hat she gave him as a joke and... Oh, and the forced waltz for protocol! The subtext was so superficial it was plain text!"
Glinda paled.
"Did I... dance with you?"
Elphaba murmured, "Protocol trick? Very realistic."
But the girls wouldn't stop.
"64 was my favorite," said the blue-haired girl, putting her hand to her chest. "When WitchyWest, tired of the injustices of the Royal Court, leads a rebel attack on the capital using ancient magic and that long, hooded gown of living shadows. Iconic!" And when he saves GoodGlim from public execution and they flee across the rooftops… Ugh, mental cinematography!
“No, no, no, 38 was the best,” the other interrupted. “When they meet again in the floating monastery after being separated for six years and have that long, drawn-out conversation in the rain with enchanted wine, background music, and thinly veiled confessions…”
“I didn’t write to you because if I read you in my own words, I’d die,” the other recited, her voice trembling.
They both fell silent, as if they'd just witnessed a mass. Then they sighed.
Elphaba murmured:
"SIX YEARS!?"
"IN A FLOATING MONASTERY!?"
"Well..." continued the rune girl, picking up again with enthusiasm. "No one makes it past Chapter 24. The climax of the first act. When they discover that the Emperor had evil intentions and only used GoodGlim as a tool to control WitchyWest and unleash her magic for his own purposes... And she figures it out! And she faces it alone!"
"And GoodGlim lies to WitchyWest, telling her that "everything's fine," when in reality she's sacrificing herself to give her time to escape," added the other. "And WitchyWest doesn't realize it until it's too late, jumps off the tower, and flies off into the sunset, alone, crying on her broomstick, her cape ripped by the magical explosion... Pure poetic tragedy!"
"I cried for two days."
"I wrote a fanfic where Glim jumps off the tower and Witchy saves her in midair. They had brutal sex in the middle of the sky, floating on magic lightning!"
Elphaba and Glinda stared at each other with indescribable expressions. As if they were listening to a biography of their lives rewritten by a teenager with access to Tumblr, AO3, and grade-A marijuana.
"This is a nightmare. It's a long, wet, merchandise-themed nightmare."
"Floating on magic lightning...?" Elphaba murmured, clearly intrigued by the physics of it.
But then...
"Look!" said one of the fans, pulling a tube from the counter. "This is the new official poster. It came out this week. I almost fainted when I saw it. Look at how you look!"
She reverently unrolled the poster and held it out in front of them.
Elphaba took a step back.
Glinda covered her mouth. There they were. The two protagonists. In a dramatic pose, back to back. Both witches hypersexualized in the style of any triple-A video game: WitchyWest with her broom resting on her shoulder, her tight corset, and her skin glistening as if she'd just stepped out of a battle sauna; GoodGlim with her pink dress strategically open at her legs, a crown of light floating over her head, her lips parted, and her gaze vulnerable but seductive.
And yes. Their figures were... "standout."
Very standout.
Unrealistically standout.
"Is it me, or... do I have boobs?" Elphaba said.
"You have boobs," Glinda confirmed. "And I have... a three-inch waist?"
"And the pose. What kind of magical defense is that? The power of the firm thigh?"
"This is an eye-sore! I don't have that 'look how strong but broken I am' face!"
"And since when did I have that 'loved but empty' face!"
"It's art!" the fan said excitedly. "It's drama! It's queer iconography!"
"It's someone's hormonal delirium with digital pencils and parental trauma," Elphaba said, pulling out a copy of the poster for closer inspection.
Glinda turned to her.
"Don't buy it."
"I wasn't going to buy it!" Elphaba said, subtly tucking the copy under her arm. "It's... proof. Research. Legal evidence."
"ELPHABA!!
" And they both left the booth, pursued by the echoes of fans listing their favorite scenes and swearing that this was the most romantic couple fantasy comics had offered since... well, ever.
Glinda spoke first.
"We're in a viral comic, written by someone who clearly knows us, and distributed worldwide, without our permission, based on the most traumatic and complicated moments of our lives, fictionalized and adapted as if we were an interdimensional soap opera for public consumption."
"And on top of that, they gave us fake boobs."
Glinda let out a long, tragic sigh.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but... I need to find the author."
Elphaba nodded.
"And if he's floating on magic lightning... I'll beat him to a pulp."
Colorful lights swirled overhead as if each booth was trying to hypnotize them with a different aesthetic. Giant screens played loops of animated fan art. A machine blew cinnamon-scented bubbles for reasons no one could quite understand.
Glinda darted forward.
Her stride was brisk, her arms tense, her jaw clenched.
"This can't be happening. This can't be happening. This is... illegal. Absurd. A public violation of emotional privacy. This is art without consent!"
Elphaba darted behind, dodging people in capes, swords, and outlandish hats.
"Technically, that's what they do with religious statues, Glinda."
—And since when am I a religious statue?
—Since they drew you with a floating halo?
—ELPHABA!!
In front of her, Glinda advanced like an opera diva on a diplomatic mission, her dress vibrating with every step, her hairdo as high as her level of indignation.
When they passed by, a huge living stuffed animal dressed as a winged monkey with a red cape stood right in the middle of the aisle, motionless like a totem pole. The costume's head was disproportionately large, with glowing eyes and a permanent expression of ambiguous wisdom. Elphaba didn't know whether to give it a coin or confess a sin.
Glinda had brushed her shoulder against it without even noticing her presence.
But the monkey... it had noticed her.
It turned slowly to watch her walk away.
And followed her with its gaze.
Elphaba swallowed.
"Okay, that was really weird."
"What?" Glinda asked, turning around.
"That monkey... forget it."
They moved through the halls like two magical fugitives in the middle of an interdimensional parade. Glinda barely noticed her surroundings, focused like a missile on her invisible objective: the truth. Elphaba, on the other hand, couldn't stop staring at the sides. Inflatable figures of her doppelgangers. Girls cosplaying as magic students. A heterosexual couple arguing in front of a WitchyWest mural with a melancholic expression.
"This is..." Elphaba murmured, half-laughing, "this is the worst make-up date ever."
"You're still not forgiven," Glinda murmured, without turning her head.
"Well, clearly. You didn't take me to dinner, you dragged me into a 4K existential ambush."
Suddenly, Glinda stopped dead in her tracks.
And Elphaba almost knocked her over from behind.
"What happened?"
But Glinda didn't respond.
In front of them, like a divine apparition of sequins, stood four drag queens. Or rather, four GoodGlims.
They were glorious.
Stunning.
One wore a sheer pink tulle dress with a glowing wand that looked like it had just been pulled from the sun. Another had a corset with LED lights that formed constellations. The third wore a floor-length cape of pink feathers. And the fourth wore a rose-shaped headpiece that floated with hidden magnets. They all wore impossible platforms, fan-like eyelashes, and the attitude of crowned queens.
And all... they were staring at her.
At Glinda.
As if she'd been caught sneaking into a parade uninvited.
"...Oh, no, no, no," one said in an exaggeratedly critical voice, pointing her wand at her. "What is this?"
"Is that your cosplay, honey?" another said, twirling her pink fan like a judgmental remark.
"GoodGlim depressed casual version? Because that shirt doesn't sparkle at all."
"I've seen broken dolls with more presence."
Glinda opened her mouth. She swallowed. For a moment, it looked like she might explode.
"Are you... criticizing my look?"
"Honey, we love GoodGlim. We are the official GlimQueen squad!" one said, spinning in a lethal pose. "And what you're doing is... a poor homage. It's like you've kept the facade of the character but haven't understood her inner light."
Elphaba covered her mouth to hide a traitorous laugh.
Glinda turned around, her eyes narrowed.
"Are you laughing?"
"A little," Elphaba admitted, suppressing another laugh. "It's just... I couldn't have said it better myself."
One of the GlimQueens approached with a theatrical gesture, taking Glinda's hand.
"Love, I'm telling you this with affection: if you're going to play GoodGlim... believe it." She doesn't walk like that, she doesn't furrow her brow like that, and she would never—ever—look at the floor as if she regretted being alive. GoodGlim is drama, yes, but it's also radiant sunshine. If you don't shine, you're just another girl in a pink dress.
The ambient noise rose like a distant storm: screams, laughter, loudspeaker announcements, background music from multiple screens, the jingling of decorative chains, and amidst all of that… them.
"How dare you say my GoodGlim doesn't have an 'inner light'?! Look who's talking, with that headdress that looks like a poorly assembled trans-dimensional piñata!"
Glinda was in the middle of the battle.
The real battle.
The one that mattered.
With a pose worthy of a magazine cover and a fan stolen from some drag booth, she held her dignity like a glass sword. Around her, the GlimQueens circled her like warring stars, launching into fits of sarcasm, fashion judgments, and sharp microgestures.
"Your makeup is 'magical realism,' darling," one told her.
"Yours is tragic realism!" Glinda bellowed, taking a step forward. "And this dress"—she twirled furiously—"is a 2006 limited edition from Atelier Lurline. What you have is a knockoff of a knockoff of a black-market sequined fake from Gillikin. Shut up, you eyelash fraud!"
A collective murmur of "ooooohs" ran through the hall.
And Elphaba was laughing.
She leaned against a column disguised as a magic tower, holding back her laughter as best she could while her girlfriend—temporary ex-girlfriend? Something like that?—engaged in an ego battle as unhinged as it was fascinating.
And then... Something distracted her.
At the side of the hall, half-hidden between two sticker and button stalls, was a small fan art stand. In front of it, kneeling on the carpet, were two girls. They couldn't have been more than fourteen. One was short, with a pimply face and round glasses. The other had tight braids, a backpack with cauldron patches, and a homemade costume: a black sheet cape, a pointy hat made of cardboard and a marker. Both dressed with improvisation and genuine love.
And both... were WitchyWest.
The shorter one held a poster of her favorite character, eyes shining, while the other pointed out details with uncontainable enthusiasm.
"And in this one, her face is all angry, but you can still see the scar! See it? It's the one she got in the episode with the battle with the Jade Sentinels!"
"Yes! And look at the book she's carrying on her arm! It's the "Grimoire of Shadow," the one she steals from the library of the sages. That's my favorite scene! That's when she decides she's not going to follow the rules, remember?"
"Of course I remember! That's when I said I was going to be like her!"
Elphaba stopped.
Frozen.
Something in her chest tightened. As if the air suddenly had weight. She leaned back against the post, still staring.
The two girls continued talking, oblivious to her presence. As if they were in their own world. As if the real one were invisible. But it was clear... they were talking about her. Not her exact self, but an essence, a representation, a figure.
WitchyWest was her, and at the same time, not her.
She didn't have his defensive sarcasm, his silences, or his insomnia. She didn't have the constant feeling that no one looked at her twice except to judge her. She didn't have the voice of the man who wished he'd never been born. WitchyWest was strong. She was admired. She was the witch who refused to obey. Who broke with everything, without asking permission, without asking for forgiveness.
And there she was. On posters. On prints. In the eyes of those girls.
Revered.
Elphaba swallowed.
She crossed her arms, not moving at all.
She didn't know what to feel. Part of her wanted to laugh at the absurdity. Another part wanted to scream that it wasn't like that, that she was never so great, so powerful, so unbreakable. That it was all a fabricated lie. But another part... another part was at peace.
Because, somewhere, someone had seen her that way.
Or, at least, wanted to see her that way.
And those two girls... they needed her that way.
Maybe the real Elphaba would never be enough for a father like hers. Maybe she wasn't the kind of person who looked good in photos, or knew what to say in an interview. But WitchyWest...
WitchyWest was hope for those who didn't fit in. And that... that wasn't so bad.
Glinda ran back to her, her forehead beading with sweat and her pride intact.
"There. I left them crying glitter. What did I miss?"
Elphaba didn't respond right away. She just gave a slight nod.
Glinda peeked over her shoulder. She saw the two girls, embracing in front of the poster. And for a moment... they both fell silent.
Elphaba broke the spell.
"That's weird."
"What?"
"That for the first time... I feel a little seen. Even if it's on glossy paper and with extra cleavage."
Glinda glanced at her.
"I always saw you, you know?"
"Yes... I know."
And silently, they both continued on their way...
Elphaba and Glinda stopped in front of a double metal door decorated with glitter stickers. The words "Performance Competition - A Tale of Two Witches" hung in animated floating letters above the entrance, along with the announcement "Special Guests - 5:00 PM." The door was still closed, but there was already a small group of eager fans waiting outside, some reviewing lines from memory, others adjusting their wigs or practicing dramatic poses in front of their cell phone cameras.
Glinda clicked her tongue with a half-smile.
"You know what's the worst part? If we participated... we'd probably lose."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, turning to her.
"Would we lose? Would we?"
"And what do you want me to say, Elphie? I don't even have GoodGlim's magic wand. And you're wearing sneakers. Sneakers!"
"My feet hurt! I don't want to battle magic in three-inch heels, Glinda."
"That's not what she would say."
They stared at each other for a moment. And laughed. Small, honest laughs. A respite. Some respite.
For a moment, they felt like two teenagers on an impromptu date, one of those that goes wrong but remains in the memory. As if they'd gone back to the beginning, when they were still discovering each other, when every touch was new, and the words weren't so heavy.
"Do you think they'll invite us in as special guests?" Elphaba asked sneered.
"Sure. They bill us as 'the bitter, unauthorized stunt doubles.'"
"Would you be my stunt double?"
"If I get paid enough, yes. But only if they guarantee I can throw you off a rooftop in harnesses."
They laughed again, louder this time.
And then... something changed.
A pause.
A false gesture.
A comment that shouldn't have come out.
"Honestly... I understand why you like Witchy West," Glinda murmured, her tone barely laced with venom. "She's everything you want to be, isn't she? Mysterious, rebellious, alone, sexy, and tragic. She doesn't have to explain anything. She doesn't have to... commit to anyone."
Elphaba blinked.
The smile evaporated.
"And you fell in love with GoodGlim, of course. All lights, pretty words, impeccable morals, and catalog poses. But when the makeup wears off... what's left?"
"And now you're criticizing me because I like people to see me?"
"No." I criticize you because it seems like you're only happy when someone else sees you. But when I try to see you, you lock up like a safe.
"And you seem to love suffering! Do you want me to stand by and watch you writhe in your existential drama forever? Because if that turns you on more than resolving it with me..."
"I'm not Witchy West, Glinda."
"And I'm not GoodGlim!"
"I noticed! Because she wouldn't have left me in the room without speaking."
"And Witchy West wouldn't have even entered the room in the first place. She would have hopped on her broomstick and flown to another dimension so she wouldn't have to talk about her feelings."
"And you know what? At least she doesn't start talking about her "personal brand" when someone is begging her to listen."
"It's not my fault I'm charming under pressure!"
"It's your fault you use your charm as a shield!"
"And you use your loneliness as an excuse."
" The discussion grew, almost in time with the music coming from a nearby stand. It was absurd, exaggerated, and painfully accurate. With each sentence, projections of their fictional doubles seemed to be thrown out, as if the comic had gotten inside them and prevented them from really seeing each other.
And then, just as the conversation reached boiling point, they stumbled upon a circular booth surrounded by a group of children and teenagers: a sign hung out front with glowing letters that read “DUEL OF THE WITCHES – Challenge your friend like in Chapter 12!”
Glinda stopped, a sparkle in her eyes.
“Let’s go in.”
Elphaba turned around, horrified.
“What? No.”
“Why not?”
“Because we just said horrible things to each other, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to add UV light projectiles and sound effects to them.”
“Exactly why,” Glinda said, crossing her arms. If we're going to fight, at least there should be lights and an audience.
"This is a nightmare." Elphaba looked at her as if a malicious goblin had crossed her path. "Are you sure?"
"I'm furious, confused, and emotionally disorganized. And I have new shoes. I'm ready."
A girl dressed as an elf invited them onto the platform. The lights dimmed, the artificial smoke was activated, and a circular arena lit up like a futuristic stage.
"Players, take position."
Elphaba reluctantly climbed onto the left side. Glinda twirled with exaggerated grace to the far side. A floating screen appeared with their usernames projected by the automated system:
GLIMMYGRACE_18
WITCHYELPH26
"Oh, great," Elphaba snorted. "Even the usernames are messing with my identity."
"Shut up and duel!"
The ground beneath their feet vibrated, and they were both handed their "weapons."
Elphaba examined the weapon with a frown. It wasn't exactly what she'd expected when she read "witch duel" on the noticeboard. She held a padded staff the size of a canoe paddle, reinforced with giant foam rubber at each end. The safety helmet pressed against one ear and made her scalp itch. Across from her, Glinda adjusted hers with the efficiency of a queen before a battle.
"This is ridiculous," Elphaba said, raising an eyebrow. "I can't take you seriously in that pink helmet, Glinda. You look like a cherry with self-esteem issues."
"Oh, please, I'm adorable even dressed for war," Glinda retorted, twirling her cane like a wand of heavenly power. "And don't worry, I'm not going to hit you that hard."
"Huh? I said that! I said I wasn't going to hit you that hard, why are you—"
BANG!
The cane slammed straight into Elphaba's shoulder. The blow sent her reeling. The audience—a mix of children, teenagers, enthusiastic nerds, and unashamed adults—erupted in laughter and applause.
"WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!" Elphaba yelled, regaining her balance. "That hurt, you sadistic witch!"
"Sadistic your unresolved traumas!" Glinda spat, brandishing the cane again.
Elphaba didn't wait any longer. She charged.
"You always do that!" "Glinda shouted as she blocked a blow. "You hide behind sarcasm and then get offended when I don't guess how you feel!"
"And you always think if there's no drama, there's no relationship!" Elphaba retorted, launching a direct thrust to the abdomen that Glinda barely deflected. "Not everything is fixed with a selfie and a 'best friend in the universe'!"
The audience roared.
The nerds filmed them, fascinated, believing it to be the most realistic interpretation of the webcomic ever put together.
And the witches kept fighting.
"You never listen to me until I cry!" Glinda yelled, hitting Elphaba's hip.
"And you cry every time I push you off center stage!"
"And you know what?! I'd rather do that than play the martyr like you, with your existential crises and your inherited guilt!"
Elphaba staggered back. Glinda surged forward.
"You're brilliant, strong, magnetic... but sometimes I feel like you live more in your damn traumas than with me!"
The platform shook with each blow. Both canes collided with hollow sounds, amid foam, sweat, and ancient frustrations. Each thrust was an old verbal wound reopened, each shove, a long-delayed need.
"I'm not WitchyWest, Glinda!" Elphaba bellowed, panting. "But I don't know how to compete with her in your head either!"
"And I'm not GoodGlim!" Glinda shrieked. "But sometimes I wonder if you'd like me to be! For me to be more... simple, calmer, less... me."
"I don't want you to be less of yourself! I want to know if I can be enough!"
And then...
Glinda did it.
With a masterful twist—much too graceful for someone carrying a giant foam gun—she snatched the staff from Elphaba's hands. Elphaba stumbled, unarmed, panting, covered in sweat beneath her helmet. The staff fell with a plop into the water, floating between green and pink lights.
Glinda pointed her weapon at her, triumphant. Her chest rose and fell at a frantic pace, but her eyes... were wet.
For a moment, they both stopped moving.
Elphaba raised her hands. She surrendered.
"You know what's the worst part?" she said, her voice low, husky. "Ever since we left Rush Margins... I feel like I'm lost. I threw myself into this journey thinking I'd find answers. But when I confronted him... this man I thought was my father... and discovered he wasn't... everything broke, Glinda. Everything. I felt like I had no story. No roots. No face."
Glinda said nothing. She held her cane high. But her expression softened.
"And in the midst of all that, the only real thing was you. But I was also afraid. Of not deserving you. Of the fact that at any moment you'd realize I'm... too... me."
The murmurs of the audience faded.
The background music diminished.
"And I'm saying this because it hurts. Because I love you, Glinda. But sometimes I feel like if I keep losing parts of myself, even you'll stop knowing who I am."
Elphaba closed her eyes... She was expecting the blow.
But Glinda lowered her cane.
"I'm afraid too, you know," she said softly. "Afraid that one day you'll tire of me, of my noise, my brilliance, of everything I am when I don't know how to keep quiet. Afraid that you won't find what I am when I'm not trying to impress you."
They stayed like that. Looking at each other
Elphaba smiled sadly. And then... WHAM.
With unexpected swiftness, Elphaba ducked, rolled to the side, retrieved her fallen staff from the water... and delivered a powerful blow to Glinda's padded face.
The impact was light, but effective.
Glinda gasped and fell backward directly into the inflatable pit, sending water, foam, and dignity splattering in all directions.
The audience erupted in cheers.
The screen screamed in giant letters:
WITCHYELPH26: VICTORY!
And then... The audience erupted in applause!
Elphaba, panting, her staff raised as if she'd just defeated a dragon, bowed with an ironic, awkward bow. Glinda emerged from the water, sputtering, her helmet tilted to one side, her curls wet like seaweed, glaring between breathless giggles.
"This isn't over, Thropp!" she shouted from the pool.
"Oh, I know!" Elphaba shouted back. "That's why I never take my helmet off even in my sleep!"
Minutes later, the towel hung like a cape around Glinda's shoulders as she passive-aggressively dried her hair, the golden strands flying in all directions with every childish shake of her head. She was sitting on a stage stool in front of a mirror lit by carnival spotlights, surrounded by abandoned makeup cases, character wigs, and stray water bottles.
Elphaba stood beside her, arms crossed, watching the scene with a smile somewhere between amused and resigned. She tried to say something, but Glinda turned her face away, like a kindergartener angry at not being allowed to choose her playground equipment.
"Are you okay?" Elphaba asked patiently.
"Perfectly," Glinda replied through pursed lips, staring at the opposite wall.
"Do you want me to help you with your hair?"
"No."
Elphaba shrugged and bent down, delicately picking up another dry cloth, gently beginning to dry the ends of her hair as Glinda continued to turn her face away whenever she got too close. But she didn't move away completely. And as the minutes passed, her resistance dissolved.
Finally, in a low voice, Glinda murmured,
"What you said before...? In the game... was it true?"
Elphaba paused the movement of her hands for a moment. Then she continued, more slowly this time.
"Yes. Everything."
Glinda exhaled through her nose.
"Because if it wasn't, I swear I'd throw you into the water."
"I know."
The silence between them was more comfortable this time. The dressing room lights made their faces glow a little softer, and the bustle of the convention lingered in the distance, like a distant echo.
"I don't care about all that, you know." "Glinda said suddenly, finally turning to look her in the eye. "That you don't fully know who you are, that you're afraid, or that your story is a tangle of lies. I don't care. I'm with you until the end of time. All I need to know is if you... still want to be with me."
Elphaba swallowed.
Her eyes watered slightly.
She wanted to say something. Something concrete. Something clean. But the words wouldn't quite come out.
"Yes. Of course," she said. "It's just... it's hard to open our hearts when we're in a place where half the audience is cosplaying our lives and the other half is debating whether or not GoodGlim kissed WitchyWest in the Thai comic book version."
Glinda laughed, lowering her head.
"I understand. It's a ridiculous place."
"And on top of that, that monkey keeps staring at us," Elphaba added, jerking her chin toward a corner of the hallway.
Indeed, a few feet away, a man with a huge stuffed ape-shaped head was watching them from behind a snack machine, motionless, as if he were part of some promotional campaign.
They both stared at him in silence.
The monkey didn't blink.
Glinda shuddered.
"Okay. I'm starting to get nervous."
"And I don't want to continue talking about my anxiety with that in mind."
Elphaba gently took her wrist.
"Shall we?"
Glinda nodded.
In front of them, an unmarked metal door looked like an emergency exit or a technical entrance. No one was watching. No one seemed to be paying attention.
Without a second thought, Glinda pushed it through. They entered.
And the door closed behind them with a soft click.
Inside, the air was different.
A narrow hallway lit with softly buzzing white lights. There was no noise from fans, no screens, no merchandise. Just their footsteps, side by side.
"Thank you for not giving up," Elphaba whispered.
"Thank you for telling me the truth," Glinda replied.
At first, they saw nothing. It was pitch black. Elphaba groped along the wall next to her, searching for a light switch or an exit, but all she found was the rough texture of cheap paint on wood paneling. Behind her, Glinda trudged blindly, taking short steps, muttering low curses under her breath.
"I don't like this... I don't like this at all," she said.
And then, without warning, a click echoed from the ceiling.
And with that, the tunnel lit up... pink. Neon pink. Glitter pink. Sensory torture pink.
A series of fluorescent tubes cast a bubblegum-pink haze that stretched the length of the tunnel, revealing walls covered in cardboard hearts, glitter clouds, and 2D illustrations of the comic's witch protagonists staring at each other with wide-eyed anime eyes. The air smelled of synthetic vanilla and fresh paint. And just then, a cheesy, syrupy, and cloying song, like a poisoned cupcake, began to play over the speakers.
“Two witches, one destiny,
flying hearts and spells so free,
hold my hand and never fear,
you and me, forever near...”
“Oh, by all the fucking moons of Maracoor…” Elphaba muttered, her face pale.
In front of them, a garish marquee flickered with flashing lights:
ROMANCE WITCHES' TUNNEL – PRESENTED BY WITCHYWEST & GOODGLIM™
Elphaba took a step back, trying to escape, but then it happened.
From behind, a mechanical clicking sound pierced the air.
A mechanical click resounded behind them, and before they could react, a ridiculously elaborate contraption emerged from a slot in the wall: a giant broomstick positioned horizontally like a swing for two. Soft safety straps activated, and without knowing how, they were both trapped in the padded harness of the "romantic ride."
"No, no, no, no, no!" Elphaba cried, trying to free herself, but the broomstick had already risen slightly and was beginning to advance along an invisible rail with a sweet whirring sound.
Glinda, beside her, eyes wide open, could barely blink from shock. The broom was gliding through a circular opening adorned with pink velvet curtains and floating heart-shaped lights. Halfway through the tunnel, a sudden flash: FLASH! A hidden camera captured a perfect snapshot of the moment when Elphaba's face was filled with suppressed homicidal menace and Glinda looked like a kidnapped beauty queen.
"Did they just take our picture?" Glinda said, still blinking from the flash.
"They just kidnapped us for some tasteless romantic experience," Elphaba said. "It's even worse."
And so the journey began.
The first leg was a shower of artificial flower petals falling from the ceiling with an almost theatrical cadence. Every so often, a bubble would burst in the air, releasing the scent of vanilla or cinnamon. Around them, screens projected animated hearts beating to the beat of the music, while phrases like “Witches fall in love too” and “Eternal love with a spell included” glittered in cursive letters with digital sequins.
“This is an outrage against good taste,” Elphaba gasped, trying to brush petals off her neckline. “I feel like I'm in the music video for a heteronormative glitter nightmare.”
“Oh, shut up,” Glinda whispered, giggling despite herself.
Elphaba glanced at her. For a moment, seeing Glinda laugh like that, disarmed, her hair still a little damp and the pink shadow of the spotlights painting her cheeks, disarmed her a little too.
But there was no time to falter.
The next segment was even worse.
In front of them appeared a giant magic mirror. Well, a “magic” screen. The camera-equipped device captured the scene in real time and projected their "enchanted reflections," decorating them with the outfits of their comic book counterparts. Only not as they expected.
Elphaba paled.
"No..."
Because there she was: Elphaba, clad in a hypersexualized version of GoodGlim's pastel pink dress, complete with giant bows, raspberry lips, and mile-long eyelashes. Her face was immortalized in an expression of confusion, a mixture of horror and blush.
Beside her, Glinda wore a black corset with an aggressive neckline, a wide-brimmed hat, lined eyes, and a stifled giggle. The most perverse WitchyWest ever imagined.
Glinda brought a hand to her mouth.
"I can't believe this."
And then she burst into laughter.
Elphaba crossed her arms, red-faced with indignation.
"Tell me there's an emergency exit."
"You look beautiful in pink," Glinda mocked, still staring at the reflection.
"It's offensive to me. We look like an erotic parody for confused teenagers!"
"Aren't we?" Elphaba snarled.
But the broomstick didn't stop.
The next stretch was the most disconcerting of all: curved screens surrounded the tunnel like a dome, and began projecting key scenes from the webcomic in motion comic format, with dramatic voices and symphonic music. They both stood still as they watched animated representations of themselves, exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness... and yet, disturbingly familiar.
The moment they met at the wizarding university. The first time they argued over an ethical issue. The iconic dance where Glinda took Elphaba's hand in front of everyone. The escape on the broomstick. The reunion at the monastery.
One by one, the scenes unfolded, woven by a sentimental narrative that spoke of courage, of difference, of love against adversity.
"How much of this is true...?" Glinda asked quietly.
"Too much."
They both fell silent.
And though every scene was kitsch, melodramatic, and riddled with rose-tinted filters... there was also something real pulsing beneath. Something uncomfortable. Something deeply human. Seeing it so exposed, so warped by fantasy... made it hurt more.
Finally, the ride slowed. A section of dim lights and soothing water sounds enveloped them. The screens went black. There were no more songs.
Only the sound of the broom gliding and the whirring of hidden mechanisms.
Glinda was the first to burst out. A long, deep laugh that nearly doubled her over.
"This is the most incredibly stupid thing that's ever happened to me," she giggled, her face red. "Look at that hologram! It looks like I have three breasts!"
Elphaba doubled over too, trying not to choke with laughter.
"And you thought I was the intense one! How did we end up trapped in a nonconsensual romantic attraction?! This is literally state torture!"
"And you can't deny you planned the whole thing, Thropp!" Glinda joked, pointing at her. "This was your Machiavellian way of getting us to talk again!"
"Yeah, right. Because my erotic fantasy was always being trapped on a padded broomstick with you while a song tells us that 'our souls are intertwined spells.' Absolutely."
And they kept laughing.
But eventually the laughter died down. Not abruptly. Like a candle burning slowly. And in its place was a different silence. Comfortable. Light.
Glinda looked ahead, watching as they approached a final section of the tunnel where two witch puppets—one green, one blonde—embraced each other as they floated on a broomstick above a painted fabric sky.
"You know...?" Glinda said, without looking at her. "I liked what you said before. About not wanting to get lost. About being scared. It made me feel... less alone."
Elphaba turned her head toward her. Her expression had softened.
"And I'm sorry for bringing up 'me time' as if it meant... distance between us. I didn't mean that. I said it wrong. Sometimes I don't know how to think without thinking about you, and it scares me not having my own space. But it scares me more not having you. And that makes me angry. Because... you're the best thing that ever happened to me. And I know it. Even if it takes a while for my mouth to catch on."
Glinda smiled.
Not ironically. Not mockingly. She just smiled.
"The same thing happens to me." But mine is worse, because I know how to say things, and I still say them wrong.
"A classic."
"Don't make fun of it," Glinda said, resting her head on Elphaba's shoulder.
The broomstick slowly turned around a garlanded curve.
"Can I say something cheesy to you?" Elphaba asked.
"After all this, it would be a waste if you didn't."
"I like it when you look at me when I'm angry."
Glinda glanced at her.
"Why?"
"Because you don't look at me with fear. You look at me like you still want to stay."
Glinda swallowed, still gently resting her head against hers.
"I'll always want to stay."
And just at that moment, the tunnel opened into a new room. A small stand at the end of the path displayed a screen where photos taken during the trip rotated.
The first image: Glinda and Elphaba forced into a sitting position, their expressions pure and horrified.
And below, in bright pink letters:
“Love is the dumbest spell of all... but also the strongest.”
They both looked at each other.
And burst out laughing again.
Elphaba burst out laughing so hard her back hurt.
“Oh my God, we have to burn this.”
Glinda looked at her.
“No way. This is going straight into the fridge when we get back.”
The laughter between them was fading away, as if the comic echo of the journey was slowly lowering the curtain. Glinda, still holding the glossy paper with the ridiculous photo in one hand, and Elphaba, wearing an expression that combined astonishment, affection, and a hint of delighted resignation, stood in the middle of the stage set, lit by neon lights that flickered as if an algorithm had designed them without understanding the word “subtle.”
Around them, everything was still ridiculously cheesy. Artificial flowers hung from the ceiling, soft music continued to play from some corner—now with slow piano chords—and the smell of synthetic cotton candy wafted like an omnipresent perfume.
But amidst all that, amidst so much artifice… the moment was real.
They looked at each other.
And they kissed.
Not like those times when desire or the need to cling to something stronger than doubt had pushed them together. Not like a reconciliation disguised as an impulse. Not like a temporary truce.
It was a quiet kiss.
Slow.
So sweet it seemed like a moment stolen from a storybook. Their lips met in the center of that ridiculous setting, and for a second—just one—everything else disappeared: the garish lights, the fake posters, the absurd idea that someone out there had turned their story into a fanfic with merchandise.
When they separated, it was as if the air itself had changed.
Glinda's eyes glittered, but not with a romantic thrill, but with something rawer, more intimate.
"I don't know what will happen, or what we will do when this journey ends or when the world tries to tear us apart again," she said in a low voice, almost like a secret. "But the one thing I know for sure... is that I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
Elphaba felt something tremble in her chest. She didn't know how to respond, not with words. Not yet. But she did know what she felt.
She was about to say something—a sentence, a response, a reflection of fear and promise—when a voice cleared his throat loudly behind them.
"Excuse me?" said a man wearing a volunteer T-shirt and a "STAFF" cap. "What are you doing here? This section is closed. You cannot use the attraction without a reservation, authorization, or..."
Elphaba and Glinda exchanged a glance. Glinda attempted a diplomatic smile. Elphaba just grabbed her hand and murmured,
"Run."
And they ran.
They laughed as they did so, giggling like teenagers escaping a school security guard, dodging inflatable magical cloud decorations and passing stands of posters and collectible figurines. Romantic music continued to play in the distance, softly mocking them.
Finally, they stopped at the turn of a hallway, hiding behind a stand selling "edible potions for magical couples." They ducked between boxes of merchandise, catching their breath.
"Are you crazy?" Glinda whispered, laughing.
"A little," Elphaba admitted, panting.
"Was that our first 'fairytale kiss'? In a pink capitalist trap with cotton candy in the air?"
"Yes," Elphaba replied. "And it was perfect."
Glinda opened her mouth to reply, but then Elphaba interrupted her. Her expression changed.
"Wait... I have to do something. Just a second."
"What? Now? What?"
Elphaba stood up as she spoke, her eyes shining with a new intensity.
"Trust me. Please. Just... stay here."
"Elphie..."
"I promise, it's important."
And before Glinda could object further, Elphaba was already lost in the crowd, running with a clear direction and a determination Glinda hadn't seen in days.
For a moment, Glinda was alone behind the stall. She looked around.
And smiled, looking down at the photograph she still held. The ridiculous, cheesy, absurd, and undeniably heartfelt image of the two of them trapped in their own fairy tale.
"This had better be worth it," she murmured softly, lovingly, knowing it would.
And she waited.
Glinda leaned carefully against the fluorescent-starred wall as she checked her phone again, if only to have something to do with her hands. She looked around with some impatience, not because she doubted Elphaba—although she did a little—but because her heart was still pounding from that kiss. That blessed kiss. In the worst possible place. At the best possible time.
She sighed, tossing her curls with a small gesture.
And then she felt it. Or rather, she heard it.
A faint squeak of rubber. A rustle of soft footsteps. And when she turned her head, there it was. The damned monkey cosplay that had been stalking them for hours now emerged like a furry shadow from the crowd, stopping just a few feet away from her.
Glinda flinched, her heart skipped a brief leap—more from shock than fear—and she instantly straightened. But she quickly recovered her composure.
"Oh... for heaven's sake, you again. Look, I'm not signing autographs or doing interviews, so if you came here to suck up the spotlight..."
The monkey raised his hands in a sign of peace. And then he began to move them precisely: he was speaking in sign language.
Glinda blinked.
"Signing? Oh... well... um... great." She tried to follow him as best she could, remembering the classes she'd taken in college as part of her commitment to accessibility... even though she hadn't practiced them in years.
The message was clear:
"I'm a big fan of GoodGlim. I like how she's so authentic. So herself. Even though she shines so brightly, she's not faking it."
Glinda was speechless for a moment. For some reason—maybe because of how awkwardly she'd felt judged all day, or because of the hyper-fake, low-cut version of herself that hounded her on every wall at the convention—those words resonated.
"Thank you... that's... very sweet," she replied, not quite sure if the boy inside the costume could hear her or was just lip-reading, but he smiled anyway.
The monkey continued to move his hands enthusiastically. He apologized for looking at her from a distance, confessing that he hadn't dared to get close before, and said that his cosplay seemed the most perfect of all. Because of its simplicity. Because it wasn't about the dress or the wig or the glitter, but about the spirit of the character.
Glinda froze. Simplicity? Her? She'd spent the last two decades cultivating an aesthetic that screamed the opposite. But... for some reason, she wasn't offended. She felt like, somehow, she'd been seen.
Then the monkey made the universal finger gesture for a selfie.
Glinda hesitated for a second.
"Well... one. But only one. And only from the neck up. And don't post it without tagging me, understood?"
They both positioned themselves. He held up his cell phone with a surprisingly precise foam paw. The photo clicked.
But the monkey grimaced in disgust. He pointed to the back of the room. The corner was littered with forgotten boxes, electrical cords, and a fallen WitchyWest cardboard cutout that looked like it had been accidentally decapitated.
"Ugh. Yeah, well, it's probably the worst corner of the whole convention," Glinda admitted. "It makes me look like the good witch at a recycling center."
The monkey nodded heartily and pointed to another area with better lighting. Glinda followed, still smiling, while adjusting a strand of hair. Just a few steps, she told herself. What could happen?
But just as they passed an old, frayed pink curtain, the monkey spun around… and with a surprisingly agile rear-end wiggle, he slammed the curtain open.
Glinda didn't even have time to react.
She stumbled forward, lost her balance, and fell through the gap.
"What the fuck?!" she yelled, just before disappearing behind the curtain.
Elphaba, if you're watching this from another dimension, she thought as she fell, I'll kill you.
And then she landed with a soft thud on a fluffy, but completely different, rug.
The atmosphere changed immediately. The lighting was warmer, dimmer, and had a seductive purple hue. The music had changed too: now a soft mix of lounge jazz and retro synthesizers. Stylized illustrations of witches in suggestive poses hung on the walls, casting spells that clearly weren't just metaphorical.
In front of her, a huge sign illuminated by fake candlelight read:
ADULT ZONE – TOYS AND FANTASIES FOR WITCHES OVER 18.
No filters here. Just magic (and latex).
Glinda blinked. Once… twice… three times.
And then, very slowly, she stood up.
In front of her were shelves filled with discreet boxes, sensual illustrations, and magical toys for intimate use with names like Tongue Whisperer, Vibratus Maximus, and The Three-Cornered Hat. A special stand advertised:
"WitchyWest and GoodGlim™ approved products for your private cauldron."
"What's this...?" she whispered, her voice almost trembling.
Behind her, a couple of girls in gothic robes were arguing about whether the "GoodGlim Orgasm Wand" came with voice control or not.
Glinda didn't know whether to scream, run, or pretend to be a cardboard cutout. She was barely able to brush the dust off the synthetic carpet and readjust her top when she heard, like an echo from a nightmare, the unmistakable squeak of foam rubber behind her.
The damn monkey was back.
She whipped around, brow furrowed, dignity hanging by a thread, ready to give him a crash course in manners, when the creature stepped forward and… spoke.
"Did you miss my personal touch, darling?"
The tone was that arrogant whisper, chewed with relish, the sound of someone who knows they're closer to control than ridicule. Glinda stepped back, feeling a chill creep up her spine like a spider in heels.
"No…" she whispered.
The monkey raised both hands to the plush head and, with a slow, ceremonial gesture, removed it.
And beneath it was her.
Her red hair, now tied in a tight ponytail that seemed to shine with a satanic glaze. Her perfectly lined red lips, smiling like someone who'd savored a secret for months. And those green eyes with a poisonous gleam that could split glass.
"Milla!" Glinda exclaimed, her voice cracking between surprise and dread. "What... what are you doing here?"
"What do you think, my little pink witch?" Milla replied in that soft, lethal tone, as if each word slid along an invisible blade. "Miss the chance to see in person the newest cultural obsession? The tale of the two witches... a lesbian revolution wrapped in layers of fan service, merchandising, and cleavage. Delicious."
Glinda took a step back, but Milla took another. "Don't you find it an exquisite irony?" Milla continued, scanning the shelves of magical toys with clinical interest. "That after all this drama, after you emotionally crawled into my bed begging for affection, you end up a cartoon. A vinyl doll on sale. A caricature of your most obedient self."
"I didn't crawl," Glinda growled, her voice trembling but firm. "And I left you because I finally understood what you were."
Milla took an elegant step toward her, pulling a wrapped heart-shaped candy from an inside pocket and tossing it between her fingers.
"Really? Then why do you recoil as if I could still tame you with a snap of my fingers? Because I still remember... everything about you. How do you escape when you're afraid? How do you tense up when you don't know if you hate someone or want them? And how do you moan the name of someone who doesn't deserve you?" Glinda frowned in disgust.
"You're pathetic," she spat.
But Milla just laughed. That low laugh, like sharp velvet.
"Pathetic? No, my dear. I'm practical."
And in one fluid motion, as if she'd rehearsed this humiliation for weeks—which she probably had—she hurled the enormous head of the monkey costume straight at his chest.
Glinda, out of pure reflex, caught it.
What she hadn't expected was the sheer weight of the thing. She stumbled backward, off balance, and fell flat on a decorative couch shaped like an inverted cauldron.
And that's when everything broke loose.
Literally.
Padded straps, designed as part of the "WitchBound Sensual Experience," shot out from the side of the couch with an automatic click, and within seconds secured her wrists and ankles with a strength that didn't match the safety regulations of any decent theme park.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Glinda yelled, struggling uselessly as the straps glittered with tiny pink star clasps.
Milla leaned toward her, lowering her face until it was almost inches from hers.
"Look how cute you are, trapped right in your least public place. Where's your composure, Glinda Upland? Where's tomorrow's public figure, the voice of morality?" she whispered venomously. "Or is this the real you? The one who lets herself be tied up and watches silently, with those little eyes begging for someone else to decide for her?"
Glinda clenched her jaw.
"Let me go... now."
"Oh, Glinda, you know it doesn't work like that. Not when you don't really want to let go."
Glinda swallowed.
"What do you want, Milla? Why now?"
"Simple," the redhead replied, smoothing down her uniform. I want to see if, after all this theater... you still know who you really are... who you are without "her."
Glinda was burning. Literally.
Not from desire, nor from shame—although that was both—but from a sacred rage that boiled in her veins like perfumed acid. She struggled against the padded straps that held her to the seat like enchanted chains. Her skin, so polished and cared for, began to redden with each futile tug. And yet, she kept trying.
"Let me go right now, Milla!" she bellowed, her voice cracking between horror and indignation.
Milla, meanwhile, was laughing. That laugh of hers. Liquid, poisonous, studied. With a mixture of feigned tenderness and absolute superiority.
"Do you lose your composure so quickly, Glinda?" she asked, pacing around the couch as if inspecting a living piece of art. How little the princess has changed since the last time we played.
"We're not playing!"
"Not yet," Milla whispered, her smile widening. "But we'll get to that."
Glinda snorted.
"What do you want?! What is this?! Why are you doing this?"
Milla moved forward, her boots clicking against the padded floor with a clack-tock Glinda remembered all too well. She walked slowly around her, like a predator circling its prey, while playing with one of the wands on the stand, which had more in common with an adult toy than a magical artifact.
"Ever since your little rebellion," she said sarcastically, "ever since you decided to play the brave, the independent, the tragic heroine, I've been wondering what to do with you. I gave you power, I gave you structure, I gave you adoration... and you repaid me with contempt. Cliché, but effective."
"You gave me nothing!" "Glinda snarled, her teeth clenched. "You manipulated me, you used me! And you no longer have power over me!"
Milla laughed. A low, almost husky laugh.
"Of course not, my love. That's why you're tied up in expensive clothes, surrounded by pink lights, and in a position that can only be described as... deliciously symbolic. But don't worry, this isn't just revenge. It's... a collaboration."
Glinda blinked, confused.
"What?"
Milla leaned in, her face now so close to Glinda's that their breaths mingled.
"I met someone. A fascinating person. Hateful, intense, obsessive... I swear I thought I'd get bored with her melodrama, but no. Turns out she hates you almost as much as I do."
The smile turned almost childlike, excited.
"And she told me things... so many things. She told me about the trip, your stops, your arguments, about her." She kept me informed like I was your personal shadow. And when I learned there was a convention entirely dedicated to the most brilliant and sexy fictional version of you, well... how could I resist? I had to come see the charade with my own eyes," Milla explained with a delight as sick as her smile. "And then... I saw you. In the middle of the crowd. With that anguished face and perfect hairdo. And my head exploded with excitement."
She twirled around like she was on a catwalk.
"And now... you're exactly where I wanted you. Tied up. Trapped. Ready. Because this, Glinda, is just beginning."
He walked over to stand in front of her, and with a perfectly polished finger, he lifted her chin.
"The Glinda the world thinks it knows... the radiant one, the adorable one, the one who always says the right thing... is going to fall apart. Because now everyone's going to see the real you. Or well... GoodGlim. Whatever you prefer to call yourself." "You're sick," Glinda murmured, her eyes moist with fury.
"No, love," Milla whispered, leaning in to speak in her ear. "I'm hurt. And there's nothing more dangerous than an ex with an outstanding debt and a stage platform."
"You're completely insane," Glinda spat through gritted teeth, every muscle in her body twisting against the padded restraints. "If you think I'm going to play another one of your insane games—"
"Oh, my love," Milla interrupted gently, as if Glinda's line had been a nostalgic ballad. "You're not going to do it for me. At least... that's what you're going to tell yourself this time."
Milla took something out of her shiny patent leather bag. It was a tablet. She turned it on with a careful, almost reverential gesture. She searched for a file. Glinda could barely turn her neck toward the screen, distrust trembling in her gaze.
And then she saw it.
The room in the video was squalid. A roadside motel with sickly yellow lighting, a bed that creaked at the slightest movement, a fixed camera with a wide angle... clearly hidden. In the center of the shot, a figure Glinda knew all too well.
Elphaba.
Dressed in tight leather, whip in hand. Her face, serious. But there was something in her eyes. Something empty, almost automaton. Playing at being the absolute mistress of a scene with a submissive male. Every gesture, every word that emerged from the video was an uncomfortable echo of the past. One that Elphaba had shared, trembling, long ago.
Glinda paled. The color drained from her face as if her soul had been suddenly ripped out. Not because of the content. Not because of the aesthetics. Not because of the taboo. Elphaba had told her about that time. She had done so with tears, with guilt, with shame. But also with truth. With that raw, brave honesty that had made Glinda fall even more in love with her.
No, the horror wasn't in the video.
It was in what might happen if that video were made public.
Elphaba destroyed. Her ideologies branded as hypocrisy. The media devouring her alive. Conservatives demanding her cancellation. Her vulnerability turned into merchandise. Her body, her pain, her story… used to fuel the viral humiliation machine.
"How... how did you get this?" Glinda murmured, barely breathing.
"Courtesy of my new best friend," Milla replied with a poisonous smile. "Like I said before, someone very interested in making them suffer."
He walked slowly, standing in front of her with impeccable posture.
"You have two options, Glinda. One: you undo your hair, take a deep breath... and do what I say. You follow the script I wrote for you, you participate in the show, you deliver your lines like the good little girl you once were... and you let me have my closure. If you do it right, this little gem is gone. Forever."
"And if I refuse?"
Milla made a theatrical face of disappointment, and with a gesture, the video started again on the tablet.
"Then the whole world will see your beautiful, brave wife in a situation she won't understand. Not the way you understand it. The country that made her a symbol... is going to crucify her."
The silence that followed was so thick it seemed to fill the air like smoke.
Glinda looked at her, her eyes like knives. She had cried many times. She had been angry many more times. But that was different. Her gaze wasn't that of a wounded princess.
It was that of a witch. One who, for the first time, was willing to start a fire.
"You're trash. A coward, hiding behind a screen and a script, because you know that if you really confront me... you'll lose."
"Maybe," Milla whispered, shrugging with false modesty. "But this time, I have the power. And you know what? You're going to do it, Glinda. Not for me. Not for you. You're going to tell yourself over and over again that it's for her. Because you love her. Because you want to protect her. Because she's your beloved and blah blah blah... the same old thing."
He leaned down and caressed her face with chilling tenderness.
"But at the end of the day, you're still going to be on that stage doing what I tell you. You're going to smile. You're going to parade. You're going to grovel. Because you have no other choice."
Glinda, still trembling, turned her face away in contempt.
"You'll never have power over me again."
"Of course not," Milla replied, turning to leave. "But it's beautiful that you still believe that."
Glinda closed her eyes. Her breath trembled.
And somewhere in her chest, buried between rage, pain, survival instinct, and absolute love for Elphaba... a response began to form... One she hated with all her being.
Meanwhile, Elphaba walked through the crowd as if something inside her was slowly beginning to crack, with each step, with each face that wasn't Glinda's.
In her right hand, she held a small package wrapped in shiny paper, no bigger than a pack of cigarettes. She had bought it minutes before in an inconspicuous corner of the main corridor, after one of those conversations with herself where she debated whether it was the worst or the best time to take that step. She watched him like someone staring at an unexploded bomb.
But when she looked straight ahead, ready to find those familiar golden curls, reality hit her: they weren't there.
There was no Glinda.
She stopped. She turned on her heel. She scanned the area.
Nothing.
"Okay, calm down," she told herself. "Maybe she went to the bathroom. Maybe she got distracted. Maybe she's buying silly merchandise from the booth for her sexy comic book version." She tried to laugh at the thought, but anxiety crept up her throat like poison ivy.
Elphaba began to walk, first with determination, then with growing desperation. Every corner, every booth, every face dressed as a witch, warrior, or princess seemed to mock her with its colorful noise. She couldn't find her. And that didn't make sense. Glinda wouldn't leave. Not like this. Not without—
Then she saw her.
The adult section.
A luminous banner in shades of purple and fuchsia hung over a velvet curtain. Elphaba squinted. She hesitated for a second. And smiled. Not out of safety, but because of the ridiculousness of the possibility.
“Yes. Why not. If anyone could see a stall of spell-inspired sex toys and say, ‘Let’s explore it!’ It would be Glinda.”
She pushed open the curtain.
Inside, the air was thicker. Warmer. Illuminated by low, sensual lights. Shelves of magically themed toys. Posters with risqué illustrations by GoodGlim and WitchyWest. Perfumes with absurd names. Elphaba bit her lip, half amused, half uncomfortable.
But Glinda wasn't there.
She looked around again, more worried now. This wasn't a game anymore.
She didn't know that, a few feet away, behind the thick black curtains that separated the main section from a small makeshift stage, another kind of spectacle was taking place.
A wooden chair in the center. Lights off, except for a pink halo falling from above.
Glinda. Tied up.
Her wrists firmly secured to the back of the chair. Her ankles anchored to the front legs. In the reflection of a half-fogged mirror, she could see herself... or something worse: a grotesque caricature of herself.
The wig was platinum blonde, fake, and curled like in old cartoons. The lips, an exaggerated fuchsia, were lined as if someone had played with crayons. The corset—because it was clearly a corset, not a dress—exposed more skin than Glinda had ever shown in her entire public life, with ridiculous lace, plastic tulle, and stick-on glitter.
A crude version. Exaggerated. Fetishized.
A parody of GoodGlim. And by extension, of herself.
Milla, standing behind her, held a triumphant eyeliner.
"You know what I love most about this version?" she said, her tone sweet as cherry poison. "It's not just that you're an absurdly sexualized doll. It's that they're going to love it. You'll see. They'll applaud. They'll laugh. They'll want you. They'll ask for selfies."
Glinda panted with suppressed fury. Words weren't enough to express the fire burning in her chest.
"You're... human garbage."
Milla put her eyeliner aside and bent down until she was face to face.
"Probably, but you, my love... you're going to be there like a star. On stage. Ridiculous. Exposed. Docile. Because if not... your green-skinned heroine will be eaten alive."
Milla stood like an orchestra conductor before the final act.
"Ready for your big debut?"
Then the sound exploded above them: a microphone clipping, a nasal voice with fake energy.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Wizards, sorceresses, and fans from all over Vinkus! The moment you've all been waiting for... The Tale of Two Witches Performance and Cosplay Contest is about to begin!"
Outside, the cheers grew. A collective murmur of anticipation.
Milla smiled, excited like a child on Halloween. She walked to the coat rack against the wall and began dressing with slow, theatrical movements. Each piece of black leather transformed her further: first the thigh-high, cross-laced boots, then the vinyl bodysuit that gleamed in the light like obscene armor, and finally a tattered cape that draped over her shoulder as if she'd been at war with her own vanity for centuries.
The black wig fit perfectly on her head, and looking at herself in the mirror, Milla burst out laughing.
"What do you think, darling?" she said, spinning around, posing like a fallen heroine. "Witchy West version 2.0. A little meaner, a little wetter, don't you think?"
Glinda didn't respond. Her clenched jaw was her only statement of purpose.
Milla approached and crouched in front of her with a gesture that oscillated between tenderness and torture.
"Now then. Listen carefully, doll." "The act is rehearsed to perfection," she said, pulling a folded sheet of paper from her neckline with an improvised script written in pink marker. "You appear as GoodGlim, the good, silly, flirtatious little witch, as perfect and empty as a can of compressed air. I appear as WitchyWest, the rebellious, dangerous, dominant witch. I humiliate you a little. I force you to 'confess' that you're worthless without me." She said it with a deliberately cruel intonation, savoring every syllable. "And you accept it. With a laugh, of course. Nothing too explicit. Just... fun."
The sheet of paper was delicately placed in Glinda's lap. The restraints were loosened. Just enough to allow her to walk. Milla sat up, looking down at her.
"I know you'll do well. It's in your blood. No need to act... right?"
Glinda looked up. Her blue eyes were two blades of ice.
"I'm going to destroy you," she whispered.
Milla clicked her tongue, like a disappointed mother.
"That's not a nice thing to say, especially when I'm giving you a chance to be... lovely. Come on, Glinda. Admit it. Sometimes... you miss this. Someone telling you what to do. Someone putting you in a costume and telling you how to look pretty. Wasn't that what was going on between us?"
Glinda slowly rose from her chair. Still wobbly. Still disgusted.
"What happened between us was abuse disguised as romance. Manipulation disguised as play."
"And pleasure disguised as shame," Milla said, smiling, her red lips thick. "That's the part you don't want to accept. And that's why your thing with Elphaba... will never work."
The name pierced her like a rusty dagger.
"She's pretending. She's acting strong. The dominant one. But you know as well as I do that she's as broken as you." Who falls apart with every question about her past. Who drags you down with her fears, her guilt, her insecurity. Do you want a life with that? With a shadow that can barely stand?
Glinda wanted to scream at her, push her, throw her to the floor. But the microphone sounded again:
"And now, from a very special corner of the convention... a presentation not for the faint of heart! A story of love, power... and submission! With you... GoodGlim and WitchyWest, censored version!"
The spotlights came on. The curtain began to rise.
Milla gave her one last poisonous smile.
"Time to shine, darling."
The curtain vibrated slightly with the murmur of applause and cheers. The host, dressed in a ridiculously sparkly costume with green and pink sequin details, raised the microphone with exaggerated theatricality.
"And finally, we begin the most anticipated section of Wizomania-Con... the cosplay performance! Where our participants not only dress up as their favorite characters, but also interpret them, live them, and love them!" He paused to receive applause. "Each of you has chosen your favorite scene from the webcomic A Tale of Two Witches... and today you'll make it your own!"
A burst of colored lights illuminated the stage as the first contestants filed past. Some were ridiculously amateurish: crepe-paper cosplays, floppy wigs, exaggerated accents, and scripted lines delivered with adolescent passion. Others, however, gave it their all: prop swords, fake smoke, and fight choreography that drew laughter and applause alike.
"But first... a big round of applause for our special guests of honor! You can't reveal your identities yet... but you're part of the judging panel for this year's Wizomania-Con!" the host added as a spotlight rose and rested on a side stage, where two barely distinguishable silhouettes loomed in the shadows. A tall figure in a dark green leather jacket; a smaller one with a shiny hat, a laugh that muffled in the gloom. They bowed briefly. No one could see their faces, but the crowd erupted just the same.
And although Glinda could hear every cheer, every joke thrown from the audience, her attention wasn't there.
From backstage, her gaze was fixed on something else. Every scene, every couple, every distorted recreation of that fictional world… was, in some perverse and strangely faithful way, a distorted shadow of what she and Elphaba had experienced. An exaggerated, but recognizable echo.
A young woman dressed as WitchyWest raised her fist while shouting that she would never obey the crown. The girl playing GoodGlim tearfully begged her not to face the empire alone. And although the scene was played with cartoonish drama, with pre-recorded music and automatic lighting effects… Glinda felt something tremble inside her.
Then another couple: a GoodGlim falling to the ground, and a WitchyWest picking her up in her arms while the narrator shouted from a loudspeaker: "I chose her! I will always choose her!"
Glinda felt something in her throat close.
It wasn't the makeup. It wasn't the wig. It was something else. A lump that had been growing for days, weeks. From the moment Elphaba, her eyes broken, had said she needed time to find herself. From the uncomfortable motel couch. From the moment her father, on the phone, had whispered that things at home were broken too.
One more scene. This time, a musical group was performing an original song based on the monastery episode: two girls, one dressed with cardboard wings, the other with a torn hood, touched their foreheads while singing in unison: "Once upon a time, in another life, we could have been eternal."
Glinda put a hand to her chest. Her heart was beating fast, as if each act were a convex mirror forcing her to see her story through someone else's eyes.
Behind her, Milla let out a stifled laugh, like someone tasting honey before stabbing.
"Wow, darling. I see you're... moved. Could it be that you're realizing that you and Elphaba were always a comic book story? Exaggerated. Dramatic. Tragic. And without a happy ending."
Glinda didn't respond. She didn't even look at her. Her face had become expressionless. But her eyes were moist.
The host spoke again.
"And now... a last-minute surprise! A very special, very daring version of GoodGlim and WitchyWest... from two new contestants who promise to be talked about!"
Milla whispered to her with poisonous pleasure:
"It's your turn, baby."
Glinda felt a hand gently push her back. One step. Another. The stage lights swallowed her up.
Suddenly, there were no more wings. Just her. Alone. Standing at the edge of the stage, in that costume that was a sequined humiliation. The music started: a sensual version of the webcomic's opening. A pink spotlight illuminated her. And she… froze.
The audience fell silent. Expectation. Curiosity.
Glinda didn't move. Her knees trembled. Her false eyelashes weighed like lead. The skirt barely covered her dignity.
For a moment, Glinda thought the stage was collapsing on her. The spotlight blinded her, the silence of the audience suffocated her, the makeup burned her skin. From the shadows, Milla signaled with her arms like a hysterical director at a school rehearsal. Glinda closed her eyes. She breathed. She pressed her lips together. And she acted.
She dropped to her knees as the script indicated. The ridiculous skirt lifted humiliatingly, drawing a few sighs and nervous laughs from the audience. She clenched her fists. It was just a moment. Just one scene. She did it for Elphaba. She did it all for Elphaba.
Just then, in the left corner of the stage, behind the curtain where Milla was preparing for her grand entrance, a shadow slid silently by. Green. Determined. A hand covered Milla's mouth just as she turned to stride triumphantly out. She didn't have time to react: she was dragged back with a thud, swallowed by the darkness behind the wings. Only the sound of a few shoes tapped briefly on the floor, and then... silence.
Glinda didn't see it. She remained in character, trembling, on her knees. She expected Milla's manipulative voice, the same one that had so often made her feel less than nothing. But that wasn't the voice she heard. It was another. Familiar. Unexpectedly sweet. Firm.
"Stand up, GoodGlim," Elphaba said from across the stage, with a heroic intonation that didn't sound entirely natural... and yet, it worked.
Glinda looked up, her heart in her throat. And there she was. Elphaba. Standing. Dressed in the ridiculous black leather outfit that must have belonged to Milla. Her wig hung slightly askew, as if she'd thrown it on in a hurry, her pointy hat was stuck on her head, and her gold-buckled belt dangled dangerously at her hip. But her eyes... her eyes shone. As if seeing her was all she needed to know what to do.
She extended a gloved hand toward Glinda. For a moment, the world stopped.
And Glinda smiled.
She took the hand. She stood up. The ovation was immediate: believing it to be part of the show, the audience applauded loudly.
"What do we do now?" Glinda whispered in Elphaba's ear as they walked to the center of the stage.
"I don't have the slightest fucking idea," Elphaba replied through gritted teeth, her jaw clenched as she smiled down at the audience like a musical diva. "But... just play along."
She picked up a prop broomstick leaning against a cardboard column painted as an imperial tower. She lifted it dramatically.
"I won't let the Emperor divide us again!" she shouted theatrically, pointing toward the audience as if the invisible villain were there. "Take my hand and fly with me, GoodGlim!"
Glinda raised an eyebrow, but responded instantly with equal enthusiasm.
"But if they catch us, they'll do... bad things to us!" she said, trying to sound like a dramatic damsel, as Elphaba tossed her the broomstick and dragged her toward the center of the stage with glorious clumsiness.
The audience erupted in laughter. Some recorded. Others chanted.
"Escape from the tower! Escape from the tower!"
Elphaba mounted the broom, still holding Glinda's hand, who reluctantly climbed behind her, trying not to show any more leg than she already did. The lights began to flicker. A wind-effect audio track played. Someone at the console released a burst of stage smoke that briefly covered them.
"Hold on, GoodGlim! We're going through the clouds of betrayal!"
"Only if you promise not to crash into a mountain again like in Chapter 19!" Glinda replied, shamelessly improvising.
"That chapter is non-canon!" Elphaba shouted back.
The ovation was overwhelming.
And suddenly, the broom stopped in the center of the stage, tilting slightly with a squeal of ill-fitting props. Elphaba and Glinda descended, laughing, never letting go of each other's hands. The lights flickered in a chaotic mix of greens and pinks, as if even the venue's electrical system had surrendered to the overwhelming chemistry between the two.
Elphaba turned to the audience, still in character, raising her rebellious witch's staff.
"The capital fears us because together we are dangerous!" she declared with proud theatricality. "Because together... we are limitless."
An excited murmur spread through the audience.
Glinda stepped forward, teetering on her absurdly high heels, and with a smile that was half shy, half defiant, said,
"And even if everyone wants me to stay in a tower... waiting to be rescued... I won't. Because I don't need a rescue. I just need... her."
She turned to look at Elphaba, and the look they exchanged, even surrounded by outlandish lights and poorly sewn costumes, held more truth than any recited text.
"Sometimes," Glinda continued, breaking character for just a moment, "... I feel like I'm only good if I'm with you. And I know that sounds cheesy, and pathetic, and dependent..."
"...But that's exactly how I feel, too," Elphaba interrupted, taking a step closer. "That alone I can do many things... but with you... I can fly."
The sentence hung in the air. A soft echo seemed to accompany it, as if the stage itself had held it for a few seconds before letting it fall.
And then, without warning, the music began to play.
First, soft strings. Then, wind instruments. And finally, that familiar melody: the epic, unmistakable, and emotionally devastating one.
An instrumental recording, yes. Poorly equalized, probably. But it was enough to send the audience wild.
"No..." Elphaba whispered, staring up at the ceiling as if imploring the universe to have mercy.
"Yes," Glinda replied with a crooked smile, taking the broom and raising it like a scepter.
And just like that, they began to sing.
It wasn't a perfect song. They didn't have microphones. They weren't quite in tune. And yet... it was beautiful.
The improvised scene mutated into something more intimate and powerful, a confession disguised as fan service, an emotional duel turned into a musical number. Through their poorly memorized lines and improvised choreography, both of them were releasing truths that hadn't been spoken in days, weeks... maybe ever.
"I'm not who I was when we left our village," Elphaba said, using WitchyWest's voice, but speaking as herself.
"And neither am I," Glinda replied, gently stroking her arm, still in character. "But I don't want to be that way again."
"I thought I had to find myself alone," Elphaba continued. "But all I found alone... was fear."
Glinda took her hand. She squeezed it.
"And what did you find with me?"
"Courage."
The lights dimmed, focusing on them as if it were a Broadway production. The music reached its peak. Elphaba took a deep breath. She looked out at the audience. And then to Glinda.
"Together... we defying gravity."
Glinda looked at her for a moment, and as if they were both on the exact same emotional note, she leaned toward her. It wasn't just a kiss. It was a proclamation. An absolute affirmation. A spell that needed no words.
And the audience, of course, erupted in applause and screams. Some cried. Others chanted lines from the webcomic. Some simply filmed, unable to believe what they were seeing.
And amid the noise, the stage smoke, the flashes, and the epic music... someone shouted from the audience:
"This is the ending I always wanted for them!"
Another added:
"I wrote a fanfic like that! I have proof!"
And yet another:
"It's not canon, but it's beautiful!"
And so, on that absurd, improvised stage filled with genuine passion, two witches wrote their own ending. One unapproved, unofficial, uncontrolled... but real. And that, for everyone there—in cheap cosplay or a store-bought wig—was enough.
Because the beautiful thing about stories isn't that they're true... it's that they make us feel something. And this one, without a doubt, made us feel something.
As the ovation continued to resonate like a wave that refused to break. Amidst that sea of lights, raised cell phones, and barely concealed tears, Elphaba and Glinda held hands. It was Glinda who, with a radiant smile, took a perfect bow to the audience. Elphaba, confused but completely devoted, imitated her a second later, as if she were copying her in an improvised choreography. It was clumsy, but charming. Just like everything they were together.
And then, as if escaping from a dream or a scene that didn't quite belong to them, they walked off the stage laughing, hugging each other, almost tripping backstage. Glinda, still panting from laughter and adrenaline, turned to Elphaba with shining eyes and a question she couldn't keep quiet.
"How did you know... How did you know I was in trouble?"
Elphaba looked at her silently for a moment, as if considering it. But she soon responded, lowering her voice with a tenderness that contrasted with all the chaos around her.
"Because I always know when you need me," she said. "Even when you yourself don't want to admit it."
And before Glinda could utter a word, she added firmly:
"And despite whatever stupid thing I said when we left our damned village... I'll always be there for you. Always. Nothing else matters."
Glinda needed no more. She kissed her, hard, passionately, with a mixture of relief and love so pure that for a moment the world seemed to stop. Elphaba held her against her, smiling like a lovesick fool, as if everything finally made sense again.
It was then that Glinda, between kisses and laughter, stopped dead in her tracks.
"Milla!" —he exclaimed, looking around as if he expected me to emerge from the shadows with another threat and a whip.
Elphaba chuckled, as if she'd been expecting that exact reaction.
"We had... a talk," she said, arching an eyebrow theatrically. "Girl to girl. I made it clear that no one messes with my Glinda."
"What did you do?" Glinda asked, between amused and horrified.
"Let's just say I gave her some helpful advice about... bondage."
And while they were both laughing, the scene cut invisibly to the far corner of the pavilion, where another story was unfolding... one that didn't end so gracefully.
At the entrance to the "Romantic Witches' Tunnel," a young costumed couple—she as GoodGlim in a frayed cape, he as WitchyWest with too-obvious green contact lenses—waited for their saccharine ride. But when the attraction activated, what appeared suspended from the broomstick swing wasn't an empty seat... but an unexpected figure.
Milla.
Tied at the wrists and ankles with decorative but firm ropes, she wore only her black underwear, disheveled and damp with the sweat of confinement. A bubblegum-pink heart-shaped gag covered her mouth, and her expression of fury and despair was so extreme that she seemed a caricature of herself.
The couple froze.
"Is this... part of the show?" the boy asked, his voice high-pitched with pure bewilderment.
"I don't know! I think... maybe it's like... performance art?" the girl said, not knowing whether to laugh or run.
The tunnel attendant, a bald man wearing a T-shirt that read "It's not my job to understand these things," approached with a frown.
"Come on, not again!" he exclaimed, as he watched the broom go by with Milla kicking. "This is an attraction for all audiences. You can't do that in here!"
He took out his walkie-talkie with resignation and pressed the button.
"I need backup in the tunnel of love. Yes, another exhibitionist... no, this time tied up. Yes, that makes four today. What's going on at this convention?!"
But before help could arrive, the automatic system activated again.
And there it was again.
The engine whirred, the pink lights turned on as if nothing were out of the ordinary, and the broom moved slowly between the cardboard butterflies and cutesy statues of witches kissing under the moon. Milla rolled her eyes, twitched violently, and tried to scream behind the gag, but all she managed was a pre-recorded voice playing over her:
"Love is magic!" a children's choir sang as silver confetti rained down on her indignant face.
Almost at the same time, Milla's tablet fell with a sharp click to the floor, sliding a few inches across the polished floor until it was perfectly aligned with Elphaba's heel. Glinda barely had time to turn her head when she heard the final crack: Elphaba, without even looking down, had slammed her boot down on the screen with surgical precision and almost audible pleasure. The device shattered with a final wail of dying bits, taking the threatening video with it—and any power Milla thought she had.
Glinda turned to her, still wearing the remains of ridiculous makeup and a half-crooked wig, with an expression a mixture of gratitude, surprise, and concern.
"Are you sure you're okay with that?" she asked, her voice heavy with tenderness. "That video... it could have destroyed you."
Elphaba gave a low, almost condescending laugh, as if she'd just recalled a distant and absurd anecdote.
"That video? Please, Glinda. I knew I was being recorded," she said casually. "I got paid. It was a deal, it was... a phase." I paid two months' rent with that. And a refrigerator.
Glinda paused for a moment, somewhere between horrified and fascinated.
"Do you have any idea how emotionally damaged that would have been if you hadn't told me?"
"Do you have any idea how good that refrigerator was?" Elphaba responded with a crooked smile. "It had an ice dispenser. Ice, Glinda."
And as if nothing could break them anymore, they both burst into laughter, hugging each other tightly as they continued down the aisle, their footsteps echoing on the convention's cheap linoleum. All the chaos, the humiliation, the absurdity... had become a shared anecdote. And that made it bearable. Even... beautiful.
Glinda leaned a little further into Elphaba's shoulder, fidgeting with her hand.
"You know we never found out who wrote that damn webcomic?" she said with mock indignation. We almost died, we were put on display, we were attacked by an ex in monkey cosplay, and we couldn't even get the author's name!
"Maybe it was someone in the audience," Elphaba replied nonchalantly, still with a smile on her lips. "Or better yet... it was your father."
"Oh, please! My Popsicle couldn't tell a comic from a napkin."
"Well, someone obsessed with us wrote it, that's for sure," Elphaba said. "Someone who knows everything. What if it was Fiyero? Or Frankini?"
"What if it was me?" Glinda retorted dramatically. "A version of me from the future. A Glinda with a gray wig, living in a cabin with ten cats and a nineties internet connection.”
"Well, that would explain the chaotic script," Elphaba replied, laughing.
"And your breasts! Did you see how they drew you?" Glinda added. "You looked like a porn star with war trauma."
"And you? You had a six-inch waist!" Elphaba shook her head. "That's not anatomy, that's high-fantasy pornography."
They both laughed again, that kind of soft, carefree laughter that only comes after a catharsis. They walked arm in arm down the main aisle as the convention lights began to dim and the booths slowly dismantled around them. The whole place seemed to breathe a sigh of relief after the day's chaos, as if it knew the storm had passed.
"Maybe," Glinda said, becoming somewhat serious again. "Whoever wrote that must know us better than we imagine."
"Or be as obsessive as we are," Elphaba murmured. And those kinds of people don't just appear.
It was then that they passed a metal door with enormous red letters painted on it: "Judges' Room. DO NOT TRESPASS."
The two barely glanced at it, until—by those perfect cosmic coincidences—the door burst open at the exact moment they passed.
And they collided!
Two pairs of bodies collided like misaligned gears. Glinda fell backward onto Elphaba, while two figures from inside the room stumbled forward.
There was a chaos of legs, folders, shiny fabrics, and indignant sounds.
"Oh, Oz!" Glinda exclaimed, immediately sitting up and adjusting her wig, which was still half askew.
"Are you okay?" Elphaba offered her hand to one of the fallen people, dusting off her costume pants. "We didn't see the door..."
"That never happened to me at the Grammys!" —a high-pitched voice protested from the floor, as a small figure sat down, picking up a folder decorated with “GoodGlim + WitchyWest 5ever” stickers.
“Oh, please,” another voice responded, deeper and more mocking. “It happened to you... you were just too drunk to remember.”
The second figure, taller, hairless but with long nails painted green and pastel pink, stood up with feline elegance. The shorter one, tucking in her witch-eared headband, dusted off her velvet outfit.
It was then that Elphaba and Glinda got a good look at them.
And they froze.
Mouths open. Dilated pupils. Absolute disbelief.
Because there, standing in front of them, still with expressions of annoyance and wounded dignity, were none other than Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
Both wore “Guest Judge” badges hanging around their necks.
Glinda was the first to speak, her voice faint:
"No... way... it is."
Ariana smiled sweetly and a little mischievously at them, tilting her head.
"Surprise," she said, as if revealing that she liked waffles. "We're a secret jury. Not so secret anymore, though, I guess..."
Cynthia clicked her tongue and crossed her arms.
"And huge fans of the comic, honey. We've been following it since it was just a Tumblr thread."
"We cosplayed at home. My dog was the monkey!" Ariana added, not a bit embarrassed.
Glinda opened her mouth. Closed it. Then opened it again.
"And they saw us...? Everything we did up there?"
"Honey, they improvised the tower escape scene, mixing lesbian subtext with a Broadway musical," Cynthia said with a smile. "It was glorious."
"If it weren't for us signing an NDA, I'd be uploading clips to TikTok by now," Ariana added with a wink. "Can you leave us a picture? Your fandom is going to explode!"
The four of them looked at each other. For a second, time seemed to stand still. Then Glinda sighed.
"You know what? Nothing surprises me anymore."
"I want to see that photo, but without any weird filters," Elphaba said. "And you," she pointed at Ariana, "no added elf ears."
"Done," the singer replied, pulling out her latest cell phone. "Let's just say... 'Defying Gravity!'"
"Okay, but I need to say it," Glinda said as they walked away from the makeshift photo set, turning to Elphaba. "Did we just kiss in front of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo?"
"Yes," Elphaba replied with the resigned calm of someone who's been thrown into chaos so many times she doesn't even blink anymore. "Technically, two international queer icons ship us."
"Are they shipping each other or our comic book versions? Because if it's the latter, I'm going to need therapy. Or a drink. Or both."
"Or therapy with drinks?" Elphaba suggested.
"That's a terrible idea!" "Glinda replied with total conviction. "Where do we do it?"
Behind them, the judges continued whispering to each other like teenagers on a fanfic forum.
"Excuse me," Glinda interrupted, turning back to Ariana and Cynthia. "So how do you know so much about the comic? Do you know the author?"
"Well..." Ariana crossed her arms, biting her lower lip as if she wasn't sure whether to say it or not. "Just what they told us when they invited us as judges for this year's event."
"Which wasn't easy, huh!" Cynthia added, pulling out her phone and showing a packed schedule. "I canceled an interview with Oprah for this. Literally."
"The author goes by the name GM-LightningTime95," Ariana explained. "No one knows exactly who they are. Apparently, the inspiration for the story was a public scandal that went viral a few months ago."
"A public scandal?" Elphaba repeated, frowning.
"Yeah, something about a hearing against a senator that ended in shouting, arrests, and a witch throwing papers like office knives," Cynthia said with complete seriousness. "It was legendary."
Glinda and Elphaba looked at each other, pale.
"Oh no..." Glinda murmured.
"Oh yes," Elphaba added, burying her face in the palm of her hand.
"And they say that inspired a comic about magical witches with ridiculous cleavage, sexual tension, and political subtext?"
"Exactly!" Ariana agreed happily.
"GM-LightningTime95 wrote that it was 'dramatically absurd that these two figures, clearly destined for each other, weren't canonically a couple,' so she decided to write her own version."
"A kind of... queer-fictionalized correction." Cynthia made quotation marks with her fingers. "People don't know if you're a real couple or just a big metaphor."
"So, technically..." Ariana added, approaching them with a smile, "You two are like the romantic Rorschach of fandom."
Glinda blinked.
"We're what?"
"What every fan wants to see in love," Cynthia said. "Sometimes heroines, sometimes sworn enemies, sometimes galactic lesbians with mystical powers."
Elphaba clicked her tongue.
"Well, the latter isn't that far off."
"And as long as no one knows who GM-LightningTime95 is..." Ariana sighed. "I guess we'll always have theories. Do you want mine?"
Elphaba nodded, intrigued.
Ariana leaned in as if sharing an ancient secret.
"I say it was your dad."
Elphaba choked on her own laughter while Glinda rolled her eyes.
"Well," Elphaba sighed, adjusting the collar of her cloak. "I think it's time to go."
"Yeah, but I'm driving this time," Glinda clarified. "We've had enough chaos for today."
"What if we get lost again?"
"Well... it'll be just another adventure."
They said goodbye to Ariana and Cynthia, who wished them luck and begged them to tell them if they ever found out who GM-LightningTime95 was.
"But why?" Glinda said, laughing. "We two have enough egos without fueling more legends."
"Yes," Elphaba laughed. "Although, honestly... if I were that person, I'd never admit it. Too much pressure to write so many seasons of a romance fanfic."
The four of them laughed.
"We have to go," Cynthia said, adjusting the sunglasses she hadn't been wearing until that moment. "Private premiere. You know how it is."
"The one about the new movie?" Glinda jumped in, her eyes shining like a teenage fangirl. "I'm dying! I'm a big fan!"
"From the Part 2?" Elphaba asked, her lips barely pursing. “The first one wasn't so bad, for a musical.”
"Elphaba..." Glinda sighed, rolling her eyes. "I just hope they give him a proper ending this time."
Ariana smiled somewhat mischievously and, while adjusting her glasses, leaned slightly toward Glinda and winked.
"Sometimes proper endings... take a little longer to arrive," she murmured, like someone making a prophecy under a confidentiality contract.
Cynthia laughed with amusement and tugged at Ariana's arm.
"Come on, Mistress of Mystery! If we're late again, John's going to kill us. Again."
"But this time he's going to kill us singing, right?"
"Of course."
And with that last exchange of glamour and absurdity, they both walked off giggling, greeting fans who asked for selfies, signed impromptu programs, and threw plastic roses as if they were at the opera.
"Did you realize that for a second they thought we were the authors of the comic?" —Cynthia asked, still amused by the absurd assumption.
—I know. I died! —Ariana shook her head. —If I were the author... I would have already given them a crossover with other famous ships.
—That would be epic!
—I know!
As they watched Ariana and Cynthia walk away, laughing as if they were the stars of a spin-off more interesting than the original, Glinda narrowed her eyes with that expression of hers that mixed malice and childlike enthusiasm.
—Did you notice the spark between them? —she whispered like someone sharing a royal scandal at a charity party. —There's something there. Something's going on. Did you see it?
Elphaba let out a genuine laugh, one of those that rises from the stomach and rises to the eyes.
—What are you saying? They're like night and day. One is a bubble of perfume and glitter, and the other looks like an avenging goddess straight out of a Toni Morrison novel.
"Uh-huh," Glinda said with a raised eyebrow. "Like two completely different people who could never stand each other, right?"
Elphaba tilted her head, holding back the smile that threatened to break at any moment. She looked at her with that twinkle in her eyes that spoke volumes.
"Touché."
And then, as if the stage itself understood it was time to lower the curtain, the two walked together through the convention's grand doors, arm in arm, no longer concerned with the stares, the rumors, or the endings written by others.
They walked forward with a firm step, leaving behind the bustle of the fans, the spotlight, the exaggerated cosplay, and the unresolved secrets. Because if they had learned anything from this ridiculous, extravagant, and accidental stop in the middle of their journey… it was that the most important story wasn't the one others wrote about them.
But the one they wrote together.
Chapter by chapter.
Whatever it took.
Because after all, this story was for them.
Notes:
Wow, I can't believe we're already at thirty episodes. For this occasion, I wanted to do something special, and well... this was an idea I've had for a while, and what better timing. And I have to say, it was the most fun episode to write so far, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it. Especially those guest appearances at the end were a delight to work on.
By the way, the next three episodes will be the final arc of the season, so we're getting closer to the endgame. Stay tuned.
Chapter 31: WONDERFUL PART 1
Chapter Text
FUTURE:
The waiting room's flat screen showed Glinda Thropp-Upland in all her splendor. The set was bathed in soft lights, with pastel tones that contrasted with the restrained intensity of her presence. Her voice was crystalline, confident, and charming. Fianna Lux laughed knowingly, disarmed by Glinda's fiercely political charisma. The sign at the bottom of the screen read "Representative Glinda Thropp-Upland: The New Face of Institutional Progressivism."
A few feet away, backstage, in a small auxiliary room that smelled of reheated coffee and cheap disinfectant, Elphaba Thropp was standing.
She was wearing an impeccable black suit. Tailored, an ivory shirt open at the neck, with no jewelry or ornaments other than the dull shine of her slicked-back braids, held in a low ponytail that revealed her new, layered, asymmetrical haircut. She looked like she'd stepped out of a Parisian fashion editorial if Paris had been dyed with forest and ink. In her hands, she held a bouquet of wildflowers, nothing ostentatious, but carefully selected. Lavender, Cape jasmine, two pink peonies larger than the rest. In her other hand, a small white card. She read it, turned it over, read it again.
"You're going to do fine," she murmured softly to herself, "just... just say it."
She could write novels that made strangers cry on subways and in airports, but she still couldn't trust her voice not to tremble when it came to Glinda.
It was then that the door creaked open and a broom accidentally hit the frame. A young man who couldn't have been more than twenty walked in, wearing a home team jersey, oversized headphones plugged into his cell phone, humming softly as he listlessly pushed his cleaning cart. Elphaba reflexively moved aside, trying not to be an obstacle, but the boy, focused on his playlist, didn't see her and barely bumped her with his shoulder.
"Oh, shit, I'm sorry!" he said as he took off his headphones and bent down to pick up a bottle that had rolled to the floor. "I didn't see you... I was..." He looked up. And froze.
The boy's eyes widened, his lips parted slightly in a wordless gasp.
"Are you... are you?" he said, incredulous. "Are you Elphaba Thropp?"
Elphaba gave a short, tired laugh, barely a curl at the corner of her mouth.
"Depends. Are you part of the literary criticism or the fandom that thinks Dorothy should have been done away with?"
"What?! No, no!" I'm... I mean, wow, my sister loves your books, and so do I, obviously... the one with the letters, that one, The Words I Left Unsaid. I read it three times! It's so sad, but so..." The boy stopped, overwhelmed by his own excitement. "And you're here! Are you going to be on the show?"
"No. I'm waiting for someone." He raised the bouquet in a kind of silent confession. The boy smiled knowingly.
The young janitor looked up at the television screen, where Glinda—radiant, articulate, precise as a symphony—was talking about education, tax fairness, and the need for a more empathetic justice system. The boy frowned for a second, as if trying to process something, and then his eyes lit up.
"Oh, but... wait!" he said, pointing at the screen with the mop as if he'd just solved an equation. "That's your wife!" The pretty girl who appears on every talk show and gives speeches I don't understand but make me want to applaud! Glinda Thropp? That girl boss my girlfriend loves!
Elphaba let out a stifled laugh that ended in an amused exhalation. She looked down at the bouquet, then at the young man, then at the television.
"Yes, that one. Although I don't know if she'd like to be called 'the pretty girl.' She has degrees. Lots. And very strong opinions on the use of language."
“No, obviously! I respect you. But I mean... I mean, you two... you're like...” She searched for words with her hands. “I don't know, the coolest couple in the world. Like, powerful, elegant, modern witches or something. Are the flowers for her?”
Elphaba held the bouquet as if she were weighing it in her palm.
“Yes. Today is... a special date for us. Nothing public, nothing that'll make the papers, but important. One of those things that only makes sense if you're in this story. I thought some flowers would be nice. And a speech. Something to say to her. But...”
“But?”
“I'm drawing a blank,” she confessed, her shoulders slumping slightly. “Or worse, I have too many words, none of them sound right. It's ridiculous. I wrote an entire trilogy about desire, body politics, and the languages of intimacy... but now that I need to say something simple to the woman I love, I can't come up with a damn sentence.”
The young man nodded gravely, as if he understood the magnitude of the existential dilemma.
"Do you want me to help you? I'm really good at birthday messages on Instagram. Last year I wrote: 'Happy birthday, my queen. You're my vodka and juice. Thanks for not blocking me.'"
Elphaba brought her hand to her face, laughing.
"Tempting. But I think I need something a little more... literary. Although I admit that 'vodka and juice' is a powerful image."
"See?!" The boy smiled proudly, but then his expression softened. "Nah, still... I don't think you have to say something perfect. I'm sure just seeing you with those flowers would melt his brain."
Elphaba looked at him with a certain tenderness. That kind of brutal innocence was a luxury very few could afford.
"Glinda isn't one to melt. She's more like... to set fire. In the best and worst of ways."
"Well... then it'll catch fire," the boy joked. "Anyway, the important thing is that you say it. Like this, your way. Like when you write, right? Only this time she'll be looking you in the eyes."
Elphaba was silent for a moment. Then she nodded slowly.
"Thank you. I don't know why... but I needed to hear that right now."
"That's what we maintenance people are for," he said with a huge smile, raising his broom like someone raising a ceremonial sword. "Urgent repairs of stuck emotions, free with every tile scrubbed."
They both laughed, in cahoots. The television interview was ending. The camera made a final pan over Glinda, who thanked them with a charming smile and waved to the audience, saying goodbye to Fianna Lux. Elphaba straightened her jacket, arranged the bouquet in her arms, and, with a brief, solemn gesture, said goodbye to the young janitor.
"Wish me luck," she said before opening the door leading to the set.
"Good luck, Thropp! And if you kiss her on camera... do it dramatically! Like in the movies!"
Elphaba just raised her hand in an ambiguous gesture as she disappeared behind the door.
And on the television in the empty living room, Glinda's image faded to black with a last flash of golden light. The pause was over.
Now, the final act began.
CHAPTER 31: Wonderful Part 1
Present...
Elphaba's eyes, a deep, serene green like lagoons hidden under the moon, remained fixed on Glinda's. Those sparkling hazel eyes, full of irony, life, and a hint of cheekiness, so typical of her. They were dangerously close. Too close. Mere inches from each other, as if the very air between their lips had gone on a gravity strike. The lights around her flickered as if filtered through a slow, distorted filter, and the ambient murmur blurred into a vague hum, as if the entire world had surrendered to the intimacy of that moment.
Elphaba spoke with a gentle lilt, her lips barely touching a smile that seemed more hinted than revealed. Her voice was deep, sweet, and charged with a magnetism that came from somewhere deep within her chest.
"We could have gone to Loland," she whispered, without breaking eye contact. "Tour the underground museums. See the stained-glass windows of the Uptown cathedral. Even, perhaps... Sapphire City. The capital. Living history on every tile. Libraries that make trees weep. Politicians desperately trying to look interesting." A dramatic pause, her eyebrows arched mischievously. "I had it all planned. I imagined you on the steps of the National Senate, giving a statue a lesson in rhetoric."
Glinda laughed softly, a laugh that ran through her entire body like a sweet electric current.
"And yet," she replied, drawing out the words as if savoring each syllable, "I had another destination in mind. One a little more colorful."
With a malicious glint in her eye, she rolled the dice.
The mental camera abruptly pulled back, leaving the intimate close-up of their faces to reveal the place where they stood. It wasn't an intellectual temple, a Gothic cathedral, or a historic marble plaza. No.
It was Obsidian City.
A monument of neon, excess, loud music, unbridled laughter, and drinks with indecent names. The city of gambling, the night, and everything that glittered too much to be real. The decadent jewel of the West. And in its midst, like two goddesses from a glamorous new pantheon, Glinda and Elphaba reigned over a monumental casino, with fake golden columns and fountains that shot sparkling wine instead of water.
"Five in a row!" Glinda shouted, throwing her arms up in euphoria, surrounded by a crowd of tourists, tattooed old women, and second-rate wizards applauding her miraculous streak. Her silver sequined dress sparkled so much it could probably be seen from orbit. Her perfect hairdo hadn't moved an inch all night.
Elphaba, at his side, wore a dark emerald suit, fitted and elegant, with a modest neckline and a loose bun that gave her a disheveled yet provocative look. Her hair, freshly braided and shorter than ever, stirred slightly when she bent down to pick up the fallen dice.
“This… this isn’t what I had in mind when you said ‘center of the country,’” she protested with mock seriousness, her lips trying to suppress a smile. “I thought of brutalist architecture. Economic theories. Not unicorn-shaped slot machines.”
“And I thought of an unforgettable night. Surprise!” Glinda replied, taking the champagne glass that a robot butler clumsily pushed towards her.
“What’s next? Midnight bingo? A themed wedding? Can you imagine us ending up married by an Ozzy Osbourne look-alike?”
Glinda tilted her head as if she were considering it.
“Hmmm, that doesn’t sound so bad, actually,” she said, narrowing her eyes mockingly. “Besides… who says no to a classic accidental wedding in this city?”
“Me. I say no.” Elphaba sighed. “But… I admit you look spectacular when you win.” There's something wildly dangerous about you when you get excited. A little... frightening.
"Frightening!" Glinda feigned offense as she rolled the dice again. "Please say that louder so all the nerds at the last convention can write it down in their fanfics."
The dice rolled, the audience tensed. And upon seeing the result, Glinda screamed again in excitement.
"Six in a row!" she announced, as if she'd just won an epic battle. "What do you say now, Mrs. Thropp?"
Elphaba narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms.
"I'm saying you're up to something. This energy... this suspicious gleam in your pupils... I know you're up to something."
"I'm always up to something, my dear." Glinda winked as she offered her another drink. "But for tonight... I just plan to drag you with me to every corner of this city." We started at blackjack... and ended where the map melts.
Elphaba raised her glass, equal parts resigned and delighted.
"Let the chaos begin, then."
And they toasted, while behind them, the lights of Obsidian City danced as if celebrating that both of them, once again, were exactly where they should be: together, shining amidst excess, madness... and love.
And so... madness broke loose.
The world of Obsidian City opened up before them like a neon-drenched fever dream. There was no logic, no schedule, just a succession of lights, music, glasses refilling inexplicably, and overflowing emotions. Glinda, euphoric and electric like a pop star on tour, dragged Elphaba from one place to another as if her energy were endless. And Elphaba, for her part, couldn't stop smiling, surrendered to that brilliant and absurd tide, increasingly convinced that she didn't need to understand the world... if Glinda was by her side.
They toasted transvestite strippers dressed as witches, gambled on a roulette wheel with cards they didn't even know what they meant, rode a mechanical bull shouting "For the honor of Emeraldia!" and sang an off-key medley of rock ballads at a karaoke bar where they both performed ridiculous and glorious choreography. Glinda, in particular, was unstoppable: she kissed Elphaba between songs, between toasts, in the line at the themed buffet, in an elevator full of French tourists, on a virtual reality roller coaster, and in the bathroom of a secret club pretending to be a Gothic cathedral.
Each kiss had a different flavor: champagne, cherry, laughter, desire, belonging.
And Elphaba responded to them all. As if, deep down, that was all that mattered.
When they finally made it back to their suite on the hotel's top floor—a cross between a penthouse and a retro-futuristic pleasure temple—they were both laughing nonstop, kicking off their shoes along the way, even closer together with sweat, the shine on their skin, and the slight intoxication of a boundless night. The door closed behind them with a soft click… and there, without a word, they melted into a long, deep kiss, laden with all the unspoken words of the journey. Elphaba's hands tangled in Glinda's hair, and Glinda's in Elphaba's shirt, unbuttoning it with playful urgency.
Elphaba gently pushed her onto the bed—a gigantic structure with velvet curtains and sheets so soft they seemed cast by a textile spell—and let her fall into it in one fluid motion. Glinda smiled, still laughing between gasps, and raised her arms, as if gladly surrendering to the inevitable.
"Do you know," she said between laughs, "that this city was made for us?"
"No, my love," Elphaba whispered, taking the set of black silk restraints she had bought hours before out of her bag. "This night was made for you."
Glinda exhaled, enchanted.
Elphaba, with the precision of an artist and the devotion of a lover, began slowly tying her wrists to the ends of the carved headboard. Each knot was firm but careful, each caress between each movement stealing another breath from her. Glinda arched against the sheets, looking at Elphaba with a soft fire in her eyes, trusting, surrendering, confident as only one can be with someone who knows you even in the dark.
And so their most unforgettable night began. A night of husky laughter and soft moans, of bonds that didn't oppress, but liberated. Of games that weren't an escape, but a way to say "I love you" without having to use words. Of bodies that spoke their own sacred language.
In the midst of a city of gambling, excess, and artifice, they found something authentic, raw, and brilliant. They had each other. And that was the only thing that truly mattered.
The lights of Obsidian City continued to flicker beyond the heavy curtains, like a distant memory of the euphoria experienced just hours before. Inside the suite, the world was different. Softer. Warmer. More real.
Elphaba and Glinda lay between the disheveled, damp sheets, their bodies still entwined by the inertia of what had been hours of passion, play, laughter, and wordless confessions. The air smelled of perfume, desire, sweat... of a night lived without restraint. They were still panting a little, not from physical exhaustion, but from something deeper: a kind of shared wonder. As if they couldn't believe that, after everything they'd been through, they were still there. Together. Laughing.
Elphaba rested her head on Glinda's stomach, drawing lazy circles with her fingers on the satiny skin. Glinda had one hand tangled in her dark green hair, and with the other, she held a glass of water she'd managed to reach without moving too much. She took small sips between discreet giggles.
"Do you know you yelled my name so loudly that the woman in the next room hit the wall?" "Glinda," Glinda said, her voice husky and satisfied.
"I'd be lying if I said it wasn't intentional," Elphaba replied without looking up, smiling against her skin.
Glinda let out a soft laugh, the kind that only Elphaba could muster. The laugh turned into a sigh and then a comfortable silence.
"So what now?" she asked suddenly, almost a whisper.
The question hung in the air for a moment, between the echoes of distant moans and the warm sheets.
Elphaba raised her head, resting her chin on Glinda's hip to look into her eyes. Her hair was disheveled, her lips swollen, her neck wrinkled, her eyelids heavy with sleep and pleasure... and she had never looked more beautiful. Neither of them. They were the very image of happy chaos.
"I don't know," Elphaba admitted with a lazy smile. I think we've already crossed the country, faced our exes, our parents, the past, the future... and even our fictional versions with impossible legs. Maybe there isn't much more to do.
"Nothing?" Glinda asked, with a playful pout. "Not even anything more ridiculous than a Puritan town that loves BDSM?"
"Hmm... we could try to survive a Sunday without killing each other," Elphaba replied. "Or make it to Sapphire City without getting arrested."
Glinda laughed again, softer, more intimate. She sat up slightly, just enough to lean in and kiss Elphaba's forehead.
"I never thought this trip would be like this," she said. "At first I thought we'd kill each other before we crossed the first state line."
"At first I did too," Elphaba said. "And now... now I think I wouldn't change a thing. Well... almost a thing."
Glinda raised an eyebrow.
"'Almost'?"
"Maybe I would have brought more rope."
They both burst into disorganized, contented laughter. Not like someone laughing at a joke. Like someone laughing with someone who knows their soul.
Silence returned, but it wasn't awkward. It was the "we're almost there, but we did well" silence. The silence that comes after screaming, running, loving. Elphaba stretched out and pulled a blanket over them. Glinda snuggled up against her, closing her eyes with a peaceful smile, as if the room spun more slowly when Elphaba hugged her.
"We're near the end of the journey, aren't we?" Glinda murmured, almost asleep.
"Yes..." Elphaba said, kissing her golden hair. "But I think we're right at the beginning of everything else."
Glinda lay on her side, her cheek barely resting on Elphaba's arm, watching the contours of her face against the light. Elphaba didn't speak, not because she had nothing to say, but because she had too much. And the same thing happened to Glinda.
After all... how did you put into words the end of something so unreal, so free, so far removed from the pressures of the real world?
"What will happen when we return?" Glinda finally asked, almost in a whisper, as if afraid of awakening something.
Elphaba didn't answer right away. Her gaze remained fixed on the ceiling, as if searching for a nonexistent constellation. The invisible map of the future. She swallowed.
"I don't know," she said honestly. "Maybe nothing. Maybe everything."
Glinda nodded very slowly. That was her fear too.
"What if it doesn't work?"
"What if it does?" Elphaba replied, with a soft smile that failed to hide her uncertainty. "We went through so much... and we survived." We fight, we drift apart, we hate each other, we reunite, we bond… we kiss. Maybe that's a twisted way of saying we do work, in our own way.
Glinda sighed. She turned onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.
"When we were at my house… with my mom… I didn't tell you, but I felt like an intruder. Like it was another life. Like I was putting on a dress that no longer fits. But I know I have things to work through there, too. With her. With myself."
Elphaba turned her face to look at her in profile.
"And me…" she said quietly. "Ever since we left my village… I feel like I don't know who I am at all. Before, I defined everything through rejection. I was the unwanted daughter, the weirdo, the witch… And now that I don't have to fight that anymore, I have to decide what kind of person am I becoming. I don't know if I'll make it, but I want to try.”
Glinda took her hand under the sheets. Not dramatically, but with that tenderness that only develops among those who have already seen each other at their most vulnerable.
"I have no idea what it's going to be like when we get back," Glinda said. "But what I do know is that I want to be there. To see you decide. To see you grow. To see you write that cursed book you've been thinking about since we met those soldiers."
Elphaba sniffed.
"The one with the invisible ties?"
"Exactly. That one."
"And you?" Elphaba asked, turning to her. "Are you going back to public life? To the designer suits and lectures?"
"Maybe. Maybe not," Glinda said thoughtfully. "But this time... I'm going to choose." Not my mother, not my last name, not the idea of what's expected of me. If I come back, it will be to say what I want to say. Maybe no one will like it.
"I'm going to like it," Elphaba said, and Glinda looked at her with a mixture of gratitude and love that ached in her chest.
Another silence settled between them. This time less dense, more resigned, more mature. The kind of silence that understands that time can't be frozen forever.
"The world is going to start turning again," Glinda said, as if answering herself. "And when it does..."
"We're going to turn with it," Elphaba finished. "Together."
Outside, the lights of Obsidian City continued to flicker in the distance, barely reflected in the suite's large windows. The city, tireless and absurd, knew no rest. But inside, in the room carpeted with desire, laughter, unanswered questions, and caresses that spoke louder than a thousand speeches... all was silent.
Elphaba, her arms wrapped around Glinda's bare waist, felt the slow, warm rhythm of her breathing, already deep in sleep. Her cheek rested on her chest, her lips barely parted, one of her hands still tangled in Elphaba's braid as if she refused to let go even in sleep. It was a small, almost childish gesture, but to Elphaba, it meant everything.
She had wanted to ask her something. Something that had been on her mind ever since that absurd convention where, disguised as themselves, they found themselves projected into other lives and the fantasies of complete strangers. A question not about tomorrow, not even about the long-term future... but about the present they were building step by step. She had opened her lips to speak, to say it, when Glinda's first soft, enchanting snore interrupted her.
Elphaba tilted her head, and seeing her like that, completely surrendered to rest, she could do nothing but smile. She brushed a wayward lock of hair from her forehead and lowered her head slightly to place a long, slow kiss on the top of her head.
"It's always the same... you talk even in your sleep, but you fall asleep before I can ask anything," she whispered with a half-smile, her voice so soft that only the silence could hear it.
Nothing more was needed. Not tonight.
Elphaba closed her eyes and let herself fall asleep, her body exhausted and her soul strangely at peace. For a while, they weren't deputies, nor writers, nor emotional exiles fleeing the past or the weight of their surnames. For a while, they were just two girls, cuddling, in a bed that was too big, in a city that was too bright, where it didn't matter who had been who... only that they were there.
And as the clock ticked on with that indifference that only time can have, a certainty slowly formed in Elphaba's chest: no matter how many times the world turned, or how many storms they had to go through, they would always find a way to stop time. To make a second between them feel eternal.
And so, in the embrace of the only person capable of calming all the noises in her head, Elphaba finally closed her eyes and fell asleep.
Together.
Embraced.
Against all odds.
And with everything still to live.
The room still smelled of sweet perfume, sweat, and vintage champagne spilled on the luxurious carpet. Elphaba slowly opened her eyes as she heard the first knocks, not violent, but firm, insistent, with a rhythm that couldn't be mistaken for a bedroom error. The sound seemed distant, unreal, as if it were seeping through a crack in a dream, until the pain in her back and thighs reminded her of everything she'd been through. Her muscles protested, but her mouth curved into a smile heavy with memories.
Glinda snored softly beside her, tangled in the sheet like a living sculpture of absolute placidity. Elphaba looked at her with devotion, that tenderness that isn't spoken but observed. With a gentle gesture, she brushed a golden lock of hair away from her face, and for a moment she considered going back to bed. Just one more second. Just one more moment in that bubble.
But the knocks returned.
Grunting softly, she slid out of bed, her legs clumsy, her body still trembling from the pleasures of the previous night. She slipped on the black satin robe that had been thrown over a chair, smoothed her hair, which had fallen straggly over her shoulders, and walked to the door. The hotel hallway was still dark. Outside, the dawn tinged the suite's windows an electric violet.
She opened the door.
And there she was.
A young woman in her early twenties, impeccably dressed, wearing a fitted tuxedo, a wrinkle-free white shirt, and a black bow tie. Her hair, short and neat, had a faint blue tint in the artificial lighting. In her hand, she held a sealed folder, black as night.
"Elphaba Thropp?" she asked, her voice soft and polite, but with the confidence of someone who wouldn't take "no" for an answer.
"Depends on who's asking?" Elphaba replied dryly, gripping the hem of her robe as if it might restore dignity to her barefoot entrance, the fresh marks of her bindings still fresh on her skin.
The young woman handed out a black cardboard invitation, its gold lettering gleaming in the dim hallway light.
"Someone very interested in you two. Has requested your presence in Sapphire City. First class. All covered. The limo will pick you up at noon. It's... important."
Elphaba didn't need to open the envelope. Not yet. The design, the choice of words, the damned staging. It was him. She knew it in her bones.
"Is he there?" she asked, lowering her voice.
The young woman didn't respond with words, but her polite smile widened with a barely contained arrogance. She gave a slight curtsy, turned on her heels, and walked down the hallway without looking back, leaving behind a faint scent of mint and new paper.
Elphaba gently closed the door, the invitation still in her hands. She remained silent for a moment, staring at the golden letters that flickered as if they knew too much: "The Sovereign requests your presence. A matter of legacy and truth awaits."
She walked back to the bed. Glinda was sleeping as if nothing had happened, curled up adorable in the sheets. Elphaba watched her from the doorway for a few seconds, her silhouette silhouetted by the growing early morning light that filtered through the curtains. She sat down beside her, placing the invitation in her hands.
The sun filtered through the half-open curtains, painting golden lines along the edges of the rumpled sheets and Glinda's blond hair, still half-disordered from the previous night. It took her a few seconds to get her bearings, to remember where she was and why her body felt so deliciously exhausted. Then she turned her face, blinking to focus… and there was Elphaba.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her torso covered by a black shirt unbuttoned to her sternum, her legs crossed, her hair loose and falling in soft waves down her back. She faced the window, but her hand was still resting on Glinda's waist, as if she had spent the night clinging to her even while asleep. When she noticed the other waking up, she looked down and smiled.
"Good morning, Princess of Sin," she murmured in a mocking but sweet tone, gently caressing Glinda's cheek.
Glinda smiled back, still half asleep, rubbing her eyes.
"What time is it? And why is the sun so... bright and aggressive?"
"Because we're in Obsidian City, and a hangover is a human right here," Elphaba replied with a lopsided smile.
They shared a tender silence, the kind that feels like a caress. But Glinda soon noticed something. Elphaba wasn't laughing like usual. She had that expression she wore when she thought too much. That shadow between her green eyes that not even the wild nights could dispel.
"What's wrong?" Glinda asked, sitting up slightly, her voice suddenly more sober.
Elphaba sighed, long and deep. She turned to look at her and delicately took something from the nightstand: a black envelope, its gold lettering already somewhat worn from more handling than necessary. She held it for a few seconds, as if hesitating, and then placed it in Glinda's hands.
"It arrived this morning. Or... it was left this morning. I don't know. But it's real. It's from him."
Glinda opened it without thinking. Her eyes scanned the contents, and for a moment, her face lit up with surprise.
"Sapphire City? The capital?" she said with a tone of childish excitement that slowly dissipated when she saw that Elphaba didn't share her enthusiasm. "Who...?"
Elphaba didn't need to reply. The name was there, in the stylized signature, in the writing style that still believed it could pull the strings of an entire nation with pretty words.
"Oz," Glinda said in a whisper that turned into a curse.
Elphaba nodded bitterly.
"Oscar Zoroaster Diggs. The fallen emperor. The puppeteer without an audience. The same one who tried to turn us against each other. The same one who quietly offered me a truce, months ago… when he thought he could use me as a piece of paper. And now…"
"Now he's inviting us to that city," Glinda finished, lowering the letter. "To the most important city in the country, I suppose. After what we did. Is he crazy?"
"Maybe. Or maybe he's desperate. But he's plotting something. And he wants us there," Elphaba said, turning completely to face her. "I don't fully understand. But… I'm considering it."
Glinda opened her mouth to retort, to even yell at him, but stopped when she saw Elphaba's look. It wasn't that of a traitor. It was that of someone who hadn't stopped fighting since the day she was born.
"Why?" she asked, not reproachfully, but with genuine pain. "Why even think about it?"
Elphaba lowered her gaze, her hands clenching on her knees.
"Because if we're going to go back... if we're really going to finish this journey and return to the real world... then I want to close everything first. Finish what we started. I don't want to leave any loose ends. No lies, no ghosts. No him. No anything."
Glinda watched her carefully. She admired her. She always did. But she also feared her a little, because sometimes Elphaba was too brave for her own good.
"What if it's a trap?" she said, lowering her voice.
"Then we'll go together," Elphaba replied, without hesitation. And if it isn't... if what he wants is true, if there's something beyond wounded pride and power games... maybe it's worth listening to. Even if it means spitting in his face.
A silence fell between them. There were no easy answers. Only decisions.
Glinda sank back onto the pillow, the letter still in her hands, staring at the ceiling as if the future could be read there. Then she looked back at Elphaba. She smiled wearily.
"I guess we needed a final act," she said wryly. "What better place for that than the City of Thrones?"
Elphaba looked at her with a mixture of relief and unconditional love. She leaned closer and gently kissed her forehead.
"Shall we?"
"Let's go," Glinda replied softly. "But I want to arrive wearing a killer dress. And an even better plan."
They both laughed. And fate, always looking at them sideways, began to prepare the curtain. Sapphire City was waiting for them.
And as promised, the limousine was waiting for them right at the foot of the hotel steps, gleaming like a freshly polished black jewel in the midday sun. The tinted glass hid the interior, but the driver—impeccably uniformed, with white gloves and a slight accent that betrayed years of diplomatic service—opened the door for them with a bow that was more ceremonial than helpful.
Glinda was the first to get in, wrapped in a cream-colored silk dress with gold accents and round sunglasses that gave her the air of a classic movie star. Her hair was neatly pulled back in a high ponytail, as firm as her determination. Elphaba followed, wearing a minimalist black ensemble, a military-style jacket, and her hair braided in two symmetrical falls on either side of her face. Unlike Glinda, she wasn't wearing sunglasses: she wanted to see everything clearly. As she said when she got into the car, "I don't want to miss a single crack in this city of marble."
The interior of the vehicle was so quiet it seemed oblivious to the outside world. Glasses, champagne, imported mineral water, tablets with the day's itinerary, and a screen displaying a personalized message: "Welcome to Sapphire City. May your stay be as legendary as its history."
Glinda snorted.
"As corny as it is threatening," she commented, raising her glass ironically.
Elphaba didn't respond. She stared out the window. The landscape gradually changed from countryside to marble, from road to concrete, from dust to the precision of symbolic architecture. First came the diplomatic quarters, filled with embassies with flags barely swaying in the breeze. Then came the institutional buildings: ministries, courts, foundations, towers where speeches were crafted and the world's secrets archived.
And then, the city opened up completely.
Sapphire City.
A city born of ego and ambition, of order and spectacle. It was a city not built to be lived in, but to be seen, to impress. Every facade was designed with a blend of grandiloquent classicism and technocratic modernity. The streets were so clean they almost hurt to walk on. Statues of past leaders stood as silent witnesses to decisions that had changed empires. And above all, what was most striking was the sky: clear, soaring, as if even the atmosphere were disciplined in this place.
Glinda swallowed.
"Gods... this city gives me the creeps," she whispered, unable to stop it.
"It makes me nauseous," Elphaba replied. "All of this... this theater. The masks shine so brightly they blind you."
The limousine moved forward without pause along avenues flanked by statues and choreographed fountains, until it finally turned toward the coast and stopped in front of a hotel shaped like a fan opening out to the sea. The building had balconies that looked like they were made of liquid crystal, and a ceiling that mimicked waves crashing against the shore. A bellhop dressed as if he were about to enter an opera opened the door with a ceremonial greeting.
"Welcome to the Imperial Sapphire Resort, Miss Thropp and Miss Upland. Your rooms are ready. Mr. Diggs is expecting you tonight in the restaurant on the top floor. Floor 54. Dress code: 'historical.'"
Glinda raised an eyebrow.
"Historical? Does that mean I have to wear my parliamentary trial dress?"
Elphaba didn't even bother to joke.
"It means he wants us to remember who we were when we fought. He wants a game... and he wants to win it with nostalgia."
They both got out of the limo. As the staff began unloading their luggage—including the reinforced box containing the “personal accessories” Glinda had labeled Sensory Research Material—the two walked together down the navy-blue carpeted hallway, surrounded by stained-glass windows depicting key moments in national history.
One of them, ironically, showed a figure suspiciously resembling Oz, standing from behind, illuminated like a prophet in front of a crowd of gray figures. Glinda noticed. So did Elphaba.
“He always made sure to rewrite history in real time,” Elphaba said coldly.
“Perhaps tonight is the time to start rewriting it for us,” Glinda replied, interlacing her fingers with hers.
And together, as if they were two pieces the world had tried to separate a thousand times, they walked toward the elevator, which whisked them away to their destination…
The dining room on the 54th floor seemed suspended in the sky. The walls were entirely made of glass, offering a view that stretched for miles, displaying Sapphire City like an illuminated model. The city glowed with that almost clinical coldness that only wealth can produce, a sea of artificial lights that flickered with robotic precision. The atmosphere was bathed in the soft glow of a monumental chandelier that floated above the diners' heads like a golden constellation. The air smelled of expensive wine, imperceptibly expensive perfumes, and undisguised power.
Elphaba and Glinda walked between the tables like two intruders in someone else's dream. They recognized some faces: ministers, magnates, actors disguised as diplomats, and diplomats acting like stars. Everyone seemed to know something special was happening tonight. All eyes followed them with feigned disinterest. They knew who they were. Everyone knew.
Upon reaching the table by the window, Glinda elegantly slid her chair across, her fingers tapping against the empty glass. Elphaba remained rigid, her jaw clenched, her eyes fixed on the reflection of the city in the glass before them.
"What if this is all a trap?" Glinda murmured, not looking directly at her companion. "What if this dinner is just the first act of a public execution?"
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She just looked down at the still-empty plate in front of her.
"Then serve the wine first, at least," she said with measured bitterness.
It was at that moment that they heard him.
"How nostalgic to see you together, so... radiant."
The voice emerged like a warm current behind them. Familiar, controlled, impossible to place on the spectrum of sincerity. It was like an actor who enters the scene knowing the play has changed, but still has control of the script. Elphaba turned slowly. Glinda did it faster, as if she needed to confirm with her own eyes that, indeed, the impossible was happening.
Oscar Zoroaster Diggs.
Oz.
The same one who once promised them the world.
The same one who lied to them, used them, confronted them, and then, when they cornered him, disappeared.
But this Oz… this Oz was someone else.
He wore a perfectly tailored black suit, sober but elegant, with emerald green details that seemed a living irony of his history in Emerald City. His completely white hair was combed back with the same discipline he used to manipulate narratives. His thin, calculated mustache and his smile… that damned snake charmer's smile, were still intact. There was no hatred in his eyes. No thirst for revenge. There was something worse: condescension.
"My favorite girls," he said, with the tone of a retired professor who finds two former students turned urban legends. "It's been a while!" And even more surprising that you accepted my invitation. I assumed at least one of you would try to set it on fire.
"It's still early," Elphaba said without flinching. "And this tablecloth is highly flammable."
Oz chuckled softly, as if genuinely amused by the idea. Then he circled the table, extending his hand with impeccable courtesy, as if no betrayal had occurred, as if they were old comrades rather than ideological adversaries.
Glinda couldn't help but tense as he approached.
"Senator..." she said icily.
"Oh, please," he interrupted. "That title died in the scandal you yourselves caused. Now I'm just an... illustrious citizen. A well-dressed ghost, you might say. And yet," he added, as he took a seat opposite them, "ghosts can issue invitations too. Yours arrived, I see, along with the finest finery."
The silence stretched for a second. Elphaba and Glinda exchanged glances. Everything in their gut told them something was wrong, that that smile couldn't be free, that no man with his track record offered a dinner without a price.
"Why are we here, Oscar?" Elphaba finally asked, her voice low and tense.
Oz folded his hands on the table, looking at them both as if he were a director about to offer a dream role to two actresses he detests.
"Because the world is changing, ladies," he said serenely. "And you, as always, are right in the middle of it. Again. Like a constant in this comedy we call politics."
"We're not your pieces," Glinda snapped.
"No, of course not," Oz said, raising a glass of white wine the waiter had just placed down. "But what if this time it's not a game? What if I told you that everything you destroyed... needs to be rebuilt? That this city, this nation, this glorious farce... needs new protagonists. The real ones. The original ones."
"And you're just here to applaud from the box, like a good ghost?" Elphaba quipped.
Oz took a sip.
"Maybe. Or maybe I'm simply the mirror in which they can see what they're becoming."
A new silence. Thicker. More dangerous.
Before Elphaba could even raise her voice to steer the conversation toward something more solid, Oz snapped his fingers with the precision of a parlor magician. Immediately, a waiter appeared as if summoned by magic. With a charming and almost offensively friendly smile, Oz turned to the two women.
"Please, let's not let politics spoil our appetites. The menu here is exceptional. The almond-crusted trout is a religious experience."
"And the attempted corporate coup in Emerald City? Was that on the menu too?" Elphaba said, frozen.
Oz laughed. A light, musical laugh. Not mocking, but worse: condescending.
"Ah, my dear Elphaba. Always so direct." An admirable trait… if sometimes inconvenient.
Glinda, who had maintained a carefully controlled expression, raised an eyebrow.
"And always so evasive, Oscar. A much less admirable trait. But I suppose one only gets so far without learning to shirk responsibility."
Oz sighed theatrically, as if this were a reunion lunch between old college buddies who had once shared a cause and now only shared expensive wine.
"All right, all right," he relented, raising his palms in mock humility. "I suppose you've earned the right to know how life has treated me since our last… joint intervention."
Elphaba leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed. Glinda just watched him with a mixture of suspicion and ill-disguised fascination.
"After your brilliant sabotage," he began, as if talking about a particularly successful school play, "and the media implosion of the city's renovation project with Shiz.Corp, I was forced to retire from Emerald City. Technically 'suspended' from my position, pending impeachment."
"Technically. What a flexible word," Elphaba murmured.
"Of course, these things take time," Oz continued with a gentle smile. "The legal machinery is slow, especially when there are so many interested parties trying to keep it from moving too quickly. Shiz.Corp took the brunt of the judicial impact, as befits any faceless entity that serves as the perfect scapegoat."
He shrugged as if he were talking about a bad stock deal, not a web of massive corruption and manipulation.
“So I decided it was time to… diversify. I’ve been traveling, reflecting. Investing here and there. Making contacts. Crises, my dears, are simply the prelude to new opportunities.”
“And what would the opportunity be this time?” Glinda asked, her eyes narrowed. “Another city? Another façade of utopia masquerading as a progressive project?”
Oz looked at her as if amused by the predictability of her indignation.
“Nothing so banal. You see, I’m getting older. Not enough to retire, of course, but just enough to want to leave something… lasting. Something more than nameplates or poisonous newspaper editorials.”
“A media empire? A religion?” Elphaba quipped.
Oz laughed again, but this time there was an edge behind the smile. He continued speaking with the ease of an actor in his final monologue, a glass of wine in one hand and the other playing with the edge of the linen tablecloth as if weaving destiny with each movement. The sun was beginning to descend beyond the dining room windows, painting the skyscrapers of Sapphire City gold, as if the city itself were disguising itself as a promise.
"As I was saying, during these months of 'forced retirement,' to put it humorously, I decided to broaden my horizons. One can no longer think in national terms alone. True influences cross borders. And sometimes, great changes emerge in… unexpected places."
He leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice like someone sharing a secret only with the most worthy.
"Have you heard of Maracoor Abiding?"
Elphaba frowned before the name had even finished coming out. Glinda wasn't any slower: her expression hardened just a shade, but enough.
“Maracoor…” Elphaba repeated in a low, alert tone. “The island nation that maintains trade relations with the northern crowns. It has a monarchical tradition, a strong maritime industry, and three parties in constant conflict for decades.”
“And with an inequality rate of 68% and laws that recognize neither reproductive rights nor gender identity,” Glinda added, her gaze as sharp as a diamond.
Oz nodded, delighted by her knowledge, as if he had cast a fishing line and Elphaba had taken the bait.
“Exactly. But it turns out that even old castles have cracks. In recent months, its political stability has begun to falter. Internal tensions, disagreements between the Royal Council and the line of succession, trade disputes… in short, a pressure cooker about to explode. And just then, I met a brilliant man: Ambassador Burden Bvasil.”
Glinda tilted her head, intrigued. Elphaba remained impassive, but her eyes sharpened.
"Bvasil sees an opportunity in this crisis," Oz continued. "To cleanse the court of retrograde elements, to open the nation to the modern world... and, of course, to create strategic alliances that would strengthen him. In me, he saw someone with the connections and experience he needed. In him... I saw fertile ground."
"Fertile for what?" Glinda asked sharply.
"For a new kind of power," Oz answered without hesitation. "One not based on old ideologies, but on adaptability. Image. Narratives. You see? What countries like Maracoor need isn't just infrastructure; they need international redemption. They need a story that justifies them to the world. And who better to provide that than... let's say, a rebellious and inspiring couple, with impeccable political and moral credentials. Two icons of change who prove that even the most ancient corners can be illuminated with new values."
Elphaba glared at him.
"Are you offering us to be the face of your next political experiment?"
“Oh, no. Nothing so vulgar,” Oz said with a smile. “I’m offering you a place in history. You already inspire thousands. Why not use that for something bigger? Imagine… being part of changing a nation. Shaping it. Reshaping it. And yes, doing it from real power, not from the shadows of activism.”
Glinda looked away, her lips tightening. Ambition had always been a part of her. But not at that price.
“And what does Bvasil want in return?”
Oz paused, the only moment he hesitated slightly.
“Control. Stability. A figure to legitimize the process. Someone to represent you to the world while the dust settles. That could be anyone. But it would be better if it were… you.”
Elphaba lowered her glass with measured force, the porcelain rattling slightly.
“And why us? After everything we did against you, why would you want to give us a place of power?”
Oz smiled with unbearable calm.
"Because I've learned that you can't destroy a storm. But you can invite it to blow in the right direction."
Silence settled over the table like an unwelcome guest. Elphaba and Glinda looked at each other for the first time since Oz had begun his enchanting exposition. And in that look, there were questions that couldn't be asked aloud yet.
It wasn't a silence of immediate rejection, but a much more uncomfortable one: that of calculation, that of the weight that settles on one's shoulders when facing an open door into the unknown.
Oz smiled, not like someone winning a game, but like someone who knows the game is still being played, and that the pieces have already moved beyond the point of return.
"I'm not going to pretend this doesn't sound... improbable. Or even repulsive coming from me. But I'm also not going to insult you by denying that I've been watching you," he said, with that cordiality that masked a surgical precision. Since your little... display at the Emerald City audience, you became a phenomenon. Yes, what you did was a masterstroke. You exposed me, you discredited me... and still, the world didn't end. Not for me. And not for you either.
He paused, letting his words settle like wine in their glasses.
"Since then, all you've done is run. I don't mean that with judgment, mind you. Running away is also a form of searching. And you've traveled miles, cities, deserts, and oceans between yourselves and your pasts. But that doesn't erase one truth: you've been on the road for so long that one thing is clear to anyone who observes you closely... you don't want to go back."
The words fell like lead on the table. Glinda blinked barely, and Elphaba shifted her gaze toward the window, as if searching for an exit that wasn't there.
"And that's okay," Oz continued, softer now, almost paternal. "Everyone carries their own reasons. Unhealed wounds, unkept promises, familiar ghosts, expectations that weigh on them. I'm not asking you to deny it. I'm only proposing something you may never have imagined: that you don't have to go back. That this... getaway you worked so hard to build doesn't have to end like all vacations. Because that's the saddest part of any trip, isn't it? Knowing that, sooner or later, it ends. That you have to return home, to what's familiar, to what's small."
His smile grew more dangerous in its gentleness.
"But... what if not? What if this adventure could continue? Beyond your fears, your enemies, your stories. Not as fugitives. Not as ghosts." But as architects of a new world, where they don't have to justify their love or their methods. Where they can influence, decide, act. Where they can be all they are without asking permission.
Silence fell between them again, this time with a different weight. More intimate. Because, although they would never admit it—much less to him—the offer was... tempting.
Elphaba swallowed, keeping her face impassive, but scenarios were already forming in her mind. Glinda crossed her legs uncomfortably, her gaze fixed on the tablecloth, but there was no withdrawal in her expression... only contemplation. What if this was their "eternal adventure"? What if they didn't have to choose between freedom and the future, but rather build one where both existed?
Oz watched them, satisfied, and concluded his proposal with the elegance of a magician.
"Ambassador Bvasil arrives in the city tomorrow. We will meet at this very spot to discuss... possibilities. Of course, you're invited to join. There's no pressure." Just the chance to see what lies beyond the horizon you yourselves drew.
He stood up with measured theatricality and placed a card with a schedule and an address on the table. Then, he gave them a slight nod, as if he were still a senator or an actor playing one.
"Rest well tonight, my dear witches. Who knows, maybe tomorrow... we'll start writing a new story."
And without further ado, he walked away, leaving behind a subtle scent of spices, danger, and possibility.
That night, the suite was a golden bubble suspended high above the capital, with the lights of Sapphire City twinkling like artificial stars beyond the picture window. But inside, there was no peace. Elphaba sat in the upholstered armchair, still wearing her jacket, the bouquet of flowers she had bought in the last city forgotten on the table, while her green eyes, alight with a mixture of tension and thought, were fixed on some indeterminate point in space.
Glinda, on the other hand, was pure movement. She spun around the suite like an unbalanced pendulum, her silk robe open and her hair half-done, spewing words in a rush as if she needed to empty herself so she wouldn't explode.
"This is madness, Elphaba! Absolute madness!" she exclaimed as she twirled around. "This guy, this... sociopath with a thin mustache and the look of an imperial stepfather, is inviting us like we're new-age fairy godmothers! What does he want now? For us to raise his reputation with magic wands? To be ambassadors from Hell?"
Elphaba didn't respond. Not a gesture.
"And what are we supposed to do there?" Glinda continued, without waiting for her. "Rule a failing monarchy?! Sign trade agreements in the middle of banquets while dancing with ambassadors?! The first diplomatic breakfast we have in disagreement, we end up throwing wine glasses in each other's faces. We don't know how to govern anything! We can't even decide which series to watch together without fighting!"
Silence. The city was still glittering outside.
"And besides," she added with a nervous giggle, "who would we be? The Witches of Change? The Queens of Chaos? 'Ladies of Foreign Policy and Velvet Gags'? Please! This is bad fan fiction written by an egotistical, well-connected lunatic."
Glinda finally stopped, exhausted by her own verbosity. She stood for a few seconds in front of the window. She breathed. She turned slowly to Elphaba, crossing her arms.
"Are you going to say something, or do I have to continue my monologue alone?" she asked with a mixture of exasperation and pleading.
Elphaba didn't blink. But then, she spoke. Her voice was soft, almost inaudible, but sharp as a midnight whisper.
"It's too good to be true," she said simply.
Glinda snorted in relief.
"Exactly! That's what I'm saying!"
But Elphaba raised an eyebrow, and added without moving from the chair:
"And yet... that doesn't make it impossible."
Glinda frowned.
"What are you saying?"
Elphaba finally sat up, stretching her legs slowly, as if shaking off the night. She walked over to the table, took the forgotten flower from the bouquet, and turned it between her fingers, without looking at it.
"I'm saying yes, it's crazy. Oz probably has some hidden card." That this smacks of manipulation, or a political game, or a trap...' Her eyes lifted and sought Glinda's. 'But I also say it's a door. One we didn't expect. And even though it scares me... there's a part of me that wants to walk through it.'
'Walk through it?' Glinda took a step closer, not hiding her disbelief. 'You want to play a new Oz game? After all?'
Elphaba hesitated for a moment. Then she shook her head, but smiled only slightly.
'I don't want to play their game. I want to write my own. And this... this could be an opportunity to do it on a whole new board.'
Glinda looked at her, taking a deep breath. Elphaba was serious. She was genuinely considering this.
'I don't know if it's bravery or complete idiocy,' Glinda said quietly.
'Possibly both,' Elphaba replied with a glimmer of hope. 'But you know me. I'm not good at ignoring the impossible.' The impossible is what attracts me the most.
And suddenly, the argument was quickly ignited, like a spark falling in a field already parched by the tension of a sleepless night.
"I can't believe you're even considering it!" Glinda exclaimed, her tone thick with indignation and pain as she crossed her arms in front of the window, as if she wanted to use the entire city as a shield. "After everything he did to us!"
Elphaba, still standing by the table, didn't respond immediately. The flower Glinda had accepted hours earlier now lay on the back of the armchair, forgotten in the storm.
"I'm not considering it for him," she said finally, her voice firm but calm. "I'm considering it for us. Because maybe, just maybe, this is a way for us to never hide again, to never run away again."
"Run away?" Glinda spun on her heel with a fury she could barely contain. "Is that what you think we're doing? That this trip was a flight?" That what we did together, everything we faced, was escape?
"No!" Elphaba replied instantly, taking a step toward her. "What we did was survive. And after surviving, we finally began to live. But now... now it all comes back. And we can't ignore it forever."
"I don't want to ignore it!" Glinda retorted, her voice breaking. "I just want him gone. Gone the way he should have been since we exposed who he really was. But he's still there. He always comes back. And you... you listen to him. You consider him."
Elphaba clenched her fists, hurt, but not defending herself.
"It's not that I trust him, Glinda. I trust us. And part of me"—she hesitated for a second—"part of me sees in this proposal a way to take what he stands for, what he stole from us... and transform it. Make it our own."
Glinda laughed, incredulous, and it wasn't a happy laugh.
"'Transform it'? 'Make it ours'? Do you really hear yourself? Do you want to turn a rotten empire into a fairy tale?"
"Why not?" Elphaba retorted, now also letting out her pent-up rage. "Isn't that what we always do? Don't we take what others have deformed and try to fix it? Don't we turn our wounds into something new?"
"He's not a wound!" Glinda interrupted, her voice already tinged with tears. "He was a cancer. He used me. He made me his smiling face, his perfect blonde for the camera, the puppet of his supposed reform. While you were away fighting on your own terms, I was locked away in press conferences and empty speeches! I was the fool who followed him!"
Elphaba felt the blow. Not because she didn't know all that... but because she had never heard Glinda say it so bluntly. Because for the first time, the wound was open before her, bleeding in real time.
But the worst came later, when Glinda swallowed, lowered her voice, and said:
"And the worst of all... what I hate most about him... is that it was because of him that we broke up. It was because of his damned plan, his game of manipulation that stole months from us. Months we'll never get back, Elphie."
Elphaba froze. For a moment, she didn't know what to say. The rage in Glinda was no longer fury; it was raw pain. It was the memory of an emptiness they had both carried for too long.
Slowly, she approached her. And when she was close enough to feel the trembling of his hands, she said softly:
"You're right. Every word. He stole something from us that he'll never give back. He stole our time. But Glinda... that lost time doesn't scare me as much as the thought of losing you again."
Glinda raised her eyes, bright and broken.
"What if you accept that offer and it happens again?"
Elphaba took her hands gently, clasping them together as if it were the only certainty she could offer.
"Then this time I won't let it happen. I won't let anything separate us again. But Glinda... I don't know the right way to protect what we are. Sometimes I don't know if it's best to keep fighting from the outside... or infiltrate from the inside. I just know I can't decide alone. Not anymore."
They both fell silent. Only the hum of the city and their own breathing surrounded them. And for the first time since the argument began... they shared the same fear.
Later that night, the moon hovered like a silent witness over the city, bathing the windows of one of the most luxurious hotels on the continent with its whitish light. In the bed of the suite, Glinda slept heavily, exhausted, but at the same time... Elphaba walked silently down the carpeted hallway, her boots tapping subtly, as if her mere presence disturbed the building's perfect balance.
The door was ajar, like a provocation. The suite number: 1812. The year of a revolution, she thought bitterly. She knocked once, without waiting for a reply, and pushed.
Oz was waiting for her.
He was sitting in a dark velvet armchair next to a small glass table where a bottle of vintage whiskey rested, already uncorked. He was wearing an emerald green silk robe with gold trim, as if he'd been waiting for this scene his whole life, as if it were just another piece in his collection of theatrical moments.
"I knew you'd come," he said without turning around. "Though I must admit I bet you'd be five minutes longer. You were always unpredictable."
Elphaba closed the door behind her with a sharp click. She didn't reply. She didn't smile. She didn't move any further than necessary. It was a straight, hard shadow, sharp as the truth it carried with it.
"What do you really want?" he shot out without warning. The question crossed the room like a knife thrown with surgical precision.
Oz finally turned his head, his eyes shining with that impossible mix of irony and false nostalgia.
"Always so direct, dear Elphaba. That is one of your most charming qualities. Although... also one of the most dangerous."
"I didn't come for your compliments." Elphaba took a step closer. "I didn't come for the wine, or your empty words. I came because I won't allow you to play with her. Not again."
Oz sighed, poured himself a drink, and held it without drinking it.
"Glinda is still your Achilles' heel. She was then. She is now."
Elphaba was unfazed.
"And you still think you can manipulate everyone like pieces on your board. But we're not in your game anymore, Oz. You're no one to us anymore."
Oz finally looked at her, seriously, for the first time without feigned politeness.
"So why are you here?"
The question hung in the air. Elphaba clenched her jaw. Her green eyes bore into his, as if seeking to dismantle each of his masks with the sheer force of her gaze.
"Because a part of me wants to understand." A part of me wants to know if your proposal is real... or just another illusion designed to corrupt everything it touches.
Oz smiled sideways. He raised his glass and took a slow, contemplative sip.
"What if I told you that this time, there's no catch? That, after all, I'm tired of the old games. That I want something bigger, more elegant. Wouldn't it be beautiful to build something new with those who knew how to destroy the old?"
"The only beautiful thing would be to see you pay for everything you've done." Elphaba's voice was a lethal whisper. "But that's not why I came. I came to warn you. I still don't know if we'll accept your proposal. But if you're lying... if you try to touch a single hair on her... there won't be a corner of the world where you can hide."
Oz didn't respond immediately. He placed his glass on the table, folded his hands in front of him, and lowered his head slightly.
"You're more dangerous than ever. I like that."
"I'm not dangerous." Elphaba took a step closer, now two feet away from him. "I'm patient. And you already owe us. So I weighed every word tomorrow. Because if you don't play fair... my hand won't shake."
The door was ajar, and Elphaba turned toward it, ready to leave that stifling room behind, Oz's voice, his suffocating scent of power and ambiguity, his lies disguised as metaphors. But then, as if he couldn't resist having the last word, Oz spoke.
"You know," he said in that soft voice, laced with self-sufficiency and arrogance. "I always remember that night. The Christmas gala, remember? The first time we crossed paths. I told you I was fascinated by you... and it was true. It still is. But now... now I know why."
Elphaba closed her eyes for a second. Every word he said was like a splinter stabbing into her patience.
"Since then, I've watched you. In every speech, in every rebellion, in every damn time you ruined my plans, there was something about you I didn't understand. Something... unpredictable. An energy that didn't obey the rules of any game, and it drove me crazy. Fascination, yes... but also discomfort. Because every time I see you... I recognize myself."
He stopped. And for a second, he remained still, as if he were confessing something he didn't even know he was carrying inside.
"In a way, you're the version of me I chose not to be. Or that I didn't have the courage to be."
Elphaba turned her head just a fraction, just enough to look at him over her shoulder.
"But I think I've finally figured out what it's really about, and it's..."
Oz was ready to deliver the final blow... When something happened that he didn't even expect.
Elphaba turned and gave him a look... But what he received wasn't her hatred, nor a mocking smile, nor a verbal spit. There was no fire in her eyes, nor active contempt. Just a look... tired. Fed up. One of those that doesn't seek to win, but simply to end.
That silent disappointment pierced Oz more violently than any threat.
His smile, the one he cultivated so long, the one he never let fall, faded. For the first time in a long time, he didn't know what else to say. He lowered his gaze. And when he raised it again, there was no trace left of the charming politician, the perfect orator, the puppeteer of power.
Elphaba began to turn away again, determined to leave now.
But then, in a different voice... almost human... Oz said one last thing. He no longer sounded like the fallen senator or the manipulator he'd always been. He sounded... alone.
"If you accept..." he said slowly, without flourishes, "nothing bad will happen to Glinda. Or to you. I promise."
It wasn't a threat. It wasn't even a plea. It was a hollow declaration, maybe honest, maybe not. It didn't matter. Elphaba didn't respond. She opened the door and left.
And when the door closed behind her, the silence in Suite 1812 became unbearable.
Oz poured himself another drink. He left it in front of him, untouched. And for the first time in years, he wasn't smiling.
The next day, the morning light filtered through the suite's large windows like an ambiguous blessing, golden and deceptively warm. Elphaba, standing in front of the ridiculously ostentatious coffee maker, was intently preparing the most sophisticated breakfast the minibar ingredients allowed: whole-wheat toast, fresh fruit, and coffee as black as her temper. She was wearing an oversized white shirt—clearly Glinda's—with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Every so often, she glanced at her, wordlessly.
Glinda, wearing a silk robe, her hair still mussed from sleep and the dampness of the steamy shower, was sitting at the breakfast bar island, sliding her fingers over the screen of her tablet. Her expression was a mixture of disbelief and exasperation, as if every line she read further challenged her ability to believe in the logic of the world.
"I insist, this is crazy," she said without looking up. "We shouldn't go to that meeting. Not even if Meryl Streep dressed as a dragon queen offered it."
Elphaba snorted a quiet laugh from the kitchen.
“Meryl Streep as a dragon queen sounds tempting. At least she would know how to act with dignity.”
“No kidding,” Glinda retorted, raising a finger as she dragged another note to the center of the screen. “And listen to this, I just found something very interesting. It seems the young prince of Maracoor Abiding disappeared from the public eye two years ago. Literally. Phew. No appearances, no speeches, no official photos. And before that, he had barely turned eighteen.”
Elphaba set the cup in front of her and sat down with her own. She raised an eyebrow.
“And no one said anything?”
“Oh, of course they did. A lot. There are rumors of illness, conspiracies, disagreements with the royal family… but the truth is, the official silence only made everything worse. Many politicians in the country's upper house say the monarchy no longer represents the people, and that it's time to “renew the national structure.” Whatever that means.”
“A covert coup?” —Elphaba asked as she took a sip of her coffee.
—Maybe? I don't like it at all. It sounds like a pressure cooker. And just then... Oz appears! What a convenient coincidence, huh?
Elphaba nodded silently, her green eyes fixed on Glinda's as if she wanted to absorb every word in her voice. She knew she was listening, even if she wasn't saying anything yet. It was that way Elphaba processed everything: in layers.
—Look at this,— Glinda continued, frowning. —"Tensions between the political leaders and the Royal House have escalated since the mysterious disappearance of the Prince Consort, prompting a series of internal protests and international pressure for constitutional reforms..." —she read. "Ugh. This all stinks."
—I admit this feels more like a 'crisis over the Iron Throne' than I'd like,— Elphaba muttered as she set her coffee down in front of her.
Glinda looked at him gratefully and took a sip. She closed her eyes for a moment. She sighed.
"And you're still going, aren't you?"
"I didn't say that," Elphaba replied, sitting down with her cup. "But you also know I'm not one to ignore things like this. What's going on over there is big. Dangerous. And if Oz is involved... I don't like letting that guy walk around without anyone on his tail."
"Since when are we inspectors of international conflicts?" Glinda said sourly. "Wasn't this trip supposed to be for us?"
"It still is. But it's also about learning who we are... and what we can do."
Glinda looked at her for a moment. There was a long pause, filled with the unsaid. The coffee steamed between them.
"What if, by following that instinct of yours, you get lost in all of this again?" Glinda asked, lowering her voice. "What if it takes you away from me again?"
Elphaba stared at her. She slowly set down her cup, reached out, and took her hand.
"I'm not going to get lost. Not without you by my side. If I go, if we go... it's together. Is that clear?"
"Absolutely," Glinda replied with a brief smile. "Although if you make me dine with that hideous ambassador and I have to use diplomatic protocol, you'll make up for it. In restraints. And lingerie."
"Done," Elphaba said without hesitation.
They both laughed softly. But they knew the tension was still there, hanging like expensive, fake perfume. The meeting with Ambassador Burden Bvasil was only a few hours away. And something, deep down, told them that conversation could change everything.
An hour later, Elphaba adjusted the sleeve of her dark suit for the umpteenth time, sober but elegant, with precise and deliberately minimalist lines. In front of her, Glinda exhaled slowly, as if seeking to stabilize the uncontrollable energy bubbling beneath her cream dress with gold details, a piece she had chosen with meticulous ferocity. The fabric hugged her figure with diplomatic elegance, but her eyes were thick with gunpowder. Elphaba glanced at her as the elevator ascended: her posture was that of a Greek statue, but her jaw was so tight it seemed sculpted with fury.
"Are you sure you don't want to change again?" Elphaba murmured with a faint smile.
"If I change one more time, I'll burn this hotel down," Glinda replied, not looking at her, although her lips formed a forced smile. Besides, if we're going to talk to a foreign ambassador under the tutelage of our archenemy... at least I'll do it dressed like a damn queen.
"You are," Elphaba said simply.
The elevator stopped. A faint, almost ceremonial clinking announced their arrival. The doors opened, revealing a scene of carefully orchestrated opulence: the grand dining hall was bathed in the warm light of a perfect midday, with floor-to-ceiling windows displaying Sapphire City's coastal skyline like a living painting. The air smelled of expensive wine, polished wood, and diplomatic nerves.
Oz was there. Standing as if he were the host of a theatrical performance, his black suit with emerald-green details that seemed to mock the past. He smiled at them with the warmth of someone who believes himself above everyone else, as if they were old acquaintances reuniting at a college dinner. Glinda didn't bother to return the gesture. She didn't even hide her venomous gaze. Elphaba, on the other hand, maintained her composure: a slight nod, no smile, no unnecessary courtesy.
"My two favorite witches," Oz exclaimed, his voice intoxicated with enthusiasm. "You don't know how honored I am to have you here." The entire country could collapse and I wouldn't care, as long as you're all seated at this table.
"How convenient," Elphaba said, her voice soft but sharp as a surgeon's knife.
"And where does treason belong at this table? For dessert?" Glinda added, crossing her arms.
"Only if it's accompanied by a good wine," Oz retorted, raising his hand to order a bottle. "Come on, girls, let's put down the spears for today. There's company."
Just then, a murmur ran through the room. On the other side, in the building's large glass entrance, the muffled roar of an armored limousine screeched to a halt. Several men and women got out of the vehicle, all dressed in identical outfits: black, discreet, their gazes like knives. Their movements were choreographed, cold. The leader of the group, an agent wearing dark glasses, approached one of the receptionists and murmured something. The atmosphere tensed, as if the oxygen in the hall had suddenly been rationed.
"Ah, there you have it," Oz said, his tone far too enthusiastic for the situation. "I present the honorable ambassador of Maracoor Abiding... Burden Bvasil."
A dry sound echoed behind them: the elevator. The bell. A pause.
Everyone present turned. Even Glinda and Elphaba held their breath.
The elevator door slid open with a soft hiss. A reverent silence fell over the dining hall, as if the entire city were holding its breath. Security entered first, their steps firm and synchronized, black-suited figures with steely gazes forming a vanguard of unwavering authority. And behind them... he appeared.
Ambassador Burden Bvasil advanced with a serenity that seemed to cultivate with his stride. He wasn't a particularly tall or imposing man, but his bearing spoke volumes: rigid, deliberate, the kind who doesn't smile by accident. His ceremonial robes—a blend of monarchical tradition and modern minimalism—flowed with dignity with every step. His eyes, cold as freshly wet stone, scanned the space with studied disinterest, as if he already knew everything he needed to know and was now merely confirming it.
To his left, however, came something entirely different.
A young, feminine figure, wrapped in a black sweatshirt with a raised hood that partially covered her face. Her hair, an almost translucent blonde, fell to either side like a pale silk curtain. She wore large, opaque sunglasses, despite being indoors, and her steps were measured, almost timid. The contrast between her and the ambassador was so sharp that it was difficult to ignore.
"Did you see that?" Glinda whispered, barely turning toward Elphaba.
"Yes," Elphaba murmured, narrowing her eyes. "Who do you think it is?"
"I don't know... but it looks more like a shadow than a person."
The young woman didn't interact with anyone. She walked slightly behind the ambassador, not looking to either side, as if she wanted to disappear and be invisible at the same time. But then, for a split second, as they passed by the table where Glinda and Elphaba were waiting... it happened.
Glinda looked at her. And the young woman, without moving her head, rolled her eyes behind her dark glasses. Their gazes met.
It was like a sharp blow to the chest.
There was no hatred. No curiosity. What Glinda felt was… recognition. As if that girl knew exactly who she was. As if she'd seen her before. Somewhere. Everywhere.
And then the young woman quickly looked away, lowering her head. She continued walking, her hands hidden in the sleeves of her sweatshirt. A ghost with a pulse.
"Did you see her?" Glinda insisted, gently touching Elphaba's arm.
"Yes," Elphaba replied, her voice low. "And it gave me chills."
Across the room, Oz greeted the ambassador with almost obscene theatricality. They shook hands, exchanged cordial words, and then Bvasil turned toward the city beyond the windows, uninterested in the rest of the room. The girl remained behind him, motionless. Like a loyal shadow.
Finally, Oz turned to Glinda and Elphaba with that same smile he used when he was about to sell you something with poison between the pages. He walked toward them with his hands clasped behind his back, letting the silence create its own anticipation.
"Well, well, well," he said in a master of ceremonies tone. "It seems it's time for our special guests to be part of the spectacle."
Elphaba crossed his arms.
"What kind of spectacle?"
Oz stopped in front of them, turned slightly to make sure the ambassador couldn't hear them, and then lowered his voice.
"Before we begin the formal meeting with the ambassador, there's... one matter. A small last-minute snag."
Glinda narrowed her eyes.
"'Small' how? Small like a diplomatic storm? Or small like a parcel bomb?"
Oz shrugged with a conciliatory smile.
"Let's just say... unexpected." You see, Ambassador Bvasil's arrival included an unplanned companion. Her presence is delicate, and, well... we're trying to keep her as far away as possible from the press, drones, paparazzi, and any gossipmongers with a TikTok account.
Glinda raised an eyebrow.
"Are you asking us to look after his... daughter?"
"Is she his daughter?" Elphaba asked immediately.
Oz tilted his head, like a cat toying with its prey.
"Not exactly. Let's just say she's someone... important.
I need someone to watch her. Entertain her. Keep her company. While I handle political matters with the ambassador. Just for a few hours."
Silence.
Glinda and Elphaba looked at each other.
Then they both slowly turned to Oz.
"You brought us to Sapphire City," Glinda began, her tone low, almost hissing, "the nation's capital, the epicenter of international politics and diplomacy, where we could literally run into heads of state or some journalist eager to sink us... to babysit?"
"I prefer the term 'trusted companions,'" Oz countered, raising an eyebrow. "And I swear I didn't plan it. But it showed up. And you're... the furthest thing from the press I know other than an air-raid bunker."
Elphaba ran a hand over her face.
"Gods. This isn't happening."
"And what, exactly, makes this girl so special that she requires an elite duo of witches as an escort?"
Oz grinned like a cat.
"That's something you'd have to discover for yourselves."
Glinda snorted.
"How convenient!"
"I know. I'm unbearably charming."
"No," they both said at the same time.
"Okay," Oz replied, raising his hands as if he had no time for sarcasm. "But if you'll excuse me, the ambassador is expecting me. Can I trust you to take care of her until this meeting is over?" And before they could respond, he added, "If you abandon me on this, the ambassador may take it as an insult, and I'm not exaggerating when I tell you... the consequences can cross oceans."
He left without waiting for a reply, leaving them standing in the middle of the marble dining room like two bewildered statues.
A thick silence floated between them.
Until Glinda turned to Elphaba with her arms crossed.
"Are you telling me we're going to accept this?! That we're going to let Oz drag us into another one of his ridiculous games so we end up babysitting a spoiled teenager with existential issues and a tendency to make crying TikToks?!"
"I didn't say yes," Elphaba replied, with the calm of someone who saw a storm coming. "I just said we need to think about it." Maybe it's not as simple as—
"Oh no, no no no!" Glinda interrupted, waving her hands in theatrical indignation. "This isn't one of your profound metaphors, Elphaba. This is babysitting!"
"We can take turns," Elphaba suggested, trying to sound reasonable.
"I didn't come to Sapphire City to take turns with an emotionally unstable stranger in a hotel room!" Glinda snapped, spinning on her heels. "I came because I thought this had to do with politics. With fairness. With us. Not to play "Miss Congeniality," maternal edition."
"Then you do it!" Elphaba exclaimed. "You stay with her, and I'll talk to the ambassador. I've had more practice dealing with hypocritical men in power."
"And what makes you think I want to do this alone?" Do you know how many times I've had to smile at people like that to keep my composure while thinking about pulling their teeth out with my bare hands?
"I'm not forcing you! It's an idea."
"Well, it's a stupid idea!" Glinda shouted.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Thank you for your usual gentleness."
"You're welcome!"
Silence again.
They were both breathing heavily.
And then, as always... their eyes met. Elphaba couldn't help but giggle. Glinda tried to stop herself, but a small smile escaped.
"This is ridiculous," Glinda muttered, lowering her head.
"Very," Elphaba agreed. "And yet, we're in the capital, about to be babysitting a stranger under indirect orders from a man we swore to destroy."
"Perfectly normal." Glinda ran a hand through her hair. As if our entire trip hadn't already been an emotional parody laced with geopolitical satire.
"At least we're not bored."
"A valid point."
They both sighed.
"So... who goes first?" Elphaba asked.
Glinda looked at her with theatrical resignation.
"Rock, paper, scissors."
"Really?"
"It's the only democracy that still works."
And so, in the middle of one of the most influential cities on the continent, two of the most complicated and brilliant women in the country decided the fate of a diplomatic day... playing rock, paper, scissors.
Finally, Glinda let out a deep sigh, one of those that seemed to come from the depths of her soul. Elphaba, barely able to hide her satisfied smile, bowed with mock theatrical reverence to her partner, as if she had won a trophy.
"Sorry, my love. Rock wins scissors. Democracy has spoken," she said softly, almost jokingly.
"I'm going to make a demand on democracy," Glinda murmured, as Elphaba turned to follow Oz.
Oz, for his part, seemed genuinely pleased. He gracefully took his ornate cane and guided Elphaba to a secluded table at the back of the room, where Ambassador Burden Bvasil was already waiting. Elphaba raised an eyebrow and wasted no time taking a seat opposite him with calculated firmness. The diplomatic chess game was just beginning.
But across the room, the scene was... different.
Glinda, still recovering from her annoyance, turned toward the center of the room, where the young woman in question was still standing, completely out of place. She couldn't have been more than twenty years old, but her expression was that of someone who had seen too much and trusted too little.
She looked around as if the entire world were a signpostless maze.
Glinda took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and walked toward her with her best diplomatic smile, the one she'd practiced in front of the mirror since she was fourteen. But as she approached, three burly escorts, dressed in dark suits and wearing earpieces, instantly intervened. Their bodies formed a black wall between her and the girl.
"Oh, please!" Glinda said, raising her hands in a conciliatory gesture. "I just want to talk to her. I'm not planning to kidnap her."
The escorts didn't respond. Not a gesture. Not a blink.
Then the young woman spoke in a firm, dry voice, in a language Glinda didn't fully recognize, but which was clearly an order.
The escorts moved aside without a word. Glinda stood still for a second, genuinely impressed.
The young woman looked at her, now without intermediaries, with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. Her eyes were a deep grayish blue, opaque, like a frozen lake in a storm. She wasn't shy. She didn't even seem interested. She was just... observing.
Glinda smiled in her best warm tone.
"Hello. I'm Glinda. Would you like... I don't know... something to drink?"
The young woman studied her for a long moment. Then she nodded with a single nod.
"I'm not thirsty," she said, her foreign accent clear, but her voice as sharp as a blade.
"Great. Then let's go to the bar and not have anything together," Glinda replied, her smile widening.
The young woman seemed to blink for the first time since Glinda had seen her.
They both walked toward the elegant bar, decorated with dark marble and soft lighting. As they did, Glinda gave her a covert glance. It wasn't that the young woman seemed hostile, but something about her posture, the way she scanned every corner of the room with her eyes, indicated that she wasn't there of her own free will.
They sat down. Glinda ordered a raspberry and mint mocktail. The young woman didn't order anything.
"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" Glinda asked softly, playing with the straw in her drink.
The young woman shrugged.
"What's your name?"
"Meghan," she said, without looking at her.
"Meghan?"
"No. But it's easier for you to pronounce."
Glinda raised her eyebrows and gave a small laugh.
"Well, Meghan... I have to admit, this situation is a little strange." I'm more used to gala dinners than to caring for exiled princesses.
The young woman slowly turned her face toward her.
"I'm not a princess," she replied coldly.
"No?" Glinda tilted her head innocently. "Then why do you have three bodyguards more armed than a spy movie?"
"Because my country is on the brink of collapse," Meghan said with frightening calm. "And some believe my disappearance would help prevent it."
Glinda swallowed.
"Good. I didn't think this day could get any more intense... and yet here we are."
The young woman didn't respond, but something on her lips trembled. A smile? A sneer?
Glinda leaned against the bar, her mocktail in hand, and sighed. She turned her face toward the dining room. In the distance, she could see Elphaba conversing with Oz and the ambassador, the three figures surrounded by a tense air like that of a symphony opera before the first chord.
She looked back at Meghan.
"Well, at least you're not alone. And for what it's worth... I'm pretty good at containing meltdowns."
But despite her best efforts, Glinda was beginning to suspect that engaging Meghan in conversation was harder than negotiating with a striking parliamentary committee.
Every carefully lighthearted comment she offered—from the bar's absurd decor to small anecdotes from her years in Emerald City—was met with the same response: a direct, intense stare, devoid of judgment or openness, but so devoid of enthusiasm it could have come from a statue.
The young woman wasn't rude. Just... unapproachable. Like a windowless fortress.
Glinda, her smile intact but increasingly forced, took a sip of her mocktail and considered that if fate had paired her with a teenage version of Elphaba, perhaps this was some kind of cosmic punishment. "This is what she feels every time I talk nonstop," she thought wryly.
"No alcohol," she had clearly told the waiter, when she noticed one of the escorts sizing her up as if she were already intoxicated just by existing in that dress.
What she didn't notice, at least not immediately, was the way Meghan was looking at her. Not with hostility. Not entirely. But with a veiled attention, as if something in Glinda's demeanor—in the structured sweetness of her voice, in her way of graciously occupying space, in her golden hair carefully arranged like a foam crown—triggered a buried memory, or a long-suppressed fantasy.
Meghan didn't speak, but her eyes said more than she cared to admit.
Glinda, for her part, had begun to zone out. On the television screen mounted above the bar, a news feed was showing live coverage of a charity event. The banner across the bottom announced: "Everstone Foundation Gala: 50 Years Serving International Children."
Glinda looked up just as her face appeared.
Viatrix Everstone, the formidable matriarch and director emeritus of the foundation, walked slowly across the crimson carpet, greeting everyone with that frozen, fine porcelain smile, stiff with age and surgery. Her figure was hunched, but still exuded power, like a forgotten statue that no one dared move for fear of the entire building collapsing.
At her side, with the precision of a rehearsed actress, walked Ruby Lynn Everstone.
Glinda felt something in her stomach clench, a sour and familiar lurch. The camera lingered on Ruby's wide, almost artificial smile. Her black hair shone in the lights like a dark waterfall, the red dress she wore looked like something straight out of a fantasy catalog: tight, majestic, virginal, and provocative all at once. Ruby waved, laughed, posed. Every gesture was a performance, every movement choreographed. The ideal of the perfect daughter. The gala doll. The heiress built to fulfill an image, even at her own expense.
"Are you okay?" Meghan asked suddenly, her tone neutral, but direct enough to startle Glinda.
The question took Glinda by surprise. She looked at her. It was the first time the young woman had spoken without being asked. She had noticed her reaction. The expression of discomfort. The slight trembling of her fingers on her glass.
"Yes, yes... just," Glinda searched for an excuse. "I can't stand those people. The kind of charity that only serves to polish appearances. I hate it."
Meghan nodded once, but didn't look away from the screen. The camera had panned across, but Ruby still stood out, like a glowing spot of color in the gray.
"You know her," Meghan said.
It wasn't a question. It was a statement.
Glinda didn't answer immediately. Then she let out a slow breath.
“No… but, you could say I know her kind… too closely, I'm afraid.”
Meghan looked at Glinda again, this time for a longer time. Then she looked away, murmuring,
“She looks like a smiling prisoner.”
The sentence hung between them, more precise and devastating than any political editorial.
Glinda felt the air still for a moment. It wasn't just the sentence. It was the way Meghan had said it, as if she understood from within, as if speaking from a hidden corner of her soul. As if… she knew.
“And you?” Glinda asked gently, knowing she was taking a risk.
Meghan didn't respond. Her face closed again like a flower beaten by the wind. But something in its stillness seemed less hostile now. Not friendly. But… less distant.
And for the first time since this strange encounter began, Glinda understood that there was something much deeper behind that unwavering young gaze. Something she perhaps recognized. Because she had been there too, years ago, trapped in an image she hadn't asked to wear.
And they both knew that one cannot completely escape an invisible crown.
While at the bar Glinda grappled with a silent teenager and a transmission that brought back ghosts from the past, at the other end of the room everything was much more tense, and much more important.
At a discreetly secluded table, protected by ornamental screens, designer candles, and a handful of bodyguards pretending to be statues, Oz and Elphaba sat side by side. He, perfectly comfortable, with a drink in his hand and the smile of someone who believes everything is going according to plan. She, stoic, with her arms crossed, her legs crossed, a slight frown, and that green gaze that seemed capable of dissecting everything that was said... and everything that wasn't.
Facing them was Ambassador Burden Bvasil, Plenipotentiary Representative of Maracoor Abiding. A middle-aged man, with an impenetrable face, smoky eyes, and a voice that seemed calculated even in the pauses.
"Mrs. Thropp," he said, without even looking at Oz. "It's an honor."
Elphaba didn't respond with a smile, only a slight nod.
"Ambassador. I know your time is valuable."
"Time is an investment," the ambassador said. "I spend it where there's potential."
Oz laughed softly, as if they were sharing an inside joke no one else understood. Elphaba didn't laugh.
"Maracoor Abiding is in a time of transition," the ambassador continued bluntly. "Our governing structure is being challenged by internal elements, some well-intentioned... and some not so much. The instability has brought doubt among our allies, external diplomatic interference, and, of course, opportunities."
"And we are one of those opportunities?" Elphaba asked, sounding just the right mix between polite and ironic.
"Let's just say that, amid the noise, your figure represents something... functional." The ambassador didn't blink. "Elphaba Thropp. Icon of dissent, symbol of integrity to some, unpredictable revolutionary to others. Whether as an ally or a myth, you generate cohesion... or fear. Both are useful."
"How flattering," Elphaba murmured. She crossed one leg over the other. "So tell me, what are they looking for in Oz? Charisma, manipulation, or private capital?"
"A bit of all three," Bvasil replied, without a hint of shame.
Oz raised his glass as if toasting the compliment.
Elphaba exhaled slowly, trying to find the crack in that marble facade. She knew what was at stake. This wasn't a game of regional political interests. No. This was a bid to redefine the identity of an entire nation in crisis... and they were considering importing foreign symbols to seal the deal.
"My country," he said, in a foreign accent almost musical but broken by bitterness, "is a crowned corpse. The only thing that keeps moving... is the smell of incense."
Elphaba barely raised an eyebrow. Oz laughed softly, as if this poetic statement were an amusing aside. But Elphaba wasn't laughing. She was watching.
"And what do you propose?" Elphaba asked, her voice firm, clear, without Oz's rhetorical flourishes.
The ambassador raised a long, bony finger, as if pointing at something invisible between them.
"I propose opening the windows before the palace rots. Maracoor Abiding needs a fresh breeze. New ideas. And voices that aren't afraid of the echo."
Oz chimed in, delighted that his plan was beginning to take shape:
"Maracoor has resources, but no vision. We have vision, but we've been... sidelined." He made a vague gesture, as if dismissing centuries of mistakes. Together we can create a new council, a modern roundtable, with Elphaba as the intellectual and moral image of this new bloc. You know no one has her credibility.
Elphaba felt a pang in her head.
"Do you want me to be the progressive face of an alliance between two figures who would never allow me to truly question them?"
"Not the face. The heart," Oz corrected with a silky smile. "You have ideas. You have a story. You are a story. And stories... they move masses."
Elphaba crossed her arms. She wasn't looking at Oz, but at the ambassador.
"And why now? Why me? Why us?"
Bvasil placed his hands carefully on the table.
"Because the people no longer listen to the thrones. They listen to the scarred voices. You stood up to power... and survived. My nation needs that. An illusion, yes... but a credible illusion. We need it to seem like change is coming from within." Even if they direct it from outside.
Elphaba stared at him silently. For a second, she felt herself drowning in contradiction. Everything about this reeked of control, of cynicism disguised as reform. She no longer listened to them; all she heard were the echoes of her own memory.
The pages of history books, the columns she had written, the speeches she had given… All the examples where vulnerable nations were destabilized "for their own good," governed from the outside under the guise of reform. Always the same structure: first a strategic alliance, then economic investment, then dependency. And finally, a nation devoid of its own will. She had read, studied, and denounced these practices. Now they were offered to her in a crystal goblet with expensive wine and a seductive smile.
Her stomach churned. Literally. As if her body rejected the idea of being an accomplice before her mind did.
"Are you all right, Mrs. Thropp?" the ambassador asked neutrally.
Elphaba gave a brief nod, her fingers tightening on her own forearm in an attempt to stay grounded.
"Do you know what they're asking of me?" she said softly, barely a whisper to Oz, but audible enough for the ambassador to catch it as well.
"We're offering you a place at the table," Oz replied, not missing a beat. "And the ability to decide what's served at it."
"Do you really think that's how it works?" she retorted, harsher this time. "This isn't reform. This is intervention. Disguised, yes. Sophisticated, sure. But intervention nonetheless. They've done it before. They'll do it again."
Bvasil looked uncomfortable for a second, but Oz responded with that mix of sarcasm and arrogance that made him unbearable.
"All change requires drive. Nothing great was ever built without a little behind-the-scenes engineering."
"And how many people must be trapped beneath that machinery?" Elphaba looked him straight in the eye. "How many voices are going to be silenced in the name of 'a clear vision'?"
The silence thickened for a moment. Not even the distant clinking of crockery on other tables could lighten it.
Elphaba stepped back. She hadn't finished speaking.
"Look, I'm not naive. I know the world doesn't change without interest. I know there's no purity in politics, not even in revolution. But don't ask me to legitimize this. Don't ask me to become the kind of symbol I've detested my entire life. Because you don't want my voice. You want my face for your purposes. My story for your narrative…"
Elphaba was a breath away from standing up, knocking over her wineglass with her elbow, and saying with words filled with fury—and without a hint of filter—where both her proposal and her diplomacy could go. But then Oz spoke. Clear, rounded, charming.
“It seems to me that what Miss Thropp is saying, dear ambassador, is that intervention without consent is not progress… it is conquest. And that the future of a nation cannot be written in foreign ink, even if that ink comes in golden bottles.” He smiled with a dangerous gentleness, swirling his wineglass as if he were teaching a political philosophy class in an imaginary classroom. “But make no mistake: no one here wants to take away the voice of the people of Maracoor. What we want is to offer you a mirror. A new reflection. A clearer, more modern one… with new tools.”
Elphaba looked at him, at first with bewilderment. Was he quoting concepts she herself had used before, in interviews and lectures? Was he really… agreeing with her?
“After all,” Oz continued, “no one understands the cracks in power better than someone who has been on the margins. That is why she is here. Not because she will repeat old patterns, but because she can help prevent them.”
The ambassador nodded slowly, as if Elphaba had suddenly become more valuable, more politically attractive.
And she... felt cold. A strange pang in the center of her stomach. As if someone had taken something from her—her words, her stance, her principles—polished them with a silk rag, and returned them to the world... as if they were his own.
Elphaba narrowed her eyes, feeling trapped in a play where she'd lost the script.
"Don't put words in my mouth, Oz," she said, her voice measured but sharp.
Oz smiled, raising a hand with feigned humility.
"I would never dare. I only translate them for ears less poetic than yours."
A part of her wanted to scream. Another... was confused. Did they really think alike? Or did he know her so well that he could fake it? Because the most disturbing thing wasn't that Oz was repeating his ideas. It was that... it made sense. Everything he'd just said made damned sense.
For a second, she felt something she dared not name: not respect, not admiration… but something murkier, more disturbing. A perverse form of mirroring.
"He's playing with you," she thought. "He's using your own mind as a bait."
And yet, the trap was elegant. Very, very elegant.
The lounge's bar, meanwhile, had that artificial golden lighting that made everything look more expensive than it was. Glinda, sitting with her back perfectly straight, held a salted peanut between her thumb and forefinger. She tossed it in the air with studied technique and caught it in her mouth as if that little trick were the key to disarming her silent companion.
"Come on, it's easier than it looks," she said with a smile that was already beginning to wrinkle with frustration.
The young woman, sitting next to her, arms crossed and staring off into the distance, didn't even blink. She didn't seem impressed, not even remotely interested. Glinda sighed and dropped her head against her hand.
"My God... and I once thought about being a mother," she murmured in the muffled tone of a mumbled confession. "But never to a teenager."
The bartender, who seemed more attentive to the microtensions between the two than to the cocktails he was serving, raised an eyebrow. Glinda noticed.
"Could you... Could you change the channel? This newscast is making me want something stronger than ginger ale."
The bartender wordlessly grabbed the remote and with a couple of clicks made Ruby Lynn Everstone disappear from the screen. The frozen face with her perfect smile vanished... and was replaced by an animated dragon and a girl cutting her hair with a sword: Mulan.
"Oh, I love this movie!" Glinda exclaimed with genuine emotion, turning to the young woman. "Although... it's probably not cool enough for you, isn't it?"
The young woman didn't respond. But she didn't look away either. Glinda noticed how her head barely tilted toward the screen, how her eyes—until now so stern, so impervious—narrowed with a mixture that wasn't emotion... but wasn't indifference either. It was something more complex. Like seeing something that hurt, something calling from far away.
Glinda said nothing. She simply watched her out of the corner of her eye as she held her glass with both hands. The dragon was joking on the screen, Mulan was stumbling in her new armor. Glinda made a silly comment, trying to break the tension:
"Do you really think no one would notice if a woman disguised herself as a man to join the army? It's ridiculous, it would be a diplomatic disaster, but a great musical."
Silence. Then, a pause. And then... a dry, ironic voice:
"In real life, they send her to a convent before letting her touch a sword."
Glinda slowly turned her head. The young woman was speaking. More than that, she was joking. Or... something like that. Her tone was so sharp it could cut glass, but behind every word, Glinda felt a hint of pent-up laughter. Or maybe ancient anger camouflaged as sarcasm.
"And don't even mention talking dragons," the young woman added. "If you had that, you wouldn't have a monarchy or anything." A single roar and that's it.
Glinda laughed. She couldn't help it. It was that very specific kind of humor that only came from real pain. She knew it well. It was the kind of humor Elphaba had used for years to cover her scars.
"So you don't like Mulan?" she asked with a crooked smile.
The young woman took a sip of her ice water.
"I like it. Only... it doesn't have a happy ending. Not even if they say it does."
Glinda was silent for a few seconds. On the screen, Mulan stood before the emperor, fireworks were exploding, everyone was celebrating. And suddenly everything fell into place. The way she avoided the cameras. The tension with the guards. The way she looked at Glinda as if she didn't know whether to hate her or admire her. The name that hadn't been spoken. Oz's silence. The rumor of the missing prince.
Glinda didn't have to ask. She didn't need to.
The young woman glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, as if sensing something had broken, that a secret now hung in the air.
Glinda turned to her tenderly. She smiled, this time not like a politician or a diva or a mother-to-be. She smiled like her, like Glinda.
"What's your name?"
The young woman looked at her for a long moment. Then, for the first time, something softened in her face.
The name fell between them like a drop of ink in clear water.
"Ozma," she said, without looking up.
The word seemed to float, tremble, and then settle between them. Glinda remained motionless. She said nothing. She didn't flinch, didn't express surprise. She just nodded very gently, as if someone had said, "It's raining," or "I'm cold." As if it weren't the most carefully guarded state secret on the entire continent.
And in that minimal reaction—in that non-reaction—Ozma relaxed.
Almost imperceptibly, her shoulders lowered, her posture relaxed. Not entirely. But enough. She was going to say something more, perhaps. You could see it in her throat, in the way her lips trembled on the verge of a confession. But she stopped. Like a word that reaches the edge of a cliff and decides not to jump.
Then, to both of their surprises, it was she who broke the silence:
"How do you make your hair shine like that?"
Glinda blinked. The question was so absurd, so unexpectedly adolescent… that it took her a second to process it.
“My hair?”
Ozma nodded, this time looking her in the eye.
“It’s like… I don’t know, like you have a magic lamp on your head.”
Glinda let out a sincere, disarmed laugh.
“Well, I’ve never heard of that before,” she said with a smile that lit up the entire bar. “Do you want to know the secret?”
Ozma hesitated. Then she nodded with a seriousness that almost seemed childlike. Glinda turned around, settling into the stool like an expert lecturing.
“First, you have to understand your hair type. Not everyone can wear the same thing. Yours is thick but has body, which is good, but you have to moisturize without weighing it down.”
Ozma frowned thoughtfully.
“I used a jasmine cream once… I ended up looking like a melted candle.”
Glinda laughed, short and resounding.
"That happens! It happened to me in third grade. I cried for a week and forced the dean to change the dining room lights because I felt they made me shine like a frying pan."
Ozma smiled. It was a shy smile, brief... but true.
"So you weren't born with that sparkle."
Glinda looked at her for a second, her blue eyes softer than ever.
"No. But I learned to bring it out of myself."
For the first time all day, Ozma turned fully toward her. She looked at her with more than just curiosity. There was a tinge of envy in her expression, yes… but also a spark of hope. As if for a second, she entertained the idea that some of that—that radiance, that confidence, that serene beauty—might, in some possible universe, also be within her.
"Sometimes… I feel like if I shone like that, no one would believe me. Like I wasn't allowed to."
Glinda didn't respond immediately. She saw her. She saw beyond the hardened eyes and the strategic silences. She saw the child she once was. The hidden heiress. The person who didn't know who she was allowed to be.
"Then you have to do it twice as hard. Shine twice as bright. Until they believe it. Or until you no longer care if they believe it."
Ozma lowered her gaze. Silence wove between them again, but this time it wasn't tense. It was warm. Complicit.
After a few seconds, Ozma murmured something barely audible:
"You look like her."
Glinda tilted her head.
"Who?"
Ozma didn't answer. But her eyes shone.
And Glinda, without asking any more questions, placed her hand on the young woman's. For a second, just a second, Ozma didn't withdraw it.
And after a few minutes, Glinda went back to talking about conditioners, curling irons, the exact amount of water you should rinse a hair mask with if you wanted volume but not frizz. She did it with the meticulous passion of an alchemist, and Ozma listened as if she were hearing about a secret science lost centuries ago.
"...and last but not least, never underestimate the power of nighttime styling. Sleeping with your hair down is a recipe for chaos," Glinda said with a dramatic gesture. "One loose braid, two if you have a lot of volume, and that's it. The next day, dreamy waves."
Ozma gave a small smile, her lips pursed as if she were afraid to let it out completely.
"Were you always like this?"
"Like this?"
"So... confident. So bright. Like the world turns more beautifully when she looks at you."
Glinda was surprised. Not by the question, but by the tone. It wasn't flattering. It was... pure. Genuine. The question of someone who truly wanted to know.
"No," Glinda replied, lowering her voice a little, as if sharing a secret. "Inside, I'm still that girl who didn't know where to put her hands when she walked into a room. I just learned to fake it until it became a little bit true."
Ozma looked down at the glass she was holding. She turned it between her fingers as if that might give her courage. After a long silence, she murmured, "I... didn't know where to put myself either. For a long time, I was where I was supposed to be. In the clothes I was supposed to wear. Saying the things others expected me to say." With the name I inherited.
Glinda said nothing. She knew how to wait.
"My name was Tippetarius. The crown prince. Two years ago... I disappeared. That's what they said. That I'd retired for health reasons. Some said it was a political kidnapping. Others, that I'd fled out of fear."
"And the truth?" Glinda whispered, not moving.
Ozma looked up. Her gaze was steady.
"The truth is, I didn't want to live like him anymore."
Glinda's heart stopped for a second. Not out of surprise—because she somehow already knew that—but because of the weight of what had just been said.
Ozma continued.
"I didn't disappear. I left. Because I couldn't breathe in that body, in that role. Because every word I said, every decision I made, wasn't mine. Everything I was... was for someone else. For them. For the crown. For the myth of the right prince."
"And then it was... you," Glinda said softly.
Ozma nodded.
"Two years ago, when I couldn't take it anymore... I told my father the truth. That I wasn't him. That I wasn't and never had been. That I wanted to use another name. My mother's."
Without thinking, Glinda gently took Ozma's hand.
"And what happened?"
Ozma swallowed.
"He recalled me from the country. He said it was for security. That there were tensions. That the court was divided. That the allies were questioning my... 'status.' That the image had to be protected. And that... 'while we sort this out,' I should stay out."
Glinda gripped her hand a little tighter.
"They didn't sort this out, did they?"
Ozma shook her head.
"They buried him. Like her. Like me."
They fell silent. The murmur of the hall around them was distant, almost unreal.
Finally, Glinda spoke. Her voice was low, but firm.
"Ozma... I was taught that if something makes a noise, you cover it with perfume. If something hurts, you paint it with glitter. If something scares you, you turn it into a smile. And all that worked for me for a while. But then I met someone." Who taught me that it wasn't my duty to disguise myself... but to shine as I am. Without asking for forgiveness.
Ozma looked at her. Her eyes were slightly moist, but without tears. Because what was being born wasn't sadness. It was... permission. For the first time in a long time, someone saw her completely. And she wasn't running.
"And her?" Ozma whispered, barely audible. "Where is that person?"
Glinda smiled, looking over her shoulder toward the back of the room where, at a table, Elphaba was arguing diplomatically with a foreign ambassador, her expression focused but ever alert.
For a moment, everything stopped.
Neither the murmur of the room, nor the clinking of glasses, nor the background music, nor even the golden bat decorating the imperial clock on the wall seemed to move. It was as if the universe had caught itself in a sustained breath, attentive to the words that emerged with effort from Ozma's throat.
"I..." she began, then bit her lip hard, as if the sound of her own voice might break her.
Glinda, sitting beside her, kept her body still, but her eyes were fixed on the young woman's face. It was the kind of silence that doesn't demand haste, but rather presence.
Ozma lowered her gaze. Her eyelashes fluttered like feathers in a storm, and when she spoke again, her voice was barely a whisper broken by emotion.
"For as long as I can remember, I felt trapped in a body I didn't understand... and no one would explain it to me. No one would listen when I tried to speak. They told me over and over that I should be strong. That this was the future. That I should keep my composure. That there were right ways to be in the world. But... they never spoke of what it felt like when your own reflection looks back at you like a stranger."
Glinda's hands reached out instinctively. Not to touch yet, but to be ready. For when she needed it.
"And now that I finally feel like myself," Ozma said, her voice truly breaking, "that I can finally breathe in my own skin... they want to kill me for it."
Glinda felt a cold knot form in her stomach.
Ozma continued, tears already glistening shamelessly on her cheeks.
"This whole conflict, this whole 'national crisis'... it all started when I told my father I no longer wanted to be Tippetarius. That I wanted to be Ozma. That I wanted to use Mother's name."
Glinda could no longer contain herself. She stroked Ozma's hand with all the tenderness of someone who had once needed that very touch.
"And the worst part... They used me," Ozma murmured. "They used what I am as an excuse. As a spark to ignite the internal conflicts of politics. And now everything is burning and no one sees me. No one wants to see me. Not even him."
Her gaze was lost in the golden shadows of the hall, as if she were still searching for the figure of her father among the columns.
"And I... I just wanted Mom to brush my hair like she promised she would when I was little. But that... that's never going to happen."
Glinda clenched her jaw. She felt her body vibrate with suppressed rage. Not at Ozma. Not even at her father. It was something deeper, more structural. Dirtier. It was the whole game.
She looked at Ozma with a furious tenderness, one that burned like a torch. She gently took her chin and forced her to look into her eyes.
"You did nothing wrong, do you hear me? There's absolutely nothing you need to correct, erase, or justify. You didn't ruin anything. The mistake was theirs... for not knowing how to see the beauty in who you are."
Ozma blinked, devastated and comforted at the same time.
"And yes, maybe the world burns sometimes. Maybe it twists because it doesn't understand us. But you, you are not alone."
Glinda gently stroked her hair. Then, very slowly, she turned her gaze to the table at the back. Where Senator Oz laughed with the ambassador, as if none of this concerned them.
And in that moment, Glinda understood. Every kind word, every glass of wine, every proposal, every political smile, and every plan for a “new era”… it was all a glittering wrapper for a crime. They wanted to use Ozma. As a symbol, as a weapon, as a bargaining chip. As a hostage.
No. She wouldn't allow it.
Her face, warm and loving toward Ozma, tensed like steel forged over a slow fire. She didn't say another word. But something in her posture changed.
She knew exactly what she had to do.
And she didn't need permission.
As the glasses were refilled and Bvasil's words unfurled like a skein of poisoned silk—wrapping proposals for intervention with vocabulary of opportunity—Elphaba barely listened. She followed every sentence, yes, because she had to. But her mind was gauging something else: the way Oz measured each pause, how he smiled only when he should have, how he nodded incredulously, simply to maintain the illusion of consensus. And behind all that, the stench of hidden strategy, of plans designed behind closed doors.
It was then that Glinda's appearance interrupted the atmosphere like a spark in a dark room.
She walked confidently, her powder-rose dress flowing elegantly with each step, and a smile so perfectly curved that not even a sculptor could have imagined a better one. Upon reaching the table, with a measured nod and that sweet tone that could melt even the most wary ambassador, Glinda spoke:
"Forgive the interruption, gentlemen... I just wanted to ask permission to take the young lady to my room. She's a little tired and... well, she wants me to show her how to brush her hair like me."
Elphaba closed her eyes with a slowness that only someone who had had a long-term relationship with this woman could execute. She brought a hand to her face. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard.
Oz gave a small, polite laugh, like someone listening to a charming quip from an eccentric guest. He adjusted his pocket handkerchief with a practiced gesture.
"Ah, Glinda. Always so... creative. What a quip," he said, though his gaze sought to assess whether there was more to that angelic smile.
Bvasil wasn't so diplomatic. He looked at everything with the discomfort of someone who'd found a cat in the middle of a lecture on rifles. He pursed his lips, snorted, and tried to locate the escorts with his eyes.
"Brush your hair...?" he muttered, as if saying it would give him indigestion.
"The escorts can accompany us, of course," Glinda added, without losing her smile or her posture. "But... she asked me, and I promised I'd show her."
Bvasil slowly turned his face toward the other side of the room, where Ozma waited, hands clasped, without saying a word. Their eyes met, and for a moment, just a moment, she held his gaze... but then she lowered her head.
The ambassador said no more. He rolled his eyes impatiently and snorted like someone resigned to the presence of a fly in his ointment.
"Take her. But don't let it take long. And please..." he added, almost to himself, as he took his glass with tense fingers, "...may the 'girl' stop behaving like a damned broken doll."
Elphaba opened her eyes and slowly turned her head toward him. She said nothing. Yet. But the way her jaw tensed spoke volumes.
Glinda, with impeccable grace, bowed in thanks.
"Thank you, ambassador. I promise I won't send her back broken. Just... with better hair."
And with that, he turned and walked toward Ozma, leaving behind him a cloud of floral perfume and bewilderment.
But before he could completely move away, he leaned toward Elphaba, bringing his lips close to her ear. No one else heard him.
"I know who she is. And I also know what they're trying to do. Don't let them convince you of anything... yet."
Elphaba felt as if ice water had been thrown down her back. Her gaze shifted back to Ozma, and then everything clicked. The weather, the prince's disappearance, the political tension, Oz's sudden interest in a "new project," the palpable fear in the young woman's eyes.
She turned back to the table. Bvasil was still speaking, without noticing. Oz also pretended to listen. But Elphaba was no longer involved in the same conversation.
Now she understood the game.
And she knew exactly which piece Ozma was talking about.
She wasn't going to allow herself to be played without her consent.
Glinda approached Ozma with her usual grace, but this time there was no trace of affectation. She offered her hand with a gentle, elegant gesture, not imposing, simply inviting.
"Come with me," she said with a smile that was something of an older sister, something of a fairy godmother, and something of a queen who remembers being a child. "This will be your first great lesson in life as a woman: all it takes is a beautiful smile at the right moment to make the most idiotic men do whatever you want."
Ozma blinked. For a moment, she didn't seem to understand if this was a joke or a warning, but she took Glinda's hand anyway. It was warm, firm, and didn't tremble. And that, for some reason, made her feel like the world wouldn't fall apart that day.
Together, they headed to the elevator, followed by the three escorts who walked as if they were on a tactical operation. Glinda didn't even try to hide her annoyance when the elevator was filled with the awkward military silence of those men who clenched their fists with every feminine smile.
Upon reaching the suite, things got even more ridiculous.
The guards began the inspection with the rigor of an elite squad. They searched every corner with flashlights, checked drawers, moved curtains, felt under the bed, and lifted every pillow as if hoping to find a micro-spy hidden in the goose quill. One of them stopped in front of the small makeshift library Elphaba had set up on the side table: Tyranny and Desire, Rawls's A Theory of Justice, and at least two erotic novels with untitled covers. The agent flipped to a random page and frowned.
"They're books," Glinda said, arms crossed. "Extremely dangerous, I know. I once read one and ended up dating a witch."
The guard didn't respond.
But the comic tension reached its climax when one of the guards, searching the nightstand, triumphantly pulled out a pink, metallic, cylindrical object. He held it up with two fingers as if he'd found a biological bomb.
"What's this?"
"Really?" Glinda stepped forward and took the vibrator from her hand with the dexterity of someone who has had to do this many times in expensive hotels. "It's mine, thank you. And it doesn't explode. Well... not literally."
Ozma let out an unexpected laugh. Short. Quick. As if it had come out without permission.
Glinda winked at her as she hid the object in the drawer with the dignity of a 21st-century lady of the court. Finally, after making sure that not even Elphaba was hiding dynamite between the pages of The Wretched of the Earth, the agents gave the all-clear.
"The room is secure," announced the leader of the group, positioning himself by the door while the other two took strategic positions, one near the window and one by the hallway.
Glinda took a deep breath, smiled with formal sweetness, and closed the door behind them with an elegant tap.
"Well..." she said, turning to Ozma. "Alone at last." And not a single political bomb hidden under the sofa.
Ozma stood in the center of the room, silently looking around. The space had elegance, yes, but also some human clutter: Elphaba's sweater draped over the back of the armchair, a forgotten coffee cup, papers with hand-scribbled notes. A momentary home.
"Are your days always like this?" Ozma asked softly, slowly approaching the small table where an antique ivory and gold comb sat.
"More than I'd like," Glinda replied as she perched on the edge of the sofa, patting the space beside her. "But there's always time for what's important. Come, sit down. I'm going to teach you the most powerful spell I have."
Ozma sat down. Hesitantly at first. Then with a strange confidence. Glinda put an arm around her shoulders and began carefully to loosen the young woman's somewhat tight braid of hair.
"First, never dry brush if your hair is very fine," she began, sounding professorial. "Second, if your crown isn't cooperating, do as I do: distract it with shine. And third..."
She stopped. She saw Ozma looking at her with a mixture of fascination and nostalgia, as if it were the first time anyone had spoken to her like that... without judgment, without fear.
"Third?" Ozma asked, barely above a whisper.
"Third," Glinda said, more gently, "never let anyone tell you how a princess should look. Or how she should act. Or who she should resemble. You decide that. You and no one else."
Ozma lowered her gaze, struggling with something inside her. But that "something" was weakening. Her voice, when she spoke, was firmer than before:
"My mother used to say that the heaviest crown... is the one that puts itself on. That no one gave it to me. That I was born with it. But... I didn't know it was a princess's."
Glinda looked at her with infinite tenderness. She stroked her hair with the comb as if it were a ritual.
"Now you know. And it suits you perfectly."
Ozma, sitting cross-legged on a soft rug, watched with large, curious eyes the bright, pink, and fragrant world that seemed to naturally surround Glinda. There was makeup neatly scattered on a gilded tray, perfume bottles with unpronounceable names, a crystal-encrusted hand mirror, and at least three sets of clothes hanging from doorknobs. Elphaba would have snorted in annoyance. Ozma, on the other hand, was fascinated.
"Do you wear this every day?" she asked, holding a butterfly-shaped clip that looked like glass between her fingers.
Glinda laughed softly, not mockingly.
"Gods, no, only when I have to impress. The rest of the time I'm in jogging pants and wearing a mask that smells of sulfur. But if you like it, you can try it. This is all for play, not hiding."
Ozma smiled shyly and placed the clip on the table. Glinda noticed the delicacy in that gesture. As if her every movement still had to ask permission.
"Want to try something?" Glinda offered, pointing to a box of eyeshadow. A small touch of color, nothing more. Something soft.
Ozma hesitated for a second, then nodded. Glinda took a shade of lavender, almost imperceptible, and began applying it with her fingertip, as carefully as if touching a wing.
"There it is," she whispered. "You don't need more than a breath of magic. You're already beautiful."
Ozma lowered her gaze. Not out of modesty, but because something was stirring inside her. Something she didn't yet know how to name.
"I was never told that," she murmured.
"Then we'll make up for it today," Glinda said gently.
They looked at themselves in the full-length mirror in front of them. Glinda behind her, still combing her hair with one hand, and Ozma in front, looking at her reflection with strangeness and wonder. It wasn't that she didn't recognize herself. It was that for the first time, something in that image seemed to make sense.
"Is it silly if I say I like how I look?" she asked.
"That's the bravest thing you could say," Glinda replied without hesitation.
Ozma smoothed down a strand of hair that had fallen loose and left it there. Glinda watched this small act with serene satisfaction. She was just a girl combing her hair in a hotel room, of course. But she was also a young princess building, strand by strand, the face of her freedom.
"And you?" Ozma asked suddenly. "Did you always know who you were?"
The question took her by surprise. Glinda thought for a moment. She sat down beside her on the floor, her legs folded with a less-than-casual elegance.
"Sometimes I thought so," she said honestly. "I thought if I was pretty, if I was kind, if I smiled enough... people would love me, understand me, and then... that would be 'me.' But I was wrong. Or rather, I was missing the most important thing."
"What?"
"That I had to love myself too. Not just be liked by others."
Ozma was silent. Then she nodded very slowly. It was one of those truths that weren't understood with logic, but with the body.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm two people at once," Ozma confessed softly. "One everyone expects me to be... and another I barely know, but who... I like."
"Then hold on to that one," Glinda said. "That's the real one. The one you like."
A new silence fell between them. But it was no longer awkward, but intimate. Glinda took the comb and, as in an inherited ritual, began slowly braiding part of Ozma's hair.
"What are you doing?" the young woman asked with a slight, curious smile.
"A braid of destiny. It means something new is beginning."
"Do you always say things like that?"
"Only when I'm with brave princesses."
Ozma lowered her gaze, but couldn't help but smile. For the first time in a long time, she didn't feel compelled to say anything else. Just being there was enough.
And in that small oasis of tenderness, Glinda understood that perhaps that was her role. Not the figure of the social media, not the face of change, not the perfect woman for the cameras. Just someone who could, with gentle words and a hairbrush, help a young woman discover herself, choose herself, love herself.
Meanwhile... back in the dining room, Elphaba, Oz, and Bvasil continued their discussion... they had been going on for too long... too long, really.
The lights in the dining room had automatically turned on, casting an artificial, golden glow on the table where three increasingly fatigued figures still sat.
Elphaba held a glass of water between her fingers as if it were a grenade ready to explode. His posture, despite the passage of time, remained erect and tense, but his green eyes, which had initially shone with inquisitive intensity, were beginning to show signs of exhaustion. Across the table, Ambassador Bvasil was once again adjusting his jacket, crossing and uncrossing his legs, and taking out a linen handkerchief to wipe his forehead with a gesture that no longer attempted to hide his annoyance.
"It's not a question of ideology, Miss Thropp," the ambassador insisted for the umpteenth time. "It's a question of realism. You think you can look at Maracoor through the eyes of a poet or a professor. But history can't be changed with metaphors."
"No," Elphaba replied sharply, placing her glass on the tablecloth without concealing her exasperation. "But it's ruined by empty figures and diplomatic smiles." I'd love to think this conversation is about helping your country... but each of your proposals sounds more like a strategic take disguised as goodwill.
Oz, who until that moment had maintained a patient smile, raised his hands like a priest trying to calm two dragons.
"We're not here to fight," he said in a honeyed voice, though his tone no longer held the same charm it had at the beginning. "We all want the same thing. Stability. Development. A transition that benefits Maracoor without disrupting its identity."
"Identity?" Elphaba snapped. "What identity are you referring to? The one they're trying to erase because a young princess decided not to fit their mold?"
Bvasil narrowed his eyes, his fingers drumming against the varnished wood of the table.
"Let's not mix internal matters with the need to build alliances. Royalty is symbolic. The important thing is to keep the nation unified. We can't afford... weaknesses."
"Weaknesses?" Elphaba leaned forward, staring at the ambassador. "Is that what you think gender identity is? A weakness?"
"Don't put words in her mouth," Oz interrupted, trying to keep the conversation from exploding. "This is getting off track. Why don't we get back to the letter of intent? I can prepare a draft that reflects our shared concerns."
"There are no shared concerns," Elphaba said coldly. "What you want is for me to sign a paper to be part of a soft intervention. An academic and media figure who will make all this seem... humanitarian. But there is nothing humanitarian about what you're proposing."
Bvasil stood up.
"This meeting has gone on too long," he said tersely, with the tone of someone more accustomed to giving orders than receiving objections. "It's clear we're not going to reach any agreement today."
"Perhaps because it was never a meeting, but a trap wrapped in gold," Elphaba replied without moving from her seat.
Oz stood up as well, raising a hand to the ambassador with the skill of a politician accustomed to negotiating tense situations.
"Please, ambassador. One last glass before you leave. I'll pour it." He forced a smile that almost became a grimace.
Bvasil hesitated. Elphaba, on the other hand, leaned back slightly, watching Oz closely. For hours, she had said little. Now, as she poured the wine, her smile seemed too serene. As if she had been waiting for this very moment.
"I suppose I could stay for five more minutes," Bvasil finally conceded, taking his seat again.
He took the glass elegantly, took a short sip, and placed it with a soft click on the glass tabletop.
"Fine," he said dryly, his voice laced with weariness rather than anger. "I think we can all agree on one thing, at least: we can't work together like this."
Oz raised an eyebrow, but didn't reply. Neither did Elphaba. The ambassador swiveled slightly in his seat, his gaze resting on both of them, as if he wanted to make sure each word resonated clearly enough.
"You two," he continued, almost didacticly, "are influential figures. Very different, but with weight of your own. I'm not naive: I didn't come here expecting a simple alliance. I came because I understood that, in these times of chaos, even the most unlikely agreements must at least be attempted."
He removed his dark leather gloves and placed them on the table meticulously, as if that gesture sealed his decision.
“In a few days, a formal meeting will be held with several leaders, diplomats, and key figures on the city’s eastern coast,” he reported soberly. “Representatives from various nations and power blocs will be present. It will be a formal dinner, but also a summit of interests disguised as cordiality. I will be there. And if any of you think you can be serious”—he looked at Oz, then at Elphaba—“you are welcome to join. No promises. No alliances. But at least, with a real chance at understanding.”
“A diplomatic gala?” Elphaba said, raising an eyebrow.
“An arena,” the ambassador corrected, without concealing his cynicism. “More honest than this table, at least. There, if you truly wish to influence Maracoor’s future, you will be able to demonstrate it with something more than poetic words or charming toasts.”
Oz smiled, more out of reflex than amusement.
“You’re acting quite theatrical today, Burden. You make me jealous.”
The ambassador didn’t respond. He was already standing, adjusting the buttons on his jacket.
"Good evening," he said crisply, barely bowing his head. And without waiting for a reply, he left, escorted by his attendants, his silhouette disappearing among the marble columns of the hall.
When the echo of his footsteps faded, Elphaba took a deep breath, as if she had been holding it for hours. She leaned back in her chair. Oz, on the other hand, recovered his smile, took another sip of wine, and exhaled with practiced calm.
"I like him when he's upset," he said. "It's like watching a sculpture crack a little. Well, my dear? Are you going to wear your black ball gown for tomorrow's performance?"
Elphaba looked at him silently. Then, as if completely ignoring his comment, she stood up.
"I'm going to need something stronger than water if I have to breathe the same air as those people tomorrow."
"Do you want me to send for something?" "I have some whiskey that survived three coup attempts and a breakup," Oz offered, without standing up.
"What the hell are you doing, Oz?" he asked suddenly, without turning around. His voice was calm, but it contained an icy fury that threatened to shake the walls.
Oz took a few seconds to respond. He still seemed clinging to the idea of diplomatic conversation, the "civilized tone," the "charming game" he had always mastered. But Elphaba knew him too well. She knew that silence wasn't calm. It was fear. Or something very similar.
"If you're referring to the girl, I swear I didn't know the ambassador was bringing her," he finally replied, almost with a hint of humanity in his voice. "It's not like I like to improvise with new pieces, Elphaba, you know that."
Elphaba turned around. Her dark hair fell like a heavy curtain around her shoulders. Her green eyes shone with a mixture of fury and disappointment.
"I'm not talking about the girl," he spat harshly. "I'm talking about you. About this role you're playing. What is this? Do you want to be friends now? Allies? Colleagues with a rich past? Or are you just so lonely that you need someone to remember your name without reading it on a press card?"
Oz lowered his gaze for a second. It wasn't like him. The wineglass swung between his fingers. The gesture was so human that, for a moment, Elphaba almost believed she was reaching him.
"I'm not as cynical as you think," he finally said quietly. "I always respected you. Even when you ruined my plans, even when you exposed every damned crack in my perfect image to the world... even then, I couldn't help but admire you. Maybe... especially then."
"So what?" Elphaba took a step closer, her words falling like razor blades. "Is this a confession? A poisoned compliment? I'm not interested in your respect. Or your nostalgia."
Oz pressed his lips together. His smile was gone. What remained was only an aging man, wearing an overly expensive suit and an ambition he no longer knew how to justify.
"I'm not trying to buy you," he said with unusual honesty. I just thought... maybe, after everything you've been through, you'd want a way to use your voice where it truly matters. Not in books. Not on social media. At the decision-making table.
"With you by my side?" Elphaba laughed bitterly. "Is that your great act of redemption? Becoming your new saving grace while you play mentor to a generation you despise."
Oz closed his eyes for a moment. He looked tired. Not hurt... not really. But touched somewhere deep.
"Maybe I don't want redemption," he confessed. "Maybe I just want someone like you not to become another intelligent bystander who does nothing."
That did make her stumble.
Because that phrase... that damned phrase... struck a chord with her guilt.
Elphaba didn't respond immediately; she just looked at him.
"I'm not your bystander, Oz. Nor your ally." And if you keep trying to disguise your power plays with pretty words, you're going to find that this time I won't stop at exposing them. This time, I'm going to burn them.
Elphaba was already on her feet, pushing back her chair with a curt gesture, ready to leave. Her entire body radiated annoyance, suppressed fury, and an emotional exhaustion that made her burn inside. But then, Oz spoke.
"I can make you rich," he said.
She paused, for a second. Not because she was interested, but because the stupidity of the comment caught her off guard.
"Pardon?" She turned slowly, one eyebrow raised in disbelief.
Oz swallowed. He no longer had his wineglass in his hand. Now he had them both on the table, as if trying to sustain his own words. His face showed something Elphaba couldn't remember ever seeing on it: an awkward, almost human plea.
"Rich," he repeated, as if he hadn't understood how absurd it sounded. "Not just with money. With connections. With power. With opportunities no one else would give you. No one who respects you as much as I do, Elphaba."
She crossed her arms, staring at him as if scanning his soul for a reason not to spit in his face.
"Are you trying to buy me off like some disgraced image consultant?"
"No," he answered quickly, too quickly. "I'm trying to make you see that... that we're closer than you think. That you don't have to keep fighting alone. That we might, I don't know, find something... in common."
"Something in common?" Elphaba laughed bitterly. "You want me to sit down with you and have tea? Talk about our broken childhoods? Compare traumas to china cups? Do you really think this "repentant man" act is going to work on me?" Oz blinked, hurt by her bluntness. But he didn't give up.
"You know what the worst part is?" he said, lowering his voice. "I'm really trying. I don't know how to be clear with you without you wanting to spit in my face. Maybe because... I don't know how to be clear with myself either."
Elphaba took a step closer to the table, still furious, but now intrigued. Not out of curiosity, but out of pure rage at not knowing what crazy thing she'd come up with next.
"What do you mean?"
Oz let out a nervous laugh, waving his hand as if juggling words he didn't want to say out loud.
"I'm saying that... that I'm queer. Okay? It's not a secret. Or maybe it is. Sometimes I don't even know what I am. I've been with women. With men. With people who didn't fit into any category. Sometimes I've felt like I was two people at once, and neither of them fit the suit. Does that help?"
Elphaba looked at him. An awkward silence settled between them, thick as spilled oil.
"No. It doesn't help," she replied tersely. "Because this isn't about you or your labels. This isn't about who you kiss on your diplomatic trips or how you define yourself when no one's looking. This is about what you do. And what you do, Oz, is use people. All of them. Even yourself. Like pieces in a damn chess game where the only thing that matters is winning."
Oz looked down for a moment, but then looked up, with a quivering spark.
"But with you... I never knew how to move the piece. You always had your own board. It drives me crazy. Maybe that's why I could never stop admiring you."
"Hate me, you mean?" Elphaba murmured.
"No. Not exactly."
She shook her head, exasperated.
"Why are you doing this?" Why do you pretend you can be my friend? Because you have no one left? Because you know you're so detestable that all you can do is feign vulnerability so someone, even me, will stay and listen?
Oz didn't respond. His face, for the first time all night, emptied. Not of cynicism, nor of political charm. Of something rawer. More human.
"Maybe," he whispered.
And in that silence, Elphaba understood something she didn't want to understand: that maybe Oz wasn't manipulating her this time. That maybe, in his own twisted way, he truly believed this was a sincere conversation. And that didn't make it any less dangerous. It made it worse.
She turned to leave, this time without hesitation.
"I don't want your money. Not your respect. Not your confessions. Keep all that. It's yours, like your expensive suits, your inflated ego, and your smokescreen. I have something you'll never have."
"And what's that?" he asked from the table, his voice quiet.
"To Glinda."
Elphaba had already turned toward the exit, her firm steps echoing on the marble floor. Her back was straight, her braids whipping around resolutely. She wasn't going to look back. Not this time.
"Elphaba!" Oz called.
His voice didn't ring with authority or political charisma. It was a broken, almost trembling plea, and that was what made Elphaba stop. Not out of sympathy, but out of bewilderment.
She turned slowly, still annoyed, but with narrowed eyes. She watched him warily as he took a step closer, then another, as if afraid of frightening her with his proximity.
"I have to tell you something," he murmured.
And for the first time all day, Elphaba couldn't identify his tone. It wasn't manipulation, it wasn't sarcasm, it wasn't even that false charm he used to decorate every word with. It was... something else. Raw. Undercooked. Clumsy. Almost human.
"What?" she asked, not gently.
Oz opened his mouth... but nothing came out.
He brought his hand to his chest, as if searching his ribs for words, as if he'd prepared a grand speech and now every syllable had evaporated on his tongue. Elphaba frowned, starting to get impatient.
"So? What do you want to tell me now? A spiritual confession? Are you going to cry about losing your soul in some deal with the devil? Because, spoiler alert, it was yourself."
Oz looked down. He swallowed. His lips moved, but didn't form words. For some inexplicable reason, all he could think was that he wished she wouldn't leave yet. That she would stay five more seconds. That she wouldn't look at him like he was a system error in the world she understood.
Oz, desperate, tried another strategy. His voice became forced, like a clumsy attempt at cordiality.
"That girl of yours... Glinda," he said, practicing a smile. "I can tell she's special. She's good for you. They look happy."
Elphaba looked at him with such disbelief that for a moment he thought she could electrocute him with the force of her frown alone.
"Is that all? Did you stop me from going out to tell me my girlfriend is pretty? Do you want me to introduce you to her at a business dinner or something?"
Oz raised his hands, still trying to regain control of the situation. But he was like a magician who had already lost all his tricks and was left with only torn handkerchiefs and a sick dove.
"Just a minute! Just... give me a minute."
"You've already had forty. And you used them to offer me money, political favors, and an international collapse," she snapped.
Oz nodded. Nervous. The words he wanted to say—the real ones—burned in his throat like an uncontained fire. But he didn't know how to get them out without burning himself alive in the process.
So... he did the only thing he knew how to do. Pretend.
"Well then..." He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small silver remote control, as if from a museum of absurd gadgets. "Plan B!"
"What the...?"
Elphaba didn't have time to ask. As she pressed the button, an explosion of purple and green lights engulfed the room. The ceiling lights began to spin as if an invisible disco ball had taken control of the electrical system. Music, a squalid mix of synthpop, mutant jazz, and a tastefully dubious electronica, blared from the hidden speakers.
"Voilà!" Oz shouted, raising his arms as if he were revealing the eighth wonder of the world. "The diplomatic disco! I mean... isn't that what we all need in times of political tension?"
Elphaba blinked, stunned. Of all the possible reactions, this wasn't even close to her list. Not even in her wildest nightmare. She held out her arms, as if to say, really?
"Is this serious?"
Oz, on the other hand, seemed to have entered a theatrical trance. He was smiling, as if he truly believed this could work. As if he were in the final scene of a romantic comedy and not the bizarre epilogue to a political, emotional, and deeply dysfunctional rivalry.
"Just one dance," he said, walking toward her. "No cameras, no witnesses. Just us. One song, Elphaba."
And before she could react, he took her hand—not violently, but with the clumsy urgency of someone who hasn't learned to ask permission—and twirled her once, with a clumsy, old-fashioned movement, until she was in front of him, close, uncomfortably close.
"Are you completely crazy?" she murmured, not moving.
Oz stared at her, almost hypnotized.
"Probably. But if I only had this moment to show you everything I can't say... it would be like this."
Elphaba didn't flinch. Not because she wanted to stay, but because she was so bewildered that her body didn't respond. She felt her own hand still in his, the lights flickering as if the irony of the universe wanted to underline the grotesqueness of the moment.
And yet... there they were. Two intimate enemies, two twisted reflections, slowly spinning beneath an imaginary mirror ball that no one asked for.
The music continued. Oz didn't speak anymore. He just looked at her, as if this absurd dance was the only thing he had to offer. As if with each step he was trying to tell her something she couldn't verbalize. And Elphaba, for a moment, allowed herself not to know what to do.
But while downstairs, in the luxurious dining room, disco lights danced above the heads of two figures caught in a power play disguised as an absurd courtship, in the private suite a few floors above, all was calm.
The soft light of dusk filtered through the curtains, tinting the furniture, the rugs, and the small objects with which Glinda had filled the room with her usual charm and style with old gold. In front of the full-length mirror, Ozma remained silent, her lips slightly parted and her enormous, trembling eyes fixed on her reflection.
The dress Glinda had lent her was simple but exquisite, with a classic design, a princess cut, and a pale pink that made her skin glow as if under a magic light. Her makeup was light but precise, and her hair—for the first time in a long time—fell softly over her shoulders, tamed and styled with unexpected elegance. Her cheeks flushed red, though this time not from embarrassment, but from a happiness that seemed painful.
"Is that me?" she whispered, her voice breaking.
Glinda, sitting behind her, smiled like someone watching a flower finally open after the longest winter.
"That's you all along," she said tenderly. "Only now the mirror deigned to reflect it."
Ozma turned sharply, taking an awkward step… and almost falling. Her heels, of course.
"Ouch!" "She exclaimed, stumbling.
Glinda quickly stood up and held her arms, laughing.
"Okay, okay, point for the heels. They're treacherous at first. Are you okay?"
Ozma nodded, still holding on, unable to stop laughing. They both ended up on the couch, still breathing between soft giggles.
"How do you manage to walk in that as if you were floating?"
"Years of training, darling. Like a spy, but for fashion."
"God," Ozma said with a smile. "I never thought I'd look like this. I'd feel like this."
Glinda looked at her. She was no longer just a young princess trapped in a cage of political tinsel, she was... a teenager discovering the power of seeing herself with love.
"And if you saw yourself like this every day... not because of the dress, not because of the hairstyle," Glinda added, gently stroking her hand, "but because you know who you are. And you like what you see." The rest falls into place.
Ozma remained silent, looking at her hands, playing with the borrowed rings Glinda had placed on her like miniature crowns.
"Can I ask you a question?" Glinda said, and Ozma nodded.
"If you were queen—truly, not by name, inheritance, or protocol—what would you do?"
Ozma didn't answer immediately. She looked toward the window, where the city skyline glittered with electric lights. Then she looked at her hands, at her reflection in the distance, and finally at Glinda.
"I would like..." she began, and her words were gentle, but firm, "...to give the kind of order that no one gives. An order that doesn't impose... but embraces."
Glinda tilted her head.
"What would that be?"
"I would say that everyone... everyone in my kingdom should have the right to look in the mirror without fear. To choose their name. Their body. Their voice. Their story. And to never have to justify it."
Glinda felt something tighten in her chest. It was pride. It was sadness too, for everything that girl had had to keep quiet.
Ozma continued speaking, more confident now:
"And I would also make it illegal for dresses to have no pockets."
Glinda burst out laughing.
"Now that's government by the people!"
"And I would establish a proper Ministry of Hair," Ozma added. "Where they assign you a diplomatic stylist for every emotional crisis."
Glinda clapped her hands.
"Ozma, are you sure you don't want to stay with me forever?"
The young woman smiled, and for a moment, she allowed herself to imagine it. Not a life as a princess in a tower, but a life where someone tenderly brushed her hair while they talked about important and silly things alike. A life where heels were just a game, not a mask.
Glinda looked into her eyes and said, softly,
"You're already a queen, you know?" Ozma looked at her, not knowing what to say. She only looked at Glinda, but not with eyes of fear. Not of sadness. Of relief.
Glinda hugged her. She hugged her like someone who knows what it's like to feel alone in front of a mirror... and also knows what it means to finally find a reflection that returns to you with love.
"Glinda..." Ozma said, her voice still raspy from stifled tears.
"Yes?" Glinda replied, resting her chin on the young woman's freshly combed hair.
"Can I come with you?"
The question fell like a stone to the bottom of a lake. Glinda froze. She could hear her heartbeat pounding in her chest, and suddenly she didn't know if she was breathing. She pulled away just enough to see the expression on Ozma's face. It wasn't a childish whim or an improvised idea. It was a plea.
"Come... with us?"
Ozma nodded, her face still vulnerable but with a gleam of determination in her eyes. "I have nowhere to go. My mom… isn't here anymore. And my dad sent me away like I'm a burden. They shuffle me from one embassy to another like I'm a box no one wants to open. But you… you talk to me. You look at me. You listen to me. And… she," she said, referring to Elphaba, "seems so strong. Like nothing can break her. I want to be with you. To learn from you."
Glinda looked at her silently. For a moment, confusing, rapid images flashed through her mind: Elphaba tearing her hair out at the thought of having a royal heiress in her suitcase, the diplomatic implications, the headlines. The headlines! "Former businesswoman Glinda Upland kidnaps queer princess of Maracoor in international lesbian-feminist rebellion."
"Ozma, honey… this isn't that simple…" she began, desperately searching for words. "I mean, Elphaba and I… we have our own… complications." And this... what you're saying is very big. There are governments, treaties, escorts. And if anyone ever thinks we're hiding you, we could be—
"Please!" Ozma interrupted pleadingly. "I just want to feel like I'm in charge. That I choose who to go with. That I have worth."
Glinda felt her heart break. This wasn't a princess before her anymore, nor a diplomatic figure... she was simply a teenager looking for a place where she wouldn't have to apologize for being herself.
Before she could respond, the sound of the door abruptly opening made her turn.
Ambassador Burden Bvasil stormed in. His brow furrowed, his body tensed with annoyance, and his gaze was directed at the target of his fury: Ozma. But it wasn't just anger. It was something harsher. Disgust. Shame.
"What... the hell is this?"
Ozma shrank slightly, as if she could make herself smaller in that dress Glinda had lent her.
"We were just getting ready," Glinda said firmly, standing between Ozma and Bvasil. "Nothing out of the ordinary for a young woman who wants to look the way she feels."
"That," he snarled, pointing shamelessly at Ozma, "is not what is expected of someone in your... position."
Glinda gritted her teeth, feeling a wave of heat rise up her neck. But Ozma spoke first.
"I am no longer that position," she said, her voice shaky but dignified. I'm not a crowned man or a political pawn. I'm Ozma.
Bvasil snorted disdainfully.
"Game over. We're leaving. You've caused enough scenes for one day."
He took a step forward as if to take her arm, but Glinda was quicker. With an icy smile, she stood before Ozma, firm as a wall of diamonds.
"She's not going anywhere with you if she doesn't want to."
"She's the diplomatic property of the Crown of Maracoor!" Bvasil snapped.
"She's a person." Glinda was no longer smiling. "And if you're trying to reduce her to a role she hates, you're going to have to go through me first."
But Bvasil didn't mind any resistance from Glinda, with her steely countenance and a gesture of overbearing authority that oozed like poison.
"She doesn't decide," he rasped, his words dripping with contempt. It's a diplomatic and family matter. Out of your jurisdiction, miss.
The agents surrounded Ozma like trained shadows. Glinda spun around, searching for a way to protect her. But Ozma only stepped back, her lips trembling, her fists clenched at her sides.
"No!" Glinda exclaimed. "You can't take her! She has rights! She's a minor, and—"
"She's a royal figure!" Bvasil thundered. "And her duty is to her country, not to parlor games or fancy cross-dressing."
The word fell like a bomb.
Ozma froze, her eyes fixed on nothing for a second, as if time itself had frozen. When she breathed again, it was with a slight shudder. She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She just lowered her head... and let the agents take her arms.
"Your father would be ashamed to see you like this," Bvasil added, leaning slightly toward her, his voice venomous. "Just like your mother."
That last sentence was the final blow. Ozma trembled. She closed her eyes. And let herself be carried away.
The suite door closed with a loud bang.
But Glinda didn't stay still.
As if driven by a force greater than sanity, she jumped up and ran, barefoot, her dress still wrinkled from the afternoon they had just shared. She ran down the stairs, ignoring the shouts of the staff, her golden hair fluttering behind her like a torn flag.
The elevator was descending. The counter was ticking down, number by number. And she knew she had seconds. She had to see her one more time.
She arrived at the lobby at the precise moment security officers guided Ozma toward the side door of the building, where a black limousine was waiting, its engine running.
"Ozma!" Glinda cried, her voice breaking as she ran across the polished white marble of the hall.
Ozma turned. Her eyes widened in a flash of surprise and hope. She took a step toward Glinda.
But the guards held her back.
"Ozma!" Glinda cried once more, struggling to make her way, but the escorts had already anticipated her, forming a wall of bodies between her and the young monarch.
Ozma's figure was dragged passively, her heels barely scraping the carpet. She wasn't crying. But her face... that face that just minutes before had gazed at itself in amazement in front of the mirror, now collapsed into a painful silence.
"Ozma, I swear I'm coming for you!" Glinda shouted loudly, with fury, with promise.
Ozma turned her head one last time.
And in that gaze—that fleeting, broken gaze—there was so much: the fear of a broken child, the gratitude of someone finally seen, the impossible love of a connection that came too late… and the minuscule hope that maybe, just maybe, Glinda was telling the truth.
And in that moment, unnoticed, a click sounded.
It wasn't a gunshot. It was a flash.
In the corner of the lobby, between the ornate columns, a young woman wearing a beret, sunglasses, and an expression as sharp as a dagger lowered her camera. Her international press ID hung casually around her neck.
She smiled contentedly.
On her camera, an image still flickered on the screen:
A young princess in an elegant dress being dragged away by diplomatic security agents. In front of her, a blonde woman, on her knees, tears in her eyes, her arm outstretched as if she wanted to break the world to touch her.
But none of that mattered to Glinda, because when Ozma was taken from the hotel, she fell to her knees.
She wasn't crying. Not yet. But something inside her burned like never before.
She didn't know how. Or when. But what she did know was this: she wasn't going to allow that world to do to Ozma what so many others had done to her. And she knew exactly who could help her…
The dining room door burst open, and Glinda stormed in, her heart on fire, her heels clicking furiously on the polished marble. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her hair a bit tousled, and her eyes blazing with urgency. She was looking for Elphaba. Only her. And she wasn't ready for what she found.
Neon lights moved like intoxicated ghosts, a holographic DJ Oz had probably hired for his “spontaneous whims” mixed retro-pop beats with a chill-out track. But the most ridiculous and disturbing thing was what was happening in the middle: on the makeshift dance floor, between secluded armchairs and half-full glasses, Oz and Elphaba... were dancing.
Not like two politicians negotiating a truce.
Not like reconciled enemies.
But as if they were... old friends at an awkward wedding.
Oz, dressed to the nines in his absurd jacket with bright green trim, smiled with that creepy charm he used to manipulate interviews, nodding to no one in particular as he twirled Elphaba around with unexpected grace.
And Elphaba... was laughing.
She was laughing in that restrained, biting way she used when something bothered her so much she didn't know whether to kill it or surrender to the ridiculousness of the universe. She moved stiffly, more out of reflex than pleasure, her feet in a poorly learned swing step as she tried not to step on Oz or vomit on him.
And then... she twirled.
It was just another turn. One of many in his passive-aggressive resistance to the rhythm.
And in the middle of the turn, he saw her.
Glinda.
Standing in the doorway. Motionless. Her mouth half-open. Her soul hanging from the shock. As if she'd entered a nightmare of absurdist comedy and still couldn't figure out the script.
Elphaba froze.
Literally.
Her legs froze mid-stride, her arm suspended in the air still held by Oz, and her expression… that expression that just seconds before had contained a mixture of discomfort and ironic humor, was now completely erased. All that remained was horror.
Glinda stood in the doorway, her eyes so wide they almost seemed like they were going to pop out. Her mouth half-open, as if she wanted to say something, but couldn't decide between "What the hell am I watching?" or "I swear I was gone five minutes!" The outfit she was wearing—a powder pink dress that looked like something out of a spring campaign for some ridiculously expensive French brand—contrasted hilariously with her devastated expression.
Oz, of course, was the only one who didn't read the room properly.
"Ah, Glinda!" he exclaimed cheerfully, letting go of Elphaba's hand as if introducing a friend at a party. "You're just in time for the grand finale. I was just teaching your girlfriend the basics of the political waltz. It's a lost art!"
Glinda didn't move. She blinked once, barely. Elphaba took a step toward her, nervous.
"Glinda, I—"
But Glinda held up her hand, index finger extended, asking her not to say anything. She closed her eyes for a second. She breathed. Then she opened them.
"Are you dancing?" she asked with dangerous calm. "Here? Now? With him?"
Oz raised an eyebrow, amused.
"Ouch. Does that 'he' come with poison? Because I love it."
"Oz, shut up." Elphaba spoke without looking at him, through gritted teeth.
But Glinda was already walking toward her. And the way she did it, step by step, back straight, hands balled into soft fists at her sides, made Elphaba feel like she was twelve again, as if the school principal had just caught her smoking in the bathroom.
"I left you for five minutes. Five. And when I come back, you're..." she looked around at the frenzy of lights, the absurd music still playing, the mirror ball spinning on the ceiling, "in a private club with the same idiot who wanted to privatize public health."
Elphaba tried to interrupt.
"It wasn't like that, I—"
"What part was it, then? The paso doble? Or when you turned around and almost smiled?"
Oz chimed in humorously.
—Oh, girls, I really don't want to interrupt this little soap opera, but—
"Oz, if you don't shut your mouth, I'll shut it with a chair." Glinda didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to.
Elphaba leaned closer, palms out in front of her.
"Glinda... listen to me." He triggered this ridiculousness to avoid telling me what he really wants to say. And I wasn't dancing, I was... trapped. Like in a bear trap, but with Mozart remixed in the background.
Glinda's fury cooled slightly. It still wasn't enough. But then she remembered. Why she'd run. What really mattered.
"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter!" she exclaimed with renewed frenzy. "You have to come with me now! They took her!"
Elphaba frowned.
"Who?"
"Ozma! That monster took her! He came in with his damn escort and took her like she was his property! And nobody did a thing!"
The scene erupted.
An emotional implosion so raw, so human, that it left a deathly silence hanging in the air like ash.
Glinda droned on, her words like lava: fiery, uncontrollable, spilling from her throat with a mixture of panic, anger, and something deeper… something more broken. She paced in circles like a cornered beast, her curls bouncing wildly, her heels clicking on the marble.
"We have to do something! We can't just sit back and watch her be whisked away like merchandise! Elphaba, for God's sake, she's not a footnote in a political treatise, she's a person! A girl! A girl like you, like me!"
"Glinda, stop!" Elphaba's voice boomed. "I'm trying to think."
"Think?!" Glinda bellowed. "Think about what? About how to tell the ambassador to sell her for a higher price!" Where in this hell do you think you can reason with people like them?!
"Not everything is solved by impulse!" Elphaba responded, equally heated. "You can't just kick down an embassy door and demand a revolution because your heart is broken! This is diplomacy, real politics, not a soap opera where the good guys win just because they shout the loudest!"
"Then make it real!" Glinda shouted, her voice cracking. "Use that damn brilliant brain of yours to do whatever it is you have to do! Make up a war if you have to, but get her out of there!"
"What if it meant losing you, Glinda?!" Elphaba broke down for the first time. Rage gave way to fear. "Would you still do it? Because we can't declare war on a foreign nation because an heiress had another fight with her father..."
Glinda froze. Her lips parted. Her face paled.
And then, without thinking... without even really feeling it...
SPLAT!
The slap resounded like a whiplash.
Oz, who had been watching everything from across the room like a spectator at a Greek tragedy, stood up in a mixture of shock and fascination. No one spoke. No one breathed. Even the hotel staff froze several feet away.
Glinda already had her hands over her mouth. Her eyes instantly filled with tears.
"No... no... Elphie... God, I'm sorry..."
Elphaba didn't touch her cheek. She didn't move. She just looked at her with eyes so hurt that the slap seemed to have reached her soul.
Glinda took a step back.
"I don't know why... I don't know..." her words broke. "I can't... stay here. I can't."
And she left.
Without looking at anyone. Without saying another word. She crossed the room without deigning to look at Oz, or the ambassador, or the rest of the witnesses to her emotional ruin. She just left.
Elphaba was left alone in the middle of the room. The place seemed suddenly colder. Oz wanted to move closer, but knew it would be a mistake. Elphaba took a step toward the exit... then stopped.
She felt her heart hammering in her ribs, but it wasn't the kind of noble pain she'd once felt when she saw Glinda cry or when she faced injustice. No, this was an ugly, spiteful, sticky pain. One born of the deepest contempt. She didn't know if it was for Oz, for what he represented, for herself... or for all of them at once.
She heard his footsteps. Oz approaching like someone approaching a wounded beast, believing he can tame it with flowers.
"Elphaba, I didn't mean to—"
"SHUT UP!" The explosion of his voice echoed off the walls, making even the furthest servant stop in his tracks. Elphaba whirled around in a blazing rage, her eyes like jade blades. "I don't want to hear another fucking word from you! Do you understand?! NO MORE!"
Oz frowned, but he still maintained that diplomatic demeanor, that restrained smile, that "I'm the adult in the room" air that infuriated her so much.
"This isn't the time for—"
"You never know when the time is, because all you know how to lie! You're an infection, a plague!" Elphaba took a step forward, her voice a mix between a roar and a wail. "Everything you touch, you contaminate. You tore us apart! Glinda, me, this whole fucking nation! Do you want to know what you really are? An experiment in vanity and destruction with a velvet voice and the hands of a magician!"
Oz tried to speak, but she wouldn't let him.
"At least Frex," he said venomously, "that idiot I thought was my father all my life, at least he had the decency to hate me straight out! He didn't play at loving me, he didn't play at understanding me! He didn't change his mask every week as it suited him! You don't even have the honesty to be a monster, Oz, you're a mirage of one!”
And then there was silence.
Oz didn't reply.
He didn't defend himself. He didn't raise his voice. He just stood still... and looked at her.
But not with fury.
Not even with haughtiness.
He looked at her as if he were seeing someone he loved... and could never touch.
And that was when he said it.
"You know that..." Oz murmured, his voice barely audible. "Right?"
Elphaba frowned.
"What?"
Oz swallowed. And for the first time since she'd known him, he seemed nervous. Honestly.
"About Frex..." he sighed. "That he's not your father."
Elphaba didn't answer. She stared at him, her eyes narrowed. There was something in her chest, an old, bitter knot, that she didn't want to name.
"So what?" she spat contemptuously. "What's it to you?"
Oz took a step forward.
"Because I am."
Time didn't stop. But everything else did.
Elphaba's breathing. The pounding in her temples. Her poise.
And on her face there was no horror or sadness or anger, at least not immediately. There was emptiness. As if her mind refused to process the sound.
"No."
"Yes," Oz said firmly, this time without embellishment.
"No..." she repeated, more quietly. She took a step back. Her body seemed to be searching for an outlet that her mind couldn't find. "You can't... You can't be..."
The silence was brief. Just a respite between the abyss and vertigo.
And then Elphaba burst into laughter.
Not a nervous giggle or a soft, release-type giggle, no. It was an uncontrolled, high-pitched, bitter laugh. She bent forward slightly, clutched her stomach, held onto the back of a chair as if the very idea of standing in the face of such a revelation was too much for her body.
"No!" he laughed. "No, no, no! This isn't happening! This is a fucking comedy! A comic opera written by idiots! Oz, the great liar, the architect of lies... is MY FATHER! HAHAHAHA!"
Elphaba wiped a tear from her cheek. She couldn't tell if it was from laughter or anger.
Oz took a step toward her, cautiously. His voice was muffled, lacking its usual brilliance and manipulation. It was the voice of someone who didn't know if he should speak... but needed to.
"I know it's hard to believe. It's beyond hard. It's crazy. But I'm not lying. Not now. I figured it out after the hearing, when I started investigating who you... really were. When you started interesting me in a... different way."
"DON'T FINISH THAT SENTENCE!" Elphaba roared, turning on him with a finger raised like a dagger. Oz stopped dead in his tracks.
She was breathing heavily, as if all the oxygen in the room had become rarefied. He laughed again, but now it was a dry, hollow sound.
"So how did you realize that? Huh? Was it when you thought you could use me? When you fell a little in love with me, like a twisted version of yourself? Or when you finally got tired of manipulating me and said, 'Hey, maybe she's my daughter!'"
Oz had no answers. Only the story that kept repeating itself in his head.
"It was many years ago. I was nobody then, not a senator, not a visionary, not the big piece of shit I now pretend I'm not. I sold nonsense. Miracle oils, watches that didn't work, illusions. I was a walking fraud. I crossed from state to state before they either kicked me out or swindled me. And one night, in a forgotten town in the hills... I met her."
His voice trembled as he said it.
"Melena."
Elphaba closed her eyes.
"Shut up."
"I wasn't looking for anything," he continued. "She was married, I knew... but she didn't care. And neither did I. It was just one night. A chat on a porch, a shared drink, a full moon that was too bright... and then I was gone. I don't remember if she told me her last name, maybe she did. But it didn't register with me. I didn't care then. I didn't know..."
"Of course you didn't know!" Elphaba interrupted. "Because you never know anything until the damage is done! Because you live escaping from the fire you set yourself!"
Oz nodded, defeated.
"You're right."
"And then," Elphaba continued, pacing erratically through the empty dining room, "years later you see me... at the public hearing, when I confronted you in front of the entire nation. And there you see me... What? Do you feel something on your cheeks? A chill? A throbbing in your forehead? And you say, 'Oh, maybe that witch is mine!'"
"It wasn't quite like that," he said in a tired voice. "But yes, it was after that that I started searching, investigating, pulling at the thread. I saw a photo. An old photo in an old academic archive about you, about your family. It was her. Melena. A little older, but unmistakable."
Elphaba stopped. She turned slowly.
"Why tell me now?"
Oz hesitated. He lowered his gaze for the first time.
"Because I needed you to know who I am. Not the politician. Not the puppeteer. Not the seller of broken dreams. Just... the guy who made the worst mistake of his life and took almost three decades to face it."
Elphaba felt her chest tighten. Not with sadness. Not yet. It was as if someone had pulled the rug out from under everything that defined her.
"So what? You want me to call you Dad now? You want to make up for 30 years of shit with a dramatic revelation and an invitation to your international theater of horrors?"
"No," Oz said quietly. "I just want you to know the truth."
She looked at him. She looked long and hard. As if she could see right through him. As if searching for the lie hidden between his words. But she found none. And that was what infuriated her the most.
"You know what the worst part of all this is?" she said, her voice cracking but dignified. "That for a second... a damn second... I wanted it to be true."
Elphaba spun around, jaw clenched, breath like fire in her throat. Every step toward the exit felt like a pent-up explosion, as if with every inch of distance she put between herself and Oz, a part of her body screamed to be free of it all.
But then he spoke.
"Elphaba, please..."
It was barely a whisper, not a plea, not a command. A failed blend of the two. And he made the worst possible mistake: he reached out to stop her.
It barely grazed her arm.
And that was enough.
Elphaba spun around again, out of pure instinct, out of reflex, out of the pent-up rage of a lifetime.
And she hit him.
Her fist connected with Oz's left cheek with a sharp, final thud. The impact echoed in the silent room like a war bell. Oz stumbled backward, without grace, without dignity, without the usual poise he wore as armor. He fell backward, his body hitting the polished floor with a deep thud. Elphaba took a step back, not out of regret, but in surprise at how easily it had come.
Oz looked up at her from the floor. His eyes wide, in disbelief. Not so much because of the blow, but because deep down... he knew he deserved it.
He brought a hand to his face, his lower lip split, a thin trickle of blood running from the corner.
"...I just wanted..."
"No," Elphaba said, her voice firm, low, sharp as a knife.
She looked at him for an eternal second. And in her eyes, there was no longer fury, no hatred, not even pain. There was something more devastating: indifference. A pure coldness that said, "You don't exist to me."
And without another word, she turned around.
She crossed the hall as if her heels were chains she dragged. Her footsteps echoed to the door, and she opened it without hesitation. She left, leaving Oz alone in the middle of the glittering hall, surrounded by empty lights and broken promises he could no longer control.
The next day, the sun beat down on the stone plaza, dyeing the Maracoor Abiding crest with a golden glow that failed to soften its harshness. The symbol was imposing: two dragons entwined in combat surrounding a broken crown. A crest that had once represented pride, lineage, and strength. Now it was little more than a relic of something teetering on the brink of collapse.
Sitting on the steps leading up to the embassy, Ozma gazed at him silently.
Her hands were clasped on her knees, the linen dress Glinda had lent her wrinkled at her thighs. The breeze played with a few loose strands falling from her ponytail, but she didn't brush them away. She didn't move. Not when tourists passed through the square, not when someone clicked a camera flash, not when the guards scanned the perimeter with anxious eyes. Everyone was busy with their own world. No one even looked at the teenager sitting in the shadow of the emblem.
And perhaps that was the worst part of all. Not that they recognized her as the missing princess. But that no one recognized that she was someone. That she was a shadow among the bodies.
Inside the building, Ambassador Bvasil paced the reception room like a caged beast, the phone pressed to his ear, muttering under his breath in his native language, demanding a solution. "I can't go on with this," he said. "No one else can take care of her. Relocate her. Send her to the Highlands, into exile, wherever. I can't care for someone who doesn't even know who she is."
Ozma knew. She heard fragments every time he shouted louder than usual. She knew there was no place for her in Maracoor, not in the embassy, not in the capital. Her father no longer mentioned her. Her mother was dead. And what remained of her country... was reeling from her existence.
Or so everyone said.
She rested her forehead on her knees. She closed her eyes. She thought of Glinda. Of her soft hands combing her hair. Of her warm voice that spoke as if the world could still be kind. Of how, for a moment, she could imagine herself as something more than a historical mistake.
A voice broke her from her trance.
"Excuse me... do you mind if I ask for a picture?"
Ozma looked up, confused, her eyes still red.
A young woman stood before her. About twenty years old, maybe younger. Dressed in high-waisted blue pants and a white linen blouse. A beret tilted sideways. Her brown braids shone in the sun, and her light blue eyes had an intensity that seemed to see through everything. She held a phone in her hand, unhurriedly, as if she had nowhere else to go.
Ozma blinked.
"A... a photo?" she stammered, unsure if she'd heard her correctly.
The young woman smiled.
"Yes. Sorry if I bothered you. I just... thought the composition was nice. You sitting there with the shield behind you. It's kind of... symbolic, you know? A little melancholic, too. But powerful."
Ozma didn't know what to say. No one spoke to her like that. No one looked at her like that.
The young woman took a step closer and extended her hand.
"I'm Dorothy, by the way. Nice to meet you."
TO BE CONTINUED…
Chapter 32: WONDERFUL PART 2
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The record player spun with the precision of a Swiss watch on the glossy wooden surface, while the soft, melancholic strains of ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All" floated through the air like a delicate perfume. The apartment's dim lights cast warm shadows on the floral-patterned art deco wallpaper, and the entire space seemed bathed in a dreamy golden glow. Red rose petals were scattered across the floor as if someone had carelessly thrown them with dramatic abandon—and, indeed, they had—while two champagne flutes rested on a small, heart-shaped glass table.
Tibbett, wearing a turquoise silk robe with hand-embroidered dragons and a high bun held up by two graphite pencils, was half-reclining on Crope, who was wearing a black robe with feathered cuffs and an expression of absolute emotional ecstasy.
"Seven and a half years," Crope whispered, stroking Tibbett's hand. "And I still feel like I'm in the second act of a musical I never want to end."
Tibbett smiled tenderly and leaned down to kiss him on the forehead.
"That's because there's no script, my love. We improvise like the gods of the theater."
They both laughed softly, curled up on the sofa between pillows shaped like lips and hearts. The atmosphere was so mellow it would have made any hopeless romantic poet weep with joy. It was their night. Theirs alone. Nothing and no one else mattered.
Until the sound they both feared most erupted like a stab in Cupid's heart.
TING TING TING TING TING TING TING!
The alarm wasn't just any alarm. It was the “Gelphie” alarm: a cross between a tsunami alert and the notification from the gossip app Ozmopolitan, with a custom melody composed by Tibbett during her experimental DJ days, which only played when there was news from her best friends, Elphaba and Glinda. And when that alarm went off… everything stopped.
Tibbett jumped up, sending rose petals flying like a dramatic gust of wind. Crope sat up with the swiftness of a professional dancer who'd just seen the theater critic enter the room.
“What is it? A message? A video? A meme? Arrest?” she asked, her tone a mix of horror and hope.
Tibbett clutched her phone as if it were a sacred artifact, her eyes glowing with a mixture of terror and excitement. Crope, her stomach knotting, asked, “Is it real? Is it them? Or is this another ridiculous artificial intelligence setup?” "It's them, Crope," Tibbett whispered in a deep voice. "It's... the photo."
They both stared at the screen, panting as if they were about to watch the trailer for a banned film. The headline in Ozmopolitan read in capital letters:
"WHO IS THE MYSTERIOUS YOUNG WOMAN MOVING GLINDA UPLAND? SCANDAL, DIPLOMACY, AND GLITTER IN THE CAPITAL"
And right below, the image. It wasn't sharp, it looked like it was taken with a long lens from an indiscreet distance, but there they were. Glinda, in her wraparound dress, reaching out toward a young figure, back turned, wearing a simple dress and sun-blond hair. Ozma's face wasn't entirely distinguishable, but the intention of the scene spoke volumes: something was happening, something human, something tender. Something real.
"It can't be..." Crope murmured, putting a hand to his mouth. That's the Sapphire Royal diplomatic suite! They're in the capital! What the hell are they doing in the capital?!
"Look at those eyes, Crope! Look at the intensity! That's the 'Glinda saves someone' face, and I recognize it. She used it on me when she rescued me from that toxic masculinity seminar."
They both stared at each other, processing the information like a pair of flowery supercomputers.
"What do you think this means?" Crope asked, without taking his eyes off the image.
Tibbett wasn't sure how to respond, but if there was one thing he was sure of... That post would spread like a plague... and it did. Reaching the entire city.
Including news about Kiamo Ko, the most provocative and mysterious nightclub in Emerald City, where the night was slowly dying. The red lights were beginning to dim, the prop collars and handcuffs were being picked up from the tables, and a light mist of perfume, sweat, and glitter still hung in the air like the memory of a party that didn't want to end.
Downstairs in the main room, The Wiz—in his patent leather boots, lavender wig, and hurricane-proof makeup—leaned over one of the back tables, where Sir Brrr, the occasional master of ceremonies, was snoring softly with an empty martini glass in his hand.
"Remember to drink water, babe," The Wiz murmured, gently tapping him on the head to wake him, to no avail.
She gathered the last of the napkins, wiped the lipstick stains off the glasses, and delicately propped a forgotten riding crop on the back of a leather chair. Then she turned on her heel and headed toward the Backstage, humming a Nina Simone song. It was a night out like any other.
Upstairs, in the mezzanine office, the atmosphere was different. Fiyero, the club's owner, had his shirt half-unbuttoned, his jacket draped over the back of his chair, his gaze fixed on the digital earnings spreadsheet. Beside him, Boq—his young but meticulous financial assistant—typed quickly with one hand while holding a Frappuccino that was already empty with the other.
"Well, considering the refunds for damage to the swings in the red room... and someone breaking another light fixture in the aftercare area... we still had a good night," Boq commented without looking up. "Mocktail consumption is up, that's interesting."
Fiyero barely nodded. His fingers moved distractedly over his phone, as if searching for something he wasn't sure what. A text, a signal, a noise from across town.
Boq frowned, looked up for the first time, and put the glass aside. It was then that his phone, lying on top of the operating expenses folder, vibrated with an insistent ping. Boq glanced at it. It was an alert from his news app, linked to the entertainment and political networks.
"Oh..."
"What?" Fiyero asked, still staring at his screen.
"I think you need to see this."
Boq turned the phone over and showed it to him. Fiyero took it without a word. On the screen, an image that completely threw him off: Glinda Upland-Thropp, wearing that dress that looked like something out of a Dior fantasy on steroids, reaching out to a dark-haired young woman in a gesture full of emotional urgency.
The headline hit him like a flash:
"WHO IS THE YOUNG WOMAN WHO HAS STOLE GLINDA UPLAND'S EYE? MYSTERY, POWER, AND SEDUCTION IN THE CAPITAL."
Fiyero froze for a moment. Then he slowly slid his finger down the page, reading the body of the article. His lips parted in a mixture of disbelief and concern.
"Is this real?" he whispered more to himself than to Boq.
Boq, who was already Googling "Sapphire Royal Hotel + Glinda + diplomatic scandal," confirmed:
"Everything points to it. Media outlets outside the country are already reporting it... some say it's a foreign delegation in conflict. Others believe Glinda has jumped into international politics. There's even a meme of her as an ambassador of glamour."
Fiyero ran his hand over his face.
"It can't be... What are they doing there? What have they gotten themselves into now?"
"I don't know," Boq replied, lowering his voice. "But if the post is here, it'll be on every news desk in less than an hour. And if Elphaba's also involved... this goes beyond a simple magazine rumor."
As soon as Fiyero finished reading the article, a thought settled in his mind like a silent, precise alarm. He knew that if he'd already seen it, then "she" had too. There was no doubt about it. "She" was still on the hunt for Elphaba, and this was the lead he needed.
"Boq," he said immediately, with the dry tone of instinct in survival mode. "Contact our employee. Now."
Boq didn't ask. He just nodded, his fingers already flying over his cell phone's keypad, while Fiyero grabbed his coat and walked toward the club's exit, his jaw tense and his heart pounding. The game had turned, and if "she" was in the game, there was no turning back.
Across town, beyond the bars, clubs, and flickering lights, stood the ancient and majestic Upland Mansion. A neo-Gothic palace of gray stone, a perfectly manicured garden, and columns as straight as his family values. In the kitchen, warmer and more modest than the rest of the house, Highmuster Upland—Glinda's father—dinned alone beneath the copper pendant light, a bowl of lukewarm soup in front of him and a piece of bread he was no longer hungry for.
The buzzing of his phone on the table distracted him. He unlocked it without thinking, expecting another email chain from the golf club or perhaps a passive-aggressive message from an old associate. But what he saw was nothing of the sort.
An image froze his world.
Glinda. His Glinda. In a room he didn't recognize, dressed like a queen fallen from the sky, reaching out to a young stranger with a face of panic and urgency. The headline of the article flashed across the screen in black letters.
Highmuster stared at the screen. His lips parted. His fork hovered halfway to his mouth. The soup was getting cold. There was no immediate anger on his face, not even embarrassment. There was bewilderment. Pure and utter bewilderment. The feeling that the world was spinning without him and he couldn't get back on.
"What are you doing, my little girl?" he murmured softly, as if talking to his reflection in his phone. "What are you doing now?"
But he got no reply. Only the cold glow of the screen and the thousands of comments he didn't dare read.
And meanwhile, on the top floor of the mansion, high above the kitchen and Highmuster's bewildered gaze, Larena Upland sat in the reading room, that secret corner where no one entered anymore. The room was almost dark, lit only by the blue glow of her phone and the slow flicker of the fireplace that no one had lit.
Her legs were crossed, her midnight-blue velvet dress falling in perfect folds over her favorite armchair. In one hand, her cell phone. In the other, a glass of wine she hadn't touched in several minutes. Her expression was immutable. Almost regal. Her pale, perfectly lined eyes didn't blink as they took in the same image that had shaken half the nation.
Glinda. Her daughter. Her little star. With perfectly defined curls... reaching out to someone. A young woman. An unknown figure. A story still untold, but one that she, Larena, was already beginning to read between the lines.
The fingers of her free hand tapped the arm of the chair gently. One... two... three... Then, a sip of wine.
She knew this moment would come. She'd always known. She'd learned to read the world's movements before they happened. That little girl she'd tried so hard to shape—to control—was now a woman with will, with secrets, with ambition... and with alliances beyond her approval.
And just as it had happened in that old mansion, the news spread all over the world... even to the most inhospitable corners...
Like a road stretching like an endless ribbon under the dim light of the streetlights. Outside, the landscape was a blurred shadow, but inside a limousine crossing the road, everything seemed straight out of a decadent postcard of forgotten luxury: expensive leather, soft lighting, an overfull minibar, and the echo of a poorly curated sensual playlist.
In the center of that scene, he was. A young man, suited, artificially tanned, with a smile too white to be sincere. Heir to some family name that had lost its moral weight decades ago. His shirt was half-open, and he was swirling a glass of champagne in his hand as if each bubble were a confirmation of its importance.
"You look exquisite in that light, did you know that?" he said in a cloying voice, leaning a little closer.
She didn't even look at him.
Dorothy Gale sat at the other end of the seat, her legs crossed, her cell phone in her hands. She was wearing dark skinny jeans and a sleeveless white shirt that hinted at more than it revealed. Her lips were slightly damp, and her perfume seemed to drift with a rhythm of its own. Her leather jacket was thrown across her lap, a casual reminder that she wasn't staying.
It wasn't that the guy wasn't attractive. He was. In the way sharks can sometimes look elegant from a distance.
But Dorothy didn't hunt superficialities. She hunted truths.
And just as the idiot next to her tried to slide a hand down her shoulder, her phone vibrated. The notification displayed the Ozmopolitan Daily headline, now replicated by PoliticWatch, The Goss Herald, and Púpura Magazine. The words were clear, large, sensational:
“Glinda Upland Back? And Who Is the Mysterious Young Woman at Her Side? Princess or Prince?”
Dorothy didn't react immediately. She just slowly slid her finger to read the rest. Her cold eyes lit up slightly with each new detail. She recognized the image. Glinda. “That” Glinda. More radiant and authentic than she imagined. And at her side... yes. There was no name in the article yet, but Dorothy knew instantly a valuable piece when she saw one.
The missing piece. The variable no one had been able to predict.
“Well?” the man insisted, bringing his glass closer as if toasting silence were romantic.
Dorothy turned her head, looking at him for the first time since they got in the car. His blue eyes were as sharp as before, but now they had an extra sparkle. Not because of him, of course. But because of what was coming.
"Were you saying something?" she asked with a small, almost innocent smile.
"I said we should go to my beach house. 360-degree view, personal sauna, better champagne than this... and if you behave, maybe I'll show you my grand piano," he replied, laughing at his own stupidity.
Dorothy didn't respond immediately. She turned off her cell phone screen with a flick of her thumb and leaned closer, just enough for her scent to cloud his judgment.
"I'd love to," she whispered. "But I just remembered... I have another stop in mind. Will you take me to Sapphire City?"
He let out an incredulous laugh, pulling back as if she'd made a joke.
"Are you crazy? That's hours away. Besides, I don't even know your name." I picked you up because you were at that bar acting... interested, and I thought we were going to have a good time, right? I'm not your driver.
Dorothy looked at him, this time with calculated calm.
"You're right. You're not my driver."
She reached into her purse, pulled out her cell phone, unlocked the screen, and showed him a photo. The young man's face changed immediately. It was him, clearly drunk, face pressed against another man's butt, in a place he probably swore he'd never been. Dorothy swiped another image. An open message from her bank account. The transaction she'd made to buy a $1,200 bottle of champagne at an exclusive club. In her father's name.
"You dozed off for a few seconds," Dorothy said softly, like someone telling a nursery rhyme. "You lent me your phone to play music... or don't you remember that?"
He blinked. She swallowed.
"What... what do you want?"
Dorothy put the phone back in her purse and settled back against the seat.
"Just a walk. To Sapphire City. That would be very gentlemanly of you. And afterward, I won't bother you again, I promise."
The young man looked at her for a long moment. He felt like he was tied up, naked, facing a huntress with a child's smile. And he couldn't move a muscle.
"Give the order to the driver," Dorothy added. "Before I lose my patience."
He said no more. He pressed a button and spoke into the intercom in a deadpan tone:
"Change of plans. We're going to Sapphire City."
Dorothy smiled for the first time since getting into the limo. But it wasn't a warm smile. It was the smile of someone already five moves ahead.
She settled back, crossing her legs elegantly, and took out her phone again. She reopened the image of Glinda with the young woman at her side. She looked at it for a few seconds, as if trying to burn it into her mind.
And that's how a queen moves, she thought, without needing to say it out loud.
The game was on. She had the pieces, she knew the moves. All that remained was to decide what she would do with the key she had just found.
But before the game could begin... The news that had paralyzed the world reached one last recipient... the one from which, ironically, it had originally emerged.
The cell phone rested on the nightstand, gently vibrating over and over, the screen's light flashing insistently. Notifications piled up, headlines updated, theories multiplied. But no one answered.
The pink case had a small scratch on the corner. The image on the screen was a stolen photograph taken at a perfect moment: a woman with shining golden hair, kissing the cheek of another woman with green skin who was smiling with her eyes closed, as if the entire world had disappeared. A picture from before. Before the storm.
In the dark silence of the room, the sound was barely perceptible. Only the faint clatter of keys.
Glinda sat at the table by the window. The laptop illuminated her tired face with a blue light that seemed to add years to her age. Her hair was a mess, her mascara was smudged, and her clothes—that elegant outfit she'd chosen so carefully that morning—looked wrinkled, as if she'd spent weeks in that chair. Her eyes, red and bloodshot, frantically scanned articles, treatises, legal forums, texts in languages she barely understood, and fragments of political history about Maracoor Abiding. Anything. Anything that might help. Anything that would help Ozma.
Her fingers trembled. Each click felt like another drop on a weathered stone. She was on the brink. But she couldn't stop. Not yet.
And then… the door opened.
Glinda turned immediately.
Standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the gloom of the hallway, stood Elphaba.
She looked the same or worse. Her shoulders slumped, her face pale, her loose hair falling like a wet shadow across her forehead. There was no anger in her eyes this time. Only a mute emptiness, an echo of something that had been shattered beyond repair. It seemed like the whole world had hit her and dragged her into that room.
For a few seconds, they said nothing.
They just looked at each other.
And in that instant, everything else ceased to matter.
Elphaba took a step. Then another. And before Glinda could fully react, her body buckled, and she fell to her knees. Not with theatricality, but with the physical and emotional exhaustion of someone who has carried too much for too long.
"Elphie!" Glinda whispered, running to her, catching her before she fully hit the ground.
Elphaba offered no resistance. She didn't lift her head. She just... broke.
Tears began to fall soundlessly at first, silent, until a stifled sob escaped her throat. Glinda wrapped her arms around her, holding her close, resting her cheek on her tangled hair.
And then she cried too.
Because she couldn't take it anymore. Because they had endured more than two people should. Because a frightened young woman depended on them. Because the secrets, the political wars, the enemies, the parents, the mistakes… had accumulated like layers of soil on top of a root that only wanted to grow.
There, in the darkness of the Sapphire Resort suite, with the world screaming outside for answers, theories, scandals, and who to blame… two women embraced.
They didn't speak.
They didn't make promises.
They didn't offer solutions.
They just held on.
As if that embrace were the only truly solid thing in the midst of a trembling world. And maybe… it was.
CHAPTER 32: Wonderful part 2
What began as just another curiosity in the celebrity section of Ozmopolitan Daily became, in a matter of hours, the most talked-about story in the world of media gossip.
At first, the reactions focused, as always, on her.
Glinda Upland.
Former heiress to one of the most powerful families in the Emerald City. Icon of beauty, fashion, and controversy. The darling of the tabloid press went from red carpet star to the face of the infamous urban renewal project led by former Senator Oz. Later, to the surprise of absolutely everyone, she became the main spokesperson against the renewal project, publicly declaring her opposition and dismantling it in front of the city council. And then, almost overnight, she disappeared. No fashion show, no public event, not even a birthday post. Just silence.
Until now.
Gossip programs revived with breakneck speed: talk shows, podcasts, streams, fashion analysis blogs... everyone wanted to know: Where was Glinda Upland these past few months? What was she doing in Sapphire City dressed as if she were going to a secret summit? Who was the young woman accompanying her?
The first theories were superficial: a new protégé? A secret daughter? A new style pupil?
But the real fires started when someone connected the dots. Not much was needed, after all. The young woman in question was accompanied by the ambassador of Maracoor Abiding, a nation embroiled in a political crisis for over a year. Her features—though softer, more defined, fuller—reminiscent of someone.
The former crown prince, Tippetarius, had disappeared from the public eye without a single statement. There were vague rumors of illness, others of voluntary exile, others... more somber.
But now, the media said it without saying it: The young woman appearing with Glinda was none other than Tippetarius... reborn as Ozma.
And the social media exploded.
Hashtags began to rise like midnight rockets:
#ThePrinceLives
#PrincessOfMaracoor
#GlindaProtects
#TheNewOrder
#ImminentAbdication
#TippetariusIsOzma
#RightfulQueen
Theories multiplied: some claimed it was a media strategy by the nation to humanize its image. Others, that Glinda and Ozma were having a secret relationship. A few more delirious ones claimed it was all a plan by Glinda to make a grand comeback in politics.
International fashion magazines were already designing apocryphal covers: “Glinda & Ozma: Revolution and Velvet,” “The Queer Princess and Her Fairy Godmother,” “From Exile to the Mirror.”
Other, more sensationalist ones featured five “experts in fashion and international politics” as panelists debating whether the young woman's heels were appropriate for a diplomatic audience. International television was quick to join in, and soon every screen, magazine, or feed didn't show the image that started it all.
And, as always, the noise drowned out the voice.
Some applauded the supposed “leap to freedom for a transgender princess.” Others accused Glinda of manipulating an international crisis for her own benefit. Some speculated whether the young woman was in danger, whether the ambassador had kidnapped her, or whether it was all a play.
And of course… there were the others.
The intolerant ones. Those who saw Ozma's identity as a threat. Those who shouted in all-caps on social media demanding “an end to the degeneration of monarchies.” Those who turned every image of Ozma into a cruel meme or a veiled insult. Those were there too. They always are.
But Ozma wasn't on any social media. She didn't share the image. She didn't write a manifesto. She didn't ask to be a trending topic. She just wanted to be with the people who truly understood her…
The background noise of a gossip show blared from the laptop on the dining room table, with high-pitched voices repeating viral headlines and alarmist speculation. But that sound was quickly drowned out by the mechanical click of the coffee maker announcing that the coffee was ready. An everyday noise. A sound that would once have filled the room with promises of normalcy. Now, it was barely white noise.
Glinda poured the coffee into a pink, gold-rimmed mug, an old gift from Crope that read “It’s glam or nothing.” The irony wasn't lost on her. With the steaming cup in her hands, she crossed the suite with slow steps. The place was a wreck of emotional warfare: clothes everywhere, dried makeup in a corner of the sink, open documents on the floor, uncleaned dishes, a slipper that couldn't find its match. It looked like the hurricane had passed outside... but in reality, everything was broken inside.
The bedroom door was ajar.
Glinda took a deep breath before pushing it all the way open.
Inside, the world was even quieter. Morning light filtered through the loosely closed curtains, tracing lines of dusty sunlight across the carpet and bed. Elphaba was still there. Curled up in the sheets like a wounded animal, as if every inch of fabric were armor against the universe. Her disheveled black hair barely peeked out from between the folds. There was no sound, no movement. Only a barely perceptible, pent-up breath.
Glinda approached carefully, as if a misspoken word could break something fragile. He left the steaming cup on the nightstand.
"Elphie..." he said softly, in that tone he only used for her, a tremulous, affectionate whisper. "You have to get up. You can't go on like this. You haven't eaten, you haven't said anything for almost two days. It's over..."
But there was no response.
"I know you're awake. I know you're listening to me." Glinda tried to force a smile. "I brought you coffee, you see? With that strange mixture that only you drink... black as your thoughts."
Not a tremor in the sheets. Not a gesture.
"Elphie, please..." Her voice trembled beyond her control. She could no longer maintain that air of control, that disguise of strength.
She sat on the edge of the bed, without touching her. As if there were an invisible line she didn't dare cross.
"If it's because of the slap..." she tried to joke, but her voice broke halfway. I've already apologized like five times. I won't say it again because I'll look like a toxic girlfriend in a Netflix series.
Silence.
"Did he do something to you? Oz? Did he say something? Please tell me. I can't... I can't stay in the dark."
Elphaba didn't move. But her breathing became labored for a second. Almost imperceptible. Glinda noticed.
"What happened down there?" she whispered, her eyes brimming with tears that wouldn't fall. "I swear, if that jerk did or said anything... I'll destroy it. I don't care about the country, the ambassadors, the diplomacy, or anything. I'll burn it all down."
She leaned in a little closer. Her voice was barely a breath.
"But I need you to tell me. I need you to talk to me, because... because I'm alone here, Elphie. Because I'm not that strong without you. Not with this. Not with Ozma." Not with the world staring at us again as if we were monsters or heroines or viral news. Not without you.
Elphaba didn't respond. Not with words. But her fingers, tangled in the sheet, trembled.
Glinda saw it.
And in that small tremor, she found a spark.
"I don't care if you're broken," she said, now with a lump in her throat. "I am too. But you can't give up. Not you. Because Ozma needs you. Because I... I need you."
Silence.
"I love you, you know."
That did break something. But the silence prevailed.
The mattress gave way only slightly as Glinda gently lay down next to Elphaba, her body tangled in sheets that until a few minutes ago had seemed like an unbreakable wall. She didn't try to force her to look at her, didn't try to uncover her face, just snuggled up to her side, as if mere proximity could mend what was broken.
The room was still dim, the blinds barely letting in strands of faint sunlight. Outside, the world was collapsing. Inside, the world was still.
Glinda sighed. Her breath caressed the wrinkled fabric.
"You know what?" she said, without waiting for a reply. "I wish you could have met her. Ozma."
Her voice was different. It wasn't a plea, or a complaint. It was the voice of someone who has cried so much that there's no way to defend themselves from the pain, so they turn it into company.
"I think you would have liked her. She has that strange way of looking... as if she were looking for another version of the world in every reflection. Like you."
A pause.
"Maybe that's why I liked her so much," she whispered. "Because she reminded me of you. The voice you don't let anyone see. That part of me that hides even from myself when you're afraid... or when you're tired."
Elphaba didn't respond. But Glinda felt the warmth of his body. And that was something.
"She was hungry too. For answers, for freedom, for love..." Her voice cracked, just barely, in a sweet, sad curve. "And she was so gentle. Not like people think you're supposed to be, no... she was gentle like you. Like when you grab my hand under the table because you know I'm about to cry. Or like when you pretend you don't care if I forget to take out the trash... but you take it out anyway."
Emotion was beginning to surface, and Glinda didn't try to stop it. Not now.
"I... I don't know what to do. I don't know how to fix all of this. I feel like I messed up. That I wasn't where I needed to be. That I got distracted. That I wanted to save her and forgot that I needed you to save me too."
The tremor in her voice grew. Like glass about to break.
"I need you, Elphie... more than I can say without sounding pathetic. More than I care to admit even out loud. I need you to know if I'm doing things right. To know if I still... if I can still be enough for someone. If I am enough for you."
Elphaba didn't move. She said nothing. The silence grew heavier than ever. Until, suddenly, something changed.
A hand.
Green, slender, with hard but trembling knuckles... it emerged from between the sheets and groped.
And found Glinda's hand.
It took it.
Tightly.
As if it were a rope thrown from an abyss.
Glinda caught her breath. And then she smiled. She closed her eyes and squeezed her hand back. She said nothing more. There was no need.
That hand, that gesture, that tiny sliver of light in a long night...
It was all she needed.
Minutes of silence passed until Elphaba moved slowly, as if her body weighed tons, and emerged from her cocoon of sheets. Her hair was disheveled and fell to her shoulders, and her eyes—those eyes that could cut like razors when they were angry—were dull, defenseless, as if they had dried up from so much silent weeping. Glinda stepped aside, giving her space, but she didn't move away. Elphaba sat on the edge of the bed, opposite her, and for a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
They just stared at each other.
As if searching each other's faces for some reminder of who they had been when all this began.
Finally, Elphaba broke the silence. Her voice was barely a whisper.
"What do you see when you look at me?"
Glinda looked at her for a second, as if the question had come from a depth she hadn't expected. She opened her mouth impulsively, but stopped. She closed her lips, thinking... she couldn't answer lightly.
So she looked at Elphaba as if for the first time. As if she were discovering her there, sitting on the bed, vulnerable and unarmed.
"I see... the bravest woman I've ever known," she said finally. "I see someone who fights even when no one thanks her. I see intelligence, passion, courage. I see someone who never pretends to be anything else, not even when it would be easier. Someone who walks straight even when the world screams at her to stray."
She moved a little closer.
“I see beauty, the kind that can't be manufactured. I see someone who... makes me want to be better. Not because she asks me to, but because she's simply there, existing, and that is an act of revolution in itself. I see the only person I've ever truly loved.”
Elphaba listened to her in silence. Barely blinking. She didn't smile. She didn't cry. But something on her shoulders loosened. As if a weight had been lifted that she didn't even know she was carrying.
And then she asked, almost ashamed, almost as if she didn't deserve the answer:
“Do you see... evil in me?”
The word fell like a stone in a pond. Glinda felt it in her chest.
“Evil?” she repeated, her voice cracking with disbelief. “How can you think that?”
“I don't know,” Elphaba whispered. “Maybe because sometimes I feel it. Like something inside me... wants to break out and destroy everything.” As if... maybe... I'm more like him than I care to admit.
Glinda frowned, confused.
"Who?"
Elphaba swallowed, closing her eyes for a moment as if seeking strength in the darkness.
"I already know who my father is."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Glinda said nothing. Not out of indifference, but because she felt the breath stop in her lungs.
Elphaba looked at her, and there was neither drama nor surprise in her gaze. Only a weary acceptance, as if she had been walking toward this revelation for years.
"Oz," she said, and the name was like a sharp shot in the room.
Glinda froze. Not out of disbelief, but because... somewhere deep in the back of her mind, a part of her had suspected it. For a long time. But it was different to hear it. To hear it like that. So raw. So inevitable.
"Are you sure?" she managed to ask.
Elphaba nodded, barely.
"He said it. But... I didn't need him to. I always knew. In his gestures. In his words. In the way he looks at me. As if... as if a part of him belonged to me. And I hated him for it."
Elphaba looked down.
"And I hate him too. I hate him for everything he did. For everything he stands for. But most of all... I hate him for not being able to hate him completely. Because there's a part of me that understands where he's coming from. That sees... parts of me reflected in him. And that scares me."
Glinda leaned forward, took Elphaba's hands in hers.
"You're not him."
"How do you know?"
"Because I know you. And because if you were like him, you wouldn't be sitting here, wondering if there was any evil in you. You'd be down there, smiling like the world owed you something."
Elphaba looked at her. For the first time in days, really looked at her. "What if I can't escape it?"
Glinda leaned closer. She leaned her forehead against Elphaba's.
"Then don't do it alone."
And in that gesture, in that proximity, there was no decorative romanticism. No cheap hope. Only a deep, still truth: love doesn't save, but it accompanies. And sometimes... that's what makes it worthwhile to continue.
Elphaba and Glinda remained in that fragile proximity, holding hands, their foreheads resting against each other like two tired columns supporting each other. The world around them was reduced to the faint sound of distant traffic and the low murmur of the record player spinning in the background. But between them, that silence was full of weight and meaning. The words hung in the air, needless to say... until Elphaba broke the spell.
"Let's go," she murmured, her voice hoarse, her body still trembling from the emotional weight. "I don't want to stay another minute in this damned hotel. Let's take our things... let's continue our journey."
The sentence fell like a torrent of icy water on Glinda. She stepped back slightly, her eyes widening in shock and confusion.
"What?"
"Let's go," Elphaba repeated, more firmly this time. She looked toward the window, as if she could see through the glass the routes that led away from that place, away from that history. Her voice had an artificial calm, one that only someone on the verge of breaking could sustain. "Let's pack up and move on. Wherever. Wherever we want. Where no one asks more of us than we have to give."
Glinda sat up straighter, shaking her head.
"We can't," she said. With a grave sweetness, as if speaking to someone who had lost something and didn't yet know it. "Not now. Ozma needs us."
"Why not?" Elphaba turned to her, her gaze burning through unshed tears. "What else can we do here, Glinda? What do you expect us to do? Save a country? Challenge a centuries-old system? Raise a broken princess while vultures fight over her? I tried to help a young woman once! And it didn't work!"
Glinda understood. She felt the invisible blow, the barely veiled mention of a past hidden even from her. Of that buried chapter in Elphaba's past, filled with open scars.
"Elphaba..."
"I don't want the same thing that happened to me to happen to you. I don't want you to see someone break. I don't want... the cruelty of the world to drag you down like it dragged down the young woman I tried to help. Those things... they hurt, Glinda. They really do."
Glinda lowered her gaze. Her throat closed. She knew Elphaba spoke from an ancient fear, not selfishness. It was the fear of someone who loved and lost. And that... that was love too.
"And do you know what would hurt me?" she answered, her voice trembling, still not looking up. "To stand idly by. To watch someone cry for help and do nothing."
She raised her gaze. Her voice turned soft, without anger. Only truth.
"For months... we've been running away." Whether we want to admit it or not. Running away from everything. From our parents. From the press. From our mistakes. From the past. Even from ourselves.
Elphaba looked at her, silent. Glinda continued.
"And I don't regret this trip. Because I wanted to make it with you. Because we needed it. We earned it. But it's also true that we can't keep running away. Not anymore. It's time to face things... as they come. Without running away. Without disguises."
She paused, then slowly cupped Elphaba's face in her hands. Her thumbs brushed over her green cheeks as if they could erase the marks of all those sleepless nights.
"And I need us to do it together."
Elphaba swallowed. She didn't respond immediately. The internal struggle was visible. Every fiber in her body seemed to want to turn toward the door and keep walking, as she always had. But there was Glinda. Not begging. Not manipulating her. Just... offering herself.
Alone, perhaps they could survive. But together...
Perhaps they could change something.
And in that gesture, in that simple phrase spoken with trembling and tenderness, Elphaba understood that Glinda wasn't asking her to save the world.
Only that she not stop fighting by her side.
In another hotel suite, emotional balance was held together by pins... and not even good ones. Empty bottles rolled across the marble floor, overturned glasses, a crooked lamp, the sofa still bearing shoe marks. Everything smelled of expensive perfume, perspiration, anxiety, and something deeper: the desperation of a crumbling bet.
Amid the chaos, Oz paced back and forth like a puppeteer with his strings cut, his cell phone glued to his ear, feigning a composure that no one—not even himself—could believe anymore. His blue silk robe was open, revealing a wrinkled, barely buttoned shirt and a twisted chain around his neck. His hair, which normally looked like it had been styled by the marketing gods, was now a sweaty tangle. But his voice... his voice still sounded silky. Apparently.
"Listen to me, Burden," he said in that cajoling voice so typical of him, though this time without his usual absolute control. "Things went a little off script, I'll admit. But this doesn't have to ruin the partnership. We can contain it. I've already spoken to some media outlets. We can redirect the narrative..."
On the other end of the phone, Ambassador Burden Bvasil's voice boomed, icy and forceful. He was furious. Indignant. And above all, humiliated.
"Redirect? After the whole world saw that brat pleading for freedom like a dissident doll next to that blonde clown? After the media linked her to the alleged identity scandal of my country's heir apparent? After YOUR people allowed it!"
Oz rubbed his temples, spinning around, as if he could make the other's anger evaporate with a good pose or a smile invisible through the phone.
"Look, I get it. It was a miscalculation. But the target still stands," he said, dodging an empty vodka bottle with his foot. "The media will turn the spotlight at any moment, I can control it. The narrative can be shaped: a symbol of renewal, a new face for Maracoor, a story of redemption and diversity..."
But the voice on the other end of the phone remained relentless.
"I don't want a narrative, I want control." Bvasil's voice held a knife-edge, each word colder than the last. "The girl became an irreversible political problem. And now everyone is watching. If you want to move forward with our partnership, you're going to have to prove you can manage your variables."
"We can think of another angle," Oz tried, but knew he had no leeway.
"Then start with the two women." The ambassador said it like someone commenting on the weather. "That Upland woman and... Elphaba Thropp. Get them out of the way. Diplomatically or not. I'll leave that to you."
Oz stopped dead in his tracks.
An awkward silence fell between them. The dim light in the room cast deep shadows across his face. The name Elphaba hung in the air like an unexploded bomb. The whiskey from the night before churned in his stomach with the echo of that order. For a second, just one, he stopped being the charming man, the political showman, the strategist who always had a smile and a plan.
"Oz?" Bvasil asked tersely, waiting for confirmation.
Oz swallowed. His hand trembled slightly. He looked at his reflection in the minibar mirror. That tired, broken, desperate look. Elphaba had always known how to see through him. What did she see now? A pathetic manipulator? A father...? No. Not even he knew what the hell he was to her. But what he did know was this: when he thought about her, about what she said, about how she looked at him—not with hatred, but with disappointment—it hurt.
"I'll... I'll take care of it," he managed, his voice lower, as if a part of him was trying not to hear itself.
"I hope so." And with a tone of threat disguised as courtesy, Bvasil ended the call.
Oz dropped the phone on a pile of crumpled papers. The silence in the suite became unbearable. He walked to the window and looked out at the city beyond the glass: cold, bright, indifferent.
He took a cigarette from the inside pocket of his robe, even though he didn't usually smoke. He lit it. He watched the smoke rise. And he whispered to himself, with a mixture of fury and sadness that even he didn't fully understand:
"What the hell am I going to do with you, Elphaba...?"
And a similar question echoed off the walls of another building, just as elegant, but with a bit more security.
Burden Bvasil's office was designed to intimidate: dark oak walls, thick curtains that barely let in the midday light, an imposing desk with three telephones, an antique coffee maker, and an ashtray full of poorly extinguished cigarette butts. But neither all that diplomatic decor nor the stale air of power could hide what permeated the air: tension.
Bvasil angrily threw the phone down on the receiver, cursing in his native language before resorting to more universal expletives. He abruptly stood up, causing his chair to squeak, and began pacing, his belly wobbling slightly beneath his tight waistcoat as he muttered bitterly:
"What kind of damn karma am I paying to be the latest ambassador of a rotting monarchy? What did I do to be the nanny of a freak with delusions of gender and a crown? Why do I have to negotiate with neoliberal buffoons, with green witches and hysterical blondes? I should be in Vienna, or Paris, not in this brothel of improvised diplomacy!"
On the other side of the door, hurried footsteps sounded, and without even knocking, Tycheron, his young and nervous secretary, burst into the office, papers shaking in his hands.
"Mr. Ambassador... there's news," he announced, his breathing labored and his face contorted.
Bvasil glared at him.
"What now, Tycheron? The palace burned down? The UN disinvited us from the annual dinner? Have they stripped me of my title and replaced me with a diplomatic goat?"
"Worse, sir," the young man gulped. "It's Your Highness. You're demanding immediate answers. You want to know why your son was captured by the international press. The state media has already raised the issue. The whole country is talking about it. There are demonstrations in two cities, and the traditionalist parties are calling for the intervention of the National Guard. And... and..." he hesitated, "the Royal Vision network is requesting an official statement."
Bvasil closed his eyes as if the entire world were an ulcer in his intestine. But when he sat down, it was with the posture of someone preparing to fistfight a storm.
"Perfect. Perfect. They want a statement. What am I supposed to say?" That the heir to the throne was seduced by an influencer with political delusions and turned into a symbol of national self-destruction? That the last spark of monarchical authority is now the cover of queer magazines with sequined backgrounds? That her father hid her out of shame and now she's slipped away like a stuffed dove?
"That's not all," Tycheron said, lowering his voice and leaning closer as if about to confess to a crime.
"What?"
The secretary swallowed hard.
"The heiress. Ozma. She's gone. She disappeared from her suite twenty minutes ago."
Silence. Absolute.
Bvasil looked at him as if he'd just announced World War III.
"What do you mean, gone?"
"The security team didn't find her. A camera caught her leaving through the service level. She was wearing... different clothes. She looked like she was in disguise."
Bvasil closed his eyes. He breathed deeply. He opened a drawer in his desk, took out a metal hip flask that smelled of old whiskey, uncorked it, and brought it to his mouth with both trembling hands.
"By all the gods of diplomacy," he muttered, "This brat is going to cost me my career. Or my head. Or both."
But while the ambassador hurled insults in every language he knew, the morning light fell slantwise on the flags of the eastern plaza, casting long shadows between the columns of the Maracoor Abiding embassy. The gray marble still seemed cold underfoot, and a light wind stirred the diplomatic flags on the facade, which fluttered without suspecting that, just below them, the heiress of an entire nation was slipping away at a rapid pace.
Ozma, wrapped in a beige coat somewhat large for her size and with a cap that covered most of her face, slipped along the bushes and columns, breathing rapidly. She knew that if the escorts discovered her, it would all be over before it began. Her steps were clumsy, almost hesitant, like those of someone who still doesn't believe she's doing what she's doing.
And then—
"Boh!"
Ozma gasped and almost tripped over herself as a figure jumped out from behind one of the benches in the plaza. Dorothy Gale doubled over with laughter, clutching her stomach as if her little joke had been the funniest moment of the month.
"Are you crazy?!" Ozma blurted in a desperate whisper, pulling her coat tighter and looking around frantically.
"Probably," Dorothy said, composing herself with a smile that radiated pure impudence. "But I admitted it was funny. At least a little."
Ozma didn't reply, though her flushed cheeks and furrowed brow suggested that, in another life, she might have found it amusing. Not in this one. In this case, she was escaping from her embassy, her country, her name. And she was doing it with a stranger.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," she murmured, more to herself than to her companion. "How did you convince me?"
Dorothy smiled, but more gently this time. She shrugged.
"I didn't convince you of anything you didn't want to do. I was just... there when you decided."
"And you were right there. With a map. And a camera. And a speech about lost tourists," Ozma said with a mixture of distrust and resignation.
Dorothy let out a charming laugh as the two of them began walking down a less-traveled side street.
"Hey! I was just appreciating the cultural heritage, okay? It's your fault for being such a good photographer. Who would have guessed that shy girl in front of the royal family crest was, well... the royal family?"
Ozma lowered her gaze, somewhat troubled.
"I'm not 'the royal family.' Not anymore. I don't even know if I ever was."
"Ozma," Dorothy said, her voice lowering, becoming more intimate. "You know who you are. They're the ones who are confused."
Silence.
Ozma swallowed. Dorothy's expression was convincing, sincere. It would have been enough for anyone to trust her. But something inside her knew this girl wasn't as transparent as she seemed. And yet... she was following her. Why?
Perhaps because, for the first time in weeks, someone had looked at her without pity. No expectations. No judgment. Just like... just another girl. A girl with a camera in her hands and curiosity in her smile.
"Do you want to know a secret?" Dorothy said, leaning closer, as if sharing a complicit plot. "I haven't stopped thinking about you since yesterday. Not the princess, or the heiress, or the media scandal... about you. You have something that intrigues me. And that doesn't happen very often."
Ozma turned her face, confused.
"Why are you helping me?"
Dorothy looked at her sideways, as if sincerely considering the answer.
"Because I think you deserve a chance to decide who you want to be. Not all of us get that. And, well... I'm good at helping people get off the grid."
Ozma still didn't know what to think. But she kept walking beside her. Maybe because she needed to escape. Maybe because she had no one else. Or maybe because, despite everything, a part of her wanted to believe that this strange and charming girl pretending to be a lost tourist... was really her friend.
What she didn't know... was that Dorothy's eyes shone with something more than camaraderie.
A strategy.
The city sidewalks stretched out like an uncertain board beneath their feet. Ozma walked with clumsy steps, her arms crossed under her coat, as if trying to hide from the world. Every car that passed made her shrink a little more, and every face they passed was a potential accusing glance. It was as if, by escaping, she had given up her shield, but not her fear.
Beside her, Dorothy walked with the ease of someone who belongs to the world. Hands in her pockets, lips slightly curved in an insolent smile, she talked nonstop, as if the situation were nothing more than a walk with friends after an afternoon of shopping.
"Relax," Dorothy said, tossing her hair as if they were just two girls leaving the movie theater. "I swear you'd look less guilty if you didn't look like you just stole the imperial crown."
Ozma looked at her nervously, though a faint laugh escaped her lips.
"I've never done anything like this. Run away. Especially since I became..."
"Since you became one," Dorothy finished without looking up. Her voice was light, but her eyes remained alert to her surroundings, mapping streets, escape routes, cameras. "I know."
"Yes..." Ozma murmured. The name still felt like a newly bloomed flower in her mouth, fragile and precious.
Dorothy dug her hands into the pockets of her jacket and clicked her tongue.
"Well, if it's any consolation, you're doing pretty well. Although walking like you have a bomb strapped to your ankles might not be ideal."
Ozma looked at her, not knowing whether to laugh or be offended. Dorothy took advantage of this confusion to change her tone, with the air of a streetwise woman:
"You have to have confidence. Posture. Steady stride. I can teach you. A new life requires a new attitude, you know?"
"Like... a tutorial on being a woman according to Dorothy Gale?"
"Exactly that. Class one: walking with style. Class two: ignoring idiots. Class three... we'll see."
"Class four: manipulating people into breaking international laws?"
Dorothy burst out laughing, surprised.
"What?! Hey! That was a survival tactic. And very effective, wasn't it?"
"You're... something," Ozma said, still smiling, although with a hint of bewilderment.
They continued walking, and for a while only the sounds of the city could be heard. Ozma seemed to relax at times, as if the walk connected her with a world that had always been foreign to her but that she could now begin to explore. Every now and then she spoke timidly, and, unintentionally, each sentence ended up returning to Glinda.
"Glinda says the color of lipstick should make you feel powerful, not 'pretty.'"
"Glinda explained to me how to breathe deeply so my voice doesn't tremble in public."
"Glinda said it doesn't matter if the world hates you, you have to love yourself as a unique work of art."
Until Dorothy stopped abruptly.
"Do you love Glinda, or do you want to become her?" she asked with a crooked smile, her tone oscillating between sarcasm and causticity.
Ozma looked at her in surprise, almost embarrassed. A slight blush crept up her cheeks.
"Glinda was the first person who treated me like me. Like Ozma. Without... without me having to explain everything." "Ah... Glinda, the golden saint who shines brighter than the Ozmopolitan spotlights," Dorothy snorted, waving a hand in the air. "If you miss her so much, why don't you run back to her suite and run away with her? You could run away together, crown each other queens, and kiss under a shower of biodegradable confetti."
Ozma stopped dead in her tracks, her smile frozen.
"I can't," she said softly. "I know they're going to look for me there first. I don't want to get her into any more trouble. She's done enough for me."
Dorothy watched her out of the corner of her eye, weighing each word like a chess player testing the softest piece on the board. There was compassion in her expression, yes, but also strategy.
"Look," she said finally, lowering her tone. "I'm not saying Glinda isn't important. But... not all the answers are in her. Maybe what you need is to figure out what you want, without someone else telling you what your reflection looks like."
Ozma lowered her head. She walked silently a few more steps. And then she murmured,
"I don't know how to do it alone."
Dorothy smiled.
"Luckily, you're not alone. You're with me. And I'm excellent at dramatic escapes."
"How do I know I can trust you?"
Dorothy looked at her boldly, amused, but something strange appeared in her eyes. Not a lie. Not the truth. Something in between. Perfect ambiguity.
"Because I, too, know what it's like to have no one see you as you really are. And because you... you can be so much more than an heir to the throne of a nation in tatters. You can be free."
Ozma hesitated. But she said nothing. She just nodded.
And together, not knowing exactly where they were going, they continued walking along the edge of a city that never sleeps. One was looking for an escape. The other... an opportunity.
The midday sun filtered through the trees in the square, dappled with light the bench where the two young women sat. Each one held an ice cream cone, Dorothy's already half-melted, Ozma's still untouched except for a couple of tentative licks around the rim. The voices of the world around seemed distant, muffled by the bubble Dorothy knew how to create so well: a private, intimate atmosphere of apparent warmth. Like a campfire that, if you got too close, could burn hotter than it was warm.
"And you say they never let you choose your own outfits?" Dorothy asked with a slyly casual smile.
"No... well, sometimes they did," Ozma shrugged, her ice cream trembling slightly in her hand. "But they were always... approved. Everything had to be approved. As if I myself were a beta version that someone had to proofread before it was released."
Dorothy laughed, a sweet, knowing sound. Then she tilted her head, as if studying the way the light touched Ozma's face.
"You're much more interesting than any of those little princesses in a catalog, you know that?"
Ozma blushed, lowering her gaze. Dorothy bit into her cone and chewed slowly, letting the silence settle for another second before attacking again.
"And if you could be anything... not a queen, not an heiress, not anyone's daughter... what would you be?"
"I don't know..." Ozma fiddled with the hem of her skirt, avoiding Dorothy's gaze. "Maybe... just someone who can live quietly, without having to justify every part of herself."
"Ugh," said Dorothy, resting her arm on the back of the bench behind Ozma. "How boring."
Ozma looked at her, surprised.
"Boring?"
"Yes," Dorothy replied with a sly smile. "You have the world watching you, and all you want is peace. I mean, I understand... but I also feel like there's a fire in you, and you're holding it in for fear of burning something."
Ozma was silent, confused, unsure. And Dorothy saw that crack open, saw the hesitation and uncertainty. And she liked it. Not just because it meant she could go deeper, but because... there was something addictive about that mix of contained strength and pure vulnerability. Like watching a crystal goblet about to fall from a high ledge.
"Do you want to know what I see?" Dorothy said, lowering her voice.
Ozma nodded slightly.
Dorothy leaned toward her, so close that the scent of her hair mingled with the sweetness of the ice cream and the aroma of the park. She lifted a hand and brushed a strand of hair away from her face as gently as a whisper.
"I see someone who's about to break the rules of the world. But he doesn't know it yet."
Ozma's heart pounded. Partly from the words, partly from the proximity. Dorothy was magnetic, a storm contained within a shell of charm. And when their lips drew close, Ozma didn't know whether to flee or stay.
For a second, everything seemed to stop. Until Ozma looked up.
And she saw him.
A man, strong, with a military build, standing near a flower stand. Dark glasses. Casual clothes, too casual for his build, for his tense posture, for the way he kept his gaze fixed on her without moving an inch. Ozma recognized him without needing to confirm. It was one of the agents.
She stepped back a little. Her ice cream fell to the floor.
"No..." she whispered, standing abruptly.
Dorothy took a second to follow his gaze, then turned calmly, almost with boredom.
"Well, it lasted longer than I thought," she said, as if commenting on a soccer game.
"They found us!" Ozma said, breathing heavily, taking a few steps back. "I told you they'd come for me first. I told you!"
"Hey, calm down," Dorothy said, raising her hands. "They're not going to do anything here, there are too many people. Don't shout. Just... act natural. Come on, Ozma, look at me."
Ozma couldn't look at her. She felt her legs shaking, her stomach tightening. The world was beginning to close in again. She felt it. That invisible fence that had followed her since the day she decided to live as herself, that fence was closing in once more.
"I... I have to go back. I have to..."
"Go back to whom?" Dorothy interrupted, leaning closer again, smiling gently. "To the man who called you a 'public relations problem'? To the ambassador who treats you like an awkward piece of luggage?"
"No... to Glinda," Ozma replied softly.
Dorothy looked at her for a moment, and something lit up in her eyes that didn't show in her smile.
"Do you think they're going to let you go back to her?"
Ozma swallowed.
"I can't do this. I can't. I'm not like you. I'm not strong, or brave. I'm just a mistake everyone wants to hide."
"That's a lie," Dorothy said, more serious than ever. She took her hand firmly. "You are a queen. Even if the world doesn't know it yet. Even if they don't accept it. You are already who you decided to be. And that... that's the bravest thing anyone can do."
Ozma looked at her, for a second torn between fear and faith, between flight and identity.
"What do I do?"
"Trust me," Dorothy said. "Let's not give them the ending they expect."
And she led the way, away from the plaza. Away from the agent who was already beginning to follow them.
Meanwhile, the hotel bar was an elegant but soulless space, like an imitation of sophistication that never quite gelled. The dim lights, the armchairs upholstered in dull velvet, the low murmur of other people's conversations... everything seemed designed to make one forget that outside the world continued to spin and collapse.
Elphaba and Glinda were sitting at the bar, side by side, although further apart than usual. Glinda wore her hair neatly wavy and a sky-blue blouse that tried to restore her usual composure. Elphaba, on the other hand, had puffy eyes, smudged makeup, and a jacket too big for her thin frame. She swirled the straw of her drink without interest, watching the bubbles dissolve as if waiting for an answer to appear.
"It can't be that there's nothing," Glinda muttered for the umpteenth time, her elbows on the bar and her cell phone full of tabs open. "There has to be an option, a way out! We can't let Ozma return to Maracoor with that shitty ambassador. She'll disappear! Do you understand? She'll vanish, and no one will ever hear from her again."
Elphaba didn't respond immediately. She watched the shadows of the glasses reflect on the polished wood. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was low, barely a tired sigh:
"Maybe... just maybe... there's someone who can help us with this."
Glinda turned sharply to her, her eyes alight with hope.
"Who?"
Elphaba looked at her. Sad. Resigned.
"Oz."
The silence was instantaneous. Glinda digested it as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown on her chest. She blinked twice, incredulous.
"Oz? Oz?"
"Yes."
"Are you kidding me?!" Glinda snapped, her voice higher than usual. "After everything he did? After the trash he said, after what he is?"
"Glinda, I'm not saying I want to do it," Elphaba muttered, looking back at her glass. "I'm just saying... maybe there's no other way."
"Of course there is! We can... we can seek legal help. Or talk to the press. Or... convene an NGO! Anything. But not him. Not that idiot who turned this whole thing into a festival of vanities and secrets."
"It's not that simple," Elphaba replied wearily. We're talking about international politics, about a country that's literally on the brink of civil war. And she... is his princess. There are interests we don't even understand.
"And that's why you're going to run to your newfound father for help?" Glinda snapped, in the cruelest tone of the night.
Elphaba looked at her. Firm. Hurt.
"No. Not because he's my father. But because he has the power to move things that no one else can."
Glinda shook her head, lowering her face in her hands. Her voice cracked:
"I don't want to owe him anything. I don't want her to owe him anything. Do you know what he'll do if he helps her? He'll take credit for everything. He'll hold her up as an example of his 'tolerance,' his 'progressivism,' his... damn public redemption. And she isn't that. She isn't his banner. She's a girl just learning to breathe like herself. I don't want Oz to take that away from her too."
Elphaba gritted her teeth. Her rage was different, quieter. Older.
"You think I don't know. But if we don't get something done quickly, Bvasil is going to take her away on a diplomatic plane by force. And then... no one will ever find her."
Glinda closed her eyes. Her eyelashes were trembling.
"So... are you going to do it?"
Elphaba didn't respond.
"Are you going to go back to that room, look him in the eye, and ask him for a favor?"
Silence.
"After everything he told you? After what he confessed to you?"
More silence.
Elphaba slowly looked up, meeting Glinda's red-rimmed eyes.
"If it means saving her, yes."
Glinda swallowed. Her face hardened and softened at the same time. And without another word, she turned to the bartender and ordered two shots.
She placed them between them. She downed hers in one gulp.
"Then," she said with a bitter sigh, "let's start planning how to convince the devil.”
Shortly after, the two entered the elevator slowly but surely. Elphaba pressed the button for the top floor, where Oz's suite was located, and the doors closed with a soft metallic whisper. The silence that followed was thick, filled by the faint hum of the machinery slowly ascending them. Glinda, arms crossed and back straight, watched Elphaba out of the corner of her eye. She could read her only too well.
"How are you?" she finally asked bluntly.
"Tired," Elphaba replied, glancing at the number scrolling up on the digital screen. "Fed up. A little disgusted. But mostly... focused. We have to save Ozma."
Glinda pursed her lips and nodded, but said nothing more. Silence returned for a few seconds, until Glinda turned completely to her.
"I meant, how are you doing with that... with Oz. Let him be your father."
Elphaba snorted a short, humorless laugh.
"Are we really going to do this now?"
"Yes, right now," Glinda said, firmly but not harshly. "Because if you don't talk about it, it's going to rot inside you. And I need you to walk into that room knowing who you are, not carrying the ashes of what he did. So... what do you feel?"
Elphaba hesitated. She closed her eyes for a second, leaned the back of her head against the elevator wall, and took a deep breath.
"I feel like I don't care. Or... like I want to not care. Like he's just another man who showed up to ruin something and then try to fix it with pretty words. Do you know how many times I've fantasized about knowing who my real father was since I learned the truth?... Not one, because I saw it as such a distant possibility, almost impossible." Her voice trembled slightly. And now it turns out he was always there, with that stupid salesman's smile and that way of looking at me as if he knew more than everyone else. And he didn't even have the decency to hate me. He loved me... admired me. God! That makes it worse.
Glinda listened to her silently. She didn't interrupt, she didn't rush me. She just listened. Elphaba lowered her head and continued.
"I feel like something was stolen from me," Elphaba continued, her voice raspy. "I don't know what exactly, but I feel it. And on top of that, I have to see his face, his stupid smile, his cheap charm... and now, knowing that a part of me comes from there... it makes me sick."
"But it also comes from you," Glinda said quietly.
Elphaba looked at her, confused.
"What?"
"A part of you comes from him, yes... but everything you are, Elphie, you made that. Not him. No matter what genetics say. You chose to be who you are." And I chose to stay with that person.
Elphaba swallowed. A muscle in her jaw tensed.
"What if there's something of him in me that I can't avoid?"
"Then we'll face it together," Glinda said without hesitation. "But I don't see Oz when I look at you. I see someone who had to fight three times as hard to exist. I see someone brave. And tired. And honest. I see you."
Elphaba lowered her head, took another deep breath, and finally let her forehead fall on the mirror beside her, closing her eyes.
"I don't want this to define me," she said barely audibly. "I don't want to be anyone's daughter. Not a project. Not a genetic surprise. I just want... to feel like I'm choosing my path again."
"And you are," Glinda affirmed sweetly. "Here you are. With me. Choosing to help someone in need. Even if it hurts."
The elevator dinged softly. They had arrived.
Elphaba straightened, and for a second, her green eyes met Glinda's. There was something new there. Pain, yes. But also resolve.
"Ready?" Glinda asked.
Elphaba took a deep breath. She nodded.
"Let's see what my dear father wants now."
The suite smelled of disarray and expensive cologne, as if a parade of bad decisions had passed through the night before and Oz had tried to cover them up with an imported fragrance and a smile. The curtains were still closed, letting in only a pale line of light through the crack, but everything else was darkness and thick air.
Oz had slumped on the table after his last drink—or maybe his second-to-last—and was staring at the ceiling with his eyes open, as if searching the plaster for some answer that never came. All he found was a dull throbbing in his temples, blamed on the emotional hangover as much as the alcoholic one. He wondered, for the first time in a long time, if he was really cut out for this. This manipulating, this seducing, this... feeling.
When someone knocked on the door, he didn't even turn his head.
"Who is it?" he asked, his voice raspy and hopeless.
"Elphaba," said the voice on the other end, clear, firm, impossible to mistake.
Oz sprang to his feet. He looked at himself in the mirror, clumsily ran his hand through his hair, and dusted off his jacket. With a swipe of his hand, he swept two bottles from the floor under an armchair. He righted a vase. He swallowed. And smiled.
He opened the door with that gesture he'd practiced so well for years. The one that said "everything is fine" no matter how close to collapse he was.
"My favorite star!" he intoned, then lowered his tone slightly when he saw Glinda. "And your personal ray of sunshine. What an honor to have you here."
But the welcome was not reciprocated. Elphaba looked at him with that mixture of suspicion and restraint, as if he carried dynamite in his pockets and only needed a spark to explode. Glinda, for her part, didn't even pretend. Her face was a mask of judgment. A judgment that had already been pronounced.
Oz stepped aside and invited them in with a courtesy that contrasted with the rigidity of his posture.
"Come in... sit down. Please."
They sat in the gray velvet armchairs facing the low table. Elphaba crossed her legs, arms resting on her knees, as if ready to attack. Glinda didn't even bother to take off her sunglasses, even though they were inside. Her gesture said it all: she had no intention of making him feel comfortable.
Oz sat down opposite them, trying to appear relaxed. It was a futile effort.
"I take it this isn't a social visit," he said, with an attempt at humor that died before it was born.
"No," Elphaba replied tersely. "We came because we need information. And because, contrary to all my common sense, I still believe you know more than you're letting on. So speak up. What's really going on with Maracoor Abiding?"
Oz swallowed. He looked at Glinda, then at Elphaba, and for a moment considered lying. But he didn't have the energy.
"What you know is true," he said finally. "The country is fractured. And many believe the presence of Ozma—or Tippetarius, as they still call him there—is a symbol... but not everyone agrees on what that symbol represents. For some, it's hope. For others, it's a threat to centuries of tradition. And those last have weapons, allies, money."
"And you," Glinda snapped. "You're playing both sides too, aren't you?"
Oz threw up his hands.
"I'm trying not to let a civil war break out. Does that count as playing games?"
"It depends," Elphaba replied. "How useful is sacrificing a child to keep the peace?"
The silence was as thick as oil. Oz swallowed, his eyes shining. For the first time, it seemed his shield was cracking.
"I... didn't want that. Not exactly. I didn't know they were going to bring her. I thought we could handle it diplomatically." That if you"—he looked at Elphaba—"helped me... we could find a way out. I didn't expect her to be in the middle."
"Well, she is," Glinda said without hesitation. "And we're not going to leave her alone. So I decided: whose side are you on?"
Oz took a few seconds to answer. For the first time since they'd entered, he looked truly defeated. He'd stopped trying to smile, to seduce with his smooth talk, to mask the rot with charm. Elphaba had disarmed him. Glinda had left him without a shield.
"What do you want from me?" he finally asked, bluntly, without defenses. His voice sounded muffled, more human than ever.
Elphaba didn't hesitate. Not this time.
"We want you to help us save Ozma."
Oz raised his eyebrows, almost as if he'd just been asked to build a stairway to the moon. He let out a dry, hollow laugh, as if in another life, under another circumstance, that would have been a good joke. Now it was just desperation wrapped in irony.
"Save her? Elphie... Glinda... this isn't a spy movie. We're not superheroes. We're in a damn political swamp that reeks of centuries of decay. Ozma's business... it's above us. Way above."
"Maybe so," Glinda said, sitting on the edge of the chair with her elbows on her knees. "But you're part of that swamp, aren't you? If anyone has access, if anyone can move a piece—even just one—it's you. Use that and for once in your life, do something worthwhile.”
"Besides," Elphaba added, "if we don't help her... what's left? Another excuse for a war? Another body for history? You say you're not the villain we all think you are. Well, this is your chance to prove it."
Oz looked at them. From one to the other. Elphaba, jaw clenched, with the look that always saw right through him. Glinda, with that desperate gleam in her eyes that couldn't be faked. Both of them standing before him, as if fate depended on his answer. And for the first time in a long time... he felt small. But also human.
He ran his hand through his hair, closed his eyes, and sank back into the chair, exhaling deeply. He thought. He mentally reviewed every recent conversation, every lead, every piece of badly negotiated power. Then... something dawned.
"There's a chance," he said, slowly opening his eyes.
Elphaba and Glinda took a step closer. As if afraid of shooing away the idea if they pressed her too hard.
"There's a meeting going on tonight," Oz continued. "Not a formal meeting, of course. It's one of those 'social dinners' that political bigwigs organize when they want to make sure no one's recording. Leaders, diplomats, investors, key figures from various countries. They call it a 'strengthening ties' meeting, but it's really where the real game is dealt."
"The one the ambassador was talking about?" Elphaba asked, frowning.
"Exactly, and we were both invited..." she admitted. "Before all this broke out, of course."
"And now?" Glinda asked.
"Now," Oz said, leaning forward, "the subject of Ozma is going to be on everyone's lips. They won't be able to avoid it. And that means that in that room will be the men and women who plan to use her, eliminate her, or manipulate her for their own purposes. If we can get in... and move the right pieces... maybe, just maybe, we'll have a chance."
"What kind?" Elphaba asked. "A chance to save her... or a chance to sell her off?"
Oz looked at her, stung by the mistrust but powerless to argue with it.
"It depends on how much they're willing to risk."
Glinda looked him straight in the eye.
"Everything."
Oz nodded slowly. And then, for the first time since this all began, he smiled without cynicism.
"Then we're going to need a plan."
And with that, the countdown began. To dinner. To the move. For the exact moment when a young woman's destiny—and perhaps that of all of Maracoor Abiding—could change... with a word spoken in the right place.
Meanwhile, dusk was beginning to fall gently over the city, enveloping it in a faint golden mist filtered through the streetlights. Traffic lights bounced off the puddles on the cobblestones, and the urban murmur was interrupted only by the hurried footsteps of two figures running, panting, without looking back.
"Turn this way!" Dorothy shouted, tugging at Ozma's wrist while still smiling, as if it were a child's game.
"Why are you smiling?!" Ozma snorted between sighs, her face flushed with fear, her heart pounding in her chest. "They're chasing us!"
"Exactly," Dorothy replied without pausing, nimbly turning the corner and hiding behind a closed kiosk. And isn't that exciting?
They both pressed against the wall, breathing heavily. Ozma leaned out for a second and spotted the supposed agent: a burly man with an earpiece in his ear, scanning the square with a steady pace. There was no doubt about it, they were looking for them. Or rather, they were looking for her.
"This isn't fun," Ozma snapped softly, turning to Dorothy. "They're going to find us. I can't go back. Not yet…"
But Dorothy looked at her with those dark, sparkling eyes that knew how to read the cracks. She didn't flinch at the fear, as if that other's fear fueled her.
"Ozma, Ozma…" she said with poisonous sweetness. "I thought you were braver. What happened to the rebellious princess who ran away from the castle? The girl who looked in the mirror and said, 'This is me'? Wasn't she the one with me a minute ago, eating ice cream?" Dorothy's voice was silky, warm, but there was an edge to every word. She knew just the right strings to pull, how to twist the conversation so that Ozma felt ridiculous, weak, childish. Not a victim, but a coward.
"Don't treat me like a baby," Ozma snapped, clenching her fists. Her tone was sharp, trembling, but held an inner firmness, like glass about to shatter.
"Then don't act like one," Dorothy retorted, smiling ambiguously as she stroked a lock of her hair. "Look how you shine, Princess. If you want the throne, you're going to have to do more than cry in the corner."
Ozma took a step back, her gaze confused, hurt. She felt as if every word Dorothy spoke was pushing her to the edge of the abyss, and, perversely, part of her wanted to jump. Because Dorothy didn't treat her as fragile, but as uncomfortable. Like a bomb that hadn't yet learned how to explode.
But the moment was abruptly shattered.
"There they are!" a voice shouted in the distance.
Two agents emerged from the other side of the square, crossing with a determined stride.
"Run!" Dorothy shouted instinctively, although she already knew there was nowhere to go.
The vertigo of escape lasted only an instant. A miscalculated stride, a stumble, and they were both caught. There was no violence, only firm hands, activated earphones, coldly recited protocols. The words "return to the embassy" and "priority level one" hung in the air like icy knives.
"You can't do this!" Ozma cried, trying to break free. "I'm not a prisoner!"
But her voice was swallowed by the noise of the city and the resignation of protocol. Dorothy, on the other hand, barely clicked her tongue.
"I told you, didn't I?" he muttered disdainfully, like someone watching a chess piece fall. "They always come for you first, Princess."
And so, between shadows and the lights of black patrol cars, the invisible heiress was led back into the heart of the storm.
Ambassador Bvasil's office was permeated with a tension so thick it seemed to fill every corner like an invisible smoke. The windows were closed, the artificial light cast harsh shadows over the tense faces, and the walls, lined with symbols of Maracoor Abiding's former glory, seemed to tremble with every word that came from the ambassador's mouth.
Bvasil slammed the desk hard, rattling a quill pen and causing a small glass sculpture to shatter as it fell.
"I'm fed up! Fed up with this childishness, with your ridiculous escapades, with this circus you've set up!" he bellowed, his eyes bloodshot, his face red, and a vein throbbing in his forehead as he pointed directly at Ozma, who was standing flanked by the agents who had brought her back. "Do you know what it cost to keep your identity hidden? Do you know the amount of negotiations, blackmail, and favors it took us to protect you from public humiliation?" And you... you not only escape, but you appear on every damn screen in the world like a carnival celebrity!
Ozma didn't say a word. Her hands were clasped in front of her, restrained, her eyes fixed on the floor.
Dorothy, sitting brazenly in one of the living room armchairs, swung her leg elegantly and boredly. Only when the ambassador mentioned the leaders' meeting did her gaze spark with interest. She leaned slightly toward Ozma and whispered in her voice as sharp as torn silk:
"Are you going to let them talk to you like that, Queen? Or are you going to show them who's boss?"
Ozma looked at her, bewildered, but there was something in Dorothy's tone, a sweetness wrapped in iron, that touched her deeply.
"Because if you don't do it, someone else will do it for you... and you might not be the one who ends up on that throne," she added, before lying back again innocently, as if she hadn't said anything.
At that moment, Bvasil slammed the desk with the palm of her hand:
"You're going to stay locked in your room until tonight's meeting is over! And then we'll figure out what to do with you."
It was the word "meeting" that rattled something inside Ozma. Her face changed. For the first time since she'd entered that office, she looked up. Her voice wasn't a scream, not a tantrum, it was something much more fearsome: it was clear, firm, tempered with pain and exhaustion.
"No."
The ambassador blinked.
"What did you say?"
Ozma took a step toward the desk, her fingers trembling but her eyes burning like glowing embers.
"I said no." I'm not going to stay locked up like a prisoner while a group of men discuss my future. That meeting is about me. For me. And I'm going to be there.
Bvasil began to laugh, a hoarse, incredulous sound.
"Don't be ridiculous! That meeting is for heads of state!"
"And I am the heir to the throne of Maracoor Abiding," Ozma interrupted, her voice clear. "Technically, I have more authority than anyone in this building, because my father, even in his shame toward me, did not repeal my right to the throne. And you, Ambassador Bvasil, are obliged to represent my will before the international leaders."
A deathly silence fell over the room.
Bvasil froze, his mouth open as if he were struggling to breathe. Dorothy, for her part, turned her face slightly and hid her triumphant smile behind a neutral expression. Her plan was moving with surgical precision.
Ozma took a deep breath and took the final step:
"I don't need permission to defend my crown. And I don't need you to speak for me."
Bvasil opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out. It was clear he knew the royal rights she cited, and even more so, he knew she was right.
Dorothy, still seated, clapped her hands softly, as if witnessing a particularly delicious theater scene.
"Bravo, Your Highness," she whispered with a poisonous smile.
Ozma remained upright, breathing heavily, but she stood firm. Her voice still echoed off the walls of the office, marking a before and after. She was no longer the sheltered child or the shame hidden within walls. She was the heir to Maracoor, and she had just reclaimed her place in the war room.
And Dorothy Gale, from her corner, watched as her most valuable piece finally came into play.
And so, tension hung like a thick mist over every corner of the city, in every hall, every suite, every boardroom where the pieces on the board were beginning to be arranged. The leaders' meeting wasn't just a diplomatic meeting: it was a deadly dance of interests, masks, and half-truths. And each player, in their own way, fine-tuned their mask.
In her room inside the embassy, Ozma stood in front of the mirror, barefoot, a towel still tangled in her hair, her gaze fixed on the bed, where her old ceremonial uniform lay neatly folded: the deep blue tunic with gold trim, the stiff trousers, the shoulder pads. It was the armor of someone who was no longer her.
One glance was enough to feel the knot in her stomach tighten. That uniform not only represented an identity that no longer belonged to her, but was also the emblem of the pain she had borne beneath its weight.
"It makes you look like a statue," Dorothy murmured from the corner, her voice both sugary and sharp. "A statue... male."
Ozma swallowed. Dorothy approached, snaking forward as if each step were calculated. She stood behind her, her fingers gently caressing her bare shoulder, right where the golden fabric used to press.
"You are the queen, Ozma. Your queen. Not theirs. Don't let those clothes decide for you. Dress as you wish. Look as you are. You don't owe them an explanation."
Ozma hesitated. But inside her chest, something was beginning to stir: it wasn't pride, or rebellion. It was... a desire to be seen. Like her.
Meanwhile, in her office lined with papers and tension, Burden Bvasil was on the verge of hysteria. Four assistants moved around her like nervous shadows, taking notes, passing lists of names, confirming security arrangements. That night's meeting had to look impeccable, even if the world was on the verge of implosion.
"The meal will be served in three courses, right?" Bvasil roared, looking at no one in particular. "No experimental dishes or conceptual cuisine. These people need tradition, structure, not... fennel foam."
One of the attendees nodded frantically. Another handed him the guest list.
"And about Ozma," Bvasil added, gritting his teeth. "I want constant surveillance. If she breathes, I want to know. If she blinks, I want to know. If she goes to the bathroom, keep an eye on her. I don't care how you do it, but she can't slip away again and make another scene in front of all the cameras!"
The role of the hostess was a farce. The meeting was a circus. And he, the tamer, was forced to smile.
In the hotel suite, the air was filled with the soft scent of a perfumed cream Glinda was applying to her shoulders while she studied herself closely in the mirror. Her ivory robe gleamed in the morning light, her hair was already semi-done, and her makeup was beginning to take shape on her face like a carefully painted canvas.
"God..." she sighed, precisely lining her eyelid. "When was the last time I went to something so ridiculously formal without hiding a harness or wanting to smash a glass on a table?"
A soft laugh died in the air, having no accomplice. She turned slightly and looked toward the opposite corner of the room.
There, sitting in an armchair by the window, Elphaba was wrapped in her own black robe, her knees bent and her arms crossed, as if containing something that hadn't quite exploded. Her gaze was fixed on the outside, where the rooftops of Sapphire City stretched out like a complicated puzzle.
"Have you talked to him yet?" Glinda asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "With Oz... about, well... that."
Elphaba shook her head, slowly, silently.
Glinda placed her eyeliner on the vanity and approached. Their reflections appeared in the mirror: one wrapped in gold and blush, the other in shadows and silence.
"Aren't you going to do it?" Glinda insisted, with a mixture of concern and tenderness.
"Not before dinner," Elphaba murmured. I don't want to give him another excuse to turn this into an opera about himself.
"And then?"
Elphaba didn't respond. But something in her gaze cracked. Not completely. Just enough to know she was still searching for the moment, or the courage, or both.
The tension still hung like a mist in the air, but Glinda cut it with a sigh and a sweet decision: to change the subject, if only for a while. She stood up from the vanity, the ivory gown gently billowing as it brushed the floor, and walked toward Elphaba with a mischievous, knowing smile.
"Do you want me to do your makeup?" she asked playfully, raising a perfectly arched blond eyebrow. "I promise I won't use glitter this time."
Elphaba turned her head slowly, as if Glinda had proposed a waking surgery.
"Absolutely not," she snapped, crossing her arms and hiding further in the shadows of the armchair. I've made that mistake many times. I always end up like a Christmas tree or a sophomore drag queen.
"Oh, how over-the-top," Glinda mocked, creeping forward.
"Glinda, no. Seriously. Don't come any closer."
But Glinda was already dangerously close.
"Don't give me those eyes." Elphaba narrowed hers. "I know you. I know what you're planning."
"What? To be gentle? To enhance your natural beauty?"
"'Natural beauty'! God, you're worse than before!"
At that moment, Glinda leaped.
A strangled gasp from Elphaba was followed by a stifled laugh. Glinda threw herself at her like a domesticated cat, overcome with vanity and tenderness. They both fell onto the rumpled bed and began a battle of laughter, shoving, gentle struggles, and giggles mixed with a couple of resigned groans.
"Glinda, this is torture! Don't put that hellish concealer on me!"
"Shut up and accept the glamour, witch!"
Amid the tangle of sheets and tangled legs, the laughter began to fade, like a song that fades without losing its melody. Glinda, with her knee on the bed and her hands on either side of Elphaba, stared at her. Elphaba was no longer resisting. She just looked at her, too, with the softest eyes Glinda could remember in a long time.
And for a moment, the world outside ceased to matter. It was just the two of them. They were breathing... and the silence between them felt weightless. They held each other's gaze as if nothing else were needed.
"What do you think will happen tonight?" Glinda whispered, not moving.
Elphaba swallowed and lowered her gaze for a second. Then she spoke softly, almost as if she were afraid to hear herself.
"I don't know."
Elphaba turned slowly, lying on her side, her face close to Glinda's.
"But I remember the last time we were at something like this... do you remember?"
Glinda nodded, not speaking.
"That party... the Christmas party, the one in Oz." Elphaba smiled sadly. "When everyone dressed as if the city wasn't falling apart."
The room seemed to cool.
"When you and I could barely keep our hands off each other, and..." she added, as if chewing glass with memory. "And I... made the worst decision of my life."
Glinda raised a hand and placed it gently on her cheek.
"And you came back."
"Yes... but not without dragging ourselves through hell first."
The silence deepened, but not painful. It was the kind of silence only two people who have survived the worst can share. A silence filled with scars that no longer bleed, but still sting.
"I don't want to lose you again," Glinda whispered, so quietly it was almost a thought.
Elphaba closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them, her voice was no longer trembling.
"Then don't leave me alone there. If everything goes to hell tonight... if they say something that breaks me... promise me you'll stay by my side. If it's just to remind me who I am."
Glinda didn't respond immediately. She just leaned down, touched her forehead to Elphaba's, and said, "Always. Even if I have to rip the wigs off all those third-rate diplomatic wives, I'll be with you."
They both laughed softly.
And amid the distant sounds of the streets, the murmur of approaching destiny, and the faint murmur of makeup forgotten between the sheets, they knew that this time... whatever happens... they wouldn't be alone.
Glinda never took her blue eyes off Elphaba's face, and in a voice barely above a whisper, she said:
"You have to promise me something too, Elphie."
Elphaba looked at her curiously, tilting her head.
"What?"
"That when this night ends... no matter how it ends, no matter what happens... we'll still be together." Glinda swallowed, with a disarming fragility. "Tomorrow too. And the day after. And every day after that. Together. Until the end."
Elphaba didn't need to think about it. There was no doubt in her eyes when she replied:
"I promise."
And that promise wasn't sealed with words, but with a kiss. A slow, tender, lingering one. Then another, softer, more intimate. And another, now filled with knowing laughter. Glinda leaned lightly over her, and Elphaba slid her hands down her back. The kisses intensified, their bodies adjusted with the precision of those who know each other by heart. Glinda climbed on top of her with the same grace a ballerina uses on stage, and they both began to lose themselves in the world they built when they were alone.
Elphaba murmured something under her breath—probably a sarcastic comment about the absurd amount of perfume Glinda wore—and Glinda responded with a playful nibble on her neck that elicited a stifled laugh.
"Oh, you tiresome witch..." Glinda whispered.
"You unbearable blonde..." Elphaba replied between soft gasps.
And just as the sheets once again became the stage for their most visceral and vulnerable connection...
knock knock
They both froze. A second of pure bewilderment. Then:
"NO." "Elphaba growled, echoing a moan from Glinda.
"Just ignore him!" Glinda demanded, half covering herself with the sheet, her lips swollen from kisses and her hair a perfect mess.
"I'm trying!" Elphaba huffed as she reluctantly sat up, taking a second to compose herself before launching herself into the door with pent-up fury.
Beyond her, an impeccably dressed hotel bellhop held two enormous boxes covered in gold ribbon.
"Special delivery, courtesy of Mr. Zoroaster," he announced in a monotone.
Elphaba glared at him.
"Special delivery from Oz? Is that right?"
"It says so on the note, ma'am."
"I'm not ma'am," Elphaba snarled, but took the boxes anyway, closing the door on him without a word of thanks.
Glinda had already sat up in bed, curiously adjusting her robe. Elphaba placed the boxes on the couch with a heavy sigh. Then they looked at each other. They knew what was inside. Still, they couldn't help but open them.
The two stood motionless, staring at the contents of the bags as if they had found a sleeping magical creature.
One, light blue with silver details and stars embroidered like constellations carefully arranged along the skirt. The other, jet black, with a perfect drape and a subtle shimmer reminiscent of a night sky flecked with magic. It featured structured bodices, hand-finished edges, hidden lace, and a scented note that said simply:
Glinda was the first to react, with a small, muffled squeal, followed by an "Oh my Oz!" as she pulled out the light blue dress, holding it up with both hands. It sparkled like the sky in a storybook, dotted with tiny stars embroidered in silver thread, with a soft, elegant drape.
"Look at this... Look at this, Elphie!" she said, spinning around with the dress still in her hands as if she were already wearing it. "It has constellations embroidered on it. Constellations! This must have cost an entire country's GDP..." Then she stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face her partner. "I mean... I want to set it on fire too, obviously."
Elphaba hadn't said a word. She was staring at the black dress she pulled from her bag as if it were an ancient enemy. It was long, heavy, and majestic, with iridescent reflections like raven wings under the moon. Simple and unadorned, but with a power that made it almost intimidating.
"Is he crazy?" Elphaba murmured. "Does he want to dress us up as princesses for his political circus? I wouldn't wear it even if he sewed it for me."
"But look how beautiful it is..." Glinda whispered without thinking, gently running her hand over the star velvet.
Elphaba glared at her.
"Glinda!"
"Well! Sorry! I mean, obviously this is horribly manipulative on his part. I'm not defending him. I'm just saying... since we're in Hell, why not dress like queens of the underworld?"
"Queens, huh?" Elphaba muttered, crossing her arms. "He wants to make you a queen of heaven, and me the damned empress of darkness."
"Oh, it sounds like a love story," Glinda said with a crooked smile, knowing exactly how to provoke her witch.
"It sounds like a nightmare orchestrated by a megalomaniac who thinks he can buy us off with glitter," Elphaba retorted, turning around to return the dress to the bag. But Glinda blocked her way.
"Stop. Just stop a second," she said, her tone more serious. "Yeah, this is pure manipulation." And yes, it makes me gag to have to wear something that came from that jerk... but, Elphie... we have one chance tonight. We're going to be in the lion's den. And if the wolf wants to dress us up as royalty, we're going to use his own costume to throw him a party from the inside.
"Are you saying we steal his own show?"
"It wouldn't be the first time."
Elphaba stared at her. She knew Glinda was excited about the dress, but she also knew that Glinda understood the gravity of all this better than anyone. Her blonde could enjoy sequins and, at the same time, be planning a revolution.
"I'm not wearing that dress without panties," Elphaba finally said.
"No one's asking you!" Glinda laughed.
"And if anyone comes up to me with a glass of champagne and asks me for a smile, I'll spit in their face."
"We've known that since you were born."
They both stared at each other for a second longer. And then, with a resignation as dramatic as it was silent, Elphaba held the black dress in her arms and murmured:
"It's going to be expensive."
"Or it's going to be perfect," Glinda said as she hugged her dress with a rebellious gleam in her eyes and headed to the bathroom to change.
Elphaba was alone with hers for a second longer. She looked at it. She hated it. She loved it a little. She wanted to trample it. Then she ran her fingers along the fabric. Soft as Glinda's voice when she called her name in the early morning.
"Damn," she murmured. "I'm trapped in an episode of 'Project Runway: Embassies and Traumas.'"
From the bathroom, Glinda's voice crooned:
"And you're the star finalist, sexy witch!"
"Stop enjoying this!" Elphaba yelled as she walked behind her, the dress in her arms, huffing and puffing. I swear, if anyone takes a picture of me tonight, I'll turn them into a frog.
"As long as you wear the dress, they can even make a documentary about you!"
Elphaba slammed the bathroom door behind her with a resigned slam. The battle against the dress had begun. But this time... fashion had the upper hand.
Night had fallen over the city like heavy, lustrous velvet, dotted with lights that glittered like jewels against the dark sky. In front of the luxurious hotel, the black marble carpet gleamed damp with dew, and the flashes of curious photographers occasionally exploded like domestic lightning. To one side, parked like an elegant, stalking predator, Oz's limousine waited. And right in front, Oz himself, dressed in a ball gown that looked like something out of a Venetian aristocratic novel: deep black with white lapel trim, dark leather gloves, and a neatly folded ivory silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. His hair was precisely combed, his shoes polished to perfection. He seemed to have rehearsed the perfect gesture for when his "companions" appeared.
But what he couldn't have anticipated—what no one could have anticipated—was what happened when he saw them.
First, Glinda, walking with a dignified and elegant gait, wrapped in a gown as light blue as a cloudless night, each embroidered star twinkling in the reflection of the lights. Her hair pulled back to perfection, a delicate tiara hinting at royalty, her expression determined and sophisticated as if she were about to sign a new constitution.
Then, Elphaba.
Elphaba, whose very figure seemed to absorb the light like an eclipse. Dressed in darkness itself, her black dress shimmered in subtle waves, as if the fabric breathed. Her lips were painted a deep shade, her eyes lined with surgical precision, and her cape fluttered gently in the wind. She wore no crowns, no jewels, no gaudy ornaments… and yet, she looked like a cursed, banished empress come to reclaim her kingdom.
Oz took a step forward and smiled gallantly.
"Glinda, you look... dazzling, as always," he said in a honeyed tone that was meant to sound neutral, but which Glinda intercepted like an arrow.
She glanced at him and raised an eyebrow.
"I'll spare you the flattery, Oz. Just tell me if the car has air conditioning. I'm not going to sweat over diplomacy."
And then he turned to look at her.
At Elphaba. And there were no words.
For the first time in a long time, his perfect facade cracked. His lips parted, but no sound came out. Because seeing her like this, so alive, so present, so... real, didn't just unsettle him, it pierced him. Not just because she was beautiful—which she was—but because in her bearing, in that steady, confident gaze, he saw everything he couldn't shape, corrupt, or understand.
And it took his breath away.
"You are..." he began, but Elphaba had already brushed past him without stopping.
"Don't look at me like that," he said in a low, firm voice as he passed. "You don't belong to me."
Glinda followed him, gentler, but still sharp:
"If this fails tonight, Oz... you'd better have bought a return ticket to wherever they send men with too many suits and too little soul."
Oz just nodded, mute, swallowing his humiliation like a good, cheap wine.
The limousine started moving, and once inside, silence reigned for a few seconds.
"Well..." Oz began, in a diplomatic tone as he settled in front of them. "Let's go over the plan."
Elphaba looked at him sideways, her face stern, her hands crossed on her legs.
"The plan, Oz, is that you don't do anything stupid."
"And that you don't get creative," Glinda added.
"Understood, understood," he replied, raising his hands. The bottom line is this: tonight's meeting brings together ministers, diplomats, investors, and security officials from all the nations interested in the conflict. Maracoor Abiding won't be sending its monarch—you know why—but Bvasil will be there, and hopefully... Ozma.
Elphaba narrowed her eyes.
"Will they let her go?"
"I don't know. But if she goes, it will be the first time she'll be in a diplomatic setting as an active figure. A perfect opportunity for them to see her for what she is: the legitimate heir."
"And what about us? Decoration?" Glinda said, crossing her legs with lethal elegance.
"You..." Oz said, flashing a smile, "...will be my escorts. Technically, part of my delegation. Which gives you access to the area. But more importantly... you'll be the talk of the town."
"Perfect," Elphaba murmured. "Just what I hate: being the topic of conversation at parties with dangerous people."
Glinda leaned toward her, gently taking her hand.
"You're not alone. We're going to use their game against them."
Elphaba squeezed her hand, and for a second, their eyes shone in sync.
Oz looked at them from the opposite seat. He couldn't help feeling something akin to... envy. But also pride. And maybe, just maybe... hope.
Because tonight, the dice were in the air.
And three names—Oz, Elphaba, and Glinda—were going to write the next chapter of this story.
The limousine glided through the city's golden avenues like a graceful, sharp shadow. The streetlights flickered across the car's roof like tame fireflies, and inside, the silence was comfortable... almost.
Oz, his brows slightly furrowed, flipped through the calendar on his cell phone, sliding his fingers over names and times with the precision of a diplomatic surgeon. Every second counted. Every meeting could be decisive. But no matter how hard he feigned concentration, every now and then his gaze drifted, unconsciously, to the reflection in the seat next to him.
Elphaba was leaning to one side, her forehead barely resting on the dark glass of the window. Her impeccably lined eyes were lost in the starry sky that hung over the city like an old promise. The reflection of the lights drew a constellation on her green skin and made her seem even more alien to this world. Or more like her own.
Glinda, sitting next to her, dressed as if the azure sky had decided to take human form, watched her out of the corner of her eye with a barely contained smile. As if watching her in silence were a form of confession that words couldn't reach.
And then, without saying anything, with a movement so natural it seemed part of a choreography, Glinda reached out and intertwined her fingers with Elphaba's. Her polished, shiny nails contrasted with her companion's firm, rough knuckles. Elphaba looked at her, and a brief—intimate, sincere—smile curved her lips.
"You look beautiful," Glinda whispered, with that sweetness she used only when there were no witnesses.
"And you..." Elphaba said softly, looking at her in profile. "You look like the embodiment of a constellation. I feel like a shadow walking beside you."
"You are the brightest shadow I've ever seen," Glinda said firmly, still holding her hand.
And that confession hung between them like a flower in the air, fragile and precious. They bowed slightly, like two planets caught in mutual orbit, touching foreheads for a second, stealing that moment from the world.
Oz glanced at them.
His lips parted. He wanted to say something, maybe a warm comment, or some charming joke to lighten the mood. It was a scene that, in another context, he would have loved to interrupt with a joke. Maybe, "Wow, and I thought my entrance in a suit was going to steal my evening."
But he didn't get that far.
They both turned to him at the same time. They hadn't agreed. There was no need to. Glinda pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow with princely severity. Elphaba tilted her head, looking at him as if an insect had made an annoying sound.
Oz raised both hands as if in surrender and shrank back in his seat, swallowing his comment before it was born.
"Understood," he murmured.
And then Elphaba looked up at the sky again, but this time not with distance, but with promise. She was still holding Glinda's hand, but her gaze was farther away.
"When all this is over," she said, almost in a whisper, as if speaking only to the stars, "when tonight turns out exactly as it should... because it will, okay?"
Glinda nodded silently, as if faith were woven through her own fingers.
"...There's something I want to tell you," Elphaba concluded.
Glinda said nothing. She just looked at her, and in her gaze there were a million questions, and all the possible answers at once.
The limousine continued on its way, gliding like a specter through the lit avenues. The night hadn't yet begun, but destiny was already on its way.
The black limousine came to a gentle stop in front of the stately steps of the Plumly Thompson Museum, whose centuries-old windows glowed with the golden light from within, as if history itself had been bathed in champagne. Outside, a burgundy carpet paved the way for the highest-ranking guests, all of whom stepped out of luxury cars draped in designer suits, silk ties, antique jewelry, and fake smiles as sharp as daggers.
Glinda looked out the window and took a deep breath. The entire building seemed to float in an aura of opulence she knew all too well. Elphaba, for her part, was already grumbling silently. Oz, arranging his pocket square with irritating elegance, smiled like a child excited about his own birthday.
"All right, creatures of the night," he said, "time for some show business."
Elphaba and Glinda looked at each other in resignation. Despite their mutual promise, the kisses, the caresses they'd shared before leaving, the outside world was once again demanding their masks. As soon as they stepped out of the vehicle, they felt eyes on them: curiosity, desire, envy, suspicion. On the left, a group of Hiland diplomats murmured as Glinda walked by. On the right, a female entertainment reporter hid a photo with her device hidden in her fan.
Oz, still maintaining his charming pose, offered an arm to each of them.
"What do you say, my dear ladies? May I have this metaphorical dance with power?"
Elphaba rolled her eyes so hard that for a moment she feared they were going to get stuck up there. But Glinda, maintaining a casual smile, gently placed her hand on Oz's arm, only to kick him square in the calf with her stiletto heel.
"Oh," Oz whispered, still smiling. "How sweet your affections are, Glinda."
"Smile, Prince Charming," he murmured to her. "You are among witches."
With both of them hanging from his arms, the trio walked down the red carpet under the flashing lights and the growing murmur of the assembled elite. But before reaching the main lobby, a black-clad attendant, wearing a white mask and silk gloves, stopped them next to a table where dozens of masks rested.
“Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors, honored guests,” she announced in a perfectly neutral voice. “Please choose a mask. Tonight, only those who hide may reveal their true faces.”
Elphaba blinked. One eyebrow slowly rose.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked, not bothering to lower her tone.
“It’s the theme of the event,” the attendant explained, still smiling. “A recent tradition. Inspired by the ancient masked balls of the Kingdom of Maracoor, I understand.”
“How poetic,” Elphaba muttered disdainfully.
Glinda gave a short chuckle, amused by the absurdity, and examined the masks with genuine curiosity. They came in all styles: Venetian ones covered in pearls, masks with metallic details, simple velvet pieces, and even one that looked like it was made of raven feathers.
“Come on,” Glinda said, taking a sky-blue butterfly mask studded with jewels. If we're going to infiltrate Hell, let's at least do it in style.
"Infiltrate or decorate Hell?" Elphaba retorted, angrily picking up a black mask with sharp lines and a Gothic look.
Oz chose a simple white mask with gold trim. He put it on with a theatrical smile.
"Perfect. Chaos is in order. And believe me, my dears... tonight, no one will know who is who."
Glinda looked at him, the mask now over his face. She silently thought he could hide behind all the masks in the world... but she, and Elphaba, were no longer hiding.
The great door of the museum opened before them. Music, lights, and the murmur of conspiracies instantly enveloped them.
And so the game began.
Through the glittering halls of the Plumly Thompson Museum, with marble columns decorated with diplomatic banners, ornate fountains whispering ancient names, and display cases filled with historical artifacts that did nothing to ease the tension, moved the most powerful—and dangerous—faces in the world. But tonight, they all wore masks. And in that jungle of masks, fake smiles, and betrayed toasts, it was impossible to distinguish an enemy from an ally… or an executioner.
Elphaba and Glinda, arm in arm, moved through the crowd with forced elegance. The former, wrapped in her midnight-black dress and gothic mask that gave her the air of a living statue; the latter, in her glittering sky-blue dress, the crystal butterfly covering her face like an ethereal being from another world. With every step they took, they attracted glances… some of recognition, some of suspicion, some, simply of desire. But they did not stop. They knew that true power tonight wasn't in the display cases, or the speeches, or even the weapons hidden under the suits... it was in the information.
"Remember," Oz whispered before disappearing into the crowd like a fox in a henhouse, "if you find someone who seems to know more than they're letting on, invite them for a toast. Champagne works wonders. I'll find Burden... someone has to teach that idiot how to smile without collapsing a nation."
And so they parted ways. Elphaba and Glinda looked at each other for a second, held hands for a barely perceptible moment, and then launched themselves into the battlefield.
Meanwhile, at the museum's back entrance, a burly man in a dark suit passed through the first security checkpoint, showing a credential bearing the seal of the Maracoor embassy. The mask he wore partially concealed a scar near his left eye. He claimed to be part of the contingency personnel, sent to reinforce security given the sensitivity of the diplomatic situation. The agents barely raised an eyebrow… the documents were perfect, sealed and validated. They let him in.
No one looked at him twice as he walked toward the hall of colonial portraits. No one noticed how he gently touched his right wrist, where a small listening device rested.
And no one, yet, knew to whom he answered.
High above the museum, a solitary figure stood like a sharp shadow against the illuminated city night. Dorothy Gale was no longer the plainly dressed young woman who glided between bars and strangers' cars. This Dorothy, now clad in a tight black dress, impossible heels, lace gloves, and a dark red mask that shone like a knife's edge in the dim light, was waiting. She didn't seem to belong to any delegation or press corps. But no one stopped her. Her very presence was authority wrapped in expensive perfume and latent danger.
From the terrace, she could see the entire plaza, the event lights, the ambassadors' cars... and the flow of people entering the heart of the manipulation. In one hand, she held a glass of red wine; in the other, her cell phone. She checked names, contacts, escape routes. She was calm. Patient. Like a hunter.
Amid the refined murmur of the central hall, where crystal glasses clinked to the rhythm of alliances and secrets, Glinda and Elphaba moved like two undercover agents. Despite the glitter of their dresses, the theatricality of their masks, there was something subtly clandestine about their gait: they moved with purpose, attentive to every face, every half-spoken conversation, every handshake that seemed innocent but wasn't.
The task was daunting. At an event packed with international representatives, investors, political analysts, diplomats, and even renowned artists used as status currency, Elphaba and Glinda had to do the impossible: turn a rumor into a cause, and a cause into a political front.
All without revealing their true identities.
Elphaba didn't know exactly when she stopped listening to Glinda speaking. Her steps slowed in front of that display case, as if something in the glass had suddenly absorbed her, mesmerized by the handwritten lines, the imperfect calligraphy on the ancient paper, yellowed with time but still proudly unfurled. "Founding Constitution of the Nation — First Year of the Confederation."
Elphaba bowed slightly, forgetting her dress, forgetting her mask, forgetting everything except that document, that symbol of the collective ideal that she had once—if only for a moment—believed possible. The quill with which it was signed rested right next to the text, framed with equal reverence. How many times had she read fragments of that text in dusty books? How many times had she clung to her principles when everything else fell apart?
"First time seeing your religion?" Glinda murmured, at her side, with a soft smile. Elphaba didn't respond. She just stood there for a moment longer, as if trying to absorb something she'd forgotten she needed.
But the calm was broken. Before they could walk again, a voice rose up near them:
"Ah! But if I'm not mistaken... you must be the Von Reizel sisters, aren't you? The heirs to the magical vineyards of southern Gillikin." The voice was deep, polite, and accompanied by two elegant figures: a middle-aged man with an ambiguous smile and a woman with silvery-gray hair pinned back with pearls, both with foreign accents.
Elphaba and Glinda turned in unison, and within half a second they were performing.
"Oh! Of course, mein Herr," Glinda replied with a small bow and an improvised accent as perfect as that of a classical actress. "Though no one has called us that in centuries, hasn't it, Sister?"
"That's right, Schwester," Elphaba said, surprised at herself for playing along without flinching. "It's a pleasure to finally meet the Duke and Duchess of Amaland."
"Rumors don't do justice to your beauty," the duchess added, curiously taking Glinda's hand. "But tell us, what brings you to this event? Business?"
Glinda didn't hesitate.
"Actually, a shared concern. We've heard of a delicate situation at the Maracoor Abiding embassy... and of a young woman who, according to rumors, could be the rightful heir to the throne."
Elphaba got the hint: Glinda had just planted the seed.
"We don't know much, but the little we've seen... is enough to worry us," Elphaba added, her voice deep and heavy with implication. "International treaties have very clear clauses regarding succession rights, even for nations in transition."
The dukes exchanged a glance. Something in their expressions changed: they became more attentive. More careful.
"Interesting..." the duke murmured. "We didn't know someone so young could attract so many glances."
"Sometimes youth isn't the problem... but the truth it embodies," Glinda said with an enigmatic smile.
And so they continued.
Figure after figure.
The heir to the East Orkland trading alliance, a secret defense minister, a political news editor based in Merryland, an eccentric nobleman who wore a phoenix mask and claimed to have advised Pastorius himself. They were all given the same seed, but disguised in different wrappings: diplomatic concern, economic interest, humanitarian empathy, even a marketing strategy.
"We're sowing a fire," Elphaba murmured as they walked away for a few minutes to a side gallery.
"A much-needed one," Glinda replied. "But we still need fuel."
Meanwhile, Ambassador Burden Bvasil stood with the posture of an uncrowned king, his chin raised, his voice modulated with the precision of someone who has given lectures during wars and scandals. With a glass of red wine in hand and surrounded by journalists and minor diplomats laughing at his half-truths, his figure radiated forced authority. He downplayed the diplomatic tensions with the elegance of a veteran actor:
"The situation in Maracoor Abiding is completely under control. The rumors... are just that. Rumors. Our young Prince Tippetarius is perfectly well, attending to minor diplomatic commitments away from the spotlight, as befits his training."
Every word was rehearsed. Every smile, calibrated. His confidence was a mask, and that mask was beginning to crack when he noticed that some eyes in the room no longer fully believed him.
And then he saw him.
From his angle, a mere reflection in a marble column gave him away: Zoroaster's profile, elegant, relaxed, walking among the guests as if the gala were a party thrown in his honor. He wore his black and white suit with arrogance, as if each button cost as much as a teacher earned in a year. His smile was the same as always: that of someone with nothing to lose because he's made a profitable spectacle of his own ruin.
Burden couldn't afford a scandal, so when Oz approached, he hid the annoyance in his eyes and extended his hand for the ritual handshake, smiling for the photographers who were still hovering nearby.
"Mr. Zoroaster," Burden greeted, his tone dry but diplomatic. "What a pleasant surprise."
"Ambassador Bvasil," Oz replied, returning the shake with a grimace somewhere between a smile and a threat. "An honor, as always, to be where history is made."
They posed briefly for a photo, and then Oz took the first step toward a less exposed corner of the room. Burden followed him with the composure of a seasoned politician, but whispering with restrained tension:
"What are you doing here?"
"You invited me, if I recall correctly. You said tonight would be decisive. Didn't you?"
Burden glared at him, barely concealing his irritation behind his wineglass.
"Yes, but I didn't expect you to bring your... troublesome pets. You said you'd keep them busy."
Oz lowered his voice slightly, but still smiled.
"I did. They're playing diplomats. Nobody cares what two women with no real credentials have to say. They're just background noise." He paused. Then, with feigned indifference, he added, "They're no longer a threat. I did my part."
Burden glanced at him sideways. One eyebrow rose. He didn't believe him. Not entirely.
"You'd better be," he said in a barely audible tone. "Because if that little girl opens her mouth tonight… it's all over."
"The little girl?" Oz replied, without looking at the ambassador, as he poured himself another glass of champagne. "Are you referring to the legitimate monarch you've been hiding for two years like a stone in your shoe?"
Burden paled for a second. Barely perceptible. Oz, satisfied with that small crack, added:
"Watch your words, Burden. There are very powerful people in this room… and they're all looking for the next great cause to ally themselves with. If Ozma decides to speak, she won't need an army. Just a microphone."
Burden gritted his teeth.
"And whose side are you on, Zoroaster?"
Oz lowered his glass and looked at him with a sharp smile.
"On the side that makes me look better in history. Aren't we all playing the same game?" Burden Bvasil could barely complete his arrogant groan when the music abruptly stopped. The lights in the Plumly Thompson Museum's main hall dimmed, leaving only a single spotlight on the grand marble staircase that descended into the hall. A murmur rippled through the crowd, like a wave of suppressed awe, as a uniformed attendant hurried onto the small platform and raised his voice solemnly:
"Ladies and gentlemen, honorable representatives, leaders, and members of the international press... please receive Her Highness, the Crown Princess of Maracoor Abiding... Monarch Ozma."
A sudden silence fell like a veil over the crowd. And then, there she was.
At the top of the staircase, lit up as if the universe had called for her, Ozma made her entrance.
She wore a deep green gown with emerald highlights that evoked the calm ocean, a design that combined the delicacy of royalty with the bold statement of one who was no longer hiding. Her hair, neatly arranged, was adorned by a fine tiara that didn't need to be large to mark her lineage. There was fear in her eyes, yes, but also a determination that defied the marble columns and centuries of diplomacy that permeated that museum.
Every step she took on the steps resonated like a proclamation. The heiress lived. She was here. And she was no longer a rumor or an uncomfortable burden. She was a living, breathing, walking truth... and absolutely impossible to ignore.
Glinda, who was turning to speak to Elphaba near one of the display cases, froze when she saw her. Her glass trembled slightly in her hand, and for a second, her lips parted without a sound. She stifled a sigh. It couldn't be, she thought. But it was. And she was glorious.
Even Elphaba, who had seen the cruelest intricacies of power, paused. She gently squeezed Glinda's hand as if she needed reassurance that they were both still anchored in that very moment.
Meanwhile, Oz watched from across the room, unmoving. A vague smile spread across his face. He wasn't sure if this was the beginning of his victory or the start of a new disaster.
Ozma reached the center of the room. The crowd, on the verge of bursting into murmurs, finally reacted. Some began to applaud, others simply nodded with plastic smiles. Media cameras spun around in a mixture of surprise and silent hysteria, as political strategists tried to calculate how close they should get to this reborn figure.
And then they began. The veiled questions, the compliments disguised as evidence.
"Your Highness, how nice to see you! How have you been all this time?" said a minister with too many pearls around her neck and too much venom in her voice.
"And how come you decided to appear just now?" asked a security advisor with a shark-like grin.
"I'm sure this has been very confusing for you, poor girl..." whispered a nobleman of dubious influence, condescending and arrogant.
But Ozma didn't break. She looked at them all with impeccable courtesy. For each smile, she returned a more radiant one. For each venom, a drop of honey. But her eyes... her eyes scanned the room. They were looking for something.
Or someone.
Ozma had barely managed to avoid the last enthusiastic official—an elderly earl who smelled of lavender and betrayal—when she took refuge behind the enormous table of golden snacks. She took a deep breath for the first time since descending the steps like a queen. She leaned subtly on the table, careful not to wrinkle her dress, as if that might protect her from the diplomatic fangs she had just faced.
She closed her eyes for a second, trying to calm her breathing. She thought of Glinda. Of Elphaba. Of that perfect instant when she believed the world could stop with just a reach out of her hand. It had been a brief illusion, she knew, but it had been hers.
And then, a voice, like a sweetly perfumed knife, cut through the calm with a thud:
"How does it feel to know the back of your dress is exposing your rear end, Your Highness?"
Ozma's heart leapt.
She whirled around, her eyes wide, her face flushed with sudden terror. Instinctively, she reached back, trying to feel her dress, imagining the worst: torn fabric, a poorly fastened zipper, utter humiliation.
"What?!" she exclaimed in an urgent whisper, on the verge of collapse.
And then she saw her.
Dorothy, standing behind her, arms crossed, a sly smile brimming with amusement and mischief. In her form-fitting black dress that seemed designed to hurt with style. Her crimson lips curved in a knowing sneer as she theatrically suppressed laughter, as if she were a child who had just dropped an ink bomb in the classroom.
"Bullshit," Dorothy finally said, bursting into laughter. "I just wanted to see how you'd react."
Ozma didn't know if she wanted to strangle her or hug her. For a second, she could only blink, helpless. Then she gently pushed her arm, as if that small gesture might restore some dignity.
"It's not funny!” She muttered, though a treacherous smile was beginning to form on his lips.
"No?" Dorothy retorted, stepping forward, modeling brazenly. "So what do you say to this?"
With a slight theatrical kick, Dorothy lifted the hem of her dress, revealing her final accessory: a pair of glittering red slippers that matched her mask. They weren't cheap imitations. No. These were adorned with fine crystals, shimmering in the warm museum light. Almost... magical.
Ozma narrowed her eyes.
"Are they...?"
"Yes. Ruby slippers," Dorothy interrupted proudly. "An exact replica of the originals. Or so your royal costumer told me. I told her I was your lady-in-waiting; I don't know if she believed me. But who cares, right?" She twirled around, delighted with her effect. "You have to know how to make a statement. And you pulled off the first one, so I thought... why not join in the act?"
Ozma crossed her arms and looked at her silently. The glitter of the slippers seemed to extend to Dorothy's eyes, where the fire of chaos sparkled uncontrollably.
"You're crazy," Ozma finally whispered.
"Oh, definitely. But admit it..." Dorothy said, leaning toward her, lowering her voice until it touched her ear. "You needed me at this party."
Ozma, still slightly flushed from the dress joke, tried to compose herself as Dorothy, now completely in her element, approached her casually and offered her arm as if they were two old friends out for an afternoon stroll. Ozma hesitated for a second, but accepted it. And without realizing it, she accepted much more than that.
"Here, add some color to your body; you're paler than a model mannequin," Dorothy said, handing Ozma a glass of champagne.
While Dorothy led Ozma around the room with a casual air, her eyes were sharp knives, dissecting every gesture, every fake smile, every wineglass held in hands that trembled slightly. She'd been to parties like this since she was a teenager, and she'd learned early on that no one wore a mask except during Carnival.
With each step, Ozma took a sip from her glass, hoping to hide at least some of her nerves.
"Do you see that turtle-faced minister in a brown suit?" Dorothy whispered in Ozma's ear as they passed an elegant couple. "He's afraid of flying. Not in an airplane—in the metaphorical sense. He's afraid of getting too high and everyone realizing he doesn't know how to get down. I'll bet anything he has a mistress hidden among the diplomatic staff. Or a lover. I don't judge."
Ozma choked on a mixture of her drink and her nervous laughter. She glanced sideways at the would-be minister and couldn't help but notice his chronic nervousness as he held his glass.
"How do you know?"
"I don't know," Dorothy shrugged. "But people like him tend to repeat the same pattern." There's nothing easier to read than a man desperate to keep his image intact.
And so, without pause, Dorothy continued her journey.
She pointed to a woman in an emerald green dress talking to three people at once. She said she was laundering money through her humanitarian aid foundation. That every time she said the word "sustainability," she meant "tax evasion."
She pointed to a young man with an angelic face and a perfect smile and murmured that he was the illegitimate son of a senator who secretly hated his father.
Each whisper was a promise, an invisible key she offered Ozma to unlock the doors to the world that had until then been denied her.
Ozma blinked, halfway between disbelief and fascination. They stopped beside a decorative fountain, pretending to observe a work of art. Ozma put down her empty glass in search of new reinforcement, and Dorothy continued her verbal hunt, turning the guests into rag dolls with just a few sentences.
"And what would we do with that information?" Ozma asked, barely whispering.
Dorothy shrugged with a mischievous smile.
"It depends. We can ignore it. We can sell it. We can use it as a bargaining chip... or as a dagger in the dark. It all depends on how good a queen you want to be."
Ozma swallowed. Something inside her stirred. Was it fear? Power? Both?
"I don't want to be like them," she whispered.
Dorothy tilted her head and looked at her, her gray eyes intense as a storm.
"No one starts out wanting to be like them. But the world won't give you a crown for wanting it, Ozma. You have to take it from them. And that... that requires knowing where it hurts."
Dorothy's hand slid gently to Ozma's waist, so discreetly that no one noticed. Just the two of them. Just that moment. Just the poison in the form of seduction.
"Look around you, my dear. Everyone has something to hide. All we need... is to find out what. And then, no one will be able to touch us."
Ozma didn't reply. But she didn't move away. And when Dorothy led her to the next room, to the next victim, to the next secret... the heiress didn't protest.
Not because she agreed. But because, for the first time, she felt the board no longer used her.
She was learning to move the pieces.
Dorothy noticed it immediately: the way Ozma's hands trembled slightly, as if holding back an invisible current; the tension in her shoulders, her erratic gaze, and her measured breathing. It was like seeing a wild creature disguised as a swan: beautiful, regal… but afraid of its own wings.
They leaned together near a display case, feigning interest in a ceremonial sword from the kingdom's founding era, but Dorothy seized the moment. She leaned close to her ear with almost theatrical precision, as if she were about to tell her a secret that would change the course of her life.
"What do you want to do, Ozma?"
The heiress hesitated. For a moment, Dorothy thought she wouldn't answer. But the young woman's voice, tremulous and sincere, came out in a whisper:
"I don't know… Maybe I just want everyone to stop looking at me like I'm… some freak. Like I have to apologize for existing."
Dorothy smiled. Not tenderly. Triumphantly.
"That can be arranged," she whispered with venomous gentleness, as if she were offering her the key to a prison Ozma didn't even know she could open from the inside.
"With a royal warrant?" Ozma replied, trying to sound ironic, but her laughter trembled on her lips.
"No, my dear. Political power is good. Very good. But there is something more powerful. More immediate. More visceral."
Ozma's gaze searched hers in confusion.
"Humiliation," Dorothy said, letting the word fall like a dark jewel onto the table of the world.
Ozma frowned.
"Humiliation?"
"Everyone fears it," Dorothy whispered, running a finger along the rim of the wine chalice a waiter had just set down. "But also... everyone yearns for it. Because it makes you real. Because it pierces the veil. Because in a world of masks, nothing is more honest than someone being broken in front of everyone." "And that's what you want? To break me?"
"No," Dorothy said, almost offended, but her smile betrayed her. "I want you to take that power. All your life, you've been threatened with exposing your difference as if it were shameful. With showing yourself to the world as something… that should be hidden. Well, what if you don't hide anymore? What if you show yourself? What if you say, 'Here I am,' without apologies, without asking permission… and in the process, let everyone who ever made fun of you die of fear that you're stronger than them?"
Ozma stared at her, shocked. The idea was dangerous. Overwhelming. But also… liberating. For the first time in her life, someone was telling her not to run from humiliation. To use it.
Dorothy raised her glass to her.
“Humiliation is the weapon of those of us not born with crowns. But if you know how to use it… everyone will bow down anyway.”
Ozma looked down at her reflection in her wine. Who was this young woman? A frightened princess? An actress feigning confidence? Or someone who had finally understood that the greatest act of power… was to appear fearless?
And the most dangerous thing of all… was that Dorothy wasn’t just telling her.
She was showing her how to do it.
The festive, ostentatious atmosphere of the event was fading away for Ozma, as if the elegant music and diplomatic laughter were floating away, drowned out by the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears. The new champagne flute Dorothy had given her trembled slightly, and its reflection in the glass showed something new… not just fear, but power. Raw, uncut power, begging to be used.
“I chose someone,” Dorothy whispered to her like a demon disguised as a friend, her voice silky and sharp. “Just one. You don’t have to sweep everyone off their feet… just a little demonstration. Show that you’re no longer the helpless creature they want to lock away. Show that you know how to use what you are.”
Ozma swallowed and scanned the room. Among the perfect faces and bodies wrapped in satin and power, she saw her.
A young woman a few years older than her. Platinum blonde. A pearly white dress with a bold neckline and a crown of minor diamonds in her hair, like a parody of what the lineage represents. Her laugh was high and hollow, her movements choreographed like those of a creature accustomed to being stared at but never challenged. Around her, other equally brilliant girls nodded like leaves in the wind.
She did nothing, and yet she represented everything. Everything Ozma knew she would never be allowed to be without paying a price. All that traditional, celebrated, rewarded femininity. That image that, for Ozma, had been a broken promise since childhood. And the worst part… was that in that girl, Ozma saw her own absence. As if the world were reminding her: you're not that, you can't be that, you never will be.
And for the first time, Ozma didn't feel sad about it. She felt furious.
She wouldn't have that perfection that comes in sealed packages. She wouldn't have the inherited naturalness, nor the femininity accepted without question. She wouldn't have that kind of privilege… but she did have something she didn't: hunger.
And anger.
Anger for every time she was made to feel like her identity was a manufacturing error. For every dress she was denied. For every appraising glance. For every night she cried, wishing she were someone different, someone the world seemed to love unconditionally.
"That one," she whispered, in a voice that surprised even herself. She felt her throat go dry and her vision blur with an anger that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Dorothy smiled at her, showing her all the fangs hidden behind her friendly gesture.
"Excellent choice."
"What should I do?"
"Give her an order," Dorothy said, as if teaching her how to cast an ancient spell. "Do you want justice? Do you want to see yourself win? Humiliate her. Not with hate. With authority. Order her to be brought down from her cloud. Show the world that you have more power in a single word than she has in her entire reign of sugar."
Ozma took a deep breath. She was going to do it. She was going to use that power. To prove it. To prove herself.
But then… she saw him.
A man. Tall. Burly. Wearing a black evening suit and a mask that barely concealed his square face, his lips pursed, his posture tense. He stood against a column at the back of the room, an untouched glass of whiskey in his hand. He wasn't talking to anyone. He wasn't moving. But his gaze, dark and steady… was fixed on her.
Ozma froze.
"What is it?" Dorothy asked, following the direction of his eyes.
Ozma didn't respond immediately. She recognized him. It was the same man from the park. The one who had followed them before the embassy agents found them. But now she understood clearly: he wasn't part of the security team. His way of observing wasn't that of a bodyguard or a diplomatic agent.
It was that of a hunter.
Dorothy realized that Ozma had frozen, and followed her gaze. When she saw him, she frowned slightly, but said nothing. Her tone lowered, more severe.
"Don't waste the moment. If you hesitate now, everything falls apart."
"Who is he?" Ozma asked softly.
"It doesn't matter who he is," Dorothy answered quickly, still smiling. "It matters who you are... and what you're going to do to the world when it finds out."
But it wasn't that simple anymore.
The decision hung before her like a taut string. On one side, the spoiled girl who represented what Ozma hated and feared most. On the other, the silent threat of the stranger in the shadows.
And in the middle, Ozma… knowing that choosing one of those directions meant fully embracing the fire burning within her.
Finally, the pressure became too much; the world seemed to collapse around her, her mind screamed, and her breath caught in her throat. Her body began to burn, and unable to resist, Ozma ran.
She ran with her shoes in her hand, her breath ragged, her ball gown a silk trap that squeezed her chest. She couldn't think. She shouldn't. Not while that gaze—that man—remained there, stuck in her like a fishhook. She strode through the crowd, her face buried in masks, expensive perfumes, and hypocritical laughter, unaware of how she left a trail of confused glances in her wake. She was a wounded animal escaping the brilliance that had enchanted her and now threatened to devour her.
And then, without knowing it, she walked right past Glinda.
"Did you see that?" Glinda murmured with a sudden gesture, stopping her stride among a group of diplomats.
Elphaba barely managed to look, but all she needed was a glimpse of blond hair and a pale face behind a glittering mask to sense it.
"Ozma?"
"I'm going after her!" Glinda said, already running between the rows of tables and attendants, her heels clicking like gunshots on the marble floor.
Elphaba tried to follow, but in the midst of the chase, someone got in the way.
Oz.
"Elphaba!" he said urgently, his eyes searching for her in the turmoil, sweating beneath the golden lion mask that barely concealed his unease.
She stopped dead in her tracks.
"What are you doing? We have to—"
But before she could finish, he took her hand. His gesture was clumsy, improvised, as if he were trying to disguise something that was beyond him.
"Please," he said with a smile as false as it was shaky. "Come dance with me. A... a waltz. Father-daughter."
"What?"
"Just a minute," he insisted, already pulling her along, as if his life depended on this absurd choreography.
Elphaba resisted for a second. A second. But something in his eyes stopped her: it wasn't arrogance this time, or manipulation, or even that worn-out charm he used with the world as a mask. It was fear. Fear of something else. Something she didn't understand.
"You're hiding something," she whispered, still looking at him as he led her toward the center of the dance floor, where other couples twirled opulently. "What did you see?"
"Later," he promised, forcing a smile as he placed his hand on her waist. "I swear."
And then the music changed.
A waltz. Classical. Pompous. The orchestra lifted it like a tidal surge, and the crowd parted with rehearsed precision. Elphaba found herself in the middle of the hall, slowly twirling with the man who had just called himself her father.
The light from the ceiling shone on their dresses, like stars in a fake sky. The masks around them watched them. And she twirled. And he did too.
A father and daughter.
Or something pretending to be.
"Why are you doing this?" Elphaba asked, not sweetly, letting herself be carried away by the music just to keep up the charade.
"Because I'm afraid," Oz admitted, his voice low, never missing a beat. "And you're the only person I know who never seems to be."
"It's not true," Elphaba replied. Her eyes, deep, tired, searched for him beyond the mask. "I'm afraid too. I just don't allow myself to stop."
"So that's why we're dancing," he said, and for once he didn't sound cynical.
She looked at him for a long time. Perhaps for the first time since discovering the truth, she looked at him not as a monster, or a jester, or an open wound... but as a man.
A broken man. As lost as she was.
"Oz," Elphaba said, her voice a whisper between the bars. "If you know something. If you saw someone. If there's a reason you dragged Glinda and me into this farce..."
Oz didn't answer immediately, but the waltz continued to swirl around him like a mockery. The notes glided across the marble floor with an indifferent beauty, as if nothing could matter less to her than the weight of history between those two figures dancing in the center of the room.
Oz held her gently, his fingers trembling on Elphaba's waist, as if he feared the slightest touch could break her. He looked at her. Really looked at her. Not with the arrogance of a showman or the condescension of a politician, but with an almost... vulnerable expression.
"You have your mother's eyes," he said, his voice cracking in his facade of eternal charm.
Elphaba jerked her head up, as if that comment were a slap disguised as tenderness.
"I don't have time for this," she hissed, trying to wriggle out of his arms.
But he didn't let go. He held her not with force, but with a silent plea through his fingers.
"Just one more second," he begged. "Please. Just one."
Elphaba stayed. Because of the tremor in his voice. Because of the tremor in her.
Oz swallowed. His lips were dry, his gaze dark, and for the first time in his life—perhaps the only time—he didn't speak like the Great and Powerful Zoroaster, or like the charming buffoon of the show, or even like the political trickster. There was something broken in his voice. Something human.
"I didn't know," he said. "I didn't hear about you until much later. It was... it was one night, a mistake. I thought no one would be hurt, as always. But by the time I found out, it was too late. I..."
"Shut up!" Elphaba raised her voice with such fury that some heads in the room turned, surreptitiously.
She looked him straight in the eyes, her green ones burning like frozen flames.
"You didn't know? Is that all you have to say? That it was a mistake?"
Oz looked down. He said nothing.
Elphaba was trembling. Not from fear. Not anymore. It was something else. It was a fury so old and so deep it had no name.
"My mother..." he began, his voice breaking for only a moment, but he wouldn't let it. "She couldn't bear the shame of your deception. The scandal. The lie. The abandonment. She took her own life, did you know that? She took her own damn life."
Oz looked up, pale.
"And she left me," she continued, her voice heavy with centuries of silence. A green, misunderstood girl, raised by a man who hated her from day one. Who made me feel like an aberration, like a monster. A man who thought he was my father, and who reminded me how alone I was with every damn gesture, every blow, every time he told me no one would ever love me.
Oz didn't breathe. He couldn't. He seemed to be sinking into the very expensive suit that wrapped him.
"And you want me to stay? To dance with you and forgive you with a tear and a waltz because now you know I'm your daughter?" Elphaba spat at him, her voice breaking. "Where were you all those years? Where were you when I needed someone? When I thought the world was falling apart and no one was going to save me."
Oz opened his mouth. But there were no words.
Elphaba let him go. She took a step back, and for a second she stood alone in the center of the dance floor, the music still swirling around her, as if the world hadn't heard a single word of her confession. As if nothing had happened.
But something had happened.
Her.
And the worst part was that, despite the catharsis, she didn't feel relieved. Just... empty. As if what she'd just said had been bottled up so long that it had already rotted inside her.
"I don't hate you," she finally said, her voice lower. "I don't have the strength for that."
She looked at him once more. Not as a daughter. Not as an enemy. But as someone who had survived despite him.
"But you won't have another second."
The music still hung in the air like a heady fog. The dim lights of the ballroom slid across the suits and dresses, gilding every raised glass, every rehearsed smile. But Oz saw none of it.
His gaze fixed on Elphaba, who was striding steadily away from the dance floor, he tried to catch up with her, swaying slightly. The wound was fresh, but the cut was old. He reached out and murmured her name:
"Elphaba…"
She didn't turn around.
That was when she saw him. A shadow between the bodies, a tall, burly figure moving stealthily, his gaze fixed on one spot in the room. His instinct, or perhaps a fear deeper than instinct, made him move forward. Elphaba had noticed it too. They exchanged glances for barely a second before moving in sync, like two rivers converging, each from its wound, toward the same destination.
The man turned. His face was firm, his jaw closed, his mask dark. His black suit blended with the surroundings, but his presence was like a crack in the facade of the event. It was the same one who had been stalking Ozma and Dorothy, but when he took off his mask, time froze.
"Chistery?" Oz murmured, almost voiceless.
The man raised an eyebrow, unfazed. Then he sighed, as if the acknowledgment seemed a waste of time.
"Lord Zoroaster," he said in a deep voice devoid of any formality. "It's a shame to see you."
Elphaba frowned, clearly irritated by their presence.
"Do you know him?"
"He was my head of security when I was a senator," Oz explained, trying to soften the moment with a smile. "A man I trusted. At least until he dumped me when I left politics."
Chistery looked at him with disdain.
"You fired me via voicemail, Oz. Don't forget that."
Oz laughed nervously, smoothing down his jacket.
"Details... details from the past. But what are you doing here? Are you working?"
"I'm on duty, yes. I don't have time for your... family gatherings."
"What kind of duty?" Elphaba chimed in, noticing that Chistery seemed to be scanning the crowd with military precision.
Chistery hesitated for a moment, but it was clear he had no respect for Oz's discretion.
"I work in private security now. I was hired to track someone."
"Who?" Oz asked, leaning in with ill-disguised curiosity.
Chistery didn't reply immediately. He seemed to be assessing whether it was worth saying. It was Elphaba who stepped forward, crossing her arms authoritatively.
"Who hired you?"
Chistery sighed.
"Fiyero Tigelaar."
Elphaba froze.
Her face drained of color, her lips barely parted. For a second, she didn't even seem to understand what she'd heard.
"What?" was all she managed to say.
Chistery looked her straight in the eyes, impassive.
"You hired me to locate a young woman. I've been following her trail through different cities; she's elusive. And I followed her to this event. The name they gave me was clear: Dorothy Gale."
Elphaba took a step back. Not because she couldn't stand her ground. But because the information had struck something she didn't know was still unprotected inside her.
"No..." she murmured.
Oz tilted his head, confused.
"Who is Dorothy Gale?"
Elphaba didn't answer. She couldn't. Her mouth was closed, but her heart had begun to drum as if it wanted to burst out of her chest.
Chistery noticed the silence, but didn't interrupt it. He just put his glasses back on.
"If you have something to say to me, say it now. Because I'm going to report your every move to Fiyero."
But Elphaba remained petrified.
It was as if all the lights in the museum had suddenly gone out, as if the conversations, the laughter, the elegant music—everything had fallen into an icy silence. She only heard the name echoing in her head, over and over again, louder and louder, like a cursed funeral bell.
"She's here..." she whispered. "Dorothy is here."
And in her voice, for the first time in a long time, there was no fury, no sarcasm, no pride. Only a fear as cold and sharp as a razor's edge.
Meanwhile, Glinda ran down the side corridor of the museum, the echo of her heels mingling with the murmur of the distant party. She came out through the east gallery, the night air caressing her face like a sigh of reality. Outside, the city seemed to hold its breath. The streetlights bathed the esplanade in a dim, almost ritualistic light. There was no sign of Ozma, but Glinda knew she was near. She felt it.
"Ozma…" she said aloud, softly. "I don't know what you're feeling right now, but… if you're scared or confused, if you feel alone… you're not. I'm here. I'll always be here. If you need help, if you don't know what to do… we can do it together. You don't have to…"
Silence answered her. A thick, expectant silence. The kind of silence that precedes the moment when fate changes shape.
Glinda took a deep breath, holding back the anguish in her chest.
"Ozma, please..." she whispered again.
Then she felt movement behind her, a light scrape of footsteps on the stone. She turned with hope in her heart, believing—feeling—it would be her.
But no.
Before her, standing in the dim light of a streetlamp, was a young woman with a shrewd gaze, lips as red as sin, and a black dress that hugged her body like an elegant threat. Her dark brown hair fell to her shoulders, and she held a small clutch between her fingers with an almost mocking grace.
"Hello, Glinda," the stranger said with a sweet, poisonous smile. "How nice to finally meet you."
Glinda frowned, bewildered.
"Have we met?"
"Not yet," the young woman replied gently. “But I have a feeling we're going to have... a lot to talk about.”
It took Glinda a split second to notice the most disturbing detail: the shoes. Red, shiny, like molten rubies.
Dorothy Gale bowed slightly in a theatrical greeting. The gleam in her eyes wasn't friendly. It was the kind of glint that announced the game had begun.
Glinda didn't know why, but a chill ran down her spine.
And so, as the night wind gently stirred the banners above the entrance to the Plumly Thompson Museum, and the town continued its waltz of masks and lies, Glinda Upland found herself face to face with the most dangerous piece on the board.
TO BE CONTINUED….
Notes:
Next episode: season finale, The Wicked Witch vsThe Girl from Kansas
Chapter 33: WONDERFUL PART 3
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
FUTURE:
The darkness before her seemed harmless, but Glinda knew it wasn't. Her shoulders were square, her smile perfectly tempered, and she had the posture of someone who has crossed these minefields more times than she'd like to admit. Everything is under control, she repeated to herself like a mantra as the assistant opened the double doors leading to the main studio exit. It's just a few steps to the car. You've done it hundreds of times, Glinda. Just a few more steps.
The doors opened like a floodgate letting in a storm. The roar of flashbulbs, microphones pointed like spears, and crowded voices engulfed her violently. The name Glinda Thropp-Upland was thrown like a stone into the mouth of every reporter, followed by nonstop questions:
"Congresswoman, what is your current relationship with the heiress of Maracoor Abiding?"
"Do you support the controversial Article 13 of the "Equality and Territory" bill?"
"What can you say about the photos from the last gala?"
"What do you think about the rumors linking you to your communications advisor?"
Glinda advanced without wavering, like a queen crossing a battlefield with her scepter of words and smiles. Each sentence she uttered was surgically precise, studied, fine-tuned in tone and choice:
"I don't comment on active investigations."
"The project is under review, and the entire team is committed to the common good."
"My private life, as the name suggests, is private."
"I leave rumors for the magazines; I work with facts."
She said it all without saying anything, and at the same time, she said it all.
Finally, like a swimmer breaking the surface after diving, she reached the black limousine waiting for her with the door open. She slipped inside with the grace of someone who has learned to turn each step into choreography. When the door closed, the murmur and the lights remained outside. Only then did Glinda deflate.
She let out the air she didn't know she was holding, kicked off her heels with an almost desperate gesture, and leaned her head against the padded back of the seat, closing her eyes for a moment. The city was still throbbing outside, but for a couple of minutes, she didn't care.
The silence was broken by the delicate ringing of her cell phone.
She checked the screen.
Elphaba.
Her heart gave a small jump that she couldn't hide, even though she was alone. She smiled with sweet tiredness and answered immediately:
"Hello, my love?"
Elphaba's voice sounded on the other end with its usual sarcastic tone, but beneath it vibrated a genuine note of concern:
"Where are you? I've been waiting for you at the back entrance for half an hour. You said you were going out that way."
Glinda's smile froze on her face. She blinked once. She looked out the window as if the answer could be written in the air itself. "Oh no," he barely murmured, placing a hand to his forehead. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. "Elphie... the press release was the main one. I got distracted. I'm sorry. I thought..."
"Did you think you were going to keep me waiting like at the gala last December?"
Glinda felt the soft but precise blow of those words, still wrapped in irony. She sat up straighter, nervous.
"No! I swear it wasn't on purpose, I swear. I'm going that way. Have the driver turn around, just..."
The call remained open while Glinda, still in the limo, desperately signaled for the driver to turn the corner.
"There! Right there, please!" he whispered, his lips pursed and a fake smile on his face, so as not to disturb the calm tone with which he was trying to win his wife back over the phone. Honey, just give me two minutes and I'll be there. I promise I won't make a mistake this time.
But on the other end of the line, Elphaba wasn't answering. Glinda slowly lowered her cell phone, as if a doomsday bell had just rung in her ears. The car gently pulled up to the back corner of the studio. Glinda took a deep breath, rehearsed her "I know I messed up, but you still love me" smile, and opened the door with a hopeful gleam in her eyes.
The first thing she received wasn't a look, a kiss, or even a word.
It was a bouquet of flowers smacking her in the face.
"Ouch!" Glinda exclaimed, pushing the bouquet aside and brushing the petals off her neckline.
"That's the most romantic thing you're going to get tonight," Elphaba said, stepping into the limo with a jerky movement and closing the door behind her. She was wearing her usual black coat, frowning, and holding a bag containing what appeared to be a bottle of wine... or acid, depending on her level of anger.
The chauffeur, on automatic, resumed driving.
"Elphie, love," Glinda tried sweetly. "I'm sorry. I swear I didn't know you were waiting for me there. It was all a mix-up, the press, the spotlights, the..."
"Of course. The press. Because it's this date, Glinda. And you knew what it meant. Or at least that's what you said this morning."
Glinda opened her mouth... and closed it. She blinked for a moment, and then, as if the universe had slapped her with a memory slap, she remembered. She remembered everything. Breakfast, the promise, the plans canceled for the interview with Fianna Lux, the dress Elphaba had worn that morning "just in case"... and most importantly: the date.
Glinda felt her throat close with guilt.
"Elphie..." she murmured softly. "There's no excuse. I forgot. I'm an idiot." A very busy idiot, swamped with press releases, but an idiot nonetheless. And besides... I also promised you tonight would be just for us.
Elphaba didn't respond. She stared out the window with the stony expression of someone who doesn't want to cry because that would be giving too much away. But Glinda knew that face. She knew it better than anyone else in the world.
"But I can fix it," she said, with sudden urgency in her voice. "I'm going to call Crope right now. He and Tibbett can be our backup for one night, plus they always say they're the 'Cool Guys,' and I'm going to get a reservation at the most ridiculously romantic restaurant in this town, and I'm going to beg your forgiveness with every weapon at my disposal. Even that playlist of old songs you hate but once danced to with me with tears in your eyes. Yeah? Give me a chance?" Elphaba turned her head slightly, still staring out the window, and in a neutral voice answered,
"Does it include the acoustic version of "I Want to Know What Love Is" sung by the blind drag queen from that bar in Kansas?"
Glinda immediately brightened.
"Yes! Exactly that one!"
Elphaba smiled wryly, crossing her arms.
"Then maybe you have half a chance, Representative Thropp-Upland."
Glinda didn't think twice: she pulled out her cell phone, dialed Crope, and as soon as she heard his voice on the other end, she exclaimed,
"Emergency plan, Queen! My marriage is hanging by a thread, and only you can help me."
Elphaba continued staring out the window, her reflection projected on the glass barely softened by the city light. Her brow was still furrowed, but no longer with that silent anger that made the entire limousine tremble. It was... something else. As if deep down she didn't know if it was still worth it to be so angry, or if she simply didn't want to let go of that position out of pride.
Glinda, meanwhile, hung up on Crope with the efficiency of a stateswoman organizing a nuclear emergency summit.
"Thank you, Queen. If I save my marriage, I owe you a full year of drinks at Kiamo Ko," she said as she pressed the call button again, this time to her personal assistant.
"Lia! Listen carefully, this is code crimson lavender, level red. I need a table, now, now, at the most romantic and kitschy restaurant in town. And I don't care if you have to bribe a chef with Broadway tickets or promise him my vote for a pedestrian bridge in Zone 4, get it for me."
Pause. The answer was negative.
"No, it can't be full! Tell them it's for me, for Glinda Thropp-Upland! What do you mean, all the tables are already reserved?" What are they doing, mass reconciliation dinners?
Another refusal. Glinda gritted her teeth. Her tone changed like a thunderstorm.
"Call everyone. Rosenthal, Amici, that ridiculous glass dome overlooking the river. Tell them Representative Thropp wants a romantic evening and that if they don't get a table, I'm going to propose a law limiting reservations to 72 hours and expropriating restaurants with revolving roofs. Go ahead!"
She hung up abruptly and dialed again, muttering to herself as her blond curls shook with suppressed fury.
—Perfect. Great. They're denying me my constitutional right to romance. All wrong. This city hates love. This city hates lesbians in public office. It's institutional lesbophobia!
And just as she was about to explode, her phone fell into her lap as she heard something: laughter.
At first, a snort. Then a cackle. And finally, an explosion of uncontrollable, deep laughter bursting from Elphaba's chest, as she clutched her stomach, leaning forward, her eyes shining from laughing so much.
Glinda looked at her as if she'd gone crazy.
—What are you laughing about now? I'm trying to save us from a catastrophe!
—Exactly! —Elphaba managed to say between giggles. —Did you hear what you just said? That the city hates love? That you're going to expropriate a restaurant? All because of a date you forgot! And now you want to make up for it with a restaurant with a revolving roof!
"It was a great idea!" Glinda protested, though a smile was already escaping her.
"Glinda..." Elphaba said, now between laughs and sighs. "We've been together for years. We've been through revolutions, kidnappings, elections, orgies accidentally organized by Brrr... and you still don't know that our relationship was never elegant or orderly?"
"That was what was going to make it special!" Glinda insisted with a pout, crossing her arms.
Elphaba looked at her, tenderly now.
"And what could be more special than you running in stilettos among television producers, being chased by journalists, and threatening five-star chefs on the phone?"
Glinda didn't respond immediately. Her smile won the silent battle. Laughter was inevitable. She brought her hands to her face, covering her eyes, and let out a stifled laugh that ended in a graceful snore.
They both laughed. They cried a little. They looked at each other.
"We're a mess," Glinda said.
"A beautiful mess," Elphaba replied, taking her hand. "But if you really want to redeem yourself... I think I know how we can celebrate tonight without reservations."
"Yes?" Glinda asked, interested. "Does it involve some form of mischief or legal jeopardy?"
"It involves pizza, two glasses of wine, a playlist we made together... and you wearing that satin shirt you stole from me when we first moved in."
Glinda brightened.
"I knew you noticed!"
"I hate it when you play innocent," Elphaba said, smiling, before leaning on her shoulder.
The car continued on its way, and the chaos of the city no longer mattered.
Because sometimes, the best dates aren't the ones planned... but the ones that survive the disaster.
CHAPTER 33: Wonderful part 3
PRESENT:
The music continued to float like a thick perfume through the halls of the Plumly Thompson Museum. The orchestra's notes drifted through the halls, seeping through ancient arches and through the display cases housing relics from another time. The laughter sounded fake, the glasses clinked like shattering glass, and every conversation between masks seemed like a small conspiracy wrapped in velvet.
But for Elphaba, it had all become white noise, distant and oppressive. It was like running inside a dream, one of those where the body moves but the entire world weighs like lead.
The black dress she was wearing—the same one that minutes before had made her feel armed like a dark queen—now felt like an obstacle, a useless flag waving in her wake. She pushed forward without apology, her heels hitting the marble violently, her breath choking her chest. She didn't think. She just ran.
Behind her, Oz tried unsuccessfully to catch up with her, throwing questions into the air.
"What's going on? Where are you going? What did you see?!"
But she couldn't answer. Not even to herself.
Five years. Five damn years. Since that last night. Since the storm. Since everything broke.
And now, Dorothy Gale was here. In the same building. In the same room. On the same night where everything hung by a thread.
Elphaba stopped dead at a fork in the corridors. She closed her eyes for a second, fighting not to collapse right there. The echoes of voices pierced her temples. Her mind flashed old images, fragments of a story she'd never fully understood: Dorothy's eyes filled with fury, her voice like a blade, the guilt that still slumbered beneath her skin like a thorn she never dared to pluck.
Why now? Why tonight?
"It can't be a coincidence!" she murmured to herself, her pulse burning in her wrists.
The answer came suddenly, like a gust of wind across her spine. As if someone—something—had whispered an ancient truth to her amid the chaos.
He's not here for you...
Elphaba looked up, frozen by the thought.
He's here for Glinda.
The name hit her harder than any memory. Harder than any past mistake. Because if Dorothy hadn't come looking for her... if she'd avoided direct confrontation, if she'd moved in the shadows... then she did it for another reason. A more twisted one. A more dangerous one.
Glinda.
He saw her again in his mind: her recent laughter, her tenderness in the limousine, the way her fingers intertwined with his like a silent promise. Glinda, his love, his companion, his daily salvation. Glinda, who could now be in the sights of someone like Dorothy. Someone he never forgot. Someone he never forgave.
Elphaba spun on her heel with a new urgency. It wasn't a flight anymore. It was a hunt.
"Glinda!" she shouted between the faces, not knowing if anyone could hear her.
Oz finally caught up with her, panting.
"What are you talking about? Who's here?"
Elphaba didn't even look at him. She just murmured, with a mixture of anger, fear, and a clarity she hadn't had in years. Meanwhile, in the museum garden, the golden lights from the windows flickered behind like distant beacons, and the murmur of the gala could barely be heard, muffled by the tall hedges and ornamental sculptures that decorated the path.
Glinda walked with a slow but steady gait. Her light blue dress trailed lightly over the gravel, like a comet crossing a baroque garden. Her expression was serene, but behind her eyes danced a storm of thoughts.
There was no sign of Ozma. No trace of her dress, nor her fragile voice. Only the murmur of the nearby fountain and the faint chirping of urban crickets hidden among the bushes.
And right there, right at the edge of the garden, in front of a white statue of a cherub far too solemn for its size, a female figure looked at her with a smile. Dorothy.
There was nothing aggressive about the girl's posture. In fact, everything about her seemed carefully designed to disarm any defenses: the elegant yet simple black dress, the gentle smile, the relaxed shoulders. But Glinda felt, deep down, that ancient pang that told her something wasn't right. As if a flower that was too perfect hid invisible thorns.
"Excuse me. What did you say your name was?" she asked with measured courtesy, her voice firm but kind.
The young woman laughed faintly, as if amused by the question.
"Dorothy... Dorothy Gale."
The name floated in the air like a distant bell. Glinda didn't react immediately. She didn't know that name. She didn't remember that name.
Dorothy took a step toward her.
"I know you're looking for Ozma. She's fine. She's not far away, she just needed to breathe. It was a very intense night for her."
Glinda narrowed her eyes.
"Are you part of the security detail?"
"No. Nothing so formal," Dorothy replied, with a charming nod. "I'm a friend of hers. I've been... keeping her company for a few days. In fact, she went on about you all the time. 'Glinda this, Glinda that'... as if you were some kind of impossible-to-reach fairy. It made me think I should meet you."
Glinda forced a smile, though her muscles didn't seem to want to obey. Something about that sweetness was... artificial. Too perfect. And above all, too directed.
"I'm glad someone's with her. She's a very... special girl. How long have you known her?"
"Oh, a couple of days," Dorothy said lightly. "But sometimes, that's enough. The really important people come into your life without asking permission. And they stay. Like a tattoo... or a wound."
The sentence slid through like a knife, so smooth it was hard to notice the wound. Glinda kept smiling, but her back tensed. She didn't know why, but that girl made her uncomfortable.
She hadn't mentioned Elphaba to her. Not a single word. And yet, there was something in that look... a barely concealed familiarity. As if she knew too much.
"You'll excuse me," Glinda said, taking a step toward the opposite path. "But I need to find her. It was a pleasure."
"Of course," Dorothy said, not moving, still smiling. "But if I can give you one piece of advice, Glinda... don't underestimate her. Ozma is discovering what it means to have power. Honestly. You see her as a child, don't you? But children grow up. And sometimes, they do so suddenly."
Glinda didn't know how to respond to that and politely said goodbye once more and continued her search for the runaway heiress. But she didn't do it alone.
The garden seemed more vast under the moon than during the day. The shadows of the trees lengthened like ancient fingers on the gravel paths, and the breeze rustled the leaves with an almost conspiratorial murmur. Glinda moved forward with a measured stride, her light blue dress billowing behind her like a trail of mist, her eyes scanning every corner for a familiar silhouette, a glimpse of Ozma's gown, a sign that all was under control.
And at her side, like a smiling echo, walked Dorothy.
The young woman walked with the lightness of someone with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Her voice was soft, rhythmic, perfectly calibrated. A measured sweetness, like a candy that slowly dissolves… and leaves a metallic aftertaste.
"You don't know how glad I am to have met her," Dorothy said with a shy little smile, as if each word were a shared secret. "Ozma is so... special. She reminds me of a firefly trapped in a jar. Don't you think?"
Glinda nodded slightly. She didn't answer. Her eyes continued to scan the ground, but part of her attention—the most uncomfortable part—was already focused on her companion's voice.
"I didn't know anything about all this, you know," Dorothy continued. "About princesses, ambassadors, politics... I barely knew this country existed. Strange that a girl like me ends up here, isn't it? I guess luck sometimes puts you in the right place. Or the most fun."
Her eyes glittered like a cat's at the edge of a milk fountain. Glinda remained silent. She had learned it in politics: when you don't know if something is a trap, it's best to let the other person give themselves away.
"She talks about you a lot," Dorothy added, with that overrehearsed innocence. "As if you were... I don't know, some mythological figure. As if you could solve everything."
Glinda looked at her sideways.
"She's strong too," Glinda said, measuring each word. She just needs time to realize it.
Dorothy laughed. A soft, yet sharp sound.
"Oh, of course she does. Although sometimes... mirrors don't show what you want to see, do they? I wonder what Ozma would see if she were reflected in you."
Glinda stopped.
The tone was still warm, even friendly. But there was something behind those words. Something off. Something cold.
Dorothy stopped too, tilting her head with apparent innocence.
"Did I say something strange?"
"What exactly do you want, Dorothy?"
The question was direct, but not aggressive. Glinda fired it off like a woman tired of going around in circles.
Dorothy smiled wider, as if she had been waiting for that very question.
"Me? I just want Ozma to be well. Happy. Free. To be... anything she wants to be. Like you, right?"
Glinda took a deep breath. The air smelled of damp earth and lavender. The garden was beautiful. And yet, it felt like they were walking through a minefield, where every word was a foot pressure that could explode.
"She's free now. She has choices. People who love her."
Dorothy nodded with mock understanding.
"Of course, of course... And you? Are you one of those people?"
Glinda looked at her directly, with the serenity of someone who has weathered many storms.
"Where are you going with all this?"
"Nowhere. I'm just talking," Dorothy said, throwing up her hands in mock surrender. "It's just that it impresses me. The way she looks at you. As if you were the compass of her world. It must be exhausting, isn't it? Being someone's beacon. Or... the limit."
The blow was subtle. But it was there. She felt it. Glinda stood firm.
"Ozma can look at whomever she wants. But whatever path she chooses, she's going to choose. No one else."
"I thought so too," Dorothy murmured. "Until I realized that sometimes you need to be pushed. Provoked." Let them take it out of its mold to find what it truly is.
There was a silence between them. Long. Eerie.
The nearby fountain dripped its water as if measuring time.
And then Dorothy walked again, lightly, as if nothing had happened.
"Come on. It's bound to be around here somewhere. We lost it between the west gallery and the gardens... Wouldn't it be a shame if someone else found it before us?"
That last sentence didn't sound like a possibility. It sounded like a warning.
Glinda stood still for a second. Her back tense. Her heart alert.
And then, without saying anything, she started walking again. This time, her steps were quicker.
But Dorothy wasn't far behind.
Like a smiling shadow.
Like a thorn wrapped in velvet.
Inside the museum, the gala glittered with the radiance of opulence, but to Elphaba, it was all white noise. Indistinct faces, clinking glasses, hollow laughter, diplomatic speeches… and no sign of Glinda. Or Dorothy. Or Ozma.
The mask pressed against her face, but not as much as the growing feeling that disaster was already underway.
Oz tried to reason with her, walking at her side, still retaining the aristocratic air that had surrounded him since they left the hotel, but each word he spoke seemed more distant, as if he were speaking through thick glass.
"Elphaba, listen to me, we have to maintain composure," Oz said, in a half-whisper. "Politics moves with precision, not impulse."
"Politics is a mask," she spat at him without pausing. "And there are too many of them tonight."
And then she saw him. Near the east wing of the main hall, next to a modern sculpture that looked like a broken sphere, stood Chistery, sipping from a goblet as if he hadn't been missing from the face of the Earth for years.
Elphaba darted forward.
Chistery barely had time to turn when she grabbed his arm, leading him away from the commotion and into a dimly lit corner next to a display case of military antiques.
"Where is she?" was the first thing she said, his eyes blazing.
"Who?"
"Don't play games with me, Chistery," she hissed. "Dorothy Gale. What do you know? What are you hiding? Why did Fiyero send you to follow her?"
Chistery, surprised by his former ally's intensity, raised his hands in a sign of peace, but his expression remained alert, like a soldier in hostile territory.
"I'm not hiding anything," he said calmly. "And Fiyero hired me a few months ago. He found me at a roadside bar in Nubbly, slipped me a photo, and told me he needed me to find her."
"Why?"
"I don't know. He didn't explain. He just told me not to lose sight of her… and not to underestimate her." That was the only thing he repeated more than once.
Elphaba let him go, taking a step back.
"And what did you do?"
Chistery lowered his voice, glancing back to make sure no one was listening.
"I followed her. Through several states. She never stayed in one place for long. She moved with the logic of a silent hunt. She went from place to place looking for something… or someone." Sometimes she seemed like a fugitive, other times a tourist. I saw her work people, get them talking, get close, wrap them up. She never used violence. She never did anything illegal (overtly)… but everyone ended up giving her what she wanted.
"What else do you know?" Elphaba insisted, her hands clenched at her sides.
Chistery hesitated.
"I found out a few things. About her past. Her family. That she dropped out of college after a year and virtually no one has any record of her after that… Also that she was somehow involved in an affair involving a professor who was reported anonymously…"
That last word fell like a stone in the pond. Elphaba froze.
"What do you know about that?"
"Just enough. Enough to understand that they tried to protect her. And that she wouldn't let them."
Elphaba swallowed. For a moment, her face lost all hardness, revealing only a hint of the unhealed wound.
"Where is she now?"
Chistery shook her head.
"I saw her arrive with the heiress. I watched them for a while. They moved together. Very close. As if they were allies... or something more. But after that, I lost her. All I can tell you is that she's not alone. And that you shouldn't look at her like a wounded child. That girl... knows what she's doing."
"And Fiyero? Why didn't he tell me?"
"Maybe because he thought he was protecting you," Chistery said, and his tone was gentle, almost compassionate. "Or maybe... because he knows that if you find her first, you'll have to choose between protecting her... or stopping her."
Elphaba looked down for a second. Her jaw was trembling.
"And what do you think?"
Chistery studied her for a long moment before answering.
"I think... it doesn't matter what you choose. That girl has already chosen you as a key piece in her game." The only question is: are you going to be queen... or are you going to be a sacrifice?
Elphaba still felt the vibration in her hands. Chistery's words still stuck in her chest like spikes. Dorothy. She was here. In the same building. She wasn't a ghost from the past. She was real, she was dangerous... and she was moving the pieces with surgical precision.
"Can you locate her?" Elphaba asked, her voice raspier than usual.
Chistery nodded, but not without a grimace of doubt.
"I can try... but I need something. A number, a direct contact, something that's linked to her trail."
Elphaba thought. She forced herself to remember. An image came to mind: the secretary's office in the academic office at her old university. She'd been given a number when she'd passed by a few months ago, looking for a lead, any indication of what had become of Dorothy after everything she'd been through.
Maybe it was old. Maybe it was useless. But it was all she had.
"Try this one," he said, dictating a series of digits in her ear.
Chistery quickly jotted them down on his phone, opening an app that looked ordinary at first glance, but whose icon could only have been developed by someone with access to higher levels of digital intelligence. Something he'd received, without irony, from Oz years ago when he was still working as head of security for his campaigns.
"This might take a minute," he warned.
But it didn't even take thirty seconds. A blue light flickered on the screen, and the map updated.
"It's in the garden. West side of the museum. Right now."
Elphaba felt her heart skip a beat for a second, before pounding harder than ever. She nodded furiously and turned to run toward the back exit of the great hall.
"Wait!" Chistery tried to follow her. "Do you want me to come with you?"
Elphaba stopped, turning her face urgently.
"No. If she sees you, she'll run away again. She's done it before. She has the instincts of a bloodhound and the paranoia of a spy."
"But you don't know how she'll react," he insisted.
"I do!" Elphaba stared at him. "That's why I have to go alone."
She took another step when another voice reached her.
"And me?" Oz said, approaching from the shadows on the steps.
Elphaba looked at him, her brow furrowed.
"What about you?"
"I also have a right to know what's going on. This is obviously bigger than it seems. And if this girl is as dangerous as you say—"
"It's not that, and you know it," she interrupted sharply.
"Then why don't you want me to go?"
"Because it's not your story," he replied, trying to maintain his composure. "You've already caused enough damage."
Oz frowned.
"Do you think I knew who she was? That this was all part of some master plan?"
"No, what I think," Elphaba said, taking a step closer, her eyes blazing with intensity, "is that you're more interested in protecting your image than any of us. That you want to know what she's planning, not to protect me… but to protect you. And I'm not going to risk anything more because of your hidden guilt as an absent father."
Oz was about to answer, but he couldn't. Because it was true. Because everything he did, even his presence there, was pierced by an atavistic fear of losing what little he had left: influence, prestige, legacy. Elphaba knew it. She'd always known it. And now she was saying it out loud.
"Stay here," she ordered firmly. "This time, don't screw up."
And without waiting any longer, he ran.
She made her way between the marble columns and classical sculptures of the lobby, pushing through a double door that opened onto the museum's side courtyard, an ancient garden with stone paths, surrounded by baroque statues and cast-iron lanterns.
The museum's rear garden was almost deserted, covered in the yellowish light of antique lanterns that cast long shadows on the stone paths and trimmed hedges. The central fountain gurgled peacefully, oblivious to the tension growing like a poisonous root between the two women walking side by side.
Glinda advanced with a measured, elegant gait, her light blue dress barely flowing with her movement, her posture impeccable as always, but her gaze was beginning to narrow. She felt how every sentence that came from Dorothy's lips was calculated, disguised as sympathy, wrapped in an uncomfortable sweetness, like poison served in a crystal cup.
"And was Ozma always like this?" Dorothy asked in a soft, almost childlike voice. I mean... so charming and yet so... fragile. Aren't you afraid something might happen to her? That someone might take advantage of her?
Glinda raised an eyebrow. That last word had been spoken in a barely audible, almost imperceptibly sarcastic tone. She was feigning concern, but Glinda knew that kind of intonation. She'd heard it all her life from the ladies in political circles who hated her with smiles.
"Ozma is stronger than she looks," she replied in a gentle, if slightly colder, voice. "Sometimes she just needs firm guidance. But she has character, when she needs it."
Dorothy smiled as if she knew something Glinda didn't.
"Of course. I'm still surprised that someone like you... so busy, so powerful, would take the time to protect her."
"She's not a burden. I love her. And I'm not alone in this," Glinda responded immediately, without thinking.
Dorothy turned her head toward her, with genuine or acted interest, it was hard to tell.
"Aren't you alone? Do you mean at the embassy or…?"
Glinda stopped, pretending to look at a nearby statue. The figure of an angel held an open book, with the word "veritas" carved in Latin.
"I mean my mate," she said clearly. "She wants to help you too."
"Her?" Dorothy asked, almost with a stifled laugh, as if the information were new, surprising, juicy. But her reaction was… too measured.
Glinda walked back, letting the silence settle between them for a few seconds. She knew that true information isn't obtained through shouting or pressure, but through a simple trap. A lure.
And then, without changing her tone of voice, she asked the question:
"Have you ever heard of Elphaba?"
Dorothy didn't stop, didn't hesitate, but something in her body—minimal, almost imperceptible—tensed. It was barely a shadow in her smile. Barely a pause in her stride.
"Elphaba..." she repeated, as if savoring the name. "Should I?"
"Perhaps not. It's an unusual name," Glinda replied calmly, without taking her eyes off her. "But I thought you might recognize it. She's made history. Although... not always in the way people would like."
Dorothy smiled again, but now her smile was less toothy. More cautious. Her eyes shone with the intelligence of those who learn to feign innocence in order to survive, or to dominate.
"No, I don't think I've heard of her. Is she someone famous?"
"A lot." Glinda turned to her. "Especially for those who... study power."
The words hung between them like a reflection in water. The game had changed. Dorothy knew it.
So did Glinda.
A breeze gently stirred the trees in the garden. The moment had mutated from a simple casual conversation to a masked dance. And Glinda, who had always been underestimated by her smile and her heels, knew exactly when the play was over.
They no longer walked like two friends.
They walked like two predators gauging distances.
"How interesting," Dorothy said finally, her tone just as charming. "Perhaps I should look into her."
"Perhaps you should," Glinda said without smiling.
The fountain murmured in the distance, and footsteps faded into the gravel, but Glinda heard nothing but Dorothy's voice. Every word seemed measured, rehearsed. Every smile, a disguise. And she was no longer willing to pretend she didn't notice.
"You know... there's something that intrigues me," Glinda said, her tone light, but her gaze like a scalpel. "You have a very particular accent."
Dorothy, who was at that moment adjusting a curl that had fallen over her forehead, paused for a second. Just a second. But that was enough.
"Oh, really?" she replied with a soft chuckle. "No one's ever told me that before."
"I recognized it right away," Glinda continued, taking a step closer, pretending to admire a moss-covered marble sculpture. "Kansas."
Dorothy blinked.
"Your ears are quite sharp!" she said with such perfect wonder it would have made any actress weep with envy. "Yes, I'm from Kansas. How did you know?"
Glinda smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"Let's just say I have a good memory for accents. And for stories."
"Stories?" "Dorothy repeated, as if she didn't understand.
"Oh, yes. I'm fascinated by them. Especially the ones that start in Kansas and end in worlds no one quite understands," Glinda said, her tone heavy with subtext.
Dorothy gave a quick, nervous laugh and made an exaggerated gesture with her hand.
"Well, there aren't many Elphabas in Kansas, that's for sure," she said, mentioning the name again with an almost mocking lightness.
Glinda didn't blink.
"No. There aren't. But there are at the universities. At the advanced programs. At the laboratories. At the protests."
Dorothy took a step back.
"I couldn't tell you. I didn't go to university," she lied. There was no doubt about it.
"Funny," Glinda murmured, her heels clicking on the stone as she took another step closer. "Because you have the way of speaking of someone who's been surrounded by big—and dangerous—ideas."
Dorothy looked away, lowered her gaze for a moment, but quickly recovered.
"You're very intense, have you ever heard that?"
"All the time," Glinda replied without smiling. "But when something doesn't add up, I like to understand why. You see… I know politics. And I know when someone is deflecting questions."
Dorothy remained silent, but her jaw tightened slightly.
"Then tell me, Dorothy," Glinda continued softly, each syllable charged with electricity. "Where did you meet Elphaba?"
Dorothy's eyes narrowed. She had lost control of the conversation, and she knew it. But she wasn't ready to give up yet.
"Why are you so sure I know her?"
"Because you laughed when I said her name. Because your accent changes when you lie. Because I saw you, even for a second, look at me as if you knew things I didn't. And because Elphaba has lived many lives, but she never forgets the one who left her mark."
Dorothy swallowed.
Glinda took a step closer, now inches from her face. Her tone wasn't hostile, but it was irrefutable, like the truth already known and just waiting to be spoken.
"What are you to her?"
For a moment, Dorothy looked like a statue. And then... she blinked. She smiled. As if she'd been caught in a trap and still found beauty in the fall.
"Does that matter?" she whispered.
Glinda didn't answer immediately. She just looked at her. Deeply. To her soul.
"Yes," she said finally. Because this time I'm not going to let someone come along and destroy it from within. There have been enough mistakes. Enough losses. So... yes. I want to know exactly who you are and what you're doing here.
Dorothy crossed her arms, the smile still on her face, but more subdued. More human.
"Maybe I'm just a tourist from Kansas."
"You're not," said Glinda.
"Maybe I came for her," Dorothy whispered, her eyes staring into nothingness, as if summoning a ghost.
"For Elphaba?"
"No," Dorothy answered, looking up again. "For Ozma."
The air between them was almost tangible, like a taut cloth about to tear. The cherub statue stared blindly down at them from its pedestal, but if it could see, it would have felt chills. Face to face, under the dim light of the garden, Glinda and Dorothy were two opposing forces, but only one of them knew what was truly happening.
Dorothy maintained her smile with the precision of a well-placed mask. Her chin held high, her jaw firm, her body tilted slightly as if floating above any confrontation. Her words were knives wrapped in velvet.
But Glinda was no longer the woman who once feared ulterior motives. She was no longer just the pink princess of charity events or the politician with rehearsed answers. Since Elphaba entered her life, she had learned a lot… about politics, about power… and about desire. Above all, about the underlying desire. The kind that hides behind words, in the weight of the body, in the shifty gaze, in the way someone tenses when given an order and not a choice.
And now, she looked at Dorothy… and she knew.
Not from what she was saying. But from the way she stood. From the way she held that perfect smile, as if with every second she prayed that no one would see what she truly was.
A sub.
A sub who hadn't yet found her place. One who was performing for the whole world.
Glinda narrowed her eyes. She inhaled, slowly straightened, and remembered… She remembered the afternoons in the loft with Elphaba. She remembered the silences. The rules. The tests.
She remembered what it means to dominate someone not with force, but with clarity. With truth. With a firm voice and a steely gaze.
And for the first time, without Elphaba at her side, without an emotional safety net… she allowed herself to be the dom.
"Don't say a word," Glinda commanded, her voice low, firm, deep.
Dorothy stopped. It was almost imperceptible, but she obeyed.
"I don't need you to explain anything to me yet," Glinda continued, taking another step forward, without raising her voice. "Because I already know what you are. I know what you're looking for. And I know you won't find it alone."
Dorothy's lips trembled slightly. Her smile was still there, but now it was more of a mask than anything else. Her eyes, however, lit up. For a second, just a second, they shone with a mixture of fear and... relief.
Glinda saw it. She understood.
"You're tired," she continued, gently but still with authority. "Of acting. Of lying. Of manipulating because it's the only thing you know how to do. Do you want to control everything because if you don't, you'll destroy yourself? Do you want others to need you to feel strong? Are you afraid of being vulnerable?"
Silence.
"Does it excite you?"
Dorothy swallowed. She said nothing. But she looked down. Just for a moment. That was all Glinda needed.
"You're waiting for someone to see you," she said, even softer, like a whisper to her heart. "Someone who understands you without you having to disguise yourself. Someone who sets limits where you no longer know how to do it alone. Is that it?"
Dorothy looked up again, her eyes glassy, her jaw clenched. The mask was crumbling, crack by crack. There was no answer, but the tension in her body spoke volumes.
Glinda didn't hesitate. Every step she took around Dorothy was measured, studied, almost choreographed, as if she were on an invisible stage and knew she couldn't miss a line. The moon lit up the flowers in the garden, and her elegant silhouette, imposing in her starry sky dress, cast a shadow that glided like a ghost over the young woman in black.
Dorothy remained motionless, but her body betrayed what her face was trying to hide. Her neck slightly tense, her eyes following her unblinkingly, her fingers pressed against the seam of her dress. Glinda stopped in front of her, lifted her chin with two fingers, and forced her face up.
"Posture," she said tersely.
Dorothy, as if something inside her recognized that word in a language older than English, straightened her back, squared her shoulders, spread her feet slightly, and parted her lips. Glinda took a small step back, watching her. She lacked precision.
"Hands at your sides. No higher. No lower. Gaze straight ahead. Breathe," she added, her voice soft but implacable.
Dorothy obeyed.
"Good. Now..." Glinda circled her slowly, bowing slightly as she passed behind her, "tell me what you did wrong."
Dorothy didn't reply. Glinda stopped and whispered from behind her, "I gave you an order."
"...I was disrespectful," Dorothy muttered.
"So?"
"I played with you. I mocked you. I tried to manipulate you."
"So?"
A suppressed sigh. An internal battle. And finally:
"I put Ozma at risk."
Glinda closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and felt the tide of her own rage subside slightly at those words.
"You think you're so clever, don't you?" Glinda continued, resuming her movement around her "sub." "High above everyone. But you don't know how to play this game. You only know how to hurt. Because you're afraid someone will see who you really are."
Dorothy swallowed. The tension was beginning to ease from her shoulders, as if the words were lifting a weight she'd been carrying for too long.
"But if you want to be under my tutelage, under my protection," Glinda said, stopping in front of her again, "... there are rules. And they are followed." Understood?
"Yes, ma'am," Dorothy whispered, barely audible.
"I didn't hear you."
"Yes, ma'am!"
The shout echoed between the stone walls of the garden, and Glinda smiled with satisfaction. She took a step closer. Her gaze was a suppressed fire.
"Now," she said firmly, each word a weighty command, "you are going to do something useful. You are going to take me to Ozma. Now."
Dorothy lowered her gaze for a moment. There was surrender in her eyes, but also a strange gleam. Glinda recognized it. She had seen it a thousand times in Elphaba: the spark that appears when, at last, someone really sees you... and doesn't run away.
"Yes, ma'am," Dorothy repeated, calmer. Then she looked up. "She's hiding in the greenhouse. I took her there. Come with me."
Glinda nodded. And without losing her poise, without relinquishing control, she followed her down the path toward the greenhouse, with the absolute confidence of a woman who had learned from the best... and who was now ready to use that power.
The walk was slow, precise, like a funeral procession where only one of those present knew the final destination. Dorothy walked ahead, her body erect, her eyes straight ahead, her steps measured as if each one responded to an ancient rhythm learned in silence, through fear and obedience. Glinda followed her with the same firmness, but with her eyes fixed on her back, analyzing every slight tension in her shoulders, every held breath. There was no longer any room for error.
"You went to college with her, didn't you?" Glinda said, her voice as soft as a sharp blade.
Dorothy didn't respond. But it wasn't necessary. The stiffness in her shoulder blades was enough.
"They were close in a way. She tried to help you. But everything went wrong... something happened. Something that weighs on you to this day." Glinda's voice wasn't accusatory, but deep, heavy with the certainty of someone who doesn't formulate conjectures, but states the truth.
The silence deepened.
"And even if she doesn't say it," Glinda added, "Elphaba still regrets it."
Dorothy hesitated for a split second. Just enough to confirm everything.
But there was no more time for words.
In front of them, the greenhouse revealed itself as an ancient glass structure, covered with vines that climbed like green fingers from every corner. In the background, behind the ferns, stood a white marble statue: an angel with its wings spread and its head tilted toward the sky. And on the base, lying awkwardly as if she had collapsed there, was Ozma.
Glinda felt her heart stop for a second. Her body reacted before her mind.
"On your knees!" she ordered immediately, without looking at Dorothy.
The young woman obeyed without hesitation, falling like a programmed soldier to the ground.
Glinda ran, climbing the stone steps and scrambling to the platform as best she could. She knelt beside Ozma, her hands trembling as she took her in her arms. Her white dress was stained with dirt, her eyelids heavy, her dry lips murmuring disjointed words.
"Shh... shhh... you're all right, I'm here," whispered Glinda, holding her to her chest. "Good heavens... what did they do to you?"
And then she noticed. Ozma's breath had a sour, chemical tinge. The sweat on her forehead was cold. Her pupils were dilated like saucers.
"They gave her something..." Glinda murmured in horror.
"Of course they did," said Dorothy from the floor... and smiled.
Her voice was no longer timid or trembling. It was cold. Clear. A mask falling to the floor with a clatter.
Glinda turned slowly, still holding Ozma, and saw her.
Dorothy was on her knees, yes, but upright like a sphinx. The sweet smile from before had turned into a sneer.
"Did you really think you could tame me, Glinda?" she said in a velvety, venomous voice. "That this little game of yours would work with me as it did with her?"
Glinda stood still. Her body was a statue. But her eyes... her eyes burned.
"What did you give her?" she asked with such lethal calmness that it made the leaves of the greenhouse tremble.
Dorothy shrugged, with that same smile.
"Nothing I haven't tried before. Nothing permanent. Just enough to open her eyes."
"Open her eyes?" Glinda stood up, leaving Ozma lying gently on the marble. "Is this opening eyes to you? Playing with a child as if she were an experiment?"
Dorothy stood up. Her black dress shimmered in the dim light. She was no longer pretending. She wasn't acting anymore.
"I'm not destroying her, Glinda. I'm building something new. Showing her the only true path she has if she wants to survive in this world of hyenas... You don't understand because you've always been on the side of the sun."
Glinda took a step toward her.
"And you didn't understand anything about Elphaba. About what real power means. The kind that's built on love, on connection, on truth."
"Right?" Dorothy laughed. "Like the truth she hid from you for years? The truth about me?"
At that moment, Glinda, still upright, felt the sharp click of Dorothy's cell phone camera, a sound almost imperceptible but one that resounded in her chest like thunder. She knew what that image represented. She knew what that smile meant.
"Oh Glinda..." Dorothy whispered, moving the cell phone between her fingers as if it were a velvet-wrapped weapon. "Did you think you could play dom and get away with it? How delightful to see you get a taste of your own medicine."
Glinda didn't react immediately. Her mind froze, quickly assessing the thousand paths that photo could take: the media, her rivals, the cameras that followed her every step. Her reputation, her job, her public life... everything could be shattered by a single image taken out of context. An image that, to someone who understood nothing of the world she and Elphaba shared, would scream scandal, abuse, unbalanced power. Humiliation.
Dorothy approached, her black dress brushing the stones, her hyena-like expression widening.
"You were wrong about me," she said, stopping just a foot away. "I'm not a submissive. I never was. Do you know what I am, Glinda?"
Glinda looked up, her eyes blazing, but still mute.
"I am the fire that no one sees coming until it's too late," Dorothy whispered. "I am the one who is always, always, always in control."
And as she said this, she slowly raised her cell phone as if offering it as a trophy, or a threat. Glinda took a deep breath. She didn't flinch. She didn't blink. But the terror was there, in her chest, pounding like a bomb.
And then, in another corner of the garden...
Elphaba walked through the shadows, her heart pounding. She had run, argued, bargained, and chased ghosts all night. But now she felt something guiding her, as if each step were leading her toward an inevitable point.
And there it was.
On an ancient marble statue—a broken, moss-covered figure of some forgotten hero—sitting cross-legged and upright, as if on the throne of a makeshift theater, was Dorothy Gale.
Alone.
Waiting for her.
The two pairs of eyes met.
Dorothy smiled at her.
"Hello, Elphie."
The world around Elphaba seemed to lose all shape and color. The sounds of the garden, the distant music of the gala, the murmur of the trees swaying in the wind—everything faded. Only the dry echo of her own footsteps remained… and her. Dorothy.
Her eyes fixed on Elphaba with an expression impossible to decipher. It wasn't exactly defiance. It wasn't pain. It was something more dangerous: serenity.
Elphaba felt her stomach clench. She had imagined this moment for years. She had dreaded it with such irrational fervor that sometimes she found herself dreaming about it. Sometimes wishing it would happen… but never like this. Not under this moon, not after so many unhealed wounds. Never with so much at stake.
Dorothy stepped gracefully down from the statue, as if descending from an altar she had built for herself. Each step had the precision of a trained actress, but also the lightness of someone who knows she is in control of the scene. And when she stood in front of Elphaba, less than a meter away, they both stopped.
Elphaba said nothing. Dorothy didn't either. The silence between them was so charged it could have lit up an entire city.
"Did you miss me?" Dorothy finally said, with a gentleness that made her skin crawl.
Elphaba didn't answer. She watched her face and saw that something had changed in her. The Dorothy of her memory was a confused, trembling, wounded young woman.
This was another Dorothy. A woman. A creature as sharp as a dagger, built from every crack the world had inflicted on her.
"I didn't think we'd meet like this," Elphaba murmured at last. Her voice was deep, thick, as if each word weighed a ton.
"Like what?" Dorothy tilted her head, a smile meant to be kind but dripping with venom at the corners. "Surrounded by decaying sculptures and fake masks? In the middle of a party celebrating the powerful while burying princesses? It seems… poetic."
Elphaba clenched her fists. She wanted to say something. She wanted to say so many things. But everything swirled in her chest, and she couldn't find an outlet.
"What are you doing here, Dorothy?" she asked finally, with forced calm. "What are you looking for?"
"Me?" Dorothy feigned surprise, walking slowly around her, like a starving satellite orbiting its dying sun. "Looking for answers, I suppose. Just like you. Just like everyone. But I'm also... settling old scores."
"With me?"
"With you?" she repeated, now face to face again. "With me, Elphie. It was always with me."
There was a tremor in her voice. Small. Unexpected.
Elphaba noticed it.
"I tried to help you," she whispered, without moving. "God, Dorothy... I tried. You know that."
Dorothy laughed, but without mirth.
"Help me? Is that what you did? Were you my savior? My hero?"
"I was your friend."
Dorothy looked up. For a second, the mask cracked. Pain flashed like a wounded firefly, but it was extinguished as quickly as it had appeared.
"You were my model. My goddess. My horizon. And do you know what happened when I fell? I saw the farce that you were…"
At these words, Elphaba stared at her. Her eyes, those green pools lit by the storm within her, unblinking. Her jaw trembled slightly, not from fear, but from the intensity of the fire growing beneath her skin. Dorothy, meanwhile, swirled around her with the grace of a snake that knows the exact rhythm of the hunt. Each word she spoke was sharper than the last, delivered with that poisoned sweetness that only a person broken and remade by their own flames could master.
"I see it so clearly now," she murmured, stroking the air with her fingers as if sculpting the words. "For all those years I believed you were perfect, that you were above us, that you were invincible." My great dom… And I hated you for it. —He paused and lowered his voice almost to a whisper—. —But now I know the truth. Behind that dark leather and that stern gaze… is a woman trembling with fear. Afraid of losing. Afraid of loving. Afraid of being alone.
Elphaba whirled around, suddenly facing her.
"Where's Glinda?"
The question was a thunderclap. Direct, unadorned. But Dorothy smiled even wider.
"There she is." She nodded with satisfaction. "I knew that was your weak spot. Her. It was always her. The day you met her, you lost. All your strength, all your control, that whole facade... it went to hell with a pair of blond eyelashes and a smile."
Elphaba gritted her teeth. Her fists were clenched at her sides, trembling. Fury coursed through her veins, but she wasn't blind. Not this time. She was no longer that fearful young woman. She knew that if she attacked, if she got out of control, she would lose. Because that was Dorothy's true trap: provoking her rivals into monsters to justify herself.
"Where's Glinda?" she repeated, this time more quietly. More threateningly.
Dorothy stopped moving. She watched her, silently, as if measuring every line of tension in her body. Then she took a step closer. So close that their noses were almost touching.
"So sad," she whispered. "The woman who once taught me that power lies in self-control, in knowledge... is now just another devotee of love. Another idiot's heart that beats harder than it thinks."
Rage rose like lava beneath Elphaba's skin. Her eyes blazed. Her chest rose and fell in uneven waves. What hurt most wasn't the humiliation, or the power game she was being subjected to. It was that Dorothy was right. About something. About too much.
Because the mere thought of losing Glinda was unbearable. Because loneliness terrified her more than any whip. Because no matter how much she wanted to deny her humanity, there she was, raw, exposed, bleeding, in the middle of a garden lit by statues and a moon.
And Dorothy knew it. Like a good friend. Like a former student. Like someone who had been watching her from the shadows for years.
"Now," Dorothy said, raising her voice theatrically as she twirled in front of her, her tone dry, sharp, almost ritualistic. "If you really want this to end. If you want to see your precious Glinda again... kneel."
Elphaba felt a chill run down her spine. Every cell in her body screamed. Every fiber of her pride resisted tooth and nail. She was a dom. She had endured whips, chains, glares. She had walked among consuls and criminals. She had faced Oz himself.
And yet... now she stood before Dorothy Gale. Her past mistake. Her shadow. Her mirror.
The silence stretched for seconds that seemed like centuries. The night held its breath. The universe suspended in the tension of that instant.
And then, with her eyes fixed on Dorothy's, fury vibrating in every muscle, humiliation biting at her throat...
Elphaba knelt.
Her knee hit the grass with a thud. Her body was shaking. Her mind was a hurricane. And yet, she didn't look away. Because even on her knees, even in that position of surrender, Elphaba Thropp wasn't a victim. She was a flame. And she still burned.
Dorothy took a step back. She surveyed the scene as one might a controversial work of art: with delight, with horror, with satisfaction.
"That's better," she murmured. "Welcome back, Elphie... But before the final game, you should dress for the occasion."
Elphaba's eyes widened when she saw what Dorothy was hiding behind her back.
Soon after, among the scented hedges of the museum's back garden, the night seemed to hold its breath. The lights of the gala were fading further and further away, turning into golden patches among the leaves. Instead, there reigned a bluish gloom, broken only by the moonlight that fell like a theatrical spotlight on a forgotten corner: an old outdoor exhibition, neglected, almost covered in moss. In the center, a large black and white stone table decorated like a chessboard. On either side, two stone chairs in the stylized shapes of baroque thrones. A stage worthy of a final game.
And sitting in those chairs, tied with the precision of someone who knew how to play with knots—not violently, but with perverse detail—were Glinda and Ozma.
Ozma had her head resting against the back of the chair, her eyes half-open, still blurred by whatever Dorothy had administered to her. Her green dress was disheveled, her hair disheveled like a forgotten doll's. But Glinda… Glinda was fully conscious. Her back straight, her jaw set, her eyes fixed straight ahead like knives.
And then she saw them.
The two figures emerging from the trees.
Dorothy walked with a cruel grace, as if floating over the path, her arms relaxed, her smile perfectly composed. And beside her, a step behind, Elphaba.
But not the Elphaba Glinda knew.
Elphaba walked with her head down, her shoulders tense. She wore her fitted black satin dress, with details that hinted more than they covered. But the most striking thing wasn't the clothes: it was the collar. Black, soft leather, with a silver buckle. A classic sub collar, elegantly fitted around the neck. A symbol that, in that context, screamed.
Glinda's eyes widened.
"What... what did you do?" she managed to say, her voice piercing the distance like an arrow.
Elphaba didn't respond. Her eyes barely lifted, for an instant. And in that instant, Glinda saw what no one else could see. The humiliation. The pain. The suppressed rage. But also, beneath it all... strategy. Because Glinda knew her. She knew her like no one else.
Dorothy stopped in front of the table. She walked around, surveying the scenery with the pleasure of a maniacal hostess preparing her masterpiece.
"Oh, they're all here!" she said with poisonous glee. "What a relief. I was worried someone might slip off the stage before their time."
She turned to Glinda with the sweetness of a poison-monger.
"You don't know how difficult it was to organize all this, did you? Between bribing, blackmailing, and sugarcoating... it almost ruined my manicure. But anyway... all for you girls."
Glinda tightened the ropes that bound her.
"What do you want from us? Why are you doing this?"
Dorothy raised an eyebrow, delighted.
"You want a political answer? A philosophical one? A sexual one?" She leaned across the table. "Maybe... all of them."
And then, caressing the edge of the table, she added:
"This is not mere revenge, Glinda. This is... a lesson. For you. For her." And she nodded toward Elphaba, who stood silently beside her new "mistress." "And for Ozma, our sweet, fragile linchpin."
Glinda tried to speak, but Dorothy interrupted her with a raised hand.
"Shhh... we'll talk. For now, let's begin our little tea party. Or should I say... our chess game. You're already in position. Now she just needs to take her place."
The stone creaked softly under Elphaba's footsteps as she approached the chair opposite Dorothy. She was going to sit, not out of submission, but out of instinct, out of a need to anchor her body to something solid. But then she heard the voice.
"Ah-ah," Dorothy crooned with suppressed cruelty. "That chair is not for you, my dear Elphaba."
Elphaba froze mid-motion, one knee about to buckle. She looked up slowly, as if each vertebra in her neck weighed a ton.
"Pardon?" she asked, her voice drier than a rusty knife.
Dorothy didn't reply immediately. Instead, she pulled a small tray from behind the stone statue, and on it, with a theatrical flourish, a white apron of fine cloth and a cap. A delicate piece of attire, the kind worn by maids of the old aristocracy. She held it up with her fingertips as if it were a trophy and walked slowly toward Elphaba, who didn't move.
"Your place, Elphaba," Dorothy said with venomous gentleness, "is where you were always meant to be: serving others. But this time... with some style."
Elphaba gritted her teeth. Her jaw was set in a line as sharp as a blade. She said nothing. She couldn't. The gazes on her were like shackles. Ozma, stunned and tangled in her own bewilderment. Glinda, furious, hurt, trapped, and watching her... watching her like that. That gaze was the worst.
Dorothy approached. And with almost insulting theatricality, she placed the apron on her, tying it in the back. Then, still staring at Glinda, she placed the cap on her head.
"Perfect," she whispered, more to the imaginary audience in her head than to anyone else. "Now, bring us the tea."
Elphaba took a step back, as if every fiber of her body was fighting against the invisible strings that pulled her to obey. But she couldn't allow anyone else to get hurt. And Dorothy knew it.
With mechanical movements, Elphaba took the china teapot from the cart on the side of the table, pouring it first for Ozma, carefully, her hand trembling slightly. Then for Glinda, who watched her with eyes that seemed to set the air on fire. As she bent down to pour for Dorothy, the young woman leaned toward her and whispered,
"You see? This isn't about strength, or ideals, or even love. It's about knowing when to give in... to survive."
Elphaba straightened her back, poured the last cup, and stood at the side of the table, like a statue disguised as a servant.
Dorothy sat with all the pomp of a cursed queen, crossing her legs, taking her cup with a delicate, satisfied gesture. She took a sip, as if tasting centuries of revenge in a single gulp.
"Well... now that we're all here," she said, looking at each of us, "we can begin."
Glinda opened her mouth to speak, but Dorothy raised a finger.
"Shhh... Ladies don't interrupt during tea. You'll have your turn to speak. But first... let's hear from Ozma." She leaned toward the young heiress. "Tell me, Your Grace... are you enjoying your feast?"
Ozma, still somewhat confused, slowly turned her head toward Dorothy. Her voice was barely a whisper:
"Why... are you doing this?"
Dorothy smiled, the moonlight on her face and a perverse enjoyment tightening her cheekbones.
"Because it's time all of you learned the only lesson that matters in this world: power doesn't belong to those who command... it belongs to those who can break those in charge and make them smile while doing it."
Her gaze fell on Elphaba, who remained motionless. And then on Glinda, still holding the cup.
"Do you know what the problem is with you?" said Dorothy, her voice soft as a summer breeze but laced with bile. "You all think that all the world revolves around its little bubble of heroism, logic, and control.”
She rose from her seat leisurely, smoothing her black dress with both hands as she moved around the table with the studied grace of an actress who knows every light, every angle. The silence thickened like a damp fog as Elphaba stood, her apron and cap burning against her skin like an insult, and Glinda, still tied to her chair, held her chin high, hiding the trembling of her fury.
With a flourish, she took a small white plate filled with cooked beans, placed it in front of Glinda, and, with a small silver spoon in hand, scooped a portion and held it before the deputy's face as if feeding her in a maternal game.
The spoon gently lowered itself toward Glinda's pursed lips, and she turned her head away in obvious disgust, but not enough to stop Dorothy. A single bean fell onto the blonde's tongue, and Dorothy clapped her hands as if she were feeding a little girl who was finally eating her porridge.
"Very well, my darling. I knew you were a good girl," she whispered, stroking her chin with the back of her spoon before dipping it back into her bowl.
"Enough," Glinda snarled, spitting out the mouthful with disdain. But Dorothy was unfazed.
"Enough?" she repeated theatrically, raising an eyebrow. "But I didn't even start. Perhaps it would be better if I told everything from the beginning, wouldn't it? So we don't lose our guests." She looked at Ozma, still disoriented, and then at Elphaba. "What are you saying, my dear? A story before the climax?"
Elphaba didn't reply. Her posture remained rigid at the side of the table, her hands clenched on her apron, her eyes blazing. Dorothy reveled in her silence.
"You see," she began, settling in as if she were about to narrate an ancient legend. "I was just an ordinary girl. Kansas. Farms, cows, uncles who didn't know how to listen, dreams too big to fit on dry land. The usual. But there was something else... something I couldn't tell anyone. Something that made me different. I felt things. Wishes. Dreams with velvet ropes, voices that whispered commands in the darkness, ideas even I couldn't name."
Another spoonful. Glinda tried to turn her face away, but Dorothy held her chin, forcing the next dose.
"Until I got to college. And there I saw her. Tall, dark, bright as an inky storm... the great Elphaba. She was already a legend even in the halls. Not because she was kind, or warm, or good. No. Because she was powerful. She dominated everything she touched." And I...' She paused for a second, lowering her tone, like someone confessing a sin, 'I wanted that. I wanted her to teach me. To guide me. To see me.'
'Dorothy...' Elphaba whispered, unable to hold it in any longer.
'Shh!' Dorothy squealed suddenly, with a violence that made even Glinda shudder. 'Don't interrupt your own story, my dear.'
She returned to her sweet tone with chilling swiftness.
'I begged her. I humbled myself. But she...' She gave a giggle that didn't reach her eyes, 'she said no. No, Dorothy. No, little one. You're not ready. You don't have the strength. You don't have the nerve. But'—and she raised a finger—'she did offer me something: crumbs. Minor games. Training roles. Enough to make me feel special, but not so special that I escaped her control.'
She paused. She dropped the spoon onto the platter with a sharp clink. She turned away. Her eyes fixed on Elphaba like a cold knife pointed at her breast.
"Do you know what it's like to be hungry for something... and then only get one bite so you can keep licking the hand that gives it to you?"
Elphaba took a step forward, but Dorothy ignored it, spinning on her heel and taking another spoonful, directing it at Glinda as if feeding her was a way of reinforcing her dominance over the scene.
“But of course, little Dorothy doesn’t give up. So when she closed the door on me, I looked for another one. And do you know what I found?” She turned, stretching her arms out into the darkness of the garden. “A king. A sick man, yes. But one who saw my potential. He let me taste what it was like to have power. Real power. And when I was sinking in his swamp… who appeared in her heroine’s cape?” She did an exaggerated mime of someone dramatically arriving to save the day. “Her! To save me. To take my hand, pull me out of there… and then… and then turn her back on me. Again.”
“I was protecting you!” Elphaba burst out. “You didn’t know what you were getting into! You were barely a baby, Dorothy!”
“And you were my mentor!” Dorothy yelled back, her voice breaking into something between rage and pain. “You were my only guide in that hellhole!” And you left me alone. You made me feel pathetic. Like I was never enough. Like my power didn't matter unless it came through you.
"It's not true..."
"It isn't?" Dorothy whispered, taking a step toward her. "Isn't it true that you felt better about yourself after saving me? Isn't it true that you used me to remind you that you were the good one, the strong one, the one who saved poor, broken girls?"
Elphaba looked down, just for a moment.
"I only wanted to help you. I didn't want you to destroy yourself like I did."
Dorothy smiled, now more dangerous than ever.
"Too late, my dear. I'm already destroyed. But I learned something in the process. If I can't be a heroine... I'll be the monster. One the world can't ignore."
The plate landed with a soft, empty clink on the china tray, and the garden seemed to hold its breath. Dorothy stood with almost inhuman grace, the black skirts of her fitted gown barely stirring with the movement. Her expression was solemn, but her eyes shone with a disturbing intensity, as if every moment of this spectacle had been written in her blood for years.
"Elphaba," she ordered in a dry voice, sharp as a velvet-wrapped razor, "clean your 'girl's' mouth."
Elphaba remained motionless for a moment that felt eternal. Then, without a sound, she picked up the embroidered linen handkerchief that rested on the tray. She leaned slowly toward Glinda, her lips pressed together, fury vibrating beneath her skin like static electricity. Yet when she reached for her, her touch was gentle. Humiliating, yes, but tender. An apology made gesture.
"I'm sorry," she whispered softly, barely audible.
Glinda closed her eyes for a second, then opened them to meet her beloved's. This wasn't the time for resentment. Only for strength.
"I'm fine..." she replied in a low, firm voice, still looking at her. "Don't worry about me. Just come back. Come back to me when you can."
Elphaba swallowed, wishing she could tear off her skin and escape herself. But she didn't respond. She just stood back, her fists clenched, as Dorothy retook center stage.
Dorothy smiled self-satisfiedly at the scene. She continued along the table, striding like a model on a catwalk, twirling her fitted gown like a princess in a twisting parade. When she reached Ozma, she placed her hands gently on her shoulders, like an older sister ready to teach her a lesson. Ozma tensed immediately.
"Don't... don't do it," she whispered, her voice breaking.
"Do what?" Dorothy replied in her sweetest tone. "This?" And she began to stroke her hair with frightening tenderness.
"I thought you were my friend," Ozma blurted out, her heart breaking in her throat.
"And I thought you knew what world you lived in," Dorothy replied, almost pityingly. "You wanted to be one of the greats, didn't you? To have power, influence, the throne... Well, princess. Welcome to the grown-up world. Now sit up straight, stick out your chest, and shut that royal mouth of yours. It's time for me to tell you Act Two of this fairy tale."
With a charming smile, Dorothy sat directly on the table next to Ozma. From her black purse—which until now had been forgotten—she took out a small silver makeup case. She opened it with a ceremonious click, as if she were about to perform an ancient ritual. From inside emerged powders, brushes, lipsticks—all carefully selected.
“After the great college tragedy,” she said as she began applying foundation to Ozma’s pale cheeks, “I left with a broken heart, but with a new resolve. I was no longer the good girl from Kansas. I was not the eager learner. I was… a survivor. And survivors learn. They observe. They imitate. And then they overcome.”
She arranged Ozma’s face between her fingers as if it were a porcelain doll, and began applying blush with gentle but firm strokes. Ozma tried to turn her face away, but Dorothy held her with cruel elegance.
“Calm down, my dear.” I want you to look beautiful for your debut.
"What are you doing?" Ozma murmured, fighting back tears.
"Transforming yourself," Dorothy whispered with a poisonous smile. "Into what they want to see. Into the perfect doll. Isn't that what they always wanted from us? Quiet. Submissive. Flawless."
She turned for a moment to Glinda and Elphaba, holding the paintbrush up like a magic wand.
"As I was saying... While you went about your lives... I wandered from city to city, seeking to understand my place. No one taught me the limits. So I tested them all. Some broke. Others broke me." She shrugged. "But that's how monsters are made, aren't they?"
Elphaba clenched her jaw, her nails digging into her own palms. Each word was a whiplash, and she knew they were directed at her as much as anyone.
“I was a dancer, actress, spiritual guide, promoter, companion, tarot reader… I played with the desires of the powerful and the sins of the innocent. I discovered that you don’t need magic to control an empire. You just have to know the right secret. The right wound. And apply pressure… right there,” she said, returning her attention to Ozma as she painted her lips bright red.
“Stop!” Elphaba exclaimed, taking a step forward, but stopping instantly. Dorothy didn’t even look at her. She knew she had the leash in her hand.
“And then,” she continued placidly, “she appeared. A perfect jewel. A walking secret. A confused young woman with such a… symbolic name. Ozma. What a gift fate gave me. It was a matter of listening to her. Sowing the right doubt. Making her feel, for the first time, powerful. Loved. Seen.”
Glinda trembled with rage.
“You’re a parasite.”
“No, darling.” I'm a mirror. I reflect what you deny. What you hide. And she smiled again, this time with feigned compassion. But don't hate me. After all... Elphaba taught me everything I know. I was just the best student.
Ozma, in the grip of madness, murmured something. Dorothy whispered to her...
"You know something, Ozmita?"
She picked up the glass of water from the center of the table. She looked at it for a second, as if reading the future in its invisible bubbles.
"The greatest danger of pretending something... is believing it."
And without further ado, she threw the contents of the glass in her face.
Ozma screamed in surprise, coughing between gags, her makeup running down her cheeks like melted mascara. Glinda squirmed in her chair with a stifled scream. Elphaba took a step forward, but Dorothy raised a finger without looking at them and snapped her fingers.
"Maid... bring the tea."
Elphaba poured the tea with an imperceptible tremor in her fingers, so restrained that only someone like Glinda could have noticed. She held the teapot with both hands as she approached Dorothy, each step feeling as if she were carrying invisible chains. In front of her, her captor extended her hand with a triumphant smile, one Elphaba knew all too well.
"Kneel," Dorothy said with the poisonous sweetness of a wicked governess.
Elphaba sighed, closed her eyes for a second, and then obeyed. She knelt without a word, her posture erect, dignified, implacable even in humiliation. Dorothy placed the steaming cup on her head with the ceremonious care of a priest placing a relic on his altar, and with theatrical slowness poured two spoonfuls of sugar, then a third. The spoon clinked softly against the china as she stirred.
"Such composure, my dear. Almost admirable," she murmured with glee. "I wonder how much longer you can pretend none of this affects you."
Then she looked up at the two other women completing her "party": Glinda, still struggling against the ropes that bound her to the stone chair, and Ozma, who was breathing more clearly but still seemed lost in a nebula between fear and lucidity.
"Final act," Dorothy declared, raising her arms as if summoning an invisible curtain. "Because every story needs a resolution, right?"
The breeze stirred her hair as she began to walk slowly around the chess table. Her voice now sounded like that of a cruel teacher narrating an unforgettable lesson.
"Let's just say, with just one word from me, an alarm goes off. The museum's security agents, the journalists still hovering outside, and perhaps even some interested embassy... they would come to see this."
She turned to Glinda and Elphaba with an incandescent smile of elegant cruelty.
"And what would they see? A young heiress drugged and tied to a centuries-old statue, two powerful women engaged in some kind of perverted game in the backyard of a political gala, evidence delicately placed on internal networks, strategic cameras... and of course, some key secrets that certain people would pay dearly to keep hidden."
He leaned toward Glinda, so close his lips almost touched her cheek.
"Can you imagine the headlines? 'Upland network star and his demented slave kidnap the heiress and pervert her with their games.' They wouldn't even need proof... just pictures. Just an interpretation twisted enough to resonate. And you know, Glinda, that public opinion is faster than the law."
Glinda spat in her face.
Dorothy laughed. She wiped the saliva with a napkin she took from her corset, still maintaining control.
"And of course... Ozma." She turned to her. "They'd turn you into a cautionary tale. A tragedy. A monster. The same old narrative. 'That's how confused children who don't behave end up.'"
Silence fell like a marble slab. Even the crickets seemed to have fallen silent.
"But I'm not a monster," Dorothy continued, almost tenderly now. So... I offer you the other option.
With a firm step, she approached the center of the stone table, where a covered tray waited, gleaming faintly in the garden light.
"Plan B."
With a ceremonious gesture, she lifted the lid. Beneath, gleaming like an echo of the past, lay a silver slipper. Not just any slipper. It was antique, finely decorated, with a distinctive curve at the toe and grayish lace trim that only someone from Elphaba's past could recognize. Her mother's slipper.
Elphaba froze. The cup still rested on her head, motionless.
"Do you recognize it?" Dorothy said softly. "It was... difficult to obtain. But I have my ways. Like everything in this story. True heirlooms aren't bought. They're earned. They're collected."
Glinda gasped. Ozma, more lucid now, narrowed her eyes with a slight tremble.
"This is what I offer," Dorothy continued calmly. "You, Ozma, deposit a small fortune in the account I've indicated. You can continue your fairy-tale life, without this scandal. No one will know a thing. And you, Elphaba... finally accept who you really are. Not this mask of a domineering and powerful woman. But the desperate creature who kneels to protect those she loves. The one who always knew that freedom was an illusion and power a disguise." Her gaze hardened. "Leave Glinda alone." Let her go. Break this lie they've built. And... I'll let them go. All three of them.
The silence was thick, damp. Like the air before a storm.
Elphaba, still kneeling, let her gaze fall upon the slipper. Her jaw trembled.
"So?" Dorothy whispered. "What will you choose?"
The slipper rested in the center of the tray as if floating in time. Its silver surface, slightly worn by the years, reflected the dim light from the garden like a cursed jewel. Elphaba couldn't stop staring at it. It was small, fragile. It was, without a doubt, her mother's. She remembered it on the dresser in the bedroom, kept like a relic no one should touch. A symbol of all that had been lost.
And now, there it was. On the stone table, watched over by the sadistically calm face of Dorothy Gale.
"If you're really ready," Dorothy said in a whisper that echoed like thunder. "If you want to stop lying to yourself... and stop running away... then do it. Cut out all that. With this martyr image, this savior disguise."
She opened a cloth bag she had next to her and took out a small, metal hammer with a red handle. She held it for a few seconds in front of everyone like a judge displaying the weapon of punishment. Then she slowly extended it to Elphaba.
"Destroy it," she ordered. "And you will be free. You will owe no one anything. Nothing to protect. Nothing to remember. Only me. Only your true nature."
Elphaba swallowed. Her legs were still shaking from her kneeling position, but she forced herself to stand. She took the hammer in hands that didn't feel like her own. They were cold.
She walked to the tray. Each step felt heavy, as if she were crossing a minefield while blindfolded. In front of her, the slipper didn't seem like an object. It was a specter. Her mother, her childhood, the last touch she'd felt before the world became unbearable.
Elphaba tightened her grip on the hammer, about to act... The voice was weak, but clear. A fragile whisper that broke the silence more powerfully than a scream.
"Don't do it..."
Elphaba stopped the movement of her arm instantly, the hammer trembling in her fingers. She turned sharply, as if she couldn't believe what she'd heard, and there stood Ozma, still bound, but with her eyes wide open, fixed on her. The dizziness and confusion seemed to have dissipated, though her voice still carried the weight of the poison Dorothy had given her. Her face, marked by the nobility she'd tried to hide, was now a map of naked emotions.
"Don't do it, Elphaba... not for her sake," she repeated, her tone no longer pleading, but commanding.
Dorothy, still sitting with the cup in her hand, turned her head to Ozma with a frown.
"Ah, the princess is resurrected," she murmured coldly. "You've earned your place as decoration, darling. Don't interrupt."
But Ozma didn't back down. She took a deep breath and spoke again, louder:
"Is that what you want? For us to destroy ourselves to fit your vision? Your twisted tale?"
Dorothy pressed her lips together. Elphaba still didn't move. The hammer remained suspended in the air, like a pendulum about to decide the future. Glinda, her eyes watering, could barely breathe.
"Elphaba," Ozma continued. "She wants you to break that because it's the only thing that still reminds you of who you were before the pain. She wants you to be like her... broken in a way that there's no going back."
Dorothy stood slowly.
"And what do you know about breaking up, Your Grace?" she said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "You were born at the top. What do you know about kneeling? About begging for love like a crust of bread?"
"I know what it's like to live in fear," Ozma replied, trembling but firm. "I know what it's like to feel like everything inside me is wrong... because others said so. And I know that it can't be cured by making others suffer for what happened to me."
Dorothy looked down for a second. And then, slowly, she turned to Elphaba.
"Don't be distracted. You already know what you are. Finish the job, and all this is over. You'll be free. Free of everything."
Elphaba looked down at the slipper. She looked at it as if it were a sleeping child, fragile and alive. The last trace of a mother who could never protect her, but who still hoped had somehow loved her. The only connection to a story she'd spent years burying. Dorothy was right... in part. That slipper was a gaping wound. But it was also a bond. To her mother. To her sister. To herself.
And deep in her memories... that night Glinda held her hand while Elphaba wept silently, having faced her past and the nightmares that haunted her.
Then she looked at Glinda. And saw something she'd never seen in her eyes: real fear. Not for herself, but for her. For what Elphaba was about to lose if she struck that blow.
Elphaba lowered the hammer.
"No," she said, her voice firm. "I'm not yours."
Dorothy frowned.
"What?"
"I'm not yours," Elphaba repeated. "I'm not the heroine of your story, nor the villain of mine. I'm not a martyr. I'm not a dom. I'm not a sub. I'm not a queen. I'm not a witch."
She turned and lowered the hammer.
"I'm a woman. One who has made mistakes, yes. Who has hidden behind roles, yes. But who will no longer destroy what she loves to survive. Because that's not living." It's giving you your soul.
Dorothy looked petrified. For the first time... speechless.
Ozma smiled weakly. Dorothy took a deep breath. Her gaze hardened once more.
"Then... so be it."
The slipper was left forgotten on the table, untouched. The hammer, cold and silent, fell with a dull thud that broke the thin air. Elphaba turned calmly, as if each step she took toward Dorothy traversed years, lifetimes, and ghosts. Her breathing was controlled, but her eyes... her eyes burned with an intensity born only of love and remorse.
She looked at her straight on, without weapons, without power, without masks.
"I failed you, yes," she said, her voice low, but so firm that not even the wind dared interrupt her. "But not for what you think. Not for stopping that monster. Not for denouncing him. I would do that again, a thousand times over." Dorothy frowned, pressing her lips together to stem the surge of emotion.
"So, what are you sorry about?"
Elphaba swallowed, as if words were harder than ever.
"If only I hadn't stayed. If only I hadn't kicked your door down. If only I hadn't screamed louder. If only I hadn't chained myself to your window if necessary. I stood outside your apartment so many nights... waiting for you to open it, to let me in, to give me a sign. But you..."
"I didn't," Dorothy whispered. Her voice broke.
"No," Elphaba nodded. "You didn't."
A silence stretched over her like a veil. Dorothy lowered her gaze. Her body, so stiff and haughty moments before, began to crumble, inch by inch, like a house of cards that had held too long against the wind.
"I don't hate you for it," she said finally, with a bitter laugh. "That's the lie I tell myself, the one I tell everyone. That you stole my game, that you wanted to be in control... but that's not the truth."
Elphaba listened silently. She knew what was coming. She'd always suspected it, but never dared to name it.
Dorothy looked up. Her eyes, large and wounded, were those of the girl who had come to college from Kansas with a heart full of questions and a desperate need to be seen.
"I hate you because you didn't stop me," she confessed, her voice breaking. "Because I didn't know how to stop. Because I kept at it... that 'game'... even when everything inside me told me it was wrong. Because what that man did to me... I let it happen again and again. Because I wanted to believe I was powerful... when in reality I was breaking. And you... you were the only one who could see it. And yet you didn't scream. You didn't drag me away from him. You didn't save me."
Her voice was a pained whisper.
"And when you finally did... it was too late. I already hated myself. For having allowed it." For letting me break. For liking her. For not knowing if I ever liked her. For not knowing if there was still anything healthy in me.
Elphaba walked over until she was standing in front of her. She didn't touch her. She didn't try to hug her. She just spoke.
"You're right."
And those words fell like a meteorite in the middle of the garden, drowning out everything, even the breathing of Glinda and Ozma, who listened in silence, their skin frozen by the intensity of the scene.
"You're right to hate me. To blame me. To break things. I did it too. I hated myself too for everything I didn't say, for everything I allowed. But then someone came along... someone who wouldn't let go. Who forced me to see myself through different eyes. To understand that shame and hatred weren't permanent scars, but wounds that could heal if we let someone else touch them. You're no less for having fallen. And you're not guilty for what was done to you. You're just still trapped... and I'm not going to leave you alone again."
Dorothy's face cracked. Not like a shattering mirror, but like a melting wall. A blink, a held breath, and tears began to stream down her cheeks. She, who had reigned over this board with surgical coldness, now didn't know where to put her hands, or how to stand.
"I... I didn't mean for that to happen to me," she whispered. "I just wanted you to see me." For someone to see me. For someone to want me… for who I was. For someone to tell me I wasn't… trash.
Elphaba lowered her head. She closed her eyes. She breathed.
“You’re not trash. You’re human. You’re a broken woman… but not beyond repair. No one is. And I know this because I’ve been there too. Because I, too, wanted to destroy what I loved, believing it would give me back control. But no. Only forgiveness… rebuilds us.”
Dorothy lowered her head in regret, feeling her mind about to explode.
“People hurt us,” Elphaba said, her voice level, still standing in front of Dorothy, her long shadow cast across the wet grass of the garden. “But so do people… Good people, who genuinely care about us… help us see what we can’t see, believe in what we can’t. And if we believe in ourselves… if we have the courage to forgive ourselves… then we can heal.”
Her green eyes lifted to Glinda, who was still tied to the stone chair, her curls slightly disheveled, her makeup smeared by silent tears. But her smile was unwavering. A smile for her. A promise that, even if the world trembled, they would still be together.
Dorothy saw it. And she couldn't bear it.
The sweetness in Glinda's eyes. The tenderness with which she looked at Elphaba. The complicity. That secret language of partners chosen even in the darkest days.
Dorothy trembled. First her fingers, then her lips. Then her whole body, like a candle on the verge of collapse. The tears had disappeared, and in their place glowed fury. That all-consuming fury, born of abandonment, of pain, of unrequited love that festers and becomes a weapon.
"No!" she cried in a voice that no longer belonged to her.
And then, with the speed of a storm no one anticipated, she grabbed the hammer still resting on the tea table, raised it above her head, and launched herself at Glinda as if every muscle in her body was possessed by the desire to destroy what she couldn't have.
"GLINDA!" Elphaba cried, and without thinking, without breathing, without a plan, she threw herself at Dorothy just before the blow descended.
The impact of body against body shook the table. The china teapot overturned in the struggle, rolling to the edge before falling with a sharp, dry sound. The crash of the shards against the garden flags sounded like a stifled gunshot. One of the pieces—sharp as a knife—landed inches from Ozma's foot, who, still tied up, began to thrash around, trying to free herself.
Dorothy and Elphaba tumbled across the lawn, their elegant dresses already in tatters, their hairstyles destroyed, their makeup smeared like war paint. Dorothy's ruby slippers flew in opposite directions, one of them bouncing with a metallic clack off the base of the cherub statue, which seemed to be watching the spectacle with a mixture of judgment and resignation.
Dorothy managed to forcefully shove Elphaba, sending her tumbling backward. The brunette staggered to her feet, barely having time to see Dorothy raise her hammer again, her gaze clouded with rage.
Elphaba didn't think. She launched herself at Glinda, spreading her arms like a human shield. She wrapped her body around her, as if with that she could stop the world, time, and pain.
"It won't hit you!" she whispered, closing her eyes, waiting for the impact.
But it never came.
A strange silence, broken only by the distant chirping of a cricket and Glinda's shaky gasp, fell over the garden.
And then, a muffled sound.
THUMP.
Elphaba dared to open her eyes. She turned. Dorothy lay on the ground, the hammer still in her limp hand, her head tilted, unconscious.
In front of her, standing with her arm outstretched and trembling, was Ozma.
In her hand was the ruby slipper. The other one was still lying among the roses. The shiny sole had a dark stain where it had struck.
Ozma dropped it, and the slipper fell to the grass with a soft "tac." Her pale face collapsed into tears, releasing all the pent-up tension of the last hour.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, more to herself than to the others.
Elphaba remained motionless for a few seconds, then dropped her head into Glinda's lap. Still tied up, she stroked her wife's hair as best she could, feeling her wife's tears fall onto her legs.
"I'm fine," Glinda said. "It's over."
But neither of them fully believed it. Because they knew that the worst part isn't always the blow... but what it leaves behind.
"What now?" Elphaba murmured, but she barely had time to catch her breath before a beam of white light burned her eyes.
"Get down! Hands where we can see them!"
Lanterns lit up like a flock of neon birds. A group of security agents emerged from the bushes and shadows, surrounding them with choreographed precision. Glinda tried to protect the still semiconscious Ozma, while Elphaba raised her hands, her breath ragged, her dress torn, her apron still tied around her waist like an absurd symbol of the humiliation they had just experienced.
The uniformed officers rushed Ozma and, without missing a beat, surrounded her, some on their knees, others speaking rapidly into their communicators, calling for medical assistance, assessing her vital signs. An officer threw her jacket around the heiress's shoulders, trying to cover her torn dress.
"What's going on?!" Glinda yelled, still strapped to her stone seat.
"Get away from her, idiots!" Elphaba roared, but a shove to the chest made her back away.
And then they saw him.
Among the figures illuminated by the light, dressed in an impeccable pearl-gray three-piece suit and with a smile that looked like it had just come out of a jar of formaldehyde... there he was.
Oz.
With a calm and triumphant stride, as if he were about to receive an award, he approached the epicenter of the chaos. With each step, he politely greeted his own men, as if this were all just another evening of protocol.
Elphaba gritted her teeth. Glinda looked at him as if he were facing a ghost.
Oz barely acknowledged them with a fleeting glance. He stopped next to Ozma and affectedly stroked her hair, savoring every second.
"You're safe now, my child," he said in a fatherly voice.
Ozma didn't respond. She was still trembling, wrapped in silence.
Minutes later, the museum garden was no longer a garden. It was a stage.
Lights, cameras, microphones. Journalists sprang up like mushrooms after the rain, gala guests huddled behind security tape, murmuring, murmuring, always murmuring.
Oz climbed the stone steps in front of the north pavilion, microphone in hand and his best wounded patriot face on.
"Citizens of Sapphire," he proclaimed, "it is my duty and honor to inform you that a sinister conspiracy was foiled tonight."
Elphaba and Glinda, still restrained by agents, could hardly believe their eyes.
"Thanks to the courage and cooperation of our beloved Princess Ozma," Oz continued, "we managed to uncover the plans of an impostor"—he looked toward Dorothy, now escorted by two agents unaware of her true involvement—"who intended to infiltrate this event with the goal of blackmailing and manipulating our distinguished guests, stealing sensitive information that could have affected the stability of our nations."
The flashes didn't stop. The audience applauded. Some even cheered.
"This was an act of defense. Of justice. Of teamwork. And, above all, of love for this land."
Elphaba felt nauseous. Every word was a rusty dagger.
Glinda only muttered with suppressed rage:
"That son of a..."
"And of course," Oz continued, "all of this would not have been possible without the vigilance and strategy we developed from the beginning, together with the princess. We have unmasked a dangerous manipulator. And we guarantee that the peace and integrity of our lands will be preserved."
He turned then, extending a theatrical hand toward Ozma, who was barely able to stand, supported by a doctor.
"A round of applause for the true heroine of this evening."
The applause was still ringing as Elphaba managed to stand, her legs tense with suppressed rage, while the agents escorted Dorothy, now handcuffed, out of the garden. The young woman did not struggle. She walked with her head held high, her hair disheveled, and her lips stained with blood, but her eyes fixed... fixed on Elphaba.
That gaze didn't ask for forgiveness. It didn't ask for pity. It was something much more disturbing: understanding. As if, in the midst of defeat, a piece of the Dorothy Elphaba knew still remained. Or thought she knew.
Elphaba looked away. Not because she wanted to. But because she no longer had the strength to hold it.
And then... something changed.
A short but firm breath broke the silence. Ozma, still stumbling, took a step forward. Security guards tried to stop her, but she waved them away. The young heiress, still with loose strands of hair sticking to her face and her dress stained with dirt, stood before everyone. In front of Oz. In front of the flashing lights. In front of the world.
And she spoke.
"Thank you, Mr. Oz," he said in a firm, yet gentle, voice. "Thank you for your timely intervention. It's true that a catastrophe was averted tonight. And it's true that there was manipulation. That there was an attempt at control. But there is more truth that has yet to be told. And it's time someone told it."
A murmur ran through the crowd.
"Tonight wasn't just the act of a criminal. It was the desperate cry of a victim. Of someone betrayed by the system, just as it betrayed me. Just as it betrays every day those who don't fit in, those who are different, those who dare to search for a place to be themselves. Tonight, many masks were broken. And I've decided to break mine too."
Elphaba felt something throb in her chest. Not of fear. Of hope.
"I am Ozma II of Maracoor Abiding. Legitimate daughter of King Pastorius and Queen Ozma I. For years, I ran. I hid. I disguised myself as everything others wanted me to be. I crawled through legal tunnels and veiled threats, I went into exile to protect myself. But no more."
The flashes exploded like fireworks. And yet, no one moved. Everyone listened.
"I will not return to my country out of obligation. I will not return to fulfill a farce of protocol. I will return because I want to, because I must, and because I am ready. I will be who my people need: a leader, yes… but also a complete woman. With wounds, with doubts, with a past. I can't change what was done to me. But I can make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. And for that… I need to do things right from the start."
And then she turned to the crowd. Toward the officers.
"Dorothy Gale will not be taken as just another prisoner. She will be transferred as a person in need of help. Therapy. Understanding. True justice, not revenge."
Oz tensed. Her smile cracked at the corner of her mouth.
But Ozma didn't stop there.
"Starting tomorrow, we will begin a return plan. But under my conditions. And with new allies. The princess is back. And this time, she's not coming alone."
Ozma's gaze met Elphaba's. And then with Glinda's, still sitting on the stone bench, but with her head held high and her eyes glassy.
And for the first time in a long, long time... Glinda felt something she didn't remember she was still capable of feeling.
Pride.
Not for herself. But for Ozma.
For that trembling little girl who had once wept before her in a hotel room. For that broken voice that now spoke with the strength of a nation behind it. For that young woman who had been a victim... and who now chose to be sovereign.
As the crowd surrounded Ozma, each question was a flash of light, each answer a new brick in the monument that was beginning to be erected in her name. Elphaba and Glinda watched her for a moment longer, silent, standing on the fringes of the celebration like two invisible witnesses. Glinda sighed and placed a hand on her girlfriend's arm, but Elphaba didn't move. There was something on the table that called to her.
With slow steps, Elphaba approached and took the silver slipper between her fingers. It was dusty, tarnished, like an object that had long since lost all its magic. She held it in both hands, saying nothing.
"Was it your mother's?" a voice asked behind her.
She didn't need to turn around. Her body had already tensed at his presence.
Oz.
"Are you going to make me believe you care?" Elphaba murmured, without turning her head.
Oz walked toward her with slow steps, his hands clasped behind his back, like an elderly civil servant who failed to retire in time.
"I know how all this looks, but... there was a reason," he said in a measured voice. "Ambassador Burden wanted a clean, controlled narrative. I just... made a deal. With this, my job is secured. I will travel to Maracoor Abiding, open diplomatic relations, and do so side by side with Ozma. It's a historic opportunity."
Elphaba finally looked at him, her smile devoid of a trace of joy.
"Of course it is. Your big comeback. That's what it was always about." She raised her shoe as if toasting a glass. "Cheers to politics."
Glinda, who had so far maintained her composure, stepped forward.
"And us?" she asked. "Where were we in this great story you just told the world?"
Oz was silent for a moment. Then he lowered his gaze.
"Because part of the deal... that was exactly it." His voice cracked slightly. "To secure the support of the International Council, Burden demanded that the narrative be kept clean. Orderly. The heiress saved. The hero returns. And he doesn't want heroes who challenge traditional power structures. To him, you are... too free. Too real."
"Of course," Elphaba said. There was no anger in her voice. Only a lethal calm. "That makes sense. You never changed. Not even for me."
Oz looked up pained.
"I tried."
"No." Elphaba interrupted gently. "You thought it. You said it. But you didn't do it."
For the first time, she didn't argue.
She stood there, facing her, looking at her like someone staring at a door they know they'll never be able to cross.
"Even so, I'm sorry," she said with broken honesty. "For everything."
"I don't want your apologies," she replied. "Or your excuses. I just want you to stop pretending you owe me anything. Because I don't owe you anything."
And without another word, she carefully tucked the silver slipper into her bag, like someone guarding a closed wound that still hurts when touched.
Glinda stepped closer and gently took Elphaba's hand. They didn't need to say anything to each other. They understood each other in the silences. In the unspoken things. In everything he had stolen from them that night... and everything he had given back to them.
"Let's go home," Glinda whispered.
And Elphaba nodded.
As they walked away, Oz stood there for a while longer, under the same light where his mask had cracked, watching the daughter he'd never known how to have walk away with the woman he'd chosen as his family.
He didn't look at the cameras.
There were no more stories worth telling... at least not his own.
Elphaba and Glinda walked slowly, arm in arm, as if the night didn't want to let them go completely, as if the chaos, the danger, and the ghosts of the past had never existed. They walked among the trees and the lights that were beginning to go out in the museum gardens, the echoes of the party fading in the distance. The breeze was soft, and for the first time in hours, everything seemed calm.
Glinda rested her head briefly on Elphaba's shoulder, as if with that gesture she could allow herself a few seconds of emotional rest.
"You know what?" she said softly, as if remembering something mid-dream. "I'm still waiting."
Elphaba glanced at her, confused.
"Waiting for what?"
Glinda looked at her with a smile, almost mischievous.
"You said... that when this was all over, you were going to ask me for something."
Elphaba stopped. Literally stopped dead in her tracks.
Oh.
"Ah... that," she murmured, swallowing.
"Yes, that," Glinda repeated, turning to face her, her eyebrows raised and a mocking tenderness in her voice. "Or have you changed your mind already?"
Elphaba shook her head and began to speak, nervously, the words tangling between her lips.
"No, of course not. It's just... after all this, I don't know if it's the right time or if it sounds ridiculous or if you're going to think I'm being melodramatic and we've had too much theatricality for one night, but I wanted—"
"Glinda!"
The voice interrupted them like a sigh in the wind.
They both turned at the same time, and among the scattered crowd still gathered under the press lights, Ozma appeared.
She was running toward them.
Glinda immediately let go of her and opened her arms. The young heiress threw herself at her chest like a child reunited with her mother. And for a few seconds, there was nothing more: a tight, honest, wordless embrace. Elphaba watched them in silence, letting the moment belong only to them.
When they finally separated, Glinda regained her composure immediately, though her eyes were bright.
"Ozma, my dear," she said. "Allow me to formally introduce you to Elphaba Thropp."
Ozma bowed slightly, still with that characteristic mix of regal grace and emotional tremor.
"An honor," she said sincerely.
"Elphaba, this is Ozma, rightful heir and..." Glinda looked at her with pride and suppressed emotion, "...the future queen this world needs."
Ozma lowered her gaze, moved, not knowing how to accept such high praise.
But Elphaba held her with a steady gaze and added, without hesitation,
"And not just a queen. A real woman. Who knows when to speak, when to listen... and when to strike with a ruby slipper at just the right moment."
The three of them laughed, relieved.
The world kept spinning. The cameras kept flashing. The political agreements would continue, the headlines would come, and the wounds would take time to heal... but there, at that moment, amid the last light of night, three women met as equals.
The bustle of the press was slowly fading, swallowed by the night that was once again taking over the museum garden. Elphaba had wandered a few feet away with one of the security guards, discreetly reviewing the final details of the event's closing. Glinda and Ozma remained behind, among the hedges dimly lit by paper lanterns, in a corner where the breeze was gentle and the world seemed to sigh.
Glinda sat on the edge of a dry fountain, crossing her legs with the grace of someone who has learned to stand even with a trembling heart. Ozma remained standing for a few seconds, until Glinda invited her to sit beside her with a slight nod.
"Are you okay?" Glinda asked softly.
Ozma nodded slowly, but her face still held traces of exhaustion and ill-disguised fear.
"I don't know," she said sincerely. "I think I'll be fine. But... I don't know what to do now."
Glinda smiled tenderly, and for a moment, she was no longer a congresswoman, a public figure, or a survivor. She was just a woman who had learned the value of holding others up.
"That's the wonderful thing," she replied. "You don't have to know now. Only that you can choose. You can finally choose."
Ozma lowered her head, her fingers playing with the hem of her dress, as if unsure what to do with such relief.
"I... thought this would be different," she confessed. "I thought when the time came to... be seen, to speak, I would feel like a different person. Strong. Solid. But I'm still afraid. I still have doubts."
Glinda nodded.
"You'll have them your whole life, Ozma. What changes… is what you do with them."
There was a silence. Deep, warm. Glinda looked at her with eyes that knew too much, yet still found room for compassion.
"I never imagined I'd get to meet you," the young woman said, almost in a whisper. "I thought you were just a figure… an elegant voice in interviews, someone unattainable."
"And instead I'm short, late, and I forget important dates," Glinda replied with a smile.
"You're more than I imagined," Ozma insisted. "When I heard you talk about me back at the hotel… no one had ever stood up for me like that. Not for what I stand for. But for who I am. For what I'm still discovering I can be."
Glinda felt a lump in her throat. She didn't say anything at first. She simply reached out and took Ozma's hand in hers.
"You made me remember who I am, too," she confessed, her voice barely audible. "I spent a long time running away from parts of myself. Thinking I had to become what others expected. But then you appeared... with your eyes full of history, your shy laugh, your way of speaking as if the whole world weighed on your shoulders. And I saw myself reflected back. I saw myself before I found Elphaba. Before... I found myself."
Ozma couldn't hold back her tears. And she didn't try to hide them either.
"Thank you," she whispered. "For not giving up on me. For staying. For seeing me."
"I always saw you, Ozma," Glinda told her. "Even before you could."
They hugged. Long. Tight. Not as politician and heir. Not even as mentor and apprentice. But as two women marked by the same fire. Two survivors of the same fire.
When they separated, Glinda looked at her with absolute affection.
"And now... it's your story. Take it. Live it as you wish. But always remember this: you are not alone."
Ozma nodded with a mixture of courage and vulnerability.
"And neither are you."
They smiled at each other. Then Glinda stood up, straightening her coat. From a distance, Elphaba watched her patiently.
Ozma followed her with her gaze, and before she walked away, she asked:
"Glinda?"
"Yes?"
"Do you think... I can do it? Be the queen everyone needs?"
Glinda smiled again, this time with a different sparkle in her eyes.
"No. You'll be better than that. You'll be the queen you need to be."
And with that, she walked away toward Elphaba. Ozma stood there for a moment longer, in the quiet garden, feeling the night breathe… and how, for the first time, it wasn't afraid to breathe with her.
Elphaba stood at the edge of the garden, the city lights flickering in the distance like an echo from another world, more distant than ever. In her hands, she held the silver slipper, worn and polished by the years, as fragile as the memories it evoked. She gazed at it silently, as if searching for answers in its dull shine, as if still hoping that somehow this object might speak to her, explain everything that had been broken and unexplained.
Glinda approached slowly, saying nothing at first. She stopped beside her and looked at the shoe too, with a mixture of respect and sadness.
"Do you still treasure it?" she asked softly, as if afraid to interrupt a sacred ritual.
Elphaba took a deep breath, without taking her eyes off the object.
"Yes," she replied. "But in a different way."
She held him even more gently, as if her hands could convey something words couldn't.
"Before, she was the only thing I had to remember my mother by," she continued. "Her absence... her silence. Everything she didn't say. Everything I didn't understand. But now... now I know there are things I'll perhaps never fully understand. That I'll perhaps never be able to forgive. But even so..."
Her voice cracked a little, just barely.
"Even so... she was my mother."
Glinda looked at her with calm affection, in no hurry to fill the silence. Elphaba finally shifted her gaze to her.
"I want to give it back," she said. "To Nessa. I think... she deserves it more than I do. She needs to make peace with this too, in her own way. And I... this is the most I can do."
Glinda didn't say anything immediately. She just took her hands, and between them, they closed their fingers over the shoe, as if sealing an agreement that needed no further words.
"Then that's enough," Glinda said finally. "You did what no one else could. You didn't break the past... you transformed it."
Elphaba nodded, her eyes shining but serene. There was no more anger, no guilt, no urge to flee. Only that strange calm that comes when one accepts that there are wounds that don't heal completely, but stop bleeding.
They stayed like that for a few more seconds, until Glinda gently squeezed her hands.
"It's time to go home."
Elphaba looked at her. She didn't argue. She didn't postpone it. Because for the first time, she wanted to go back.
"Yes," she said, with a small smile that grew from deep within. "It's time."
And without letting go of her shoe, or letting go of each other, they began walking.
They didn't know what would come next. They didn't know if the world would welcome them with open arms or with sharp teeth. But one thing was certain.
This journey had come to an end.
But their story... still continued.
And just as it began... the journey ended.
Not with explosions, or fireworks, or abrupt revelations. But with the steady roar of the engine on the highway and the scent of the wind mingled with the stale perfume of crumpled maps, open purses, and cold coffee cups forgotten in the cup holder.
The next morning, without ceremony, without speeches, they packed what was left: clothes, books, loose mementos. They loaded the car leisurely. There was no rush. They had experienced it all. They weren't running anymore, they were returning.
On the way, when they got hungry, they stopped at a random restaurant. Nothing special. But they laughed as if it were the Ritz. Glinda stole French fries from Elphaba's plate. Elphaba threw ketchup down her sleeve with a look of mock horror. It was a familiar choreography, and delicious.
When sleep overtook them, they stopped at a modest motel with thin walls and creaking beds. Glinda chose the room with a view of the neon sign. Elphaba turned on the TV only to leave it in the background. They didn't say much that night; there was no need to. They slept cuddled together. And for the first time in weeks, the world outside didn't seem threatening, just distant.
In the final morning, the landscape began to change. The grasslands turned into buildings, the roads turned into avenues. And then… green.
Emerald City appeared on the horizon like a blurry memory that slowly took shape again. Its streets, its smells, its particular rhythm that seemed to say to them: "Welcome. The game continues."
But for them, for a moment, the game was over.
The car stopped in front of a huge mansion. Imposing. Majestic. Intimidating even after everything they had been through. The white columns shone insolently, the windows glittered as if waiting to judge whoever dared to cross the door. The sign still read: Upland Mansion.
Elphaba turned off the engine and dropped her hands onto the wheel. She stared ahead for a long moment. Then she turned her head to Glinda.
"Are you sure?" she asked softly. "We can go home first, sleep... It doesn't have to be now."
Glinda smiled. Not her usual social smile. A genuine one. Tired, sincere. The kind that comes after crying a lot and laughing even more.
"No," she replied. "If I wait, I'll find reasons to put it off. And this... I need to do this today."
Elphaba nodded slowly. Not with resignation, but with respect. She knew her. She knew that when Glinda said today, she didn't mean "because it has to be done." She meant "because I'm ready."
Glinda got out of the car, smoothed her wrinkled shirt with one hand, and tied her hair back with a simple clip. She wore no makeup, no heels, no jewelry. Just herself. And that was the most powerful outfit she'd ever owned.
Elphaba got out too, coming around the car to take her hand without saying anything.
They looked at each other.
Not as if saying goodbye.
But as if making a silent promise.
And then, together, they climbed the steps.
A home awaited them.
But they... they already knew where their home was.
Elphaba and Glinda crossed the threshold of Upland Mansion together, holding hands as if that invisible union gave them permission to step back into that bright, upscale, yet storied world. A slightly dusty air floated in the foyer, between the scent of fresh flowers and the ancient echo of grandfather clocks that still beat with the discipline of generations past.
"Have the ceilings gotten taller, or are you taller, young lady?" said a raspy but firm voice.
Mrs. Clutch, the eighty-year-old maid who had been with the house more decades than any rug or curtain, appeared from the hallway, her hairdo intact and her penguin-like gait purposefully strung out. Her glasses hung from a pearl chain, and her gloves bore just a hint of dust.
"Miss Glindora!" she exclaimed excitedly. "And you are... oh, dear... Evelyn? Eliza?"
"Elphaba," the aforementioned woman replied with a restrained smile, devoid of any irony.
At another time, she might have felt the pang of forgetfulness like a pinprick in her pride. But now, she only let out a soft laugh that infected Glinda.
"Oh, pardon me, dear. It's just that names slip away from me like dessert spoons at a cocktail party."
"Don't worry, Mrs. Clutch," Glinda said sweetly. "We're glad to see you well."
And they continued walking, arm in arm, until a figure turned the corner of the aisle. A burly man with a carefully trimmed mustache was wearing his classic light beige suit with a sky-blue pocket square neatly folded. Seeing them, his face lit up with a mixture of relief, pride, and uncontrollable excitement.
"Popsicle!" Glinda exclaimed with a bright, childlike shriek and ran toward him.
Highmuster Upland barely had time to open his arms before his daughter crashed into his chest, clinging as if she were five years old again. The man hugged her tightly, tighter than he'd ever held her before. He stroked her hair as if he was afraid she would vanish.
"I missed you so much, my child," he said, his voice husky with emotion.
"Me too, Daddy," Glinda whispered, burying her face in his shoulder.
Elphaba stood a few steps back, watching with a mixture of tenderness and caution. But before she could feel like an outsider to the scene, Highmuster looked at her and, without a word, approached her with an outstretched hand.
"Miss Elphaba," he said in a firm but genuinely warm voice. "Welcome home."
She thought for only a second before shaking it. There wasn't a single hint of irony on her face. Once again, he recognized her not only as his daughter's partner, but as part of his family.
"Thank you," she said, and then added, "For accepting me."
"Always, my dear," he replied with a smile.
The three of them shared that brief moment suspended in time, an oasis of reconciliation before the memory of reality knocked at the door again.
"And my mother?" Glinda asked, gently pulling away from her father.
Highmuster swallowed, his expression hardening for just a second. Then he nodded serenely.
"She's in the backyard. Bringing flowers to the magnolia trees."
Glinda nodded. Her expression grew more serious, but also determined.
"I'm going to see her."
The words didn't need applause. It was an unavoidable decision. She strode off, her golden hair flowing behind her like a flag of truce.
Highmuster and Elphaba were left alone in the hall, the echo of Glinda's heels retreating down the corridor.
"Do you want something to drink?" the man asked, breaking the silence with a gentle tone. "Whiskey, tea, the blood of corrupt politicians."
Elphaba laughed.
"A glass of any of the three wouldn't be amiss. But first..." he said seriously, with a hint of trepidation. "I want to ask you a question."
Elphaba looked into his eyes, knowing that what lay ahead wouldn't be easy. But she had come this far, and she wouldn't leave with second thoughts. Not again.
The backyard of the Upland mansion seemed suspended in a time capsule. The evening light filtered through the magnolia trees, casting long shadows on the neat brick path. The flowers in the garden were perfectly trimmed, nothing out of place, as if everything there refused to show any signs of disorder. Except, perhaps, one woman.
Larena Upland sat upright in a wrought-iron chair, in front of a glass table where a crystal vase was waiting to be filled. Her perfectly manicured hands arranged a bouquet of freesias with the same precision with which she organized her tableware by color. Her cream dress was edged with pearls, and her hair was pulled back in a bun that brooked no imperfections. Her bearing was that of an ice queen… until she heard footsteps.
Glinda approached slowly, her silhouette reflected for a moment in the house's large windows before turning the corner. She stopped a few feet away. She didn't need to speak yet; Larena had already sensed her.
Their gazes met.
For an instant, neither said anything. No words were needed to recall the last conversation, the last emotional slam of the door. Every sentence spoken too precisely. Every sentence not spoken in time. And in the midst of that, months of silence, of icy distance.
Glinda took a deep breath. And took the step.
"Hello, Mother."
Larena looked up slowly. There was no surprise on her face, not even irritation. Only that restrained expression that had always become her shield.
"Galinda."
One word. With all its weight and formality. With everything she dared not say.
"Can I sit down?" Glinda asked calmly.
"It's your house too," Larena replied without inflection. But she made a small, almost imperceptible gesture with her hand toward the empty chair opposite her.
Glinda sat down, carefully arranging her dress. She folded her hands in her lap. They both stared at the vase for a moment, as if it were a mediator between them.
"I haven't stopped thinking about our last conversation," Glinda said, lowering her voice. "And I don't think you have either."
Larena didn't respond at first. She arranged a flower with surgical precision.
"You thought about it because it was unpleasant," she said finally. "I thought about it because it was... necessary."
Glinda clenched her jaw, but maintained her composure.
"Was it necessary to say that she would ruin my life?"
Larena finally looked at her, straight in the eyes.
"It was necessary to tell you that not all love is good just because it's love. It was necessary to tell you that you can't build your entire life around someone who isn't part of this world. Of our world."
"And what world is that, Mother?" Glinda asked. "One where we pretend everything is fine while everyone silently hates each other?" One where what matters is what it seems and not what it is?
The older woman looked away for the first time. Glinda took advantage of the space.
"I built something with her. Something real. Something that isn't always easy. But it's love. And it's choice. And it's growth. And I don't care if she's not part of your world, Mother. Because I don't want that world if it can't contain her too."
Larena returned to her vase. She touched a flower unnecessarily, just to keep her fingers from trembling.
"I don't understand her," she said, very quietly. "I don't understand Elphaba. She scares me... what she represents. All that she drags down. Her history. Her darkness. And I'm scared of seeing you dragged down with her."
Glinda leaned forward a little. Her voice was soft.
"Then listen to me, just for once. She doesn't drag me down. She holds me. She challenges me. She makes me better. She makes me stand on my own two feet." I didn't choose her out of weakness; I chose her because I finally learned to decide.
A long silence fell between them. The kind of silence that doesn't break, but builds. Larena closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, a tear was halfway down. But it didn't fall.
"I always wanted you to be strong, Glinda," she said finally. "But I never imagined you would be... so far from me."
Glinda smiled, small, hurt.
"I was never far away. I was always waiting for you to see me."
Larena lowered her gaze. She put her hand to her temple, like someone trying to remove the weight of the past with a gesture.
"Is she here?" she asked after a few seconds.
Glinda nodded.
"Yes. She's inside. Would you like to talk to her?"
Larena didn't respond immediately. She returned to the vase. She arranged the last flower. Then, in a soft voice, without looking at her daughter, she said:
"Maybe later." But if she's still with you after all this... then perhaps she's already said everything without needing words.
Glinda stood up. There was no victory, no surrender. Just the first crack in the wall. But it was enough.
"Thank you for listening to me, Mother."
Glinda was about to take the first step toward the house when Larena's voice, soft but trembling, stopped her like an invisible noose tied to her chest.
"Glinda..." she called, not with authority or reproach, but with an almost inaudible plea.
The blonde stopped immediately, still without turning around. She closed her eyes. She waited.
"Forgive me," Larena said. A single word that seemed to crumble years of ice between them. "I beg your forgiveness... for everything. For what I did... for what I didn't know how to do. For what I said and what I kept quiet. For whatever it takes... so you don't leave again."
Glinda turned around. Larena no longer stood like a queen, her shoulders tense, and her composure like that of a society lady. She sat, slightly hunched, her hands trembling in her lap, her gaze lowered, held by nothing but her own shame. It was the first time Glinda had seen her like this. Human.
"I'm sorry for pushing you away," Larena repeated, barely raising her gaze. "For not understanding you... for being afraid. I loved you so much, Glinda. And in that love, I believed that if I molded you in my image, I would protect you from pain. But I only pushed you away from me. And there isn't a day... a single damn day that I haven't wished I had done differently."
Glinda felt tears rise from her chest in a gentle wave, not of pain, but of release. She walked back to her mother, slowly, wordlessly. She crouched in front of her, taking her hands.
"I never wanted to walk away," she said, her voice breaking. "I just wanted you to see me. To accept me as I am, not as you would have liked me to be. But I never stopped loving you, Mom. I never stopped being your daughter. And I will always... always love you."
Larena looked at her as if finally seeing the little girl she used to dress in light blue ribbons and teach how to smile for family photographs. And now she was here... a full-grown woman, whole, radiant, strong. Not as she had planned, but as life and her self-respect had shaped her.
"And I will always love you, Glinda," she whispered, her voice breaking. "Unconditionally. No matter what."
It wasn't an explosion of emotion, nor a cry, nor overflowing tears. It was a silent, contained embrace, where the trembling of their bodies spoke louder than any words. Glinda leaned into her mother's chest, and Larena huddled around her as if afraid that if she let go of the moment, everything would unravel again. A moment so long postponed, so needed by both of them.
Perhaps there were still wounds to heal. Words that would remain unspoken. Habits difficult to unlearn. But for the first time in months, they shared the same ground: the desire to repair, to reunite, to be mother and daughter again.
Wiping her tears with the gentleness of someone who holds a precious memory in the corners of her eyes, Glinda re-entered the mansion. The house smelled of waxed wood and the past; every corner held the lingering memory of a childhood amidst gilt trim and impeccable routines. But now, everything seemed smaller. Not because the house had shrunk, but because she had grown.
She crossed the hall in silence, her gaze searching for a tall, green figure, a familiar shadow amid so much artificial light. But Elphaba was nowhere to be seen.
Turning into the kitchen, she heard a faintly hummed melody. Her father was standing with his back turned, dancing alone, his shoulders swaying to the music probably only he could hear. He held a bottle of champagne in one hand and searched for four flutes in the cupboard with the other.
Noticing her presence, he stopped abruptly. The bottle disappeared behind his back, like a teenager trapped with a secret.
"Princess!" he exclaimed with a guilty smile, his eyes shining with pure happiness. "I was... well... making a little mental toast."
"Did you see Elphaba?" she asked, one eyebrow raised, still with the soft voice of someone coming from an important moment.
Highmuster paused dramatically, as if consulting a mental map.
"Hmm... I think the last time I saw her, she was coming up the stairs. So... maybe she's in your room."
Glinda eyed him for a second suspiciously, but said nothing. She turned and started up the wide, spiral staircase, leaving the murmur of music and antique chandeliers behind. The carpet beneath her feet was the same one that had seen her run with braids and buns, trip in lace stockings, and once weep silently over things she now barely remembered.
As she passed the window overlooking the side garden, her gaze strayed toward one of the ornamental plants she had loved so much as a child: a pink-petalled wisteria that always bloomed at this time of year. But now... it was petal-less. The bare stems hung with a strange serenity, as if something had carefully plucked them.
She frowned. Her instinct whispered that this meant something. But what?
She shook her head and continued up the stairs. She walked slowly down the hallway, as if every foot brought her closer to something she didn't know how to anticipate. The closed doors on either side were compressed memories: the playroom, her mother's office, her Sunday boudoir. Finally, she arrived in front of her bedroom.
She took a breath. She turned the handle. She entered.
The room was the same as always, and at the same time, completely different. The afternoon light streamed in through the window and painted the old white furniture gold. On the bed, neatly folded, was the pink silk bedspread she had hated throughout her adolescence. The scent of lavender floated in the air like a lullaby. And there, in the middle of that frozen-in-time decor... there was no one.
"Elphaba?" she called softly, entering.
But she got no answer.
Glinda lowered her gaze, and for a second, the air seemed to hold its breath beside her.
On the floor, right where the sun silhouetted her against the carpet, lay petals. The pink petals. They weren't part of the usual decor, nor a floral accident from the garden. They were a message. An emotional map unfolded before her feet.
She followed them without thinking. The first step was slow, reverential. The petals formed a delicate path, crossing her room with the softness of a whisper. They surrounded the bed, where one of her suitcases lay open as if it had just been searched by careful hands. On the bedspread, carefully unfolded, lay a pink dress. It wasn't ostentatious, but it had that kind of beauty that only true simplicity can achieve: a flowing skirt, a subtle neckline, clean lines, and a faint sheen in the fabric that seemed made to reflect only the light from the eyes that loved her.
Glinda brought a hand to her mouth, smiling with emotion tight in her chest.
She didn't need a note, not a word. She knew what this was.
With measured, almost ceremonial movements, she removed her clothes and put on the dress. The soft lining caressed her skin like an anticipated hug. She looked in the mirror and allowed herself a few seconds of joyful vanity—not because of how she looked, but because of what it meant: someone had thought of her, remembered her, waited for her.
She followed the petals that now led to the back of the room, across the carpet to the large built-in wardrobe that led to her old closet. She pushed open the door, revealing the narrow hallway lined with light wood, like a small corridor to memory.
As she walked, each step unleashed a memory: her first perfume hidden there, the letter she never dared to send, the time she cried because she thought no one would love her as she was. This hallway was her refuge, her best-kept secret.
And at the end… the small semicircular door. Her hiding place.
That corner that, as a child, she had filled with blankets, lanterns, and dreams. That refuge she had only shared with one person. One person who, at that moment, was there.
With her back to her.
Elphaba.
She wore a dark, simple, and elegant dress that contrasted with her skin like a brushstroke on a virgin canvas. Her shoulders rose and fell with bated breath, as if she too were struggling not to be swallowed up by the moment. When she sensed Glinda's presence, she turned slowly.
And she smiled.
It wasn't a theatrical smile, nor proud, nor playful. It was one of those rare smiles that spring up without permission, shy, sincere… almost clumsy in its vulnerability.
"Hello," Elphaba said, her voice lower than silence itself.
And Glinda, her eyes moist and her soul aflame, took a step forward.
"Hello."
Past and present merged between them. There were no more games, no masks, no disguises of strength. Just two women who had endured storms, distances, shame, and defeats... to find each other, at last, in a hiding place where only the truth existed.
Elphaba tried to speak.
The silence was absolute, thicker than the air itself, as if the world had held its breath in the exact measure of her fear. Her hands were slightly trembling, and although her posture was straight, her eyes betrayed her: they oscillated between determination and the vertigo of someone walking over the abyss of her own hope.
"I..." she began, and swallowed as if that simple syllable had cost her a lifetime.
She tried to compose herself. She took a deep breath. She'd rehearsed this. She'd written it a dozen times, recited it in front of the mirrors of motels with forgettable names in anonymous cities. But now, standing in front of Glinda—in that pink dress that seemed made of fallen stars, with those eyes that had looked at her through every defeat and every redemption—the rehearsed words simply weren't enough. So she didn't use them. She didn't need them.
"When I first met you…" she began again, her voice lower but firmer. "When you walked into that office with your impossible perfume and your white coat like a bad omen… I thought you were everything I'd never be able to understand. Everything that came to correct me, to judge me, to keep me at bay. An invader."
Glinda gave a small smile, recognizing the image, recognizing herself.
"But then…" Elphaba continued, taking a step closer, "then you made me feel." I don't know how to explain it... You made me feel so many things I thought were no longer allowed. You made me angry. You made me laugh. You made me look in the mirror and want to like myself. You made me question everything," she said emphatically, "what I thought about love, about power, about myself... And not to change for you. But because for the first time... I wanted to change for me."
Glinda's breathing was a swirl of suppressed emotion.
"Crossing the country with you was like... like running without seeing the end. An eternal leap. But it was also the first time I felt I was where I was meant to be. And I know that won't change. I don't want it to change. If I have to cross another country, another world, another hell... I will. Because you, Glinda... you are infinite. And I don't want to spend another second of my life without you."
And then, without hesitation, Elphaba knelt.
With slow movements, she took a small, dark green velvet box from the inside pocket of her jacket. She opened it with both hands, revealing a simple white gold ring with a star-shaped diamond, cut to match the minimal elegance of its design. She had bought it at that convention where they discovered that her story—her own, so unique and so intimate—had crossed fiction, the stage, and comic books to touch other lives. Because her love was like no other. And she didn't want it to be.
"Glinda Arduenna Upland..." she said, her voice cracking with emotion, but stronger than ever, "will you marry me?"
Glinda was trembling. Not from fear, or from doubt, but from the overwhelming wave of emotion that had coursed through her since Elphaba knelt before her.
Her eyes, crystalline and brimming with tears, shone as if they contained the entire sky. For a moment, it seemed as if she might burst into tears or laughter, that she might scream with joy or faint from pure love... but she held back. Not because I didn't feel it, but because I wanted to honor that moment. To guard it with the delicacy of a sacred secret.
Slowly, Glinda knelt down before her as well, matching their heights. She placed her soft hands over Elphaba's, closing the ring box between them. Their palms trembled, but they held on to each other like someone holding onto life itself.
Glinda's voice was barely a whisper at first, but it grew stronger with each word:
"When I was a girl... I used to imagine my perfect wedding," she began, with a nostalgic smile through her tears. "Dresses, flowers, lights, the waltz... but I could never imagine anything like this. Because I never imagined meeting you. No one told me that true love isn't perfect, isn't brilliant, or simple... it's raw, it's fierce, it's a battle and a balm all at the same time. You are that to me, Elphie. You are everything I never knew I could want, and now I can't imagine a second without you."
Elphaba swallowed, her own suppressed emotion on the verge of collapse.
"When we argued, when we pushed each other to be better, when you made me see the world through your eyes... I understood what love was. I understood that choosing you every day isn't an empty promise, but a constant decision. A revolution. You are my revolution, Elphaba. My accomplice. My home."
She paused, her chest rising and falling sharply. Then, with a tenderness so intense it made the air between them tremble, she added,
"So yes. A thousand times yes. Forever yes."
And before Elphaba could make a sound, Glinda leaned forward and kissed her.
It was a kiss like never before. There was no rush, no urgency, no hunger. It was a kiss steeped in history. Of struggle. Of reconciliations. A kiss that said I am here, and I will always be. Their lips met with the delicacy of a miracle and the power of a contained storm. And the world became small, intimate, perfectly enclosed within that instant.
When they separated, Elphaba rested her forehead against Glinda's, and they both laughed through their tears, as if they had returned from a long journey. And, in a way, they had.
That kiss… wasn't an end.
It was the beginning of the rest of their lives.
FUTURE:
The penthouse was dim. The city lights barely hinted at shapes through the enormous windows, silhouetting the modern furniture and the charming chaos that now inhabited this shared space. After a clumsy struggle with the key—accompanied by muffled giggles and a “are you sure this is the key?” uttered for the third time—the door finally gave way and opened with a soft creak.
They staggered inside, arm in arm, giggling like teenagers escaping a school dance. Elphaba had her suit blazer hanging off one shoulder, and Glinda had kicked off her heels blocks ago, walking barefoot with the dignity of a queen who'd decided the world was hers.
"Tell me the truth," Glinda stammered as she leaned against the doorframe, her makeup slightly smudged and her smile absolutely happy. "Will you forgive me for forgetting our anniversary?" Elphaba looked at her with one eyebrow raised, as if assessing the question with the rigor of an international trial. She took a few slow, theatrical steps, as if she were taking it very seriously, and finally answered with mock severity:
"Well... celebrating our anniversary at a family restaurant that offered 'all-you-can-eat wings + unlimited margaritas' for 11.99... wasn't exactly what I had in mind."
Glinda put a hand to her chest, playfully offended.
"And you're saying that after dancing to '80s reggaeton with that lady who was celebrating her birthday at the next table?!"
"You're talking about the lady who gave you a paper hat and pinched my cheek?"
They both burst out laughing. They stumbled across the aisle and fell onto the sofa as if the piece of furniture had called their names. Glinda settled herself on Elphaba's lap, playing with the buttons on her shirt as she brushed her hair away from her face.
"You still loved it," Glinda said in a honeyed voice.
"It was horrible." Elphaba smiled. "I had a great time."
They looked at each other for a moment, their faces illuminated only by the light that filtered through the skyscrapers. A comfortable silence settled over them, like a blanket covering them. Elphaba leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
"You know what the best thing about this forgotten, poorly organized anniversary, with its second-rate alcohol and supermarket music, is?"
"What?" Glinda asked, snuggling closer.
"That you're the one who ruined it. And I'm... the one who's here to laugh with you. I never thought that would be enough for me. But it is. More than enough."
Glinda raised her head to look into her eyes. There was tenderness, complicity, an unbreakable devotion. She stroked her fingers along his jaw.
"I promise, for the next anniversary, I won't take you to a place with plastic chairs."
—Lie.
—Well... only if there's karaoke.
They kissed. Slowly. Warmly. As if time didn't exist.
The sofa creaked under the weight of the two of them, still half-exhausted from exhaustion and the alcohol, when Glinda dropped her head onto Elphaba's shoulder, sighing with the exaggerated panache of a soap opera diva.
"I think I got some strawberry margarita poisoning," she murmured between giggles. "Did you know it had glitter in it? Who puts glitter in alcohol?"
"People who hate their livers and human dignity," Elphaba snarled, her eyes narrowed.
At that moment, Glinda raised an eyebrow and noticed something sticking out of the inside pocket of Elphaba's jacket, barely folded and sticking out in the treacherous shape of a badly hidden piece of paper. Without thinking twice, like someone stealing a cookie from the cupboard, she reached in with a swift gesture and pulled the paper out.
"No!" "Elphaba exclaimed, trying to snatch it back, but Glinda had already unfolded it and was beginning to read it, her eyes sparkling with excitement and malice.
"Official Statement, Version 3.5. To tell Glinda if she manages to survive the swarm of questions..." She raised a mischievous eyebrow. "Oh no, I have to hear this."
"You don't have to do that!" Elphaba pleaded, trying to cover her mouth with her hand, but Glinda had already continued:
"Glinda Arduenna Upland of Emerald City... the light that appears even in the darkest rooms, the only person charming enough to make me laugh when I want to set the world on fire..." Glinda fell silent, smiling softly. "Awww..."
"It was a terrible draft," Elphaba muttered, covering her face. "I was going to say it when you left the interview, but... it changed everything, and I thought it was corny and pathetic."
"Corny?" Totally. Pathetic? Maybe a little. Absolutely adorable? Definitely.” Glinda sat up, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Are you going to include it in your new book?”
Elphaba looked at her with a mixture of mockery and horror.
“What book?”
“The one you’re clearly writing. I know you, my love. That “I’m not writing a book” look is the “I’m definitely writing a book” look. You betray yourself.”
“You know what else is treason? Picking other people’s pockets,” Elphaba retorted, and lunged at her, pillow in hand.
“Oh no! Literary Defense, level one!” Glinda cried, scampering away on all fours, giggling as Elphaba chased her around the couch.
The fight was brief, messy, and full of laughter. It ended as it always did: in a hug.
"Whatever you're writing," Glinda murmured, her head resting on his chest. "Promise me I'll be the first to read it."
"No," Elphaba smiled.
"No?"
"You'll be the last. Because when you're done, you'll close the cover... and look at me. And you'll know that everything in there was meant for you."
Glinda didn't respond. She just hugged her tighter.
And amid the distant murmur of traffic, the penthouse fell silent again.
"Do you realize?" Glinda murmured, playing with a lock of her wife's black hair. "Another year. Another anniversary. Another chaos."
"And you keep forgetting them with enviable discipline," Elphaba replied, raising an eyebrow.
"Bullshit! This year I remembered! Just... not in time."
"It's the thought that counts," Elphaba laughed, stroking her back.
Glinda bolted upright, with that impulsive energy that had always defined her. In one agile movement—too much for her blood alcohol level—she straddled Elphaba's waist, who burst out laughing at the sight of her like that.
"What are you doing?"
"Celebrating. Like before."
"Does 'before' mean two weeks ago when you tied me up in the playroom and we ended up breaking the lamp?"
"That was an honorable accident!" Glinda exclaimed, feigning indignation as she began kissing her neck. "Besides, I didn't come here to reminisce... I came here to make history."
"You're unbearable."
"And you're crazy about me."
"Yes," Elphaba whispered against her ear. "And I always will be."
The pink dress fell to the floor. The chemise was discarded without ceremony. Their bodies met again as if it were the first time and as if it were the last, because with them it was always both at once. They kissed slowly, deeply, and Elphaba let Glinda throw her down on the couch, laughing between gasps.
But just as their hands began to roam over warm skin and their breaths became a language of their own... knock knock knock.
They both froze.
A single sigh.
"It can't be," Elphaba murmured, covering herself with a pillow.
"Just ignore it," Glinda whispered, trying to get back into the game.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
"Girls... I know it's your night... but... um... something happened."
Tibbett's voice pierced the door like a guilt-soaked arrow.
"NO!" they shouted in unison from the couch.
"I'm so sorry, I really am! But a certain little person had a little accident, and her uncle forgot to bring extra diapers..."
There was a pause.
"...and him favorite super moms might be able to help."
Glinda flopped face first onto the couch. Elphaba covered her face with both hands. They stared at each other for a moment. Then, in unison:
"Uuuugh!"
They got up from the couch, giggling, looking for something to wear. Glinda threw a top at Elphaba while murmuring,
"Now that's what you call karma... for laughing at the cheap margarita restaurant."
"Shut up and get the diapers," Elphaba replied, already walking into the bedroom.
And so, amid laughter, interrupted kisses, and emergency diapers, the night ended. Not as they had planned. But yes, as only they could live it: with love, complicity... and a little creature who called them "super moms" and who had added another chapter to their story.
Notes:
And with that, we conclude another season, undoubtedly the most fun to write so far. Now, a quick question... Do you want me to continue immediately with the next season? Because... surprise! It's already fully written, but if you'd like, I can take a break before publishing it. My general idea with this story is to complete it before the premiere of For Good, but whatever you wish, there's still a lot of story left to cover, and as I'm teasing the ending... the future for both of them is longer than they expect.
Chapter 34: SPECIAL: A WICKED CHRISTMAS
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Eight Years in the Future
The Emerald City shone like a saturated postcard. Red and green lights climbed the streetlights, adorning shop windows, balconies, and even the Gothic gargoyles of the Senate building, which at this time of year wore garlands as if someone had tried to disguise a flock of crows in the middle of a school parade. The snow fell in small, thick, silent flakes, covering everything with a false calm. It was Christmas. Or almost. There were exactly twelve hours until midnight.
And Elphaba was trapped in hell.
The line snaked inside the toy store like a wartime immigration queue. Parents bundled up to their eyebrows, laden with bags, frozen scarves, squealing children, and inflatable reindeer slowly deflating along a peeling wall. Everything smelled of anxiety, cheap chocolate, and overly shiny wrapping paper. And there she was: standing stiffly in a black coat that reached almost to her ankles, a gray scarf that barely revealed her jaw, and dark glasses that hid any hint of expression. Despite everything, she still commanded attention.
A mother at her side watched her out of the corner of her eye as if trying to decide if she was a celebrity, a fugitive, or both. Elphaba lowered her head, pretending to read the ingredients on a box of building blocks as if it were a profound political analysis. “Just get the damn talking dinosaur, get out of here, and no one will die,” she thought. She had promised. For months, her son had been asking her to, with that combination of childlike faith and emotional threat that only four-year-olds knew how to execute. But between Elphaba's book tour, Glinda's commitments to the foundation, the temporary move for apartment renovations, and a bout of chickenpox that had left the house smelling of hand sanitizer for weeks, the gift-buying had been left to the last minute.
Just as she was about to take a step forward, her phone vibrated inside her coat. She ignored it. It vibrated again. A third time. Finally, she pulled it out, as if drawing a dagger.
"What?" she said quietly.
"Don't tell me 'what'!" Glinda's voice exploded from the receiver, drenched in flour and suppressed fury. "Where are you? The nanny will be back in twenty minutes!"
"I know. I'm at the toy store. I'm... almost." Elphaba looked at the line. She would lie. She lied. "I'm five people away."
"You said that ten minutes ago. Is there a conspiracy in that store? Or are you kidnapping goblins?"
"There are children screaming." You don't know what this is. I'm in the middle of the Christmas apocalypse. And someone just fainted. I think it was for the price of a Barbie. Glinda, will you calm down for a second?
"Calm down!? I'm decorating cookies for a boy who decided all trees have to have his mother's eyes! And the kitchen looks like war paint. And you know who's about to walk through that door any moment? My mother! Who promised to "just drop off a present" and then spends three hours criticizing our living room's feng shui!"
"And you can't distract her?"
"Distract her? It's not a cat with a laser, Elphaba!"
Elphaba sighed, lowering her glasses slightly to massage her nose with two fingers. In front of her, a little girl in a tutu and a plastic crown was smiling at her. She looked back at her as if contemplating a verdict.
"Couldn't you go?" she dared to ask.
"Because I'm cooking. And if I burn the cookies, our son will declare civil war. You promised to get the dinosaur." “Getting it is going to be fun, Glinda,” you said. “It’s going to be a simple mission,” you said.
“Can you not use sarcastic quotes in your voice?”
“Can you not make promises you can’t keep?”
Elphaba turned slightly, moving away from the line to get a second to breathe.
“You know what? You can hang up on me. Hang up. Enjoy the cookies. I’ll take this. With the people who smell musty. With a child who cries because “there are no more blue unicorns.” With a woman who just asked me if I’m “the one with the books on sexual politics with poetry.” Which, by the way, isn’t the title of any of my books.
On the other end, Glinda was silent for a second. Then she let out a stifled laugh.
“Sexual politics with poetry?”
“I swear.”
“Well, at least you know your audience is… varied.”
“I’m going to kill someone.” I'm going to have to bake cookies in an orange uniform.
"You wouldn't bake even if you were free, love."
A brief silence. A truce.
"How far do you really have to go?" Glinda asked, more gently.
Elphaba sighed again.
"I'm seven people away. I'm sorry. I tried to bribe a kid into giving me his, but apparently he has principles."
"Did you really try?"
"It had chocolate. And despair."
Glinda laughed. A real laugh. And Elphaba, standing in the middle of a toy store riddled with Christmas chaos, allowed herself a smile. Small. Tired. Intimate.
"Hurry up," Glinda said finally, with affection and threat in equal measure. "I want you alive. But if you don't get here before my mother, I'm going to need a cocktail or a lawyer."
"Maybe both."
"I love you."
"Me too. Although I'm starting to love noise-cancelling headphones more."
"Go on. Rescue the dinosaur."
The call disconnected. And Elphaba, still smiling, turned around again. She took another step in line.
Seven ahead. Then six. Then five.
The line moved forward another step. Barely an inch, but enough for Elphaba to notice, for the first time, the small magazine rack leaning against a Christmas column decorated with dubious garlands and glitter dust. Amid the garish toy catalog covers and desperate-sale flyers, something caught her eye. A purple, illustrated glow with big, loud letters: "A TALE OF TWO WITCHES Christmas Adventure!"
Elphaba blinked. She swallowed.
On the cover, a cartoon of herself—or what the fandom had decided was "her"—riding a broomstick, dressed in some kind of green velvet bikini and snowflake cape. “WitchyWest,” the title proclaimed in a font that looked like it had been designed by a sugar-addicted teenager. Beside her, “GoodGlim,” wearing a fluorescent pink dress and holding a candy cane-shaped wand, cast spells with a dazzling smile. In the background, a horde of evil goblins attacked what appeared to be a tower decorated with Christmas lights and lava.
Elphaba let out a low, almost guttural growl. She lifted the comic from the shelf as if it were forensic evidence.
“Sure,” she thought, flipping through it with cold, resigned fingers, “why not? If you're going to be exploited without compensation, at least make it good-weight paper.”
She'd heard that the webcomic had finally been released in print, having completed its “super-epic” arc and garnering thousands of fans on forums, conventions, and—unfortunately—universities. They'd never seen a single royalty. According to the studio, it was "loosely inspired by public figures with altered names and transformed aesthetics," even though the protagonist wore her exact frown and uttered phrases like "love is an evolutionary weakness."
"Is that you?" a high-pitched voice asked at her side.
Elphaba turned her head. A girl about seven years old was watching her with the concentration of a scientist-in-training. She had two red braids and was holding a box with a musical unicorn on it.
"No," Elphaba replied tersely.
"But it looks similar. You have the same sunglasses and hair like a cactus."
"My hair isn't like a cactus."
"My grandmother has cacti. They're kind of like that. Hard and upright."
"Thanks for the botanical comparison."
The girl tilted her head.
"So why do you look at that comic so much?"
"Because I find it offensive on a level that requires doctoral dissertations to explain."
"Oh. I have it at home. My brother hates it. He says WitchyWest can't be gay because she's so grumpy."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"Your brother sounds... charming."
“She also said GoodGlim looks like a makeup influencer. But I think they're cute. Were they friends?”
Elphaba was silent for a moment.
“I guess you could call them that,” she said finally, carefully closing the comic.
“What's in that issue? Are you buying it?”
“I doubt it. I think I prefer real stories.”
The girl looked at her, puzzled.
“Like what stories?”
Elphaba considered telling her she didn't have time, that she was standing in a ridiculously long line to buy a ridiculously expensive toy for a ridiculously stubborn son. But there was something about that girl—maybe her relentless honesty, maybe the way she looked at him without any filter—that changed her mind.
She crouched down slightly, resting an elbow on her knee, still holding the comic.
“Do you want to hear a story? A real one. A Christmas one.” Not with flying witches, but with enough disasters to make it interesting.
The girl nodded, her eyes twinkling.
"Once upon a time," Elphaba began, her tone somewhere between sarcastic and warm, "there was a couple who decided to do something very, very stupid."
"What?"
"Throw a Christmas dinner."
The girl laughed.
"And what happened?"
Elphaba looked at her over her glasses. Snow was still falling behind the toy store's windows, but inside, time seemed to slow down. The line moved another step forward, but she didn't move.
"It just so happened that all the personal demons of her friends and family decided to show up that very night. It just so happened that the cookies burned, there were screams, tears, and a toast that almost ended in a diplomatic war. And it just so happened that, in the midst of all that, someone—maybe one of those witches in the comics—discovered what real love was. That it's not pretty, or magical, or photogenic." It's uncomfortable, ridiculous... and absolutely impossible to replace.
"And then what?"
Elphaba smiled slightly.
SPECIAL CHAPTER: A WICKED CHRISTMAS
PRESENT:
And just as it would be in the future, it was in the past, and it probably would be in every year to come: Christmas had descended upon the Emerald City like a cinnamon-scented storm, LED lights, and emotional consumerism. The avenues glittered with strings of twinkling lights, each shop window seemed to compete in grandeur with the next, and public address systems spewed Christmas carols at a volume that bordered on acoustic torture. The stores were jammed, shopping carts bumped like miniature cars in a velvet traffic jam, and everyone—without exception—seemed to be buying something they didn't need.
In a Christmas store in the main mall, the air smelled of fake pine, sugar, and stress. To one side of the store, surrounded by fake snow and plastic candy canes, a small mechanical Santa Claus emerged at rhythmic intervals from his igloo inside a melon-sized snow globe. Every time a bell rang, Santa spun on his axis, flapped his arms, and swayed his hips to a squealing, metallic tune that, if you paid attention, was a techno version of Jingle Bell Rock. Elphaba was convinced he'd been programmed to torture adults.
"He's perfect!" Glinda exclaimed, her eyes lit by a combination of Christmas lights and festive excitement. "Look at the way he dances! He's like a Santa with personality."
"He's like a Santa with a bad hip," Elphaba replied, frowning, reflected next to Glinda in the crystal sphere.
The two stood in front of the shelf like two radically opposite versions of a Christmas couple. Glinda, dressed in a pale pink coat, a white scarf with gold sparkles, and a knitted hat that was clearly not functional but very aesthetically pleasing, smiled as if each ornament were a divine sign that everything would be all right. Elphaba, meanwhile, wore a dark green overcoat, black gloves, and a skeptical expression that seemed carved in marble. Her gaze darted from Santa to the price tag, from the price tag to Glinda, and from Glinda to the invisible sky.
"I don't understand why this has to be in our house," she said, crossing her arms. "It sounds like it's dying."
"Exactly! It's adorable. It has... character."
"It's having electrical problems."
Glinda snorted and turned toward her, her hands on her hips.
"Elphie, this is going to be our first Christmas together. No doubt about it, no mysterious escapades, no political enemies at the door, no emotional journeys, or existential road trips." Just us. In our house. In peace. Please, let me have the Christmas-twerking Santa if that makes me feel like all of this is real.
Elphaba opened her mouth to argue... but then closed it. Because the truth was this: it was their first Christmas together. No danger, no unanswered questions, no ellipses. And if Glinda wanted a mechanical Santa that looked like he came straight out of a miniature cabaret, then... maybe that was the price of happiness.
She sighed.
"Fine. But it goes in the kitchen, where he can't stalk me while I sleep."
"Deal!" Glinda said, holding the doll up with both hands as if it were a sacred trophy. "You'll see, the house is going to be beautiful. And dinner is going to be epic! A Christmas to remember!"
The snow fell in small, lazy swirls as the store's automatic doors opened with a synthetic ding, and Elphaba emerged, dragging three overstuffed bags, one in each hand and one dangling awkwardly from her wrist. Her gait was steady, stubborn, as if she could intimidate the holiday crowds with sheer presence. Beside her, Glinda walked briskly, bouncing off her shopping list on her phone decorated with a glittery snowflake PopSocket.
"Are we missing anything else?" Glinda asked without looking up. "Let's see... we already have the candy canes, the chocolate trees, the gold reindeer napkins, and the twerking Santa ornament..."
"Was that a royal victory for you?" Elphaba murmured, adjusting her scarf with her elbow.
"Absolutely. It's my Super Bowl."
Elphaba rolled her eyes as she tried to balance the bags so she wouldn't strangle herself on one of the handles.
"And what are you looking at now? More phallic-shaped cookies?"
"No! I'm looking for something for Tibbett and Crope. I want to surprise them. Or rather... distract them."
Elphaba tilted her head with a half-smile.
"Strategic distraction? To keep them from asking too many questions about the trip?"
Glinda lowered her phone for a moment, looking at her with that expression that combined mischief with genuine affection.
"I admit... you read me too well."
"You know you won't hold back. If they ask, you'll explode into hearts and glitter and scream that we're engaged."
"I wouldn't scream!" Glinda defended herself, albeit with a guilty little smile. "Maybe I'd whisper it through tears."
"And fireworks."
"And background music. But instrumental, obviously."
Elphaba laughed softly, resigned.
"So all this is to distract them with shiny gifts while we sneak around with our little secret?"
"And to win!" Glinda resumed her epic crusading tone. "Tibbett already thinks I've beaten him to the punch with that fondue set shaped like a Renaissance castle. But this year I'm going to win. I'm going to give them... I don't know... a mini projector that sends out holograms of their selfies while they sing arias?"
"Gods..." Elphaba closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm marrying a megalomaniac."
"And not just any megalomaniac," Glinda retorted, playfully sliding closer to her. One who knows how to wrap gifts with origami bows.
Elphaba let out a tired, sweet laugh, the kind of laugh saved only for moments with her.
"And when do you think we should announce it?"
Glinda stopped, as if the wind had suddenly blown an awkward question her way. She lowered her cell phone, looking at her with a mixture of doubt and hopeful sparkle.
"I don't know. I thought maybe tonight. Or tomorrow. Or... later. I want it to be special. And... I don't know... there's something fun about having it just for us for a little while longer. Like a hidden treasure."
Elphaba watched her, her face softened by the snow brushing against their coats. Sometimes, she didn't need to fully understand Glinda. It was enough to know that that kind of hope brought her peace. And after everything they'd been through—all the battles, roads, and confessions between seasons—if Glinda needed one more week of secrecy, she would give it to her.
"As you wish," she said gently. Just you and me tonight. Peace. Fireplace. Wine. Not a single voice but yours telling me which part of the tree I decorated wrong.
"Spoiler: the back. You always decorate the back as if no one would ever see it."
"Because no one sees it, Glinda. It's against the wall."
"It's all part of the aesthetic experience. Everything!"
And so they continued walking along the wet sidewalk, an impossible mix between an elegant Grinch and a hyperactive elf. Elphaba, carrying the shopping bags with loving resignation; Glinda, dreaming aloud about plans that included recessed lights in the baseboards and scented garlands.
And although the sky was beginning to cover with thicker clouds, and although the hidden agenda of certain guests was already being set in motion without their knowledge, in that moment... everything was perfect.
Minutes later, the snow was melting on the fringes of Elphaba's coat as the two entered a Christmas decoration store that smelled of artificial pine incense and had more sparkle than a carnival float. Garlands with built-in lights hung from the ceiling, there were spinning Christmas trees, reindeer covered in gold glitter, and a dedicated section for themed ornaments: classic Christmases, Nordic Christmases, outer space Christmases.
And in the middle of it all, Glinda.
"Excuse me, but what I'm looking for has to be pastel blue with pearl accents, not ice blue, not cloud blue, and definitely not metallic blue. Do you understand?" she said, speaking to a saleswoman who looked like she was about to give up on life.
Elphaba, meanwhile, had leaned against a nearby wall, between a shelf of scented candles and a makeshift bookshelf filled with books on holiday design, holiday cooking, and spiritual inspiration. Her eyes fell on one with a plain cover: The Art of the Word: How to Write from the Essential. She took it out without thinking. She opened it. She flipped the first pages with her thumb, not reading, but feeling. The book's design was simple, unpretentious. Carefully chosen words. Underlined phrases as if they had been written with the intention that someone—like her—would find them at just such a moment.
It was an idea that had been haunting her for some time. Or rather, floating around her like a scent one tries not to fully inhale. The idea of writing. Not an academic essay. Not a column. A book. A real one. Her own. Not about other people's theories or critiques of rotten systems, but about everything she had learned. What hurt her. What she struggled to even name out loud.
But then the excuses always came. Time. Work. Family. Obligations. And that last excuse, the hardest to refute: I don't know how to do it.
To capture what you've experienced in words that don't seem like rhetoric. To tell without betraying. To remember without romanticizing. To love without sugarcoating.
"How do you do that?" she thought. And instantly, in response, another, more honest question: "What if I can't?"
"Oh, sorry!" Glinda suddenly exclaimed.
Elphaba looked up. Glinda had suddenly turned while talking to the saleswoman and collided with another customer. The impact was soft, but enough to knock over a box full of hand-decorated crystal balls.
"Oh, please excuse me! I didn't see you, I was," Glinda began, until her eyes fell on him.
"Boq," they both said in unison, although with very different intonations.
He bent down to gather the fallen baubles, which luckily hadn't broken, and when he looked up, he did so with that nervous smile of someone who didn't expect to meet someone again in the "Scandinavian Style: Minimalist Christmas" aisle.
"Hey! What a surprise. Glinda. Elphaba." He looked at them both as if unsure which one to hug. "It's so nice to see you... finally."
Elphaba put the book back on the shelf without opening it again. The words could wait. For now.
"Buying decorations for yourself or for the independent republic of the Fiyero Club?" she asked with a raised eyebrow, in that cutting tone that was already laced with ironic affection.
Boq laughed.
"A bit of both. I'm told the bar needs a "themed atmosphere" and that my apartment looks like a tax office. So here I am. Chasing glitter baubles. As always."
"You haven't changed a bit," Glinda said, smiling warmly.
"You don't either," Boq replied, though his gaze lingered briefly as he looked at their clasped hands. "Well, you did change. But... you know. Well. Changed for the better."
The silence between the three lasted barely two seconds, but it was long enough to fill with everything they hadn't said to each other since returning to the city.
Despite his classic social awkwardness—that endearing mix of nerves and goodwill—Boq made a sincere effort to keep the conversation going, even while holding a box full of drink-shaped ornaments and disco balls to decorate Fiyero's bar. His face slightly flushed from the cold and from being in their presence, he looked at Glinda and Elphaba with a soft smile, like someone trying to gauge whether he still has a place in someone's life.
“So… how are you?” she asked, adjusting the weight of the box. “Was coming back… peaceful? Chaotic? A mix of both?”
Glinda answered almost reflexively, with the automatic eloquence of someone who has trained herself to respond with smiles even when internal volcanoes are erupting.
“Oh, it’s been a bit of a readjustment, you know! Back to the city, the pace, the real coffee, the obscene amount of notifications… But also a lot of introspection. Reconnecting. Reviewing priorities…”
And then she stopped. She literally froze mid-sentence. Her eyes flicked to Elphaba for a second, as if she’d just remembered they weren’t ready to say it. Not yet.
“…and, well, Christmas shopping!” she finished with a smile that was too wide. “That never changes!”
Boq raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He noticed the abrupt break, like a crossed-out sentence in a script. But if there was one thing she'd learned in the years of knowing them, it was that when Glinda avoided saying something, she did it with such style it was almost an art.
"And you?" Glinda asked, trying to regain her composure. "What are you doing for Christmas?"
Boq shrugged, like someone trying to downplay something that actually matters to them.
"Fiyero decided to close the club for the night, so... I'll probably go out with my date."
Glinda blinked.
"Date?"
"Yes. A few weeks ago. Well, longer. Quite a few weeks, actually." Boq lowered her gaze for a moment, as if she struggled to name it out loud. "I know you were... missing. So... you missed a few things."
The tone wasn't recriminatory. But it wasn't neutral either. There was some truth embedded in it like a thorn in the side. Glinda opened her mouth to respond with one of her speeches about the importance of personal growth, but in the end, she just crossed her arms with a theatrical sigh.
"Touche."
Boq smiled gently.
"Fiyero's going to be glad to see you, by the way. He talked about you the other day. A lot. In his emotional language, of course."
"Does that include complete sentences or just approving grunts?" Elphaba murmured, raising an eyebrow.
"Complete sentences. And two emojis," Boq said, amused. "That's the equivalent of a serenade to him."
The three of them exchanged a knowing glance, brief but warm. The kind only found between those who shared intense chapters in their past. Finally, Boq said goodbye with the gentleness that always characterized him, leaving behind a trail of courtesy and the scent of cinnamon from a Christmas ornament. With a friendly wave of her hand, she promised they'd catch up soon, and Glinda responded with an enthusiastic smile that didn't quite erase a certain discomfort.
As soon as they left the store, bags dangling from their arms and the snow now turning into a freezing drizzle, Glinda let out the most dramatic sigh Elphaba had heard all month.
"Ugh, it's not our fault!" she exclaimed indignantly as they dodged a giant inflatable reindeer on the sidewalk. "I mean, we were gone for months. But it was for very valid reasons. Existential crises, emotional growth, a little rural tourism... And then there's emotional jet lag, does that count?"
"Emotional jet lag?"
"Yes. When you come back to your life and don't know how to fit in with group messages again. It's a real phenomenon! Well... maybe not "real," but emotionally, yes."
Elphaba smiled faintly, her head bowed beneath the brim of her hat. She knew her too well. That nervous verbosity was Glinda's way of avoiding admitting the obvious: that being disconnected from the world had also been comfortable. That having only each other for company had been a bubble they didn't want to burst.
"No need to justify anything, Glinda," Elphaba murmured. "They'll understand. And if they don't... it's not the end of the world."
"I know. But I still feel guilty. Christmas makes me feel guilty! Everything makes me feel guilty at Christmas. Even the expired shortbread." Then, suddenly, as if changing mental stations, "Speaking of which... the presents!"
Elphaba stiffened like a spring.
"What about the gifts?"
"Tonight, when we're finally alone, quiet, at peace, without any interruptions sucking up all the oxygen in the penthouse... that's when we're going to exchange gifts. And it's going to be beautiful. And perfect."
"Perfect," Elphaba repeated hollowly.
"Yes. And don't be weird about it. Because I know you're nervous. But your gift is going to be wonderful. Like you." Glinda flashed her a smile that was half tenderness, half adorable threat. "And if it isn't wonderful... I'm still going to kiss you until we forget about it."
"That is... strangely reassuring."
"I know. I'm full of talent."
But Elphaba was already getting restless. The gift. The gift. She'd thought of a thousand ideas. Clothes. Books. Necklaces. A trip. A letter. Nothing seemed enough. Because how do you give something to someone who's already given you your entire life back?
"Oh! I just remembered... I have to make a call. Just a little. Nothing serious. You... look at those bonsai-sized Christmas trees. I swear that one screams 'Glinda.'"
And without giving her time to ask more questions, Elphaba slipped with surgical precision between the gondolas and took refuge near a column of crystal ornaments. She took out her cell phone, took a deep breath, and dialed the number she had saved as Mr. Highmuster (good man).
Three rings later, a voice sounded on the other end, warm and somewhat distracted, with the faint hum of a teapot in the background.
"Highmuster?"
"Elphaba! Honey! Is everything okay? Have you convinced her to adopt a Christmas cat yet?"
"Not yet. But if you keep helping me, we could get a crab in a sweater. Listen... I need your help."
"Oh, yes. The gift."
"I'm completely lost." How do you give something to someone who's... everything?
"Oh, look. I understand. The first Christmas I had with her mother, I gave her a perfume that turned out to be a bath spray. By accident. But she was still touched."
"That doesn't help."
"Of course it does. The secret is that it's not perfect. But... personal. Something that comes from you. From the broken and beautiful part of you. Something you wouldn't buy for anyone else."
Elphaba leaned her forehead against the wall, closing her eyes.
"What if I'm wrong?"
"Then she laughs. And she hugs you. And then you make love on the floor, wrapped in wrapping paper. That's what young people do these days, isn't it?"
"Highmuster."
"Sorry. But I'm not lying. You know my daughter. She doesn't care about jewelry, or brands, or gold. She cares about you. You and what's in your head... and in your heart."
Elphaba swallowed.
"Thank you."
"Always. Do you want me to help you write a note too? I'm good at poetry. I rhyme "love" with "liquor" in a brilliant line."
Elphaba allowed herself to laugh, just barely, when she heard Highmuster's voice on the other end of the line. It was a warm laugh, like the sound of a burning fireplace in a house that smells of old wood and freshly baked bread. A sound of home.
"So, they haven't announced it yet?" she asked with false sternness. "Because I swear, if they don't let me say it soon, I'm going to explode like one of those inflatable reindeer Glinda loves so much."
"Not yet," Elphaba replied, holding back her laughter. "I told you she wants it to be a special moment. A spectacular announcement. With background music, fireworks, and designated witnesses."
"My God... I don't know if I have the heart for all this suspense."
"And Larena? Did you tell her?"
On the other end, there was a brief silence, like glass subtly breaking in a closed room.
"No," Highmuster replied gently. "No, I didn't tell him. We haven't talked much lately, to be honest."
Elphaba lowered her voice slightly, moving slightly away from the busiest part of the store.
"Are you okay?"
Highmuster took a second to respond, but when he did, his voice was once again filled with the enthusiastic energy he used as a shield.
"Of course I am! Who could be down at Christmas? Besides, I have a secret mission as a gift consultant, and that gives me purpose. But you know what..." He paused for a moment, as if searching his memory for a warm corner, "now that you mention it, did I ever tell you about the Christmas when Glinda made a reindeer union?"
Elphaba laughed, lowering her head even further to avoid attention.
"What?"
"Yeah, yeah. I was... what, nine? We were decorating the tree, and we had these little wooden figurines with hand-painted names. And suddenly, Glinda decides that Rudolph and the others are overworked. That they don't get days off." That Santa was a tyrant. So she grabbed a red ribbon and made them all bandanas. The reindeer organized a strike. There were banners and everything. She made Kitesurfing her family speak. Rudolph didn't speak, "because leaders shouldn't speak for themselves," she said. A miniature revolutionary!
"I'm not surprised at all."
"Then she forced all the adults to 'negotiate fair terms.' She made me sign a contract and everything. Santa accepted the demands or 'there would be consequences.'"
Elphaba couldn't stop smiling. She could see her perfectly: Glinda, as a little girl, dictating terms with unreal seriousness, her hands on her hips, her blond curls shaking with every word.
"And that was the best thing about that Christmas," Highmuster continued, lowering his tone slightly. "Not the presents, not the dinner, not even the mulled wine my mother made. It was seeing her so... determined. So sure of what was right. That strength... it was already there. It had always been there."
There was a moment of silence. One neither of them was quick to fill. And in that pause, Elphaba felt it. Not in their words, but in the space between them. That gentle melancholy that comes when you remember something so beautiful it hurts just to think it's over.
Highmuster's voice returned, wrapped in a soft laugh.
"Forgive me. I got nostalgic. I swear that wasn't the idea."
"You don't have to apologize," Elphaba said very softly. "It's a beautiful story. She... is still like that, you know? That strength, that conviction. Sometimes she hides it so glittering it's hard to see, but... it's still there. Always."
"I know. That's why I know she's okay with you."
Elphaba lowered her gaze. And for the first time that day, she felt truly connected to Christmas.
"Thank you for helping me with this. You don't know how much it means."
"I know, dear. Now go." If my daughter sees you're gone, she'll think you're planning to give her a toothbrush or something.
—That was my backup plan.
—Horror!
They both laughed once more, and then, with that kind of tenderness that doesn't require grand gestures, they said goodbye.
Elphaba put the phone in the inside pocket of her coat with a deep exhalation. She could still hear Highmuster's voice echoing in her ears, that mix of warmth, humor, and a subtle sadness she hadn't been able to completely hide. She walked back between the gondolas and barely saw Glinda when she was taken by the hand with ceremonial force.
—Come on! Hurry! This is our chance! Glinda exclaimed excitedly, pulling her along as if they were about to enter a six-loop roller coaster.
"Opportunity for what...?" Elphaba stammered, barely managing to keep her balance as she was ushered through an endless line of parents, children dressed as elves, and shopping carts jammed with Christmas wrapping paper.
"Trust me!" Elphaba sighed, but didn't let go of her hand. Despite everything.
As they waited in line, Elphaba took advantage of that brief pause between the shoving and the children's choruses in the background to try to say what she'd been mulling over for minutes.
"Glinda, I... I just talked to your dad. He's fine, but... I don't know, he felt different. Like something wasn't quite right. Do you talk to him often?"
Glinda, still scrolling through her phone with restless fingers, responded with a brief but scattered smile.
"We talk, yeah. Every now and then. It's hard with scheduling. And with Mom... well, you know."
"When was the last time you spent Christmas with them?" Elphaba asked, lowering her voice slightly.
Glinda hesitated for only a second before answering in a rehearsed tone.
"Two or three years ago. The last time was... well, the Oz event, and the one before that, she was on a skiing vacation with some friends, and..."
Elphaba nodded slowly. The story was clear. Since they met, Glinda hadn't spent a full Christmas with her parents. Not because she didn't love them, but because—without ever saying it out loud—she had begun to build a world where they were no longer the center.
And that world was with her.
Guilt fell on her like a sudden, bitter, sharp frost. She didn't want loving him to mean losing other parts of her life. She didn't want to be the center that displaced everyone else.
Elphaba lowered her gaze. She felt that light, sticky guilt seeping in like cold through a crack in a scarf. She loved the idea of a private Christmas, just the two of them, without the noise of the world. But now, that image was beginning to falter.
"Maybe... we could go see them," she said, almost without thinking. "Just for a while. Before nightfall. Just so they feel like they're not so far away from you."
"Exactly," Glinda said cautiously. "I was thinking too. Maybe we should do something bigger. Bring together people we haven't seen in a while."
Elphaba frowned.
"Something bigger?"
"Yes! Nothing too formal. Something fun, spontaneous. A way to... share our happiness. You know. No pressure. And besides... it would be the perfect time to announce the engagement."
Elphaba blinked.
"Excuse me?"
"Pardon?"
"What... what do you mean, 'announce'?"
"What did you mean, 'go see my parents'?" "Glinda replied, raising an eyebrow.
They exchanged glances. One of those silent glances where they both knew they agreed... on everything except the details. And for some reason, that disagreement made them laugh. Nervous, strange, but laughable nonetheless.
"Look, the important thing is that we're on the same page," Glinda said with a radiant smile. "We want to share this. Together."
Elphaba nodded, still a little confused.
"Yes... I suppose so."
"Perfect then. Because we're almost there."
"Where to?"
But it was too late. They had reached the end of the line. In front of them, sitting on a red velvet throne, under a blizzard of fake snow, was Santa Claus himself. Or at least, a pretty convinced version of himself: a well-groomed fake beard, fake round glasses, the smile of a Christmas employee on his eighth hour of work.
"Next!" said Santa, opening his arms.
Before she could protest, Glinda shoved Elphaba forward with all the energy of an emotional train on the move.
And so, between a cough and a brief gasp of horror, Elphaba fell onto Santa's lap.
"Perfect!" exclaimed Glinda, taking out her cell phone and holding it up as if she were covering a queen's coronation. "This is the Christmas spirit! And this year we're going to have a big get-together, with all our friends! And we're going to announce our engagement!"
Elphaba's eyes widened. Her gaze flickered between Santa, who wasn't sure whether to laugh or remain professional, and Glinda, who was already taking three photos from different angles.
"What?" Elphaba murmured, horrified.
"Tell me it's not perfect!" Glinda cried, still smiling.
"Glinda, I'm... on Santa's lap."
"Exactly! Christmas, surprises, love! What more could you ask for?"
And as the camera flash illuminated Elphaba's petrified expression, and the children around her applauded, believing it was part of the show, she knew, with a mixture of resignation and tenderness, that the night was definitely not going to be peaceful.
And at that precise moment, as if the city had received a secret order from the universe, the Jingle Bells began to ring in every corner of the Emerald City. There was no storefront without music, no coffee shop without carols, no building without that faint Christmas vibe that seemed to whisper: It's coming. Get ready.
Hours later, Elphaba's penthouse—no longer just hers, but officially theirs—had become the epicenter of a carefully curated Christmas disaster. Amid piles of bags, strewn ornaments, shiny ribbons, and badly opened boxes, order had fled the scene like a stampeding reindeer.
The kitchen was a battlefield.
Glinda, dressed in a white apron with gold trim that read "Kiss the Cook (But Ask First)," ran back and forth with a ladle in one hand and her cell phone in the other, listening to instructions for a recipe she was clearly about to ruin. She had flour on her cheek, sugar up her sleeve, and a dangerously optimistic attitude.
"Elphabaaaaaa!! Where are the star molds?!" I clearly stated I wanted to make star cookies, not cookie stars! They're not the same thing!
Elphaba didn't respond immediately.
She was sitting on the living room floor, next to the half-finished tree. The Christmas lights hung from the branches like suicidal snakes. She had tried to install them for over an hour, and in the end, with the serenity of someone who has understood her own limits, she simply gave up. Now she was cowering in a corner with her glasses on, focused on her ledger.
The columns of figures and entries took up more than a page. Some numbers were crossed out, others underlined with a red marker. For months they had survived thanks to a combination of savings, sporadic earnings, and Glinda's absurd ability to get free samples of anything if she smiled enough. But the numbers were stubborn. The trip had been beautiful, transformative... and devastating to her finances.
And now, with the rent, Christmas dinner, central heating, and personalized star cookies, the funds were beginning to dwindle like Santa's patience after 40 screaming children.
Elphaba chewed the end of her pen, distracted.
In reality, what she was trying to calculate—although she wouldn't admit it even to herself—was whether her dream still had any viability left. That silent dream, which she barely dared to name: to be a writer. Not of academic papers, not of militant essays, but of books. Real books, with ink and a cover. Ideas that breathed on their own. And yet, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a late-adolescent fantasy.
Elphaba exhaled through her nose, typing another number with a resigned gesture. Until Glinda's voice broke through again like a glamorous ambulance siren:
"Elphabaaaaa!! The cookies are losing their shape! I think the oven is haunted! Or it's me! I don't know! Help!"
Elphaba closed her notebook with a sigh, slowly took off her glasses, and stood up as she surveyed the scene.
The main room was half-decorated: garlands still unhung, open boxes of ornaments waiting their turn, and the tree—majestic, though humiliated by the messy lights—seemed to be looking at her reproachfully. The only relatively harmonious area was the window: from there, the city spread out in red, green, and gold lights, like a postcard no one would dare send for fear of it looking too perfect.
Elphaba walked to the kitchen with resignation.
"Where's the mess?"
"Everywhere!" "Glinda squealed, waving a spatula like a wild magic wand. "The cookies are melting, the salad is... thinking things on its own, and I can't find the playlist I put together with titles that rhyme with 'engagement.' And the guests are arriving in three hours! And the tree looks like it's going to rebel!"
Elphaba crossed her arms.
"We can put a hat on the salad. Maybe we'll calm it down."
Glinda looked at her as if she were on the verge of an emotional breakdown... and then she laughed. Laughed hard. Laughed like someone who's already given up on Christmas and accepts its chaotic hug.
"Don't look at me like that," Elphaba said with a half smile. "I told you we'd do it just the two of us! Drinks, a blanket, a Christmas horror special... peace."
"And I told you it had to be special," Glinda retorted, taking a breath. "Shared." What's an engagement if we don't shout it from the terrace like two shameless lesbians?
"A silent version of happiness. Reasonable. Private. Low-budget."
"Ugh! You say that and I get gray hairs inside!"
Elphaba walked over, took the spatula from Glinda, placed it on the counter, and hugged her without saying anything. Glinda sank against her chest with a long sigh.
"We already sent out the invitations, right?"
"We already sent out the invitations."
"And did they confirm?"
"Everyone. Even Fiyero added a reindeer emoji. That's equivalent to a standing ovation."
"Then we're just going to have to survive tonight," Elphaba murmured.
"And make it look easy."
They broke apart slightly, but stayed close. Elphaba looked into her eyes.
"When this is over... do we have our night?"
Glinda nodded sweetly.
"No guests." No cookies. No Santa Claus. Just us.
"And your cookies," Elphaba said, pointing at the tray. "They seem to be screaming for help."
"Well... two out of three?"
They both laughed.
Suddenly, a dry "FWOOSH!" came from the kitchen. A small flame erupted from the pan on the stove, as if the food had decided to formally protest the culinary abuse. Elphaba barely had time to turn around when Glinda let out a high-pitched scream, a mixture of panic, hysteria, and an emotional breakdown on the verge of apocalypse.
"ELPHABA!!! CHRISTMAS IS ON FIRE!!!"
She ran into the kitchen, waving a dishcloth like a saber, trying to smother the flames with as much grace as desperation. Elphaba, who had reflexively turned on the faucet and was filling a capful of water, followed her in, stifling a laugh.
"Glinda, please don't put it out with your blazer! It's Armani!"
"This is a sign!" Glinda shouted, waving the air as if she could control fate with proper ventilation. "The universe doesn't want me to be a hostess! Or a cook! Or a functioning adult!"
Elphaba carefully poured the water over the fire, which died down in a small, smoky sigh. Then she turned off the burner, left the lid in the sink, and turned to Glinda, who was breathing heavily as if she'd just run a marathon of unfulfilled expectations.
"Is the hellish invasion of the sauce over yet?" —Elphaba asked, raising an eyebrow.
“This is a disaster!” Glinda squealed, waving her hands. “My mother is going to arrive and see a burnt frying pan! A tree without lights! A hostess with dark circles under her eyes and no manicure! And the worst part is, Tibbett is probably coming in a jacket made of limited-edition sequins and bringing white truffles from Japan or something worse!”
“Is there anything worse than that?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed, turning to her, her eyes wide with frustration. “Everyone asking what we did these past few months, where we were, what we learned, if we’re getting married on a beach or in a museum or in the middle of a revolution… And I’m so busy surviving that I can’t even enjoy the moment!”
Her voice cracked just at the end. She wasn’t crying, but she was on the verge of tears. Elphaba watched her silently for a moment, then gently took her hands.
“Hey, Glinda.” You breathe as if you've inhaled three shots of espresso directly into your lungs.
Glinda took a deep breath. She tried to let it out. She failed.
"The stakes... are everything," she murmured. "Tonight... everything is supposed to be right. It's the first time my parents are going to see my house. Our house. And Mom is going to evaluate every vase, every napkin, every grammatical error in the Christmas playlist. Everyone is going to come with questions, with expectations. And I... I just want tonight to be perfect. Because we're going to tell the world who we are. Who we choose to be."
Elphaba lowered one of her hands to Glinda's face, caressing her lightly flour-stained cheek.
"It's already perfect, Glinda."
"What?"
"Tonight. You. All of this. It's chaotic, yes. Disastrous, probably. But it's real. And it's full of love. What more do you want?"
Glinda looked down, visibly moved.
"Japanese truffles?"
"You can forget the truffles!" Elphaba exclaimed with a smile. "Unless you're using them to bribe your mother, and in that case, sign me up."
They both laughed. Glinda wiped her eyes with the edge of her apron and took another deep breath.
"You're right," she said with renewed campaign manager tones. "We're going to survive this night. Like the functioning adults we pretend to be."
"Exactly."
"Then we have to get everything organized before they arrive! We divide duties!"
"Perfect," Elphaba said, raising her eyebrows. "But I'm warning you, I'm not touching Christmas lights again. I got attacked last time."
"Then you take care of the tree and the music. And I'll take care of the food and decorations. And the inevitable emotional chaos. It's going to be all right!"
"Of course it will, Mrs. Upland."
"Don't provoke me."
"Why? Are you going to summon another flaming frying pan?"
"Don't tempt me!"
And so, with that improvised pact, the house began to move again. Elphaba went to the tree with a new box of lights—and with renewed patience—while Glinda put a fresh batch of cookies in the oven as if it were a battle she could win.
Outside, the city vibrated with lights and promises. Inside, two women were doing what they did best: building their own home, despite the chaos.
FUTURE:
The toy store was still overflowing with grumpy parents and children on the verge of sugary ecstasy. They moved at the pace of an ancient civilization migrating at the solstice, which is to say, every hundred years.
Elphaba had managed to move about five steps since she began telling the story. Not that she minded talking, but she felt like she was developing frostbite on her knees. In one hand, she held the rolled-up comic book A Tale of Two Witches—which she hadn't yet returned to the shelf—and in the other, she held her cell phone with a strand of battery left. Around her, Christmas carols were playing for the thirtieth time in a tropical version, which must violate at least one international convention on acoustic torture.
"So, Glinda got mad when the tree fell?" the girl asked, her eyes like Christmas lanterns.
"No. Glinda never gets mad at trees." "Only with things that don't shine enough," Elphaba replied wryly, slightly pushing her glasses down the bridge of her nose to look at her better. "Although I must admit, that tree deserved to be destroyed. It was an enemy of the natural order."
The girl laughed, and then, completely matter-of-factly, asked,
"How did you know she was the person? Like, from the beginning? Because in the comic, it takes WitchyWest like five more episodes to accept it. But GoodGlim already knew from the scene in the snow with the horses."
Elphaba narrowed her eyes.
"The horses? In the snow?"
"Yes! When they were riding together and hid in a cave with a magical fire that created involuntary confessions! It was the most romantic thing in volume two."
Elphaba closed her eyes for a second.
"That never happened."
"No?"
"No."
"But the comic says..."
"The comic," Elphaba said, showing her the cover featuring two cartoon versions of her and Glinda flying on broomsticks they never used, "also says that we once saved the kingdom from an invasion of neon demons with a love spell and an electric guitar."
The girl's eyes widened.
"That didn't happen either?!"
"You'd be disappointed to know how many things didn't happen," Elphaba murmured, though without real annoyance. The fun part was actually watching the child process the dissonance between myth and truth.
The little girl crossed her arms.
"But then... how was it? How did you know you were going to be with her forever?"
Elphaba was silent for a moment. Not because she had no answer, but because, although she'd explained it thousands of times—in interviews, in letters, even in unpublished personal essays—saying it in front of a little girl, in a toy store, with a unicorn doll playing techno music beside her, was an unusually intimate experience.
"It wasn't a moment. It wasn't a big scene. It wasn't a magic cave," she said, lowering her voice a little, as if sharing a secret. "It was... all the little moments. Every time she wouldn't leave me alone when I wanted to push her away. Every time she made me laugh when I wanted to scream. When I learned to stay silent, and she still understood me. When the world was a mess, but the way she looked at me stayed the same. As if she knew something I didn't."
The little girl looked at her silently. And then she said,
"So it is like the comic."
Elphaba sighed.
"Of course it is."
The line moved forward a step.
And for an instant, everything else disappeared. Because yes, Christmas was exhausting, and yes, she still hadn't gotten the devil's toy her son had asked for weeks in advance, and yes, by the time she got home there would probably be sugar on every horizontal surface.
But even now, amid the noise, the cold, and the smell of synthetic pine... Glinda was still that luminous certainty at the end of any chaos.
And even though their story didn't have magic horses or fires that read hearts, it was still the best Elphaba could tell.
—Now... do you want me to tell you how that night ended?
—Yes!! Was it when they kissed in front of everyone?! And their friend fainted from excitement and someone recorded a TikTok?!
Elphaba sighed, but smiled.
—Worse.
PRESENT:
Elphaba was adjusting the last button of her navy blazer in front of the bedroom mirror. The jacket fell perfectly, the black shirt impeccably under the open collar, and the trousers gave her that air of a sober intellectual and a presentable bride she was striving for. She had opted for a simple but elegant look, one that doesn't attract attention but automatically generates respect. Classic Elphaba.
In the next room, Glinda was living out a Greek tragedy in three acts in front of the mirror. Two dresses hung side by side in the wardrobe: a white one with glittery details and off-the-shoulders, and a cherry red one with more modern lines, an open back that demanded attention.
—I can't decide! Glinda moaned aloud for the fourth time. "Which of these says 'sophisticated hostess with modern taste' without screaming 'desperate bid for maternal approval'?!"
"Both are fine, Glinda," Elphaba replied from the doorway, in the most diplomatic voice she'd ever used. "Really. I chose either one. You look beautiful."
"I don't want to look beautiful!" Glinda snorted, pointing at herself with both hands. "I want to look flawless. Perfect. Neat. Impeccable. Because if I look just 'good,' that's the same as showing up in black lace lingerie to Christmas dinner, to my mother."
Elphaba gave a dry laugh, walking over to examine the two outfits.
"Hmm. What if you show up in lingerie? I'm sure no one will ask awkward questions."
Glinda spun around, gently pushing her.
"Don't provoke me, navy-blue Satan!"
"I'm just saying... you have the look of a legally armed disgrace. I'd use it to your advantage."
They both laughed for a moment, that little knowing bubble that always appeared just before one of them blurted out a difficult truth. And this time it was Elphaba's turn.
As Glinda turned to the mirror and held up one of the dresses as if it were a mystical relic, Elphaba stepped to the dresser and pulled out a small blue-covered notebook from its drawer, where she'd scribbled more accounts than she cared to remember. She hesitated for a moment, then put it back. She looked at Glinda through the reflection.
"Hey... Glin. We need to talk for a second."
"Is this about whether the red is too bold? Because I know it is. But the white makes me look like Santa's assistant."
"No, it's about... well. About the dresses. And everything else we want to buy," Elphaba said cautiously. "We're still pretty broke... but you know." It's shrinking. It doesn't magically regenerate. And sooner or later one of us is going to have to...
"Earn an income," Glinda said, evenly, as she continued to examine her side profile. "I know. Don't worry. I've been thinking about that."
Elphaba looked at her, somewhat surprised by her naturalness.
"Yes?"
"Of course. I thought about trying my luck again as a luxury event planner. Or something in visual politics. I was also offered a chance to collaborate on a podcast about style and leadership... I don't know, there are options."
Elphaba swallowed.
That was the moment. That was the instant to say it. To let it out. To admit, in real words, that her heart still beat with a secret stubbornness to be a writer. That there was something about that silent vocation, that unmonetizable desire, that she couldn't keep repressing. That maybe it wasn't productive. That maybe it wasn't reasonable. But it was the most true thing she felt.
She opened her mouth.
"I... actually, I was..."
Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang with the solemnity of a doomsday bell. Glinda turned toward the door, paling.
"No! It can't be now! I'm missing the dress! And the shoes!" And the false eyelashes!
"Glinda..."
"Open up! Tell them I'm... meditating!"
"Meditating?"
"I meditate while I put on my makeup! It's a little-known ancient technique!"
Elphaba snorted, resigned, and left the room for the door while Glinda rants to herself like a grumpy general.
As she approached the hall, Elphaba took a deep breath and allowed herself a second in front of the mirror by the entrance. She sighed. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. And muttered to herself, ironically:
"Well... let the show begin."
She turned the knob and opened the door.
Elphaba turned the knob and opened the door, just in time for someone to push through.
"My goddess of elegant darkness!" "Tibbett exclaimed, spiraling in like a golden storm, wearing a glittering coat that could have served as a safety feature on a highway. "Always so punctual and so... navy blue!"
"We got in or we lost the drama of the entrance!" Crope added with a crooked smile, following him more calmly, in an impeccable smoky gray coat that contrasted perfectly with his mustard-colored scarf.
Elphaba barely had time to move before they both crossed the threshold as if they were walking along a catwalk in Milan. Tibbett spun around, let out an exaggerated sigh, and raised his arms as if encompassing the entire place.
"Eternal love for this minimalist Christmas decoration that clearly screams 'I'm an intellectual woman with an emotional edge'!"
"I didn't know Christmas trees could scream that," Elphaba murmured, closing the door with an involuntary smile.
"Of course they do!" "This one," said Tibbett, pointing at the barely finished tree, still with the star crooked dangerously to the left, "says exactly that. Although of course, if you'll allow me a few specific suggestions..."
"Oh no," said Crope, raising his eyes to the heavens and already taking a small package out of his bag. "It's started."
"Nothing offensive!" protested Tibbett as he pulled a small garland of snowflake-shaped LED lights from his coat. "Just a touch more visual spectacle. This tree is crying out for a climax."
"And how do you know it's not the climax?" Elphaba replied with a raised eyebrow.
Tibbett looked mock-shocked.
"Are you suggesting this is the end? My love, no! This tree is clearly the climax of the second act! It needs a reveal."
"I'm going to jot that down for a literary critique," Elphaba said, accepting without resistance the small packet of lights Tibbett had already placed in her hands. "Crope, do you have any suggestions as well?"
"I'll bring alcohol," Crope said with the serenity of a surgeon. "Because I knew Tibbett would bring aesthetic judgment. And you, restrained sarcasm. And amidst all that, someone has to save the night."
Elphaba had barely had time to sigh when the door rang again. She already knew this time it wouldn't be a subtle visitor. She felt it in the air, in the vibration of the ground, in the certainty that the calm had officially died.
She opened the door.
"Merry Christmas, Magical Vixens!" exclaimed The Wiz, dressed in a rainbow-sequined coat and a headdress so tall it barely cleared the doorframe. Her perfume announced her arrival more loudly than her voice, which was saying something.
"Hello, you wretch!" shouted Sir Brrr, entering behind her, wearing a green velvet coat, cane in hand, and an expression of utter moral superiority. I brought my Christmas spirit in a gilt-rimmed cup of sarcasm. And of course, gifts wrapped in recycled paper and guilt.
And finally, Boq appeared, with an almost childlike smile and eyes alight with enthusiasm.
"Girls! Boys! Witches! Beings of glamour and mystery! I formally present my girlfriend!"
And he turned dramatically to the figure behind him.
A very tall, slender woman, sculpted like a perfection-obsessed Renaissance sculptor. Platinum-blonde hair, soft waves in the style of old-school Hollywood. She wore a fitted white coat with a fur collar, dark glasses (despite the time), and perfectly lined lips that weren't smiling: they were posing.
"This is Glizz," Boq said, absolutely delighted. "She's from St. Petersburg, a dancer, a polyglot, a vegan activist. And she loves me! Isn't that incredible?"
Elphaba blinked twice.
"Glizz?"
"Like Glinda, but... more zzzs," The Wiz replied softly, just before bursting into laughter.
And that was when Glinda appeared from the hallway, ready to make her grand entrance. She had finally chosen the cherry-red dress, with a perfect silhouette that screamed Christmas diva with (fake) emotional control. She paused for a second when she saw everyone gathered, smiled elegantly, and then... she saw her.
Her. Glizz.
Face to face.
A kind of mirage of her idealized self, as if someone had taken a version of Glinda, stretched it out in Photoshop, added a touch of Russian ice and a dash of Chanel No. 5, and dropped it in her living room.
The Wiz, still in tune, murmured beside her:
"Don't be scared. It's like you, but a Soviet laboratory version 2.0."
Glinda didn't respond. She just stared for a second too long.
"Oh... how... curious," she finally said, walking toward them with a diplomatic smile. "Boq! What a surprise! And what a pleasure, Glizz... was it?"
"Glizz, yes," the woman said, her accent perfectly measured, her voice deep and elegant like a Golden Age actress. "Like glitter. But... more."
"Of course," Glinda said, forcing a smile. "How charming! And what do you do?"
"I dance. And I exist," Glizz replied without flinching.
"Inspiring," said Glinda, suddenly looking shorter than ever.
"He was at a diplomatic gala in Berlin last week!" Boq said, completely oblivious to the growing tension. "And he specifically asked to come to the party tonight because he wanted to meet my magic circle!"
"We're more of a dysfunctional polygon," Sir Brrr noted, already pouring himself a drink.
"Well, I'm delighted to have you here," Glinda finally said, her smile so perfect it almost crackled. "It's... very illuminating. And exotic."
"Thank you!" Glizz replied with a royal nod. "You inspire me so much. You... as a comic book character. Very... brilliant. With purpose. And nice breasts."
Elphaba choked on air.
"You mean the comic book?" Glinda asked, her cheeks frozen.
—No. I mean you. But a comic too! I read it in Moscow. My mother says: if a witch can love another witch, anything is possible.
The whole group burst into laughter. Except for Glinda.
Elphaba, for her part, watched her out of the corner of her eye. Glinda wasn't jealous, not exactly. She was... bewildered. Like someone looking in an amusement park mirror and not knowing whether to feel flattered or attacked.
—I'm going to... pour some wine, Glinda announced in a kind, almost robotic tone, and walked toward the kitchen with her spine perfectly straight.
Elphaba was about to close the door, a half-smile still on her face from Glizz's glorious entrance and Glinda's subsequent emotional implosion, when a hand stopped her movement.
—And no Christmas welcome for me? —Fiyero asked, leaning halfway around the door, with that smile of his that looked like something out of a retro postcard of eternal summer.
Elphaba blinked. Her surprise quickly turned to warm, spontaneous joy. Without thinking, she leaned toward him and hugged him tightly. Fiyero wrapped his arms around her with that calm, brotherly air he'd always had with her. It wasn't a hug of passion or romantic nostalgia; it was one of those sincere embraces that come with shared scars and understood silences.
"How long has it been since we've seen each other?" Elphaba asked, still holding him, with a mixture of tenderness and reproach.
"Before or after your mysterious 'rebel lesbian' escape?" Fiyero replied, dropping the gift bags by the threshold and finally entering.
"After. Much later."
"Then yes, centuries," he said with a calm smile, taking a moment to take in the surroundings. "Same chaos, same brilliance, same Glinda about to murder someone for aesthetic reasons."
"Yes." "It's nice to know some things don't change," Elphaba replied, crossing her arms. "But I'm glad you're here."
Fiyero nodded, his gaze softening for a second.
"And how are you? Really?"
Elphaba opened her mouth, but before she could answer...
"ELPHABAAAAA!" Glinda's piercing scream from the kitchen pierced walls, furniture, and souls. "HOW MANY KINDS OF WINE ARE IN THIS HOUSE AND WHY DO NONE OF THEM GO WITH CHRISTMAS PEANUT BUTTER?!"
Elphaba turned her head slowly toward the hallway, then sighed with her eyes closed. Fiyero let out a barely suppressed laugh.
"Has Glinda met the... 'newglow' yet?" he asked innocently.
"Oh, yes. It was... educational. For everyone."
They both laughed. It was the kind of laugh they shared in college, when they were bored and quietly mocking the most egotistical professor on campus. The kind of laugh that needed no explanation.
"I missed this," Fiyero said, half-seriously, half-jokingly.
"Me too. But hey, you should start preparing your best diplomatic compliments. Because Glizz is here to stay, apparently."
"And you?"
"I have to go prevent a diplomatic crisis in the kitchen before Glinda declares war on the wine world."
Elphaba turned to leave, but just as she was about to cross the threshold into the living room, Fiyero raised a hand, as if suddenly remembering something.
"Hey... wait. Before you go. There's something I wanted to talk to you about. Something small. But... well, important."
Elphaba turned, a little more alert.
"Now?"
"Can we leave it for later?" he said soothingly, raising his hands. "It's not dramatic, nor urgent. Just... when you have a second. Preferably when Glinda isn't reaching for a corkscrew with homicidal intent."
Elphaba studied him with narrowed eyes. There was something about the way he said it. Not serious. But serious.
"Okay. Later. But don't escape from me tonight, understand?"
"Ex-almost-partner's word," he said with a theatrical bow.
Elphaba shook her head, half amused, half worried, and hurried off to rescue Glinda, while Fiyero finally joined the din of voices in the living room. Crope offered her a drink, Sir Brrr was already narrating a story that mixed Dickens with RuPaul quotes, and The Wiz shouted from the armchair:
"Honey! Come sit down before these people decide that sober suits are in!"
And as the night wore on, secrets also began to line up.
Because this Christmas had more layers than a Russian wedding cake.
Elphaba entered the kitchen just in time to see Glinda physically wrestling with a wine bottle, as if it were a personal enemy who had dared to challenge her. She held the opener in one hand, the bottle between her legs, and wore an expression of furious concentration that would have intimidated even a deity.
"Do you want me to find the bottle guilty of contempt, or should I just help you?" Elphaba asked, leaning against the doorframe.
"This damn thing refuses to cooperate with the festive narrative!" "Glinda exclaimed, still holding the cork. This wouldn't happen in a Diane Keaton Christmas movie."
"No, in those kinds of movies, the wine pours itself and no one sweats," Elphaba said, already approaching.
They took the bottle between them, Elphaba holding it steady and Glinda pulling with all her might. A second of tense silence, a held breath... and POP! The cork flew out with a triumphant sound, describing an elegant parabola that ended with it flying across the kitchen, bouncing off the cupboard, and out the open window.
They both watched him, in perfect silence, as if waiting for him to float back.
"Did he hit someone?" Glinda finally asked.
"If he hit someone, that person probably deserved it," Elphaba shrugged.
Glinda sighed, theatrically poured herself half a glass, and leaned against the kitchen island.
"Could you cut the cheese, please? The one on the rectangular board. That one."
Elphaba walked over to the board and examined the block skeptically.
"Is this... cheese?"
"Of course it is!" Glinda replied, raising her glass as if toasting an invisible audience. "Vegan cheese with white truffle and fermented walnut shell. So expensive. Absolutely repulsive, but... it's good for the planet."
"So would eating our plates and avoiding washing up," Elphaba muttered as she reached for the knife. "This has the texture of school rubber."
"Don't be dramatic! It's an acquired delight."
"Acquired how? By emotional blackmail?"
Glinda ignored the comment and took a sip.
"The Russian one looks... nice," she commented casually, too casually.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, still cutting.
"Glizz? Or Glinda Through the Looking Glass, Vodka Edition?"
"I don't look like her!" Glinda snapped, turning around with a frown. "Just because she's blonde and has long, perfect legs and that accent that makes everything an order from the Tsar..."
"Sure. Nothing to do with it," Elphaba said, suppressing a smile. "Although your 'rival' is named after an energy drink. Glizz. It's like... if an expensive fragrance and a ballistic missile had a child."
Glinda shot her a withering look, just as her cell phone vibrated insistently on the counter.
She sighed. He picked it up, looked at the screen, and squinted.
"It's my parents." He put it on speakerphone.
"Glinda, dear! We're on the third floor... or maybe the fourth... Is this a fire escape? I don't know, but I saw a flowerpot that judged me!" Highmuster's voice sounded between gasps.
"Didn't I tell you it was the PH, Highmuster? The penthouse! At the very top!" Larena's voice sounded in the background, her tone as high-pitched as the judgment it exuded.
Glinda rubbed her temples with one hand.
"It's the top floor of the building, impossible to miss! There's literally a sign that says 'PENTHOUSE - FAMILY OF MODERN WITCHES.'"
"I thought it was an experimental art gallery!" her father protested. "There was a dog in a sweater and a lady in a turban!"
"I'll go find them!" Glinda declared firmly, turning off her cell phone and grabbing her keys.
"Do you want me to come?" Elphaba offered.
"No, no. If she sees you right away, the evening begins with an audit of your existence. I need to cushion the blow. You stay here, prepare the wine, hide the Russian, and please finish cutting that piece of eco-friendly rubber before Crope puts it on his face as a mask."
"With pleasure," Elphaba said, raising the razor with a solemn gesture.
Glinda was already at the door, adjusting her coat. He paused for a second, looking at her with an ambiguous expression: tiredness, affection, and something of that invisible fear that only appears when you know you're going to see someone again who used to have power over you.
"Thank you," Glinda whispered. "I'll go back to them... or die trying."
"Either way, you have my respect," Elphaba said, raising her wineglass.
Glinda smiled for a second, took a deep breath, and walked out the door as if entering a battlefield.
And Elphaba, alone in the kitchen, cutting cheese that wasn't cheese and pouring wine that probably didn't go with anything, allowed herself to sigh.
In the living room, the atmosphere was an improvised bourgeois cabaret.
Brrr and The Wiz sat on the couch, glass in hand, surrounding Boq and his glamorous partner with the intensity of two inquisitors disguised as talk show hosts. Boq, who couldn't distinguish irony even with a map, answered each question with disarming sincerity. Meanwhile, Glizz remained unflappable, like a czarina at a school parade, dropping answers that sounded like imperial decrees.
"So how did you meet?" Brrr asked, swirling his glass with a smile that promised no innocence.
"At an independent film festival in Brooklyn," Boq said. "She thought the main short film was sad. She said it with... so much passion."
"It was tragic. Like soggy bread. But it had potential," Glizz clarified, crossing her legs as if posing for a statue.
"And what's your sign, darling?" The Wiz asked, pouring more wine while still smiling.
"I'm a Capricorn, Death Star ascendant."
"Oh, I love it!" Brrr exclaimed. "An ethical dictator. My favorite type."
Meanwhile, in another corner, Fiyero chatted with Crope and Tibbett, who surrounded him like two gay architecture critics who'd just discovered a sadomasochistic cathedral.
"The place is simply magnificent," Crope declared, glass in hand. "The leather mural, the sinister lighting, the furniture that looks like something out of a beautiful Tom of Finland nightmare..."
"And the bar. Are we talking about the bar?" Tibbett added. "I've been in law firms with less sophistication than that club. And I'm a lawyer. Well, almost. A lawyer of my own, let's say."
"Thanks, guys," Fiyero replied with a genuine smile. "I put everything into it. The design, the security, the atmosphere. I wanted it to be a space... where people could be themselves without asking for forgiveness."
"And in capital letters!" Crope added. "BE!"
"And undress without asking for permission!" Brrr corrected from the couch.
At that moment, Elphaba entered from the kitchen, carrying two carefully arranged trays: one with glasses, the other with the selection of vegan cheeses that looked more like aesthetic fossils.
The conversation paused for a second, as if her presence brought about a natural shift in focus. She was dressed in her navy blue blazer, elegant and simple, with a faint twinkle in her eye that indicated that, despite everything, she was still enjoying the mess.
Fiyero immediately stood up and came forward.
"Do you want help?" he asked, already holding out his arms.
Elphaba narrowed her eyes with a sarcastic smile.
"Since when are you so helpful?"
"Since I learned that trays are weapons if they fall the wrong way."
"Or since you worked in a nightclub and learned that being helpful brings tips," she retorted, effortlessly handing him a tray.
"Are you saying I'm going soft?"
"I'm saying there's a pre-leather-string Fiyero, and a post-leather-string Fiyero," Elphaba replied as she placed the other tray on the table. "And the one now... he asks questions before pushing someone against a wall."
"Personal growth!" he said with a triumphant smile. "They call it maturity. Or marketing."
The two shared a brief glance, one of those born from the affection of old wars won and shared wounds. They didn't need words to recognize each other.
Crope approached, glass in hand, and surveyed the scene.
"Have you two already thought about making a sitcom? 'Witch and Ex-Boyfriend: A Case to Be Solved with Whips and Sarcasm.'"
"That would be so popular in certain circles," Tibbett added. "And not to mention the amount of merchandise we could sell."
"Stop it. Just because someone was my ex doesn't mean we're now working in a narrative circus," Elphaba protested, feigning annoyance.
"No? Because I already wrote the pilot," Brrr said, raising her hand as everyone laughed.
Elphaba shook her head in resignation, but she couldn't help but smile. It felt good to see them all together, though it also meant the balance of the evening hung by a very thin thread... the thread of the Uplands' imminent arrival.
The elevator door opened with that high-pitched ding that heralded not salvation, but resignation.
Glinda stood in the center, stiff as a newly restored Venetian statue, her smile barely containing her inner collapse. She'd been with her parents less than five minutes and already felt like hiding inside the Christmas tree with the lights off.
Behind her, Larena Upland's voice floated like a cloud of expensive perfume and ill-disguised judgment.
"I'm not saying it's wrong, Glinda, I just find it... interesting that they live so high up. So close to the sky. So symbolic."
"And so practical," Highmuster, her father, interrupted, with that nervous cheerfulness he used as a shield. "Closer to the stars! Remember when Glinda wanted to be an astronaut?"
"Don't start." Glinda turned her head just enough to glare at him with a sweet, lethal glare.
Also with them, dragging a small handbag that seemed to weigh more than she did, came Mrs. Clutch, the legendary family maid. She was nearly eighty, with a bun of hair so taut it looked like it was carved from marble, and a perpetually confused expression.
"Where are we?" she asked, looking around as if expecting to see a Victorian house. "Glinda, why are you dressed in strawberry?"
"It's fuchsia. It's haute couture." Glinda sighed and turned to face them in the hallway. "Good. Ground rules before you enter."
Larena looked at her with a perfectly raised eyebrow.
"Are we going to have a code of conduct? How... democratic."
"One: Mother, please try to be nice. Especially to Elphaba. Even if you find it difficult. Even if you don't understand her clothes. Even if the wine doesn't match your aura."
"I don't judge anyone, Glinda. I just worry. It's an active concern."
"Two," Glinda continued, looking at her father, "please don't tell any stories about me from before I was eighteen. Not about accidents with plastic unicorns. Not about costumes with lights. Not about your brilliant development from childhood" theory.”
"But it's Christmas! People expect embarrassing stories told with love!"
"And three?" Larena asked, crossing her arms with sharp elegance.
"Three: prepare yourselves. On the other side of this door... there are people. People who don't belong in our kind of gatherings. There's glitter, there's leather, there's a drag queen with a cup bigger than her ego. There's laughter... and complications. This is the world I live in now. I ask for... restraint."
There was a brief silence. Mrs. Clutch stared at a flowerpot.
"Glinda...? Is this a hotel?"
Glinda closed her eyes for a second and then took a deep, long breath, as if she were about to dive into the ocean. She readjusted her coat, straightened her back, swallowed everything she couldn't say... and turned the handle.
The door opened.
And it was just then—just then—that the door opened.
The ridiculously shrill chorus of a musical reindeer, accompanied by a high-pitched "I want vegan champagne, darling!" from Brrr's lips, hung in the air.
Everyone froze.
The room, until then a carnival of voices, textures, and eccentricities, was suddenly petrified by the sight of the Upland family crossing the threshold as if they had entered a Christmas version of Andy Warhol's Alice in Wonderland.
Glinda, still in the doorway, slowly turned toward Elphaba, who was standing right in the middle of the room with a tray in one hand and a glass in the other. Elphaba looked at her with a smile that evaporated inch by inch, until only panic remained.
Glinda's look was pure, suppressed fury, a sort of "You-killed-my-grand-entrance-moment-and-now-I-have-to-introduce-my-mother-in-the-middle-of-an-argument-about-Christmas-vibrators" kind of look.
And then, as if the tension weren't enough, Mrs. Clutch, the eternally disconnected Mrs. Clutch, looked around curiously.
"Are we in a nursery for artists?"
"Exactly, Clutch," Glinda chimed in with a tight smile, approaching quickly. "It's an experimental cultural center for adults. With cookies. Lots of glitter. And zero logic."
And with that same momentum, the diplomatic operation of introductions began.
Crope and Tibbett, as if they'd been rehearsing this moment for months, approached Larena with a perfect mix of fascination and cordial insolence.
"Mrs. U!" Crope exclaimed. At last, we meet the woman who shaped perfection. Tell me... how many blessings per minute did she need to raise such an angelic being?
"And how did she do it without committing murder?" Tibbett added enthusiastically. "Because if Glinda had been my daughter, I'd be in prison for overindulging her."
Larena, immaculate in a cashmere coat and wearing a five-pointed star brooch, watched them like someone evaluating two colorful cocktails she clearly didn't order.
"It's always... interesting to meet my daughter's friends," she said with a smile that barely maintained its veneer of courtesy. "And you... do you work on the decor, or do you just inspire her?"
"We inspire. Especially sin," Crope replied with a bow.
Meanwhile, Highmuster had spotted Fiyero and Boq near the fireplace and immediately approached with genuine enthusiasm.
“Ah, my two favorite investments! The club is fantastic, Fiyero. And the critics are obsessed with the silent reading area. They say it’s like meditating in leather.”
“A religious experience,” Fiyero said, laughing.
“And Boq, darling, I heard you found a partner. Russian? Or does she just look imperial?”
“Uh… yes. She is…” Boq stammered, as Glizz placed a firm hand on his thigh.
“I’m from everywhere and nowhere,” she said. “Like good art. Or revenge.”
Highmuster looked at her in wonder.
“How fascinating! I love the international diversity of the group. This feels like a Summit of Nations… with more sequins.”
And right there, as if fate were having a little too much fun, Mrs. Clutch—with her slow gait and her handbag from another decade—plopped down between The Wiz and Glizz, looking around as if waiting for an Orthodox mass.
"Are you... Glinda number two?" she asked Glizz, her voice gentle.
"I'm the export version," Glizz replied, with a perfect, icy smile.
"And are you a... nun?" she then asked The Wiz, pointing at her gigantic silver headdress.
"Only on Good Fridays," The Wiz replied, caressing her glass. "The rest of the time, I'm the Virgin of Chaos."
Glinda, watching the scene unfold in slow motion like a sequined train wreck, felt an artery in her neck begin to throb. She walked briskly toward Elphaba, who was staring at the scene as if it were an art installation of Christmas mayhem.
"Was this your plan?" she whispered through gritted teeth, forcing a smile. "This moment? Right when Brrr was talking about Christmas tree-shaped lubricants?"
Elphaba swallowed.
"It wasn't planned, Glinda." I'm not a sitcom writer.
"Well, you should be! Because this has all the rhythm of an episode of Friends... directed by David Lynch!"
"You look beautiful," Elphaba told her, as if that could save her.
Glinda exhaled.
"I know. Now... I need wine. And a gag for my mother."
The two stared at each other for a second. Elphaba wordlessly handed her a glass.
Glinda inhaled deeply, as if air was the only thing she could still control, and with a firm gesture, she took Elphaba's hand, dragging her across the room with the determination of a general on a forced march.
"Come on," she said, as if it were a high-risk order. "It's now or never."
"Are you sure?" Elphaba whispered, already feeling the wine glass tremble in her free hand.
"No. But I'm wearing heels, and this is war."
They crossed the room like two Downton Abbey protagonists on their way to the gallows. Larena, standing next to the half-decorated tree, held a glass of champagne like a scepter. Her posture was impeccable, her hairdo untouchable, and her expression... diplomatically neutral, which for her was equivalent to "mildly annoyed but not yet officially hostile."
Highmuster, in a corner, concealed his discomfort by discussing with Crope the benefits of agave in organic mezcal.
"Mom," Glinda said with a tight smile. "I want you to formally greet Elphaba. You've met her, but... this time is different."
Larena looked at her with a slowness that only aristocratic mothers can achieve, as if she were turning a mirror to reveal a new dimension. Finally, her gaze settled on Elphaba.
"Oh, yes. Of course. We met once, right? Centuries ago."
"That's right... it was on his hunt," Elphaba clarified, maintaining her smile and calm tone. "I think it was an unforgettable day for everyone."
"It certainly was. A temper like yours certainly leaves its mark in a controlled environment like my house," Larena said, without a hint of irony, only icy serenity.
Glinda narrowed her eyes.
"Mom."
"Well, it was an anecdotal observation. How sensitive young people are these days."
Elphaba took a deep breath. She knew this was an opportunity: for Glinda, for them. So she straightened her shoulders, met Larena's gaze, and extended her hand with restrained cordiality.
"Thank you for coming." Glinda and I are very happy to welcome you all.
Larena watched her for a few seconds. Then, to both of their surprise, she took her hand and shook it gently. Not warmly, but... civilly.
"Thank you for inviting me. It's not every day that a mother is welcomed into her daughter's home... by her girlfriend."
It was a loaded phrase, disguised as courtesy. Glinda felt it like a slap with kid gloves.
"Well, the door is open to everyone," Elphaba chimed in with elegant firmness. "But especially to those who raised her. Because if Glinda is who she is, it's because of you."
Larena was silent for a second. Deep down, something in that sentence—a mixture of truth and subtle defiance—struck her.
"Your diction has improved. You used to speak with less... academic gravity. It must be the coexistence."
"The coexistence and the organic wine," Elphaba smiled, this time with visible irony.
Glinda pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. It was like watching a duel between two diplomats at a UN cocktail party. If they threw bombs, they'd do it in Latin and with style.
"So," Glinda chimed in with fake enthusiasm. "Now that you've greeted each other like normal people, do you want me to show you the terrace?"
"Is it heated?" Larena asked skeptically.
"It has mulled wine. That counts, right?" Elphaba said, unable to avoid sarcasm.
"I suppose it does in this house."
The three of them began walking toward the other end of the living room. Larena, though still stiff, seemed at least to be making an effort not to turn it into open warfare. Elphaba felt the tension with every step, but also the relief of having crossed the threshold. And Glinda, in the middle of them, maintained that diplomatic smile that was beginning to crack.
"Do you know, this went much better than I thought it would?" Glinda whispered as Larena stepped forward.
"Was that all right?" Elphaba raised her eyebrows.
"Yes. In mother tongue, that was a lukewarm compliment. And that, my dear, is a Christmas gift."
While Glinda remained in the most tense diplomatic corner of the penthouse—trying to convince her mother that a vegan canapé wasn't a personal attack—Elphaba seized the smallest opportunity to slip away. She slipped through the forced laughter, dissonant toasts, and venomous murmurs of her guests to the drinks table, like someone arriving at a small pagan shrine amidst chaos.
There stood Highmuster, the man with the eternal smile of someone who has survived multiple family Christmases and still wants to toast. He had two glasses in his hand, and when he saw her approaching, he offered her one without even looking directly at her, as if he knew in advance what she needed.
"Gin and tonic with rosemary and a hint of resignation," he winked at her.
Elphaba took the glass wordlessly at first, took a long sip, and let out a sigh that seemed to wash away all the accumulated stress of the last hour.
"You're a saint, Highmuster."
"I'm a father-in-law in training. The least you can do is know what drink puts out diplomatic fires. And I think you're on fire."
"Literally and figuratively."
They both laughed, and for a few seconds, it was as if everything else was put on hold. Elphaba turned slightly to look at Glinda, who was now nodding exaggeratedly while Larena examined a napkin as if judging her lineage.
"So?" Highmuster asked, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Is today the big announcement?"
Elphaba swallowed with difficulty, no longer from the drink but from the tension.
"Not yet. Glinda is still waiting for the 'perfect moment.'" May the constellations align, the wine be at the right temperature, and may his mother not be staring as if we were serving soup in an orphanage.
Highmuster gave a low, heartfelt laugh. Then he shook his head, bringing the glass to his lips.
"You know I've already put my foot in it twice? Twice. Once with Crope, once with Tibbett. I had to pretend I was talking about a dog. A dog!" "Oh yes, Elphaba proposed, it was very emotional... and then they bought her a leash."
Elphaba laughed, more out of necessity than humor, and then lowered her voice.
"Sorry to put you through this. That wasn't the point. I just wanted to ask for your blessing, not your entry into the Emotional Secrets Club™."
Highmuster looked at her with that mixture of warmth and melancholy that seemed to have been sewn into his eyes for months.
"Do you know what's going on, dear?" When you asked for my blessing, I thought: finally, my daughter will have something solid, something real. Not an act, not a facade. Something sincere. And I gave it to you with pleasure, but also with fear. Afraid that it will break. Afraid that the world will interfere. Afraid that they will never announce it, and I will die with the most beautiful secret I have.
Elphaba was silent for a moment, watching the ice melt in her glass.
"Everything okay at home?"
Highmuster hesitated. Not much. But enough for Elphaba to notice.
"Yes... yes, of course. Everything works," he said finally, like someone describing a refrigerator that is still cooling but making strange noises.
"Highmuster..."
"Larena and I... we are talking as little as possible. Like two ambassadors from countries that no longer share a border. No one raises their voice. No one says anything hurtful. Everything is... elegant. Cold. Clean. Like a hospital hallway."
Elphaba felt a pang that wasn't her own, but borrowed.
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't worry. I didn't come to ruin your evening with that. It's Christmas, isn't it? Nothing like the spirit of appearances and secrets under the tree." And with a smile that didn't reach her eyes, she toasted with her glass. "At least my daughter found love."
"And we're going to announce it," Elphaba said with unexpected firmness. "Tonight. I promise. Because Glinda deserves it. And so do you."
Highmuster looked at her for a long moment, as if trying to contain an emotion without spilling it. Then he nodded and toasted again, this time with more pride than sadness.
"I knew you were good for her from the first insult you threw at her."
"Thank you. I put effort into every one."
In the brief silence that followed the toast with Highmuster, Elphaba allowed herself to close her eyes for a second, feeling the warming effect of the gin and tonic mixed with the melancholic conversation. But not for long: a familiar voice, deep and with that always slightly mocking tone, brought her back to the present.
"How was your wise father-in-law's magic juice? Has he enlightened you yet with another story about Glinda disguised as an elf at age six?"
Fiyero appeared with a sly smile and a glass in his hand, his velvet coat hanging carelessly over one shoulder. Elphaba smiled.
"Luckily, just one story this time. Although he did warn me that if I don't bring the food soon, it'll explode and spray secrets like fireworks."
"I don't know if that's more frightening or the idea of Glinda disguised as an elf."
Highmuster laughed as he passed and winked at them before leaving with an elegance that only an Uplander in his golden age could possess. When she walked away, the atmosphere changed: quieter, more subdued. Fiyero looked down for a moment, thoughtful, then looked up with a serious expression.
"Can we talk? Seriously. Something I... I need to get over."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow in mild surprise.
"Is this about Dorothy? Because we already talked about it, Fiyero. She's fine. You did what you could."
"No," he interrupted immediately, with a gesture that almost seemed embarrassed. "It's not that. It's... something else."
Elphaba crossed her arms, placing her glass on the table.
"What did you do?"
Fiyero swallowed uncomfortably.
"Look... when we opened Kiamo Ko, you know it wasn't easy. The place needed renovations, paperwork, licenses. A lot more than I thought. The money you lent me at the beginning literally saved me." But... —he paused, searching for words as if they hurt him—...but I didn't just use that money.
Elphaba frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"I took more. Than you had in the secret stash. Not a lot... but not a little either. It was desperate, and I told myself I'd tell you later, that it was a 'silent loan.' But every week that passed made it harder to admit it."
Elphaba froze for a moment. Not because she was surprised by the act—she herself had offered him money, and she trusted him—but because of the shame Fiyero was carrying, as if that defined his worth.
"How much?"
"Enough to make me feel like an idiot. And enough to keep me from sleeping peacefully for weeks. But the club's up and running, the numbers are good. That's why I'm here. I want to pay you back. Everything. And more."
There was a silence. Elphaba looked at him, her head slightly tilted.
"Do you think this bothers me?"
Fiyero didn't respond.
"Fiyero..." Elphaba sighed, taking a step toward him. "I offered you that silver because I knew you'd use it with all your heart. What angers me, honestly, is that you've carried this alone for so long. That's really silly."
"I was embarrassed. I didn't want you to think that... I don't know, that I abused your help."
"You abuse your velvet coat more than my account," she said with a soft smile. "And I know you. I know you're not perfect. Neither am I. But you're someone who gives everything for what you love, and that, Fiyero... that's worth more than any balance in an account."
Fiyero let out a bitter, relieved laugh.
"You're a tough bitch, you know."
"And you're a prince who owes me money. So we're even."
They both laughed, and for the first time in weeks, Fiyero's face lightened. There was something about that old friendship, sometimes broken, sometimes mended, that remained an anchor for both of them.
"You want to know the worst part?" he added. "I prepared an envelope with the check. With a letter. I carried it in my pocket, like you were my boss. God. What happened to us?"
"We became adults, Fiyero. It sucks."
They exchanged a knowing, mature look. They were no longer rivals or teenagers with grandiose ideas. They were two people who had disappointed each other, forgiven each other, and now... they were just together.
Fiyero gave her arm a friendly squeeze before walking away among the guests. Elphaba watched him for a moment, with a slight, somewhat tired smile. She appreciated him, much more than she liked to admit, and knowing that he had carried only his guilt for weeks stirred an inexplicable tenderness in her. But she didn't have time to fully process it, because just as she turned to go to the kitchen, she saw them.
There they were, Highmuster and Larena, standing in a corner of the living room, far enough away from everyone else to think no one noticed, but not far enough to hide their body language. They argued silently, with those measured gestures that only long, weary marriages have perfected. Larena spoke with her mouth barely open, but her eyes shot icy knives; Highmuster nodded slowly, with that resignation that had become his habit. They didn't raise their voices. They didn't touch. They didn't look directly at each other.
Elphaba tensed. As if a foreign mirror were reflecting back something she didn't want to see. Her first impulse was to move closer, but she stopped. This wasn't the time. And she knew that the person who most deserved to know what was going on was the same person now standing alone in the kitchen, trying to hold it all together.
So she took a deep breath and continued on her way.
The kitchen was a battlefield. There were ladles at impossible angles, herbs scattered like confetti, and a chopping board that looked like it had survived a riot. And at the center of it all, her carefully arranged hair already a little out of control and her apron stained with stains that failed to be festive, Glinda, frustrated, elegant, and stubbornly beautiful.
"It's not that I want a perfect dinner, just one where the cheese doesn't look at me judgmentally and my mother doesn't think I live in a whorehouse!" she muttered as she tried to meticulously line up some garnishes.
Elphaba leaned against the doorframe with a raised eyebrow.
"Is that the same vegan cheese with the foam texture?"
"It's organic! And yes, probably." Glinda snorted and pointed at a bowl. "Put those things on the plates, please. But make them look handmade, not like they were thrown out in hatred."
Elphaba obeyed, taking the garnish with tongs as she approached the island. But she couldn't help herself. She'd seen him, and knew if she didn't say it now, he'd keep it to herself all night.
"I saw your parents arguing. Silently. In a corner."
Glinda didn't even look up.
"They always argue in silence. It seems more elegant to them."
"Glinda..."
"I don't want to talk about it now." Glinda's voice was soft, but it was coated with a layer of hardness. As if emotional exhaustion had left an invisible varnish on it. There are too many things that could go wrong tonight, and I'm not going to let them be one of them.
With the radiant smile that only Glinda could project when she was on the verge of collapse, young Upland lifted the tray containing the main course—an unlikely masterpiece somewhere between gourmet, experimental, and overly decorated—and announced in a melodic voice,
"My dears, dinner is served!"
There was a general murmur of delight. Crope clapped theatrically, Tibbett whistled as if a Broadway diva were appearing, and even Boq let out a shy "bravo!" while Glizz nodded with solemn Slavic approval. Mrs. Clutch clapped as well, though she wasn't entirely sure why. Everyone began to approach the large dining table with excitement, some fighting for the best seats, others for the best views.
But Elphaba didn't move.
From a corner near the bay window, the observation turned to concern. Highmuster was standing there, holding a glass he didn't look like he hadn't touched in a while. He was smiling, yes, but with that smile, you can't feel it. The kind of gesture you practice in front of the mirror so you don't ruin your daughter's party.
Elphaba knew him all too well by now. And beyond the raised glasses, the fake toasts, and the vegan cheese the consistency of a tire, she couldn't ignore him.
He approached calmly. It wasn't the time or the place, but... sometimes moments don't wait for the right place.
"Is everything all right, Mr. Upland?"
Highmuster blinked as if waking up from an inner scene.
"Oh, yes. Everything is perfect. Glinda... Glinda has done wonders." He smiled a little wider, but the punchline fell flat. "And that wine is... surprisingly good, you know?"
Elphaba tilted her head, crossing her arms.
"Don't lie to me, High." You're not good at it. You're one of those who blink like a blinker when they lie.
He chuckled, scratching the back of his neck.
"You're more like her than you think."
"I'm trying," he said sincerely.
There was a brief silence between them, and then Highmuster sighed. It was a thick sound, almost audible in its emotional weight. Elphaba said nothing. She waited.
"We're going to separate," he said finally, in a voice that didn't ask for sympathy, but simply for space to let the truth out. "Larena and I... we've already decided."
Elphaba wasn't surprised. But she was saddened. She nodded once.
"How long have you known?"
"A few weeks now. Since before you returned from your trip." The man looked into his glass as if he could read the future in it. "But we haven't told her yet. For Glinda's sake." I guess we hoped things would change, that somehow this magical dinner would make it easier. But... nothing changes just because you put more Christmas lights on it.
Elphaba lowered her gaze respectfully. It wasn't the first time she'd heard those words. Love doesn't always die in fury. Sometimes it just dissolves in silence.
"Glinda thinks you're making up. I thought your fight with your mother was the cause of the tension between you."
Highmuster nodded gravely.
"I know. And it hurts more than I can explain." Her eyes glittered a little, but she stood firm. "But the problem between Larena and me goes way back. The fight with Glinda was just a push in a direction we were already heading. I don't want her to feel responsible. Or to think that her mother and I weren't happy, because we were. A long time. It's just... that time is over."
Elphaba took a deep breath, feeling a mixture of respect, sadness, and duty.
"Do you want me to tell her something?"
Highmuster shook his head.
"No. It has to come from us. Tonight is her gift, her party. I don't want to ruin it for her. I just... I just needed someone else to know. And you... you're part of this family now, whether you like it or not."
Elphaba smiled wistfully.
"I love it. And I'll be there for her when she finds out. For you too."
Highmuster gently touched her arm. It was a silent but affectionate gesture. Then she straightened, took a deep breath, and, with a more honest smile, said,
"Now let's go. If I don't try that 'experimental vegan roast,' they're going to strip me of the title of favorite father-in-law."
And with that, they both walked toward the table.
Elphaba, however, knew that this conversation would change everything. That beneath the festive tablecloth and the cheerful toasts, the next truths were already brewing. But for now... for now, it was still Christmas.
Finally, after several toasts, wine swizzlers, last-minute centerpiece arrangements, and two failed attempts by Mrs. Clutch to understand what kind of dinner this was, everyone took a seat around the large table decorated with white linens flecked with gold, tall candles, and napkins folded like small Christmas trees (Glinda's work, of course).
Elphaba sat next to Glinda, but not before casting one last sideways glance toward the ends of the table. Highmuster and Larena had taken opposite positions, as if the length of the tablecloth could disguise the emotional distance. Glinda didn't notice, but Elphaba did, and suddenly, small interactions took on new meaning: Larena poured water with a cold, precise gesture, Highmuster concealed it with forced humor, and between them floated a space emptier than Clutch's chair, who remained convinced she was in a theme restaurant.
Then Glinda stood up.
The dress she was wearing seemed designed exclusively to match the tree lights. With the glass in her hand and her curls perfectly defined, her smile was as bright as it was fragile. Elphaba felt it as soon as she sat up beside her. She knew that smile. It was the smile that came when something was about to break.
"I want to…" Glinda began, her voice projecting softly, "thank you all for being here tonight. For us"—she looked at Elphaba for a second—"this isn't just any dinner. It's the first Christmas in our house, together, really. And I know everyone has had to change plans, drop commitments, or deal with unpredictable elevators to be here. So… thank you. From the bottom of my heart."
A few taps of glasses, some applause.
"I also want to say that tonight is special because…"
"Because cheese isn't cheese?" Brrr interrupted, pointing at her plate with exaggerated suspicion. General laughter.
"No, no, because... well, yes, that's a reason too," Glinda tried to continue patiently. "But mostly because..."
"Because the hostess is radiant!" Tibbett blurted out, raising his glass. "I've never seen such elegance amidst so much kitsch decor!"
More laughter. Even Crope mumbled something about glitter reindeer on napkins.
Glinda's smile began to tense. Her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass. Elphaba noticed it immediately. She knew that gesture: it preceded a dangerous smile or a comment that would end in tears in the bathroom.
"And tonight we also wanted," Glinda insisted more forcefully, raising her voice, "to share something important that—"
"Important as in 'together until the end' or 'new dog in the house'?" Wiz quipped, crossing his fingers with theatrical hope.
The table erupted in laughter. But Elphaba wasn't laughing anymore. Her gaze was fixed on Glinda, who remained standing, her eyes moist with a mixture of frustration, forced laughter, and disappointment. As if she were trying to decide whether to laugh with the others or yell at everyone to be quiet.
It was then that Elphaba stood up.
She did so calmly, without raising her voice. She took her own glass in one hand and placed the other gently on Glinda's back, as if anchoring her to reality.
"Well," she said with a dry, elegant smile. "I think the emotional discourse can wait a few more minutes. Before Brrr declares this cheese guilty of crimes against humanity, why don't we start eating?"
The laughter turned into murmurs of agreement, and the atmosphere relaxed. Glinda, still standing, looked at Elphaba. She said nothing, but her eyes were filled with gratitude and relief. As if someone had finally lifted the weight of the world from her shoulders.
Elphaba smiled softly and indicated the chair.
"Come on, good witch. We'll talk when no one's mouth is full."
Glinda sighed, defeated and relieved at the same time, and sat down, still clutching her glass. Dinner had begun. There was no announcement yet. But the evening wasn't over, and they both knew the time would come.
Cutlery clinked, glasses were refilled, and the main course—a bold fusion of tradition and vegan indulgence with names like "non-turkey turkey" and "artistically intended salad"—dominated the table like a center of diplomatic power.
Glinda smiled with her teeth, Elphaba with her eyes. Both trying, as best they could, to keep the evening moving without anyone noticing they were in mild crisis mode.
The conversation began relatively civilly.
"So, what's the main protein?" Crope asked, knife in hand.
"It's smoked tofu glazed with agave syrup," Glinda responded enthusiastically. "And with a wild mushroom sauce!"
"Wild mushrooms, of course..." Brrr muttered, raising an eyebrow. "And which of these is the antidote?"
Tibbett let out a nasal laugh, while Glizz, with an imperial gaze, muttered something like, "In Russia, wild mushrooms choose you." No one understood, but they all pretended to laugh anyway.
Larena, from the opposite end of the table, stared at the wine glass as if trying to see her past life in it. Her voice cut through the air like a razor blade:
"Well, it has to be said: Glinda, this place feels very... personal. A lot... of personality."
Elphaba swallowed prematurely. She coughed silently.
Highmuster, desperate to muffle her voice, chimed in:
"Remember that Christmas when Glinda insisted she wanted a real unicorn and we almost blew up the garden fountain trying to dress up a pony?"
"Dad!" Glinda said in horror.
"Poor Clutch almost lost an eyebrow!" he continued, laughing.
"I don't remember that," Clutch said, raising his voice. "But I did hit a unicorn with the iron once. Was that it?"
Fiyero took advantage of the pause to raise his glass.
"To the eyebrows that survived, and to those that didn't!" A general toast.
"So," Tibbett began, pointing with his fork, "are you finally going to tell us what you've been doing these past few months, or are we just going to keep forming theories?"
"Because my theory involves a secret cult in the mountains," Brrr added in a documentary-making tone, "but I can adapt it if you say you were at a vegan nudist commune."
Crope sipped his wine, feigning disapproval.
"Don't ask open-ended questions, darling, so we don't complain later if we find out things we didn't want to know."
Fiyero chuckled. Glinda gulped. Elphaba raised an eyebrow.
"The commune was a one-night stand, and technically, I wasn't vegan," Elphaba said with complete seriousness.
Silence fell like thick snow. Everyone turned slowly toward her. Glinda glared.
"It was an alternative spa—a spa!"
"Tell me it wasn't similar," Elphaba murmured with a half smile.
Larena, who had been assessing the strudel as if it were a threat to civilization, put down her knife and asked sharply,
"And that was the high point of your trip?"
"Oh, no," Glinda said, regaining control, "I also lost a tooth in a Gillikin Panthers hockey game. At the last minute!"
Highmuster nearly choked on his wine.
"My girl! Did you play hockey?"
"No, Dad. I was in the stands."
Silence returned. Clutch, still serving himself potatoes as if dinner was for eight others, murmured,
"A young lady should sit far away from sports."
Brrr laughed into his glass.
"Write that down. First shared trauma of the evening."
"And the haunted village?" Boq chimed in, his mouth full. You said something about New England and ghosts...
"Oh, yeah!" Glinda exclaimed. "We got lost in a rural area with no landline and ended up staying in a house that was infested with ghosts."
"It was a ghost," Elphaba corrected. "And more than a ghost, it was a lunatic with more makeup than Glinda and a romantic rock diva complex. But his girlfriend was cool."
Glizz looked at Boq stoically.
"Sounds like a Slavic story. Women chased by a possessed cat on a cursed mountain. Very common."
The Wiz, with a decorative turkey on his head like a festive hat, snapped his fingers.
"And what about the coyote?" Brrr asked, unable to stop. "Is it true that you chased a coyote in the desert with two soldiers?"
"It was more of a friendly chase!" Glinda said excitedly.
"Who wins a race against a coyote?" "Glizz asked.
"Elphaba," Glinda said with a dreamy sigh. "Like a comic book heroine."
"Oh!" Elphaba added suddenly, raising her fork as if remembering a forgotten prophecy. "We also ran into your cousin."
Glinda tensed instantly.
"Which cousin?"
"That one... the one who sings on Instagram." Elphaba gestured vaguely with her hand. "Frankini."
A murmur ran around the table. Clutch placed his hands tenderly on his chest.
"Oh, Frankini! When he was a kid, he came home wearing colorful capes. He was always so sweet."
"Sweet?!" Glinda exclaimed, gritting her teeth as if chewing glass. "He was always the devil. He snuck into my ballet recital when he was nine and lip-synced his way through the final act!"
Larena nodded sourly.
"He was talented, there's no denying that. Although, yes, he was... eccentric."
"He once used a hidden microphone to narrate the family dinner in verse," Highmuster added with an awkward laugh. "But at least he rhymed well."
Boq raised his hand as if to clarify something:
"Are we talking about the guy who now does holographic musicals on the beach?"
Crope murmured. "I like him. He sent me a cameo once."
Glinda closed her eyes, prayed to the universe for strength, and drank wine.
"And that wasn't the worst of it," Elphaba continued enthusiastically, still unaware of the trauma she had caused. "We also stopped by my university."
Fiyero looked up nostalgically.
"The old State University? God... does that bar where they served whiskey in teacups still exist?"
"Yeah, and it still smells like emotional vomit," Elphaba commented without flinching.
Brrr nodded respectfully.
"A classic."
"And then," Glinda added, now more enthusiastic, "we ended up at a comic book convention."
Tibbett gasped.
"You guys went to a comic book convention?!"
"Yeah..." Elphaba said, looking at her plate. "And it turns out there's like... fan art of us. Lots of it. In lots of poses. Too many poses."
"And merchandise!" Glinda added. "There were people selling our dolls!"
"I saw one where I had a whip," Elphaba said with a raised eyebrow. "Glinda bought it."
"It was a limited edition!" Glinda defended herself.
The table erupted in laughter. Some in disbelief, others in genuine admiration. Crope was already Googling "WitchyWest action figure." Tibbett was asking if there was a Christmas version. Clutch, naturally, confused everything:
"Oh, but look at her, so radiant, so healthy..." Clutch said, narrowing his eyes with charming suspicion at Glinda. "I know that glow! It's pregnancy."
Silence. Complete.
Larena almost knocked over her glass.
"What did you say?!"
Tibbett shouted "I KNEW IT!" with pure excitement.
Boq dropped his fork.
Fiyero muttered "Green gods..." and Wiz already had her cell phone in hand, searching for baby names.
"I'm not pregnant!" Glinda yelled, her eyes wide open. "I've never been so not pregnant in my life!" she added, completely red-faced.
Clutch, unfazed, replied, "That's what you used to say when you were a teenager and hid cookies under the bed."
Elphaba choked on her glass of water.
Larena almost stood up.
"Is that what you meant tonight?! That they're having a child out of wedlock?!"
"No, Mother!" Glinda yelled as she tried to get her to sit down. "No one's pregnant!" It was a damned celebratory comment from a senile lady!" "I'm not senile," Clutch murmured, "I just have a powerful intuition."
Brrr, she was already crying with laughter. Tibbett was fanning Glinda with a napkin while singing a lullaby.
"STOP!" Elphaba shouted, standing up.
The table froze.
"We're not pregnant, we're not married to a forest spirit, we're not living in a nudist commune. Tonight we just wanted... we wanted to share a meal with the people we love. And if everyone would just be quiet for a moment, maybe we could say what we wanted to say."
Glinda, her heart racing, looked at her. Elphaba held out her hand.
The room quieted. Everyone was waiting. Glinda stood, still stunned, and took her glass.
"The truth is... we're engaged," she said.
A heartbeat of silence. And then, the explosion.
"I KNEW IT!" Brrr shouted, pointing at the glass as if it were a clue. "That glow wasn't pregnancy, it was marriage!"
Highmuster stood up with tears in his eyes.
Larena remained seated... and nodded. Just once.
Applause, laughter, tears, and toasts spilled out of the penthouse. As Glinda clung to Elphaba with a mixture of love, giddiness, and relief, they both knew the evening hadn't been perfect.
It had been chaotic, absurd, and totally unrepeatable.
In short: it had been completely theirs.
Amid the rising murmur of congratulations, impromptu toasts, and shouts of "We want a beach wedding!" and "I'll be the drag matron of honor!" Glinda twirled like an enchanted ballerina, raising her hand so everyone could see her ring. Tibbett claimed it was sky-blue sapphire, Crope asserted it was aquamarine, and Glizz declared it was clearly Ural Mountain crystal. Glinda, of course, said it was “simply perfect,” while leaving everyone to debate.
Highmuster, glass in hand, his face beaming with joy, recounted for the third time the story of how Elphaba asked for his blessing. He did so as if narrating a scene from a Victorian novel: “And then, barely through the door, without even unpacking our suitcases, this young woman asked me… formally, in a firm but nervous voice, for my daughter’s hand.”
"I almost had a heart attack!" she added dramatically, placing her hand on her chest.
"Only because you couldn't find your glasses," Elphaba replied with a half-smile.
Fiyero, dying of laughter, raised his glass to her.
"And you're telling me you're not romantic?"
"I'm efficient," Elphaba replied tersely. "Which is much better."
Laughter filled the air again.
But amidst the torrent of voices, a figure crossed the room with the precision of an arrow. Larena strode firmly toward Elphaba. The commotion around them seemed to blur. Elphaba sensed her approach. She straightened her shoulders instinctively. Glinda, from across the room, stopped laughing at the sight. She slowly lowered her glass.
"Miss Thropp," Larena said without preamble.
"Mrs. Upland," Elphaba replied with careful kindness.
"So... engagement," Larena said, her icy eyes boring into Elphaba's.
"Yes, though Glinda prefers 'indestructible mystical alliance sealed by the cosmos.' But on legal forms we use 'engagement,'" Elphaba replied with a crooked half-smile.
Silence.
Larena raised a slight eyebrow. Her gaze swept the room, lingering for just a second on Glinda's display of the ring to Boq and Glizz, on Highmuster recounting the story of the request for a blessing as if recounting the coronation of a queen.
"I must admit, it was... a surprise."
"Oh, it helps," Elphaba chimed in gently. "It was for Glinda too. I proposed to her right after we returned from our trip in her childhood bedroom... I wanted it to be somewhere meaningful to her."
Larena looked at the ring, then at Glinda, who from a distance was pretending to be deeply interested in a tray of cookies.
"Have they told your family yet?" she asked, in her classic inquisitive tone, like someone sticking a needle into an apple to see if it's ripe.
The question fell like a silent weight. Elphaba lowered her gaze for a second. Not with shame, but with the kind of honesty that burns slowly.
"Not yet," she said bluntly. "Things aren't easy with my family right now."
Larena nodded slowly, without judgment. For a moment, it seemed she might simply walk away. But something in Elphaba's expression, in the tension she still carried in her back, held her back.
And then, with unexpected calm, Larena said,
"It wasn't easy with Glinda either. It never was. I thought I was being a good mother, demanding excellence, pushing her, keeping her 'centered.' But I never wondered if that center was really hers."
Elphaba looked up in surprise. Larena continued,
"And yet, she insisted on loving me. Despite my mistakes. Despite everything."
Elphaba didn't know how to respond.
"And you..." Larena paused, barely. "You're the only person in years who's managed to get her to walk forward without looking back. I suppose that also deserves some... gratitude."
It was an unassuming acknowledgment, but more sincere than any toast in that room.
Elphaba simply nodded. She didn't say thank you. She didn't bow or make a witty comment. She just nodded. Because she knew that, coming from Larena, that was the closest thing to an "I accept you" she was going to get.
And for both of them, it was enough.
Glinda, from a distance, watched them. She didn't hear a word, but she saw the gesture. And she smiled.
And suddenly, Wiz, with the theatricality of a Broadway star and the charisma of a godmother blessed by divas, climbed onto one of the dining room chairs (very tall, by the way), raised her glass, and declared in a resonant voice:
"Let's celebrate this union properly! Because if there's one thing these two witches deserve, it's a good party, with loud music, ridiculous people, and wine even on their feet!"
Before anyone could stop her, the volume rose with a burst of Christmas carols remixed with electronic pop, and the room became an impromptu dance floor.
Glinda, radiant in her champagne-hued frosted dress, took Elphaba's hand, and she barely managed to drop her glass before being dragged to the center of the room. The smile escaped her lips, even as she tried to feign dignity in her navy blazer.
"You're dancing with me, Thropp, there's no escape!" Glinda yelled back, giggling.
"Is this the true eternal damnation for falling in love with an Upland girl?" Elphaba replied, tenderly dropping the sarcasm.
They moved among the Christmas lights and laughter, clumsy but complicit, with a joy that can only arise when love, acceptance, and Christmas madness are mixed in equal measure. Around them, the party erupted.
Tibbett twirled Highmuster around like he was his tango partner, Crope took selfies with Mrs. Clutch, who apparently thought it was all a theme party thrown by royalty, Fiyero tried to teach Boq how to salsa (unsuccessfully), while Glizz watched it all with the majestic impassivity of a polar bear in a gay club.
Brrr was already doing impromptu stand-up from the kitchen island, recounting the story of how he met a girl who thought “Sodom” was a brand of perfume.
The music, the lights, the laughter, the wine. Everything collapsed into that beautiful chaos that only happens when all the pieces—twisted, disparate, wounded, but real—come together and function.
And in the midst of that whirlwind, Elphaba and Glinda twirled on their own axis. They danced slowly, then quickly, then stumbled, then laughed again. And as Glinda hid her face in Elphaba's neck, she murmured between giggles, "Do you think we'll ever have a normal Christmas?"
"And who would want that?" Elphaba replied, gently kissing her temple.
The imaginary camera zoomed out, as if this were the end of an art-house Christmas movie: background music, twinkling lights, friends dancing in slow motion, and two women embracing at the center of the world they'd built together, imperfect, chaotic, and deeply theirs.
Because sometimes, Christmas isn't about peace or order.
It's about a beautiful chaos, full of people who accept you as you are.
The music continued to play, although now it had adopted a softer, almost nostalgic rhythm, as if the night itself had decided to lower the volume after so much euphoria. Inside the penthouse, Christmas lights flickered lazily over the bodies scattered on armchairs and rugs, some half asleep, others clutching a glass of wine as if it were their anchor to the present. Echoes of laughter and anecdotes floated in the air like the sweet smoke of a recently extinguished candle.
Elphaba, with the sleeves of her blazer rolled up and a glass in each hand, navigated the remains of a celebration that refused to die. There was something about that chaos—the crumbs on the carpet, the poorly washed glasses, the coats piled in a corner—that she found strangely beautiful. As if every imperfection of the night made it more real. More human.
As she passed the long table, she noticed Fiyero was no longer there. She had seen him recently with Boq, talking about business, about some renovation for the club, about how hot Glizz was for Boq (too hot, according to Crope). But now he was gone. It was almost instinctive, that gesture of raising her gaze toward the window. And there she saw him: standing, leaning against the balcony railing, alone, with a glass of whiskey in his hand, his gaze lost in the snowy city that stretched beyond the glass.
Elphaba placed the empty glasses on a tray and approached. She carefully slid the sliding door open, the cold air caressing her skin like a warning, and crossed the threshold with silent steps.
"Do you have a cigarette?" Elphaba asked, closing the door behind her.
Fiyero turned with a smile.
"I knew you'd eventually crack."
He took the pack from his inside pocket and offered her one. Elphaba took it with a grimace of resignation and brought it to her lips. Fiyero lit it together, and for a moment, they shared the fire as if they were sharing an old secret.
"I didn't smoke most of the trip," Elphaba said, slowly exhaling. "Glinda hates it. She says it gives me 'burnt furniture's breath."
Fiyero laughed heartily, his laughter echoing in the emptiness of the night.
"Ah, love."
"Sacrifice," she corrected mockingly.
They both stared at the horizon, the Emerald City stretching out before them like a carpet of flickering lights. Fiyero glanced at her, his smile different. Not mocking. Warm. Genuine.
"You look different."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow at him.
"Older? More civilized? More domesticated?"
"More you," he said simply. More... at peace. I guess that's it.
Elphaba looked down, playing with the cigarette between her fingers.
"Sometimes. There are days when I think so... that I've finally found something resembling a home. Or at least, a starting point."
"And to think that a year ago," Fiyero said, exhaling a puff of smoke, "on this very date, you and Glinda... had gone your separate ways."
The comment floated between them like a ghost.
Elphaba didn't respond right away. She just stared at the lights. Then, almost in a whisper:
"It was the worst night of my life."
Fiyero nodded. No more need be said. He knew. He'd seen it. He'd been there when Elphaba, her makeup smeared and her pride shattered, appeared alone in the snow, seeking to escape a world she couldn't stand... but leaving behind the only thing that mattered to her.
"But now you're here," he said with a smile. "With her. With all of this." They survived.
"Yes. I suppose so," Elphaba said, glancing inside, where Glinda was laughing with Crope while Mrs. Clutch took her picture for no apparent reason. "Though sometimes I feel like I'm living a borrowed life. Like someone else earned this peace, and I'm just looking after it for a while."
Fiyero turned to her gently.
"It's not borrowed, Fae. You built it the hard way. And that's worth more than anything that comes wrapped in a bow."
Elphaba smiled, small and sincere.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. Besides," she added with a knowing laugh, "if I don't tell you, who will? Tibbett? Glizz? Your mother-in-law?"
"Does Glinda count?"
"No. Glinda is required by law to tell you that you're brilliant, beautiful, and right about everything."
They both laughed. The night felt lighter now. More honest.
Elphaba stubbed out her cigarette, crushed it out in the wrought-iron ashtray, and took a deep breath. Then she looked at her friend.
"Thanks for being here, Fiyero. For never leaving completely."
Fiyero winked at her.
"And miss this Christmas soap opera? No way."
The snow fell in small, persistent flakes, as if the city couldn't help but dress in white once more. On the balcony, the warm light inside contrasted with the cold blue outside, and between those two worlds, Fiyero and Elphaba shared a corner suspended in time. Elphaba's cigarette burned slowly in her fingers, forgotten, while the steam of their breaths danced between them.
They laughed at something they no longer remembered, a joke lost in the echoes of the night. And in that pause, where laughter settled and vulnerability peeked through, Elphaba lowered her gaze and said, almost as if throwing a stone into the water:
"I came home, Fiyero."
He looked at her silently. He knew that "home," for her, wasn't just any word. It was an old wound.
"And, as expected... all the shit came out."
Elphaba pressed her lips together. He wasn't the type to talk for the sake of talking, and what was coming wasn't something he usually shared with anyone. But tonight, something was different. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the snow. Maybe it was just time.
"It wasn't just Dorothy," he continued. "I discovered things... about my family. About me."
"What kind of things?" Fiyero asked gently, leaning on the railing.
It took Elphaba a second to say it.
"That the man who raised me... wasn't my father."
The silence that fell was immediate, thick, colder than snow.
Fiyero stared at her, speechless. He knew him. He knew every bitter detail of that relationship, every story she had reluctantly told, every invisible scar. But this... this was something else. As if the entire map she knew had been drawn in soluble ink.
"Elphaba..." he murmured, but didn't know what else to say.
She didn't need comfort. I needed space to talk.
"I felt empty. Falsified. As if everything that had hurt me my whole life... wasn't even mine. I felt robbed of something I never had. I was angry with myself for... for hurting over something that wasn't mine?"
"You don't have to justify what you feel," Fiyero told her firmly, not looking at her as a friend, but as someone who, for once, wanted to be her mirror.
Elphaba swallowed.
"For a moment... I felt so lost I wanted to disappear. I wanted to escape from everything. Even from Glinda."
The confession came out in a whisper, but it resounded like thunder in both of their chests.
Fiyero watched her in surprise, not because of the content—he knew well how self-destructive Elphaba could be when grief overwhelmed her—but because of the vulnerability with which she said it. As if she were speaking from an abyss she had managed to crawl out of.
"And why didn't you?" he asked carefully.
Elphaba looked at him then. Her eyes were tired, but clear.
"Because Glinda stayed. Because she held me even when I didn't understand why I was falling. Because she didn't demand that I explain anything to her. She was just... there. And that's why it terrifies me. Knowing I was one step away from losing all of this."
"But you didn't lose it," Fiyero said. "You have her. You have each other."
"And I'm not running away again."
For a long moment, the wind did all the talking. Then Fiyero reached out and pulled her toward him in a brief, awkward, but true hug. Elphaba let him hold her. Just for a second. Just long enough.
"You are strong, El," he said. "But that doesn't mean you have to fight alone all the time."
"I know," she murmured, looking at the city lights. "I know now."
A soft burst of music came from inside. A classic Christmas song in a jazz version. And between the chords, Glinda's voice laughing with someone.
Elphaba smiled faintly.
"I'm going inside before I get philosophical and Glinda decides to kick me out for ruining the party vibe."
Fiyero nodded.
"Too late. I already lit some incense just in case."
They both laughed. Elphaba put out her cigarette on the railing and turned around. Before entering, she stopped and looked at him.
"Thanks for listening."
"Always." And with a smile. "Besides, if you ever need a club to unwind, you know where to find me. The stage is yours."
"What if I prefer to write?"
"Then do it. But make me a supporting character. And make it good, please."
Elphaba laughed and went inside.
FUTURE:
"Did she fall asleep standing up or something?" —said the girl, with the tone of someone who'd lost her patience.
Elphaba blinked. She came back to reality as if she'd emerged from a long, dusty tunnel. She'd been staring at a gondola of interactive dolls singing Christmas carols on a loop, but she hadn't heard a single note. She turned to the girl and, with a mixture of discomfort and resignation, tried to improvise.
"Sorry," Elphaba mumbled, adjusting her glasses. "Where were we?"
"At the balcony. When the (not)prince showed up," she said, with a mixture of excitement and complaint. "But I didn't understand what they were doing. Why did they go outside?"
Elphaba hesitated.
"They were... eating candy canes," she said finally, with an awkward smile.
"Canes? With a funeral face?"
"They were very intense canes," Elphaba added, shrugging his shoulders.
The girl's mouth twisted, clearly not swallowing a word.
"And then you said... that your girlfriend stayed. That he wouldn't let her go. But that it scared you. Why would you be scared of something like that? Isn't it supposed that if someone loves you... that's beautiful?"
The question was so direct, so honest, it took her breath away. For a moment, Elphaba considered lying. Telling him that of course, yes, love was like in stories. That it was all simple.
But the girl had already read the webcomic. And she had heard the story. And she was standing beside him with that keen insistence children have when they sense a gap between what is said and what is felt.
So Elphaba told the truth.
"Because... when someone truly loves you, and stays with you even when you don't know how to stay with yourself... that's scary." She stopped. Then she added, in a low voice. "Because it makes you real."
The girl frowned.
"Real?"
"Yes. When someone sees you, really... there's nowhere to hide. You can't pretend, you can't lie. All the good and bad in you... is there. And if they stay the same... then you can't escape."
The girl looked thoughtful.
"But that sounds nice."
"It is," Elphaba said. "But it's scary."
The girl looked at her as if trying to understand something too abstract for her age, but that she could still sense. Then she sighed.
"Grown-ups complicate everything."
"Quite a bit," Elphaba agreed, this time actually laughing.
The line moved forward. The toy store was closer to the end than the beginning.
And Elphaba felt... a little lighter.
Suddenly the girl started again, recalling information that she said was crucial to understanding this situation and directly related to these feelings.
"At number forty-eight, emotional storm special," the girl said, lowering her voice as if sharing a state secret, "WitchyWest is having a meltdown because she thinks GoodGlim is going to run off with that blond prince knight... what was his name?"
"Lumino?" Elphaba ventured, with a mixture of mockery and annoyance.
"That one! Who was actually a scarecrow controlled by magic from the future. But Witchy didn't know that! And he goes to the top of a mountain to scream at the sky. Literally. To scream at it. With lightning bolts and everything. And when GoodGlim finds her, Witchy says something like, 'Don't look at me like that, I'm the storm, not the princess.' Remember?"
Elphaba let out a soft laugh. She put her fingers to her forehead and shook her head.
"Gods... how ridiculous."
"But it was so sweet!" the girl insisted, her eyes sparkling. Because then GoodGlim hugged her anyway, even though she was all wet and muddy. And he told her he didn't need her to be a princess, that he liked her like that... with lightning bolts and all.
Elphaba bit her lip.
Yes, it was ridiculous. The unnecessary costumes. The corny metaphors. The absurd drama. But... it was also true.
There had been times in her life—more than she could count—when she'd felt like that. Like a cluster of black clouds, furious, thundering inside. And yet, Glinda had hugged her. Wet. Crazy. On fire.
"Did that really happen to you?" the girl asked suddenly, her gaze sharp. "That thought of her running away with someone else?"
Elphaba hesitated.
It wasn't exactly what had happened, but the feeling... that icy pang in her chest, that urge to flee before being abandoned... yes, she knew that well.
"Something like that," she finally admitted. "There was no Scarecrow Prince, but yes... there were times I thought I was going to lose her."
The girl looked at her. Not with pity, but with something close to respect.
"But she didn't lose her."
"No."
"Then... maybe it's a superhero story too. But without a cape."
Elphaba turned her face slightly, surprised by the remark. And then, without knowing why, she thought of the kitchen in her penthouse. Of Glinda wearing her ridiculous reindeer apron, covered in flour, fighting with a stubborn frosting while muttering curses under her breath.
Yes, Elphaba thought. That was heroic.
"Perhaps it was," she replied with a faint smile. "But don't tell anyone." You'd ruin my reputation.
"Deal," the girl said, closing her lips with a solemn gesture.
PRESENT:
In a corner of the penthouse lit by the warm lights of the half-dimmed tree and the reflection of empty canopies, the party had become that strange limbo between climax and farewell. The music played softly, like a background breeze, just enough to keep the conversations going effortlessly, but also enough so that no one noticed how much fatigue already hung in the air.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the living room, Crope and Brrr had set themselves a task with the dedication of two drunken scientists: to interrogate Glizz. Not out of genuine curiosity, of course, but for the pure pleasure of disorder. Glizz, sitting with the hieratic grace of a banished tsarina, answered each question with perfectly structured English and a tone so dry that she managed, unintentionally, to further unnerve Glinda, who at that moment was across the room trying to cut a fruitcake with an expression that oscillated between homicidal and resigned.
"Favorite color?"
"Imperial blue. Like royal blood."
"Favorite food?"
"Meat. Raw."
"Holiday drink?"
"Vodka. No stuff."
Glinda, from the table, was stabbing at the fruit tart with a strained smile, as if the candied fruit were to blame for this whole situation.
"See?" Crope said theatrically to everyone present. "She's like a Slavic mafia version of Glinda! I love it! It's as if Glinda was born in the Balkans and had a personal squad of bodyguards!"
"I have a personal squad," said Glizz, completely serious.
Glinda dropped the knife with a dramatic sigh onto the marble countertop of the open kitchen and murmured, "Anyone want me to stick a piece of candied peach in their eye? Because I'm available."
Boq, oblivious (or feigning oblivious) to the chaos, was trying to carry on a conversation with Mrs. Clutch, who was comfortably ensconced between him and The Wiz on a low sofa, staring at a star-shaped ornament hanging from the ceiling.
"And you, Mrs. Clutch, what do you think of spiced wine?" —The Wiz ventured, with a charming smile and a glass in hand.
—I think we're in the Tsar's castle,—Clutch replied with complete conviction.—And you're a pagan priest. I knew it. I always knew it.
—Oh, dear,—Wiz replied, without missing a beat.—I wish I were a pagan. But I have too many bills to pay. Here's to your lucidity!
Boq nodded enthusiastically, though he didn't seem to fully understand. Instead, he looked at Glinda with a stupid grin and gave her a thumbs-up. Glinda gave him a cold stare.
And, as if that weren't enough, on the sofa in the back, Larena Upland was sitting very upright, holding a glass of still water and a clinically analytical gaze directed toward one of the walls decorated by Elphaba. In particular, she was examining a framed black-and-white abstract print that Elphaba had found at a Montreal street fair, which she described as representing “the transience of thought and desire as overlapping layers in conflict.” According to Larena, it looked like an X-ray of a troubled stomach.
The background music had started playing again, soft and welcoming, as if the house itself were trying to redirect the evening's emotional course after the chaos of equivocal greetings and erratic toasts. A few feet away from the hubbub, Highmuster approached Larena with the discretion of someone who had already lived through many complicated Christmases and didn't want to add another to the list.
“Do you mind if I sit down?” he asked gently, pointing to the edge of the sofa where she was still staring at Elphaba's abstract print, as if waiting for it to shift shape and reveal some hidden meaning.
Larena nodded wordlessly. And so, husband and wife—or something close to them—sat side by side, hands clasped on their knees, looking at the decor together, like two tourists in a place that no longer belongs to them but is familiar to them.
"Do you remember when we were putting up the tree with Glinda?" Highmuster said after a long silence. "She always insisted on putting up the lights first, even before the branches were hung."
"And she got angry when they weren't straight," Larena added, with a small, almost invisible smile. "She said the chaos in the lights caused chaos in the soul."
"And I thought I got that from you," he said with a warm laugh.
"And I thought I got that from you," she replied, just as softly. They glanced at each other. An implicit truce, if only for a few minutes.
Larena took a deep breath, her fingers playing with the rim of her empty crown.
"She grew up so fast," she said. "And at the same time... she still talks like she did when she was seven whenever she complains about the wind blowing in her face."
They both laughed softly. It was an honest sound. A sound from another time. Of Christmases in other houses, with other trees, with different lights.
"It's not the marriage you imagined for her, is it?" Highmuster asked, without judgment, only with curiosity. With affection.
Larena didn't respond immediately. Her gaze remained fixed on the reflections on the wall, as if reading some secret message in them.
"No," she said finally. "It's not. I imagined something... more traditional. Something easier. Something safer. Something that wouldn't involve endless explanations to aunts and godmothers, or suspicious glances at charity events."
She turned to him, and for the first time that night, her eyes weren't hard. There was no judgment, no complaint. Only sincerity.
"But when I look at her with Elphaba," he continued, "I see... something I didn't expect. The way he listens. How he calms her. How he lets her be... without softening her. Without asking her to be less. And I realize that Glinda chose what she needed." What she does well. And that... that's worth more than all the perfectly arranged marriages in the world.
Highmuster nodded, with an emotion he didn't try to hide.
"I knew you saw it too. You always knew. Even if you didn't say so."
She let out a very small laugh, dry but not bitter.
"I didn't want her to have to fight for what she wants the way I did. But maybe that was my fight too. Not hers."
Highmuster took her hand, barely, with a gesture that felt more like a farewell than usual. She didn't take it away.
"Shall we tell her?" he asked. The question floated between them like a snowflake that never quite falls.
Larena swallowed. She looked toward the dining room, where Glinda was smiling while pretending to laugh at some of Crope's jokes. She saw her move with that unique energy of hers, as if she carried an entire constellation of emotions within her and knew how to manipulate them with grace. A part of her—the mother—wanted to protect that smile, no matter the cost. But another part—the woman—knew that the silent lie would only hurt more.
"Not tonight," she finally said, softly, without absolute resolve. "But soon. Before he hears it from somewhere else. Before he begins to notice what he's already beginning to suspect."
Highmuster nodded.
"Not tonight," he repeated. "Tonight... is his night."
The silence lasted for a moment until Highmuster sighed again. It was a long sigh, as if a conversation was taking place inside him and he already knew how it would end.
"Are you going to blame yourself?" he asked, though his voice sounded less like a question than an inevitable statement.
Larena nodded slowly, her gaze lowered, her glass forgotten on her knees.
"She already does. She's been doing it for a long time. Every time we argue, every time something doesn't work out. She thinks it's because of her fight with me, because she chose her over 'the family,' as she calls it..." She gave a small, pained smile. "As if a family could be reduced to what happens at a Sunday dinner."
"I don't want her to carry that burden," Highmuster said. His voice had that deep, almost broken tenderness of men who only cry when no one is looking. "It's not her fault. It was never her fault."
"No," Larena agreed without a second thought. "It was ours. Both of ours. Life's fault. The years that pass and the things we start to stop saying. Not out of malice. Out of tiredness. Out of routine."
They looked at each other. Not with hatred. Not with nostalgia. But with that recognition that only those who were once a home have.
"Do you still dream of the ranch on the coast?" "Larena asked, barely above a whisper.
Highmuster smiled tenderly and shook his head.
"No. I think that dream ended when we started living in separate houses... even sleeping in the same one."
Larena looked down, but didn't remove the hand he'd placed on hers. And in that silence, without recriminations, without reproaches, they talked about what was most important: the love that still existed... but that was no longer the love of a couple, but something different, older, softer. Like a folded blanket at the back of a closet that one no longer needs, but could never throw away.
"She deserves to be happy," Highmuster said, looking at his daughter from a distance, without seeing her. "With everything. With the wedding. With Elphaba. With her house full of paper stars."
"And she will be," Larena said firmly, but her eyes moistened for a moment. "I just hope she knows this isn't her fault. That it never was."
"So... When do we tell her?" he asked, almost voiceless.
Larena didn't answer right away. She looked at the lights, at the table, at the reflection of Glinda laughing on the other side, pretending not to care about the whole world.
"Soon," she said finally. "After the holidays. When the three of us can sit down. And talk... like adults."
But what neither of them knew—what they hadn't even imagined in their moment of melancholic complicity—was that just on the other side of the wall, Glinda was there. Standing. Motionless. Her hands closed over her chest as if she were holding her heart.
She didn't know how she'd ended up there, following the echoes of his name, following the need to confirm a feeling. And now, the words echoed inside her, while her face cracked into an expression somewhere between pain, understanding... and deep tenderness.
There was no anger. There was no surprise. Only a deep, silent sadness, the kind that doesn't scream or fall to the ground, but settles in your bones.
She pressed her lips together, took a deep breath, and, for the first time, didn't try to hide her emotions or rush to fix everything. She just stood there, silent, accompanying her parents from afar... like the adult woman she was now, but also like the little girl who, inside, was still searching for a way to make everything right again.
And suddenly, Tibbett's scream cut through the air like a bell.
"TWELVE IS COMING!! Christmas is imminent! Let no one be without a drink, a partner, or something shiny!"
The lights flickered with festive enthusiasm as a new song began to play, a nostalgic and cheerful medley, a jazzy version of some classic carol that filled the room with renewed energy. The laughter reignited like a restarted engine, toasts were raised, and one by one, everyone began to move toward the center of the room, where The Wiz was already improvising dance moves with a glass balanced on his head, and Brrr was twirling like an elegant ghost trapped in his own show.
In the dimness of the hallway, Glinda quickly, carefully, wiped her eyes. The tear had silently flowed down her cheek, without breaking it. It wasn't a tear of anger or resignation. It was... like a closure. Like a chapter finally being understood. She took a deep breath, once. And then again. She smiled inside, because she knew that if she walked through that door with her eyes shining, more than one person would assume she'd cried over Glizzz's hairdo or the crooked star on the tree. So, with all the dignity of a woman who carries many more stories than she tells, Glinda Upland smoothed her dress, put on her best smile—her real one, not the one in the photos—and returned to the living room.
He saw her immediately. Among them all. As if the entire room had fallen silent for a second. Elphaba looked for her, standing next to the tree, surrounded by lights, by friends, by warmth... but with that slight raised eyebrow that said, "Are you okay?" without words.
Glinda crossed the room as if the rest didn't exist, and Elphaba welcomed her with open arms. No questions needed. No explanations needed. It was enough for their hands to meet.
"Shall we dance?" Elphaba whispered.
"Only if you promise not to step on me like in Boston," Glinda replied, smiling.
"That was the ice. And the punch."
They slipped into the center of the room, where the lights flickered red and gold and glasses clinked to the music. Crope and Tibbett were trying to organize an impromptu train, Highmuster was laughing with a paper crown on his head, Boq had lost Glizzz in the crowd, and Mrs. Clutch was dancing in slow motion, thinking she was helping with something. And amidst all that chaos, amidst the music and the laughter, amidst what was and what they didn't yet know would be... Glinda and Elphaba danced. They held hands, giggled softly, murmured things to each other that no one else could hear.
As they twirled slowly in the center of the room, the warm lights twinkling around them like household stars, Elphaba held Glinda gently by the waist, guiding her in a slow, almost reverent rhythm. They didn't dance to show anything. They didn't dance to impress. They danced simply because that, at that moment, was the only thing that made sense.
But still, as they swayed amidst other people's laughter and clinking glasses, Elphaba saw it. In Glinda's eyes. That shadow of melancholy that shimmered beneath the surface like a firefly trapped in a jar. It wasn't pure sadness, not even pain. It was that subtle blend one only recognizes when one loves someone deeply enough to notice the cracks where others only see brilliance.
She said nothing. Because Elphaba Thropp knew when words were unnecessary. She knew that night was a celebration, but also a night of inner farewells. That although Glinda had smiled, danced, and laughed with her loved ones, her heart still delicately held the conversation she had overheard behind the wall.
So she simply held her a little tighter.
"No matter what comes," she murmured in her beloved's ear. "We will face it together. Because now, Glinda... you are my family."
Glinda closed her eyes. She didn't need to respond with words. Instead, she rested her head on Elphaba's shoulder, as if she could finally let the weight of the night, of the months, of the entire year fall into the one place where everything always made sense.
And so they remained, still, while the party continued to swirl around them. Like the eye of a storm of laughter, jokes, lights, and Christmas songs. Like an anchor in the midst of a gale.
The clock struck twelve.
"MERRY CHRISTMAS!" shouted the entire room, bursting into cheers and applause.
But Elphaba and Glinda didn't move. There was no need.
"Merry Christmas," said Glinda with a warm, moist smile, looking into her eyes. "I've waited so long to tell you in person..."
Elphaba felt something crumble inside her, like an unnecessary defense. She kissed her with the same tenderness with which one keeps a promise within one's soul.
"I know... Merry Christmas, my love."
It was then that Tibbett, with his infallible sense of melodrama, shouted:
"Mistletoe in the center of the room! I repeat: mistletoe in the center of the room!"
They both looked up, and there it was: hanging timidly among the garlands, just above them, a small sprig of mistletoe, a silent and classic witness to that moment.
Glinda smiled.
"Emerald traditions?"
"Rules are rules," Elphaba whispered.
And they kissed.
And that kiss, though brief, though surrounded by laughter, though with a Mrs. Clutch asleep in the armchair and a Glizzz asking what the hell mistletoe was, was a suspended moment. A moment of pure truth.
Their first Christmas.
The first of many.
Together.
And so the rest of the evening passed. As these things often do when everyone has eaten too much, drunk just enough to loosen their inhibitions, and accumulated months—if not years—of untold stories. A slow, messy, dazzling free fall into chaos.
Glizz, regal and imperturbable as a tsarina, became the unwitting butt of every possible joke. First, it was Brrr's comparisons between her and a hybrid of Glinda and a Greek statue, then the bets organized by Tibbett to see how long it would take Boq to realize what everyone was thinking. Crope, naturally, was the master of ceremonies for these playful little cruelties. Boq, in his eternal innocence, didn't catch a single one, which only made the whole thing more charming and ridiculous.
Mrs. Clutch, at one point, mistook The Wiz for her former gardener and asked him if he still planted hydrangeas. No one would correct her. Wiz, always ready for a show, simply replied that hydrangeas now bloomed in sequins.
Fiyero somehow ended up juggling napkins, encouraged by Crope and Brrr, while Highmuster laughed with a glass in his hand and Larena, from the armchair, watched the scene with the kind of silent resignation only reserved for dinner parties where a daughter announces her engagement to a woman she had previously considered a youthful mistake.
But at the center, shining with a different light—softer, warmer, more intimate—were them.
Glinda and Elphaba.
Sitting side by side. Sometimes standing, dancing. Sometimes, hidden in a corner, sharing a stolen piece of cake. Sometimes, simply holding hands, fingers intertwined under the table, as if they needed an anchor point to keep them from floating away from this perfect evening.
Glinda laughed with her eyes closed, her head thrown back. Elphaba watched with fascination, as if she still couldn't believe that laughter was for her. They looked at each other amidst the noise, the toasts, the nonsense, and in each glance there was something silent and immense that no one else could read.
It was their first Christmas without doubts. Without masks. Without hidden plans or uncertainties. The first they lived without thinking about how what they had could break, but knowing, finally, that it wouldn't.
And while the evening was chaotic, hilarious, overwhelming, and unforgettable… amidst it all, there was an invisible thread that held it all together: the love of two women who had traveled a long road—real and emotional—to get there.
And that night, with all the crossfire of awkward questions, whispered confessions, and surprises no one anticipated… the entire city seemed to shine just for them.
Finally, the night came to an end.
One by one, the guests said their goodbyes with laughter and hugs. Fiyero was the last of the group to leave, dragging along a half-asleep Boq and Glizz, who still didn't fully understand what she'd just witnessed but seemed secretly fascinated. The Wiz shouted something about organizing an "alternative drag ceremony" if the wedding was too boring, and Brrr took such a dramatic bow as he left that his hat almost fell into the nougat tray.
Tibbett, glass in hand, solemnly promised that she already had three inspiration folders for Glinda's dress and another two for Elphaba's, "because you never know." Crope, behind her, muttered ironically that the real question was who would survive the organizing committee.
Wiz shouted that he was already designing the bachelorette parties ("one for each emotional state," he clarified), and before they could respond, he was pushing Mrs. Clutch into the elevator as if she were part of a cabaret act.
Glinda said goodbye to her parents without drama. Just long hugs. A few seconds longer than usual. No one said a word. No one mentioned decisions or endings or beginnings. It was a goodbye like so many others, as if everyone had made a tacit pact of silence so that the night would remain intact. At least for a little while longer.
And in the end, when the penthouse door closed and the footsteps died away in the hallway, only the two of them remained.
Glinda and Elphaba stood in the middle of a field of empty cups, fallen streamers, orphaned plates, and breadcrumbs like the happy ruins of a battle won.
Elphaba let out a sigh. A long one. As if she could finally let go of the weight of it all. Glinda took off her shoes and let them fall like armor. Silence fell slowly, like a warm blanket over the sleeping city.
They walked together to the window, where the snow continued to fall silently, enveloping the Emerald City in an almost unreal white. The lights on the buildings flickered like distant candles. The city seemed to breathe slowly. So did they.
Glinda leaned her head on Elphaba's shoulder. Neither of them said anything at first. It was the kind of silence that needed no explanation. The kind that only comes with those who truly know each other.
"We did well, didn't we?" Glinda asked softly.
Elphaba thought of everything: the questions, the overflowing emotions, the secrets still floating between them, the chaos of the guests, the laughter, the spilled wine, the hugs, the kiss under the mistletoe.
"We did it perfectly," she answered simply.
Glinda smiled. A little exhausted. A little happy. Completely in love.
And without moving, with the city stretching out before them like a promise, Elphaba added softly:
"Merry Christmas, my good witch."
Glinda glanced at her, amused.
"Merry Christmas, my bad witch."
And so, between the beautiful chaos of the night and the gentle stillness of the coming dawn, the two of them melted into a slow, long, and silent embrace. A home in each other's arms.
Glinda suddenly jumped as if she had just received an electric shock.
"The gift!" she exclaimed, putting her hands to her head. "My gift for you! I almost forgot!"
And without waiting for a reply, she ran off to the bedroom, leaving a trail of sparkles in the air—or perhaps it was just her sequined scarf flapping like a Christmas victory flag.
Elphaba, still standing by the window, let her head fall back with a sigh of loving resignation.
"Glinda... it's late, it's been a long day," she murmured, speaking more to herself than to her. "We could do it tomorrow..."
But it was useless. She knew there was no point in resisting.
With a tired, but inevitably moved, grunt, she crossed the living room barefoot to the coat rack. She surreptitiously reached into the inside pocket of her navy blue jacket that had been hanging there for hours. Carefully, she pulled out a small box wrapped in very plain brown paper, without bows or decorations, barely closed with a thin red string. She looked at it like someone holding something fragile and extremely important. And then, just as quickly as she'd taken it out, she hid it behind a cushion on the sofa just as Glinda came skipping back with a package in her hands, perfectly wrapped in satiny gold paper, with a white bow of enormous proportions.
"Here it is!" she announced triumphantly, as if she had recovered a sacred relic. "Open it! Open it now!"
Elphaba cocked an eyebrow with mock caution.
"Are you sure it won't explode?"
"Shut up and open it," Glinda replied with a bright smile, sitting down beside her and thrusting the package into her hands as if she accepted no other possible fate.
Elphaba held it for a second between her palms, looking at it as if trying to decipher it by osmosis. Finally, leisurely, she began to remove the bow, unroll the paper, and tear the ribbon with exasperating slowness, only to see Glinda squirm in anxiety beside her.
"You're doing that on purpose," Glinda snapped.
"Absolutely," Elphaba said, flashing a sideways smile.
When she finally opened the box, what she found inside stunned her. It was a hardcover notebook, bound in black leather, with her name stamped in small letters in the bottom corner: E. Thropp. But what left her speechless wasn't that, but what she found inside: the first page had already been written.
A dedication. Written in Glinda's neat handwriting.
"To get you started. Or rather... to keep you going. Because you've been doing it since the day I met you. All that was left was to put it on paper."
Elphaba swallowed, running her fingertip over the words.
"Glinda... this is..."
"Don't say anything," Glinda interrupted, now much more serious, a fierce tenderness shining in her eyes. "I know you're still hesitating, and that you don't know where to begin, but it doesn't matter. Just... do it. Write. The world needs to hear you. I need to."
Elphaba held the notebook as if it were something alive. Something sacred.
And then, without another thought, she reached behind the sofa, reached between the cushions, and pulled out her small brown package.
"Well... now mine looks sadder than a sandwich wrapped in newspaper, but... it's yours."
Glinda smiled excitedly as she carefully unwrapped the red thread. When she opened the small box, her eyes lit up with a glow that had nothing to do with the reflected lights.
Her trembling fingers touched the bracelet: a thin, black band of polished leather, simple but elegant, with a metal clasp engraved with the initials G & E. As soon as she saw it, Glinda knew instantly what it was. It wasn't just a gift. It was the bracelet. The one Elphaba wore the first day they met. That absurd, chaotic, unforgettable day in the Shiz.Corp office, when it all began without either of them knowing.
"Is it... is it the same one?" Glinda whispered, with a mixture of wonder and nostalgia.
Elphaba swallowed and nodded with a small, nervous smile.
"Yes. I found it a few months ago... in a forgotten box. I almost threw it away. But... I don't know, I couldn't. And I had it fixed." "I added this," she said, pointing to the carved initials. "I thought it was... symbolic."
Glinda stroked the surface with her fingers, as if trying to capture the exact memory of that moment between her fingertips. The struggle, the fight, the entanglement of bodies, the burning glances that didn't know they were desire, the suppressed laughter, the fury disguised as judgment... the spark that started it all.
"It was our first bond," Glinda murmured. "Before I knew what it meant. Before we understood each other."
Elphaba sat down beside her, unable to hide the mixture of emotion and shame that flooded her.
"I always talk about the mistakes I made... the things I wish I could change," she said, her voice low but firm. "About that Christmas, a year ago, which I wished with all my heart I could redo. End it differently. But now... now I think if I could go back, I wouldn't change a thing. Because every mistake, every bad decision, every fight, brought us to this moment."
Her green eyes shone, soft and clear. There was no shadow or rancor in her voice. Only certainty.
"And there's nowhere else I'd rather be," she added. "There's no other night I'd rather live than this one. With you."
Glinda swallowed, tears beginning to well up in her eyes without permission, without warning. And yet, she smiled. She smiled with that unique expression of hers, the one that combined absolute vulnerability with a fierce tenderness that made Elphaba tremble inside.
"I wouldn't change a thing either," she whispered. "Because everything, even what hurt, brought us here. To this night. To this gift. To this... 'us.'"
They looked at each other. The world seemed to stop. The lights flickered once more, as if silently applauding. And with their faces so close they could hear each other's heartbeat, Glinda whispered in a trembling voice,
"Merry Christmas, my love."
"Merry Christmas, my Glinda," Elphaba replied, caressing her cheek.
And without any rush, they melted into a long, slow, warm kiss. One of those that need no ceremony or fireworks, because they are enough on their own to seal an entire universe.
In that kiss were all the Christmases past. All the forgiven mistakes. All the battles fought. And all those yet to come.
And they were there. Together. Finally. And forever.
FUTURE:
Elphaba blinked as if waking from a second trance—this time interrupted not by melancholy, but by the plastic clatter of a toy dart bouncing off her forehead with a comical, ridiculous pop. She looked ahead, bewildered, and saw a guilty-looking boy about to fire another shot from his foam gun. Before Elphaba could open her mouth, the girl with her—with the agility of a schoolyard avenger—snatched a rubber ball from a nearby box and threw it at the boy with astonishing accuracy. The projectile hit its target: the boy fell backward with a theatrical groan.
"That's what you get for interrupting!" the little girl declared, as she gracefully settled back at Elphaba's feet, as if nothing had happened.
Elphaba couldn't help but laugh. That little girl was a little whirlwind, but she reminded her a little of someone… or several people. She rubbed her forehead with a smile and looked at the enormous shelf of Christmas boxes, all glowing with artificial light.
"So what happened then?" the girl insisted, crossing her arms. "After the kiss under the mistletoe? After the bracelet? After the party? What happened next?!"
Elphaba looked at her sideways, as if testing how honest she could be with a child her age.
"Then…" she said thoughtfully, tilting her head, "we went to bed."
The girl's eyes widened.
"So?"
"And I gave Glinda her second gift."
"And what was it?"
Elphaba stopped. She opened her mouth, closed it. Opened it again. Closed it again. Then she raised an eyebrow, hesitantly.
"It was… a very special gift. Very intimate." That it's not... necessarily appropriate for... certain ages.
The girl frowned.
"Was it underwear?"
"No!" Elphaba answered quickly, on the verge of choking. "It was... a letter. A very long one. Handwritten."
The girl narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but decided not to press further.
"And after that," Elphaba added, getting back into the swing of things, "we spent the rest of Christmas Day eating leftovers from the party, wrapped in a blanket, watching terrible Christmas movies with incoherent plots, redeemed villains, and talking snowmen."
The girl wrinkled her nose.
"Nothing else?"
"Not everything has to be a grand adventure," Elphaba replied with a wistful smile. "Sometimes, the most important moment of your life is being in silence, with the right person, eating reheated mashed potatoes."
The girl looked disappointed. She crossed her arms, pouting.
"But that was years ago. What happened next? Until now?"
Elphaba was silent for a moment. The bustle of the toy store continued to whizz around as if nothing had happened, but for her, time seemed like a suspended thread. Her gaze fell on a cardboard heart-shaped ornament with wings, hanging crookedly from a hook. And she smiled.
“Afterwards… we lived. There were happy days. And days not so happy. There were arguments. Many reunions. Moves. Books I wrote. Campaigns she led. We adopted a cat who hates everyone except us. We celebrated each anniversary with the most absurd tradition possible. Then we had the greatest gift of our lives, which was sadly followed by many, too many, dirty diapers. And we still say “yes” every day. Even though we don’t have everything figured out.”
“And are you still together?” the girl interrupted, with a mixture of anxiety and hope.
“Of course you are,” Elphaba replied firmly. “We still choose each other. Every day. Sometimes with flowers. Sometimes with patience. Sometimes just by handing each other a cup of coffee without saying a word.”
“And were they happily ever after?”
Elphaba laughed, more softly this time. She crouched down to his level and lovingly ruffled his hair.
“Not always.” But enough times to make it worth it.
The little girl nodded slowly, thoughtfully. As if she realized that maybe that—and not the magical part of a comic book—was what "happily ever after" really meant.
At that moment, the line finally moved forward. And Elphaba, without thinking, took the little girl's hand so she wouldn't get lost among the adults.
"Come on. We don't want to miss the dancing robot Santa."
The little girl laughed loudly.
"I remember that part! The story started there!"
"Exactly." Elphaba smirked. "It all starts in the most absurd places, doesn't it?"
And as they walked together, under the harsh light of the gondolas, with the murmur of pre-recorded Christmas songs in the background and the smell of new plastic in the air, Elphaba thought that maybe, without realizing it, she had just told not just one story... but an entire life.
Elphaba finally reached the checkout like someone reaching the top of a mountain after crossing a blizzard, wild bears, and blaring Christmas music. She placed the infamous talking dinosaur on the belt with a mixture of triumph and resignation. The cashier, wearing an elf hat, gave her an automatic smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"The model that walks, talks, and sings Christmas carols in five languages?" she asked as if it were a threat.
"Yes," Elphaba replied, serious as if signing a contract with the devil himself. "And with no option to turn it off. May she feel it in her soul."
The cashier typed list list listlessly. Elphaba, meanwhile, turned slightly toward her young companion, who now had her cheeks flushed with excitement, her eyes shining, and was clutching her illustrated volume of A Tale of Two Witches to her chest.
"And that's all?" the cashier asked.
Elphaba hesitated only a second. Then she pointed to a side shelf and said,
"And that one, too. The Witches' Book. For her."
The girl jumped.
"Really?" she asked, her voice so excited it cracked a little.
"Christmas, right?" Elphaba replied without looking at her, pulling out her wallet. "Besides, you need to know how your story ends."
The cashier added the book, the bag shifted in weight and shape. Elphaba paid, gathered her things, and the girl, with a twinkle in her eye that only children who still believe anything is possible can have, briefly clung to her coat in an awkward but genuine hug.
"Thanks, WitchyWest."
Elphaba rolled her eyes, but smiled.
"Read wisely, okay? And don't throw any more balls at anyone unless it's really necessary."
"I promise!" —said the girl, before running towards some adults at the back of the store, who were probably convinced that their daughter had escaped to another dimension.
Elphaba watched her for a second longer. The little girl waved enthusiastically before disappearing among the shelves and lights. And Elphaba, without realizing it, returned the gesture with a smile she didn't often show.
Then she turned, grabbed her damn bag with the damn dinosaur that wouldn't stop singing even in hell, and walked out of that store as if emerging from a parallel universe.
The icy night air hit her with the gentleness of an annoying and well-intentioned old friend. She walked to her car with the bag in one hand and her coat tucked into the other, her face reflecting that mix of tiredness and tenderness that only Christmas chaos can generate.
Once inside the vehicle, she closed the door, dropped the bag on the passenger seat, and started the engine. The car responded with a familiar purr, the windshield fogged up slightly from the change in temperature, and Elphaba sat there for a few seconds. No music. No rush. Only the muffled whisper of the Christmas city in the distance, as if the world had been muffled by an invisible layer of snow.
She rested her forehead against the steering wheel for a moment.
"A talking dinosaur..." she murmured with a resigned smile.
But her mind wasn't on the toy, or the queue, or even on the boy with the impossible name for whom the gift was. It was on another story. The story. The one she never thought she'd tell in such a soft voice. That little girl—the one with the bright eyes, the boundless imagination, and the unquestioning faith in the "ridiculous" comic—had made her talk like she hadn't in a long time. She made her see that this series of moments, from the first bracelet shared to the kiss under the mistletoe, weren't just picturesque episodes or sentimental memories... but chapters of something real. Something big. Something that had grown without her fully realizing it. Until now.
She drove in silence. The Christmas lights on the streets flashed by like fleeting reflections, and somewhere between the traffic lights and static radios, she felt something new: a quiet nostalgia. A certainty.
Finally, she reached the building. She parked, turned off the engine, and stared at the entrance for a few seconds. The windows of the penthouse above glowed softly. Warm light. Dancing shadows. Home.
She grabbed her bag and got out of the car.
As she rode up the elevator, she thought about how, over the years, everything had changed. She no longer had to pretend she wasn't afraid. She didn't even have to pretend she had it all figured out. All she had to do was keep showing up. Like that night. Like every night. For Glinda. For her family. For herself.
The elevator doors opened with their signature whir. Elphaba took a deep breath and took a step forward.
Elphaba had barely crossed the threshold of the penthouse when the familiar symphony of home enveloped her: distant Christmas carols playing from the kitchen speaker, the soft hum of excessively flickering Christmas lights, and, of course, the dull roar of domestic chaos manifested in toys on the floor, glitter remnants on the carpet, and what was clearly a Christmas stocking stuffed with applesauce—another “masterpiece” of her son's that neither of them had the heart to discard.
She sighed with resignation and tenderness as she removed her coat with slow, ceremonial movements, as if hanging it up were the closing act of an epic battle. She placed the bag on the dining room table, unable to even open it, and just as she reached up to untie her bootlaces, she heard a voice.
"Have you been good this year... or very, very bad?"
The tone was flirtatious, almost feline, wrapped in a provocative musicality that could only belong to one person. Elphaba turned with a movement of her shoulders and neck as if she feared she'd hallucinated from the lack of caffeine... but no. There was Glinda.
Standing across the living room, leaning casually against the kitchen frame, as if posing for a postcard from a banned F.A.N. calendar, she was wearing a bright red leather catsuit with fuzzy white trim, a bow at the neckline, and vertigo-inducing heels that Elphaba swore were legal weapons in at least three states. Elphaba recognized her immediately: it was the damned "Christmas of Conflict" catsuit—as they had dubbed that night years ago when a role-playing game had ended with a minor fire, two confused neighbors, and an empty fire extinguisher.
Only now, years later, it fit her better. And more perfectly.
Glinda smiled mischievously when she noticed her witch's gaze suspended in time.
"Too much?" she said with a charmingly innocent tilt of her head. "I found it in the box at the back of the closet. As soon as I walked in, I had to cast a spell of willpower to get it to zip up."
Elphaba leaned against the back of the sofa, her jacket halfway off and her eyebrows raised.
"No. It's... historically appropriate."
Glinda walked toward her, her steps slow and theatrical, the leather of her suit creaking softly with each movement.
"I thought you deserved something special for your heroic journey among screeching dragons and talking dinosaurs..." She stopped in front of her, wrapping her arms around her neck. "You were brave, Elphie. Not all witches make it through an hour in the mall toy store."
"Not parents. Not gods." Elphaba smiled, tired but overcome by the scene.
"And... you succeeded?"
"With threats, emotional blackmail, and a frequent-customer bonus, yes."
"Then," Glinda said, leaning her forehead against hers, "let me reward you."
Elphaba chuckled softly and slid her hands down Glinda's waist, feeling the taut, warm material of the dress.
"You do know this technically constitutes Christmas blackmail, right?"
"Shhh," Glinda murmured, sealing her lips with a soft kiss, laced with warmth and tenderness. "It's Christmas. Some misbehavior is allowed if the festive spirit is involved."
"Mommy!" a high-pitched voice suddenly squealed from the top of the stairs, just as Elphaba and Glinda were about to seal the Christmas deal.
Elphaba froze, her lips barely millimeters from Glinda's, as the two strongest instincts in her—maternal and criminal—collided brutally in her head. Without thinking, she shoved Glinda with an urgent and strategic clumsiness behind the Christmas tree. Glinda, with a muffled moan and a swirl of red ribbon, leather, and glitter, disappeared into the branches as if she were part of the scenery.
"Ow!" she whispered indignantly from deep within the foliage, completely sprawled out, one knee caught between two branches decorated with figures made of popsicle sticks and school glue.
Elphaba, at the same time, was already running upstairs with a smile so tight it seemed about to burst. There, on the landing, in his dinosaur pajamas covered in fluorescent stars and his hair tousled from sleep, was her son: a perfect mix of chaos, sweetness, and night watch.
"What are you doing up, little one?" Elphaba said as she picked him up, her heart still racing for not-so-holy reasons.
"I heard noises. I thought they were fighting monsters," she said with complete seriousness as she settled into her mother's neck.
"Sort of..." Elphaba murmured, looking down in some embarrassment.
"Can I help you fight? I have my laser flashlight."
"I'm sure you are, but now what we need is for the little commander to get back to his base of operations and sleep, because Santa already came and took your drawings. And if he sees you awake, he can trade them for broccoli."
"Nooooo!" she cried with laughter, allowing her mother to drag her upstairs while promising that she would fall asleep immediately if they read "A Tale of Two Witches" to her again.
"Not again..." Elphaba sighed with sweet resignation.
Meanwhile, downstairs, Glinda was still collapsed behind the tree, a cellophane star tangled in her hair and a reindeer-shaped ornament stuck in her thigh. She lifted her head just above the edge of the sofa and murmured,
"Merry Christmas, witch... interrupted again."
And with a sigh, a defeated smile, and the lights flickering out of time on her blushing face, she concluded that, however improvised, interrupted, and disastrous it was… this too was another perfect family Christmas.
Notes:
MERRY CHRISTMAS.... In August! Yes, I know this "special" is a bit late, but I wanted to do a Christmas special before the story ends, and I doubt it'll last until the holiday season, so I hope you enjoy it anyway. And I'm announcing that I'll soon begin publishing the fourth season, which will return to a slightly more serialized style than the previous season, which was more episodic. But there are still several surprises, and it will be the longest one yet. Look for it soon!
Chapter 35: SEASON 4: IF WE WORK IN TANDEM
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The sun crept slowly but steadily over the city's silhouette, as if someone were slowly opening the sky's blinds, letting the light filter through the buildings, the cable cars, and the dormant trees of Central Park. Emerald City was beginning to shake off its nighttime drowsiness, and with it, the first bodies were moving: dogs tugging on leashes, cyclists sipping fresh air as if it were coffee, delivery men with dark circles under their eyes, mothers with strollers, couples greeting each other with kisses, either routine or novel. Among them all, two figures ran to the beat of a routine that was increasingly their own, increasingly shared.
Elphaba wore a sleeveless black T-shirt that said "Write like a witch," her hair tied back in a somewhat messy braid, and her headphones dangling without being plugged in, as if the gesture of using them were enough to keep the world at bay. She trotted at a steady, relaxed, almost meditative pace. Beside her, though a few steps away and practically hanging out of her tongue, Glinda did her best not to stop completely. Her tight pink tracksuit seemed to have been designed more for posing than for perspiration. She paused every so often to adjust her ponytail, or her sports bra, or to complain loudly without losing her glamour.
"We could, you know, slow down a little. Maybe walk... or just sit down. Wasn't this supposed to be recreational?"
Elphaba braked smoothly, as if she'd been waiting for the excuse, and turned around to face her. Her face was slightly sweaty, but her expression was serene, even amused.
"This is recreational. Only your definition of 'recreation' includes croissants and chairs with backrests."
"And rightfully so!" Glinda retorted, taking off the jacket tied around her waist and letting it hang over her arm like a designer handbag. "My body isn't made for this early morning brutality."
They both sat on a stone bench, under the sparse shade of a young tree. Glinda took a bottle of water from her miniature backpack and drank as if she'd crossed a desert. Elphaba stretched back, releasing her shoulders, her muscles, the tension she'd brought from home. The park was a bubble within the chaos: the barking, the footsteps, the distant hum of traffic created a familiar, almost comforting urban background symphony.
"So..." Glinda said, putting the bottle aside as if about to discuss an important topic, "can I get back to the topic?"
Elphaba glanced at her. She didn't need to be told. She knew it. She'd known it from the moment Glinda suggested going for a run "to connect better." The topic was unavoidable. Elphaba sighed and leaned back on her knees.
"The wedding again?"
"Yes, the wedding!" Glinda exclaimed excitedly, as if she were talking about a historic event involving world peace and not a logistical process that had been stalled for six months. "I know we've talked about postponing it, but I feel like if we don't plan it now, we'll end up getting married in a copy shop at City Hall wearing jeans and a bagel."
"Doesn't sound so bad," Elphaba joked with a half smile, though she knew this wasn't the time for jokes.
Glinda crossed her arms, frowning.
"We've been engaged for six months. And we still don't have a date. A venue. A budget. Not even a color palette!"
"We have more pressing issues, Glinda," Elphaba said, her tone more serious now, her words dragging as if they were physically difficult for her. "The rent's due in two weeks. The electric bill came for twice the normal amount. And I can't keep pretending that writing from home is a job when I haven't even made it past the second page without hating myself."
Elphaba lowered her head. She didn't want to sound harsh. But the truth was, the idea of a wedding, with all its symbolism, its cost, its guest lists, and expectations, was too much for her. Not because she didn't want to marry Glinda. Of course she did. Sometimes she looked at her and felt that sweet vertigo of knowing that the rest of her life could be spent sitting next to her on a stone bench. But she also felt like the world kept turning without waiting for them. And that they, without a steady income or a compass, were trying to build a future on ground that hadn't yet solidified.
Glinda watched her silently. Not offended. Not annoyed. Just... thoughtful. Then, with a more tender gesture, she leaned closer and rested her head on her shoulder.
"I'm not denying any of that," she murmured. "I know we're in a kind of limbo. But planning this wedding... it's not just about the ceremony. It's something of our own. A small future in the midst of so much present that we don't understand. I want us to start imagining what that life looks like. Even if it's with a colorful napkin and a stupid glitter invitation idea."
Elphaba didn't respond right away. She listened to the sound of birds, the murmur of a child crying in the distance, the hum of her own anxiety trying to creep between her ribs. Then, she slipped an arm behind her back and rested her chin on Glinda's perfumed hair.
"Okay," she whispered. "We can talk about the wedding. But in return, you help me talk about that cursed chapter I can't get down to."
"Deal," Glinda said, smiling against her skin. "Although I warn you, my storytelling advice comes with a lot of adverbials and too many little hearts."
They both laughed, finally in sync, as if that laughter was the first step toward something bigger. Maybe they didn't have everything figured out. Maybe they didn't know what awaited them when they returned home. But at least that bench, that shade, that unspoken agreement to support each other... it was a good start.
CHAPTER 35: If we work in tandem
The city. That throbbing monster of concrete, steel, and will, which dawned and died with chaotic discipline. From the 27th floor, everything seemed more orderly than it really was: cars flowed like lines of code along the avenues, lights flickered like signals of a language understood only by those who inhabited it from within. From there, the city wasn't chaos: it was a machine. Unpredictable, yes, but a machine nonetheless. And in front of that constantly changing immensity, a motionless silhouette seemed to refuse to be part of the flow.
Elphaba stood by the penthouse window, dressed in a black robe that resembled a coat of shadows. In her hands, the coffee cup steamed as if it contained some spell she hadn't yet finished casting. Her eyes, greener than ever in the morning light, scanned the horizon, searching for meaning, like someone reviewing a text, looking for errors, contradictions, hidden promises between the lines. Her gaze wasn't romantic. It was surgical. Desperate, even. She wasn't looking for beauty; she was looking for truth. Or at least, something she could put into words.
The city roared below. She listened to its rhythm like a distant symphony, uneven, but hypnotic. Sometimes she wondered if writing was trying to translate that music. If it was worth it. If she had something to say that wasn't already an echo of another, wiser, more prolific, more widely read voice. What story could come from a mind that constantly questioned every word before writing it?
She sighed. The steam from the coffee rose like a parallel sigh, warmer, less frustrated. Finally, she turned away, letting the city continue without her, as it always did. She crossed the room to her work corner, a barely cleared white table where her laptop waited like a silent accusation. Beside it, a pile of books angrily underlined, notebooks opened like wounds, and an ashtray that held more twisted paper clips than cigarette butts. Elphaba sat down, put her cup aside, and looked at the screen with the mixture of fear and defiance reserved for a fight between equals.
He moved his fingers. Crack. Crack. He took a breath. He typed slowly, as if each letter carried emotional weight: Chapter 1.
He looked at it. He hated it. He deleted it.
"Shit," he whispered, lowering his forehead against the table.
It was the fourth time that morning he'd started from scratch. The problem wasn't not having ideas. It was having too many. Ideas that clashed with each other, that demanded to be turned into something concrete before they were ready. Words that refused to be obedient. He wanted to write about the trip, yes, but not in the literal sense. He wanted to write about loving someone when you already knew you could lose them too. About coming back, and the place not recognizing you. About making plans when the ground beneath your feet still feels soft.
But all of that was noise in his head, tangled, full of ramifications that forked the moment he tried to grasp them. Her style, her voice, even her will, seemed to be hidden in some corner of the house where she hadn't yet looked.
A notification appeared in the corner of the screen: New messages in the advice inbox. Elphaba didn't move. She closed her eyes. She counted to seven. Maybe it was the coffee, maybe it was the constant pressure of feeling like a failure while the city carried on, uncaring. Maybe it was that she wanted this book to matter. Not to be just another project in the drafts folder. She wanted this book to speak for her when she couldn't. To say what she never dared to say out loud.
She sat up slowly, reopened the file, and typed a sentence.
"The city has no heart, but it does have a memory. That's where this story begins."
She read it. She didn't completely hate it.
She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms, as if the physical act could dispel the mental fatigue that had enveloped her since before she'd even woken up. The clock in the lower corner of the screen read 11:42. Almost noon. And, for the moment, she still had the apartment to herself. Glinda wouldn't be back until after three, or maybe later if something came up at work.
Elphaba sighed, stretched out in her chair like a dry branch crackling in several places, and finally took her hands off the keyboard in resignation. The sentence she'd typed still flickered on the screen, like a faint heartbeat. She didn't hate it, but she didn't know what to do with it either. And for now, that was reason enough to pause it.
She closed the file and, with some regret—she didn't want to see it as a sign of surrender, but it felt too much like it—opened her inbox. Her email refreshed with a dull, cold sound. Elphaba swallowed as the items unfolded like a row of recycled dishes on a predictable menu: “Proofreading an essay on Foucault,” “Analysis of a postmodern novel,” “Urgent: Revision by Friday.” Almost all of them were similar works, written with formulas that were repeated at varying levels of desperation. Sometimes they were mediocre. Sometimes, they were simply irrelevant. It wasn't that she was bothered by other people's ignorance; what hurt her was the lack of desire. The way some people wrote only to comply, as if words were stones to be pushed uphill, not something that could save you from the abyss.
But still, she needed that money. She couldn't afford to be romantic. Not yet.
She opened the first one, skimmed it with clinical speed, skipping between paragraphs, looking for errors in concepts rather than grammar. Elphaba didn't correct with a smile, nor gently: she wrote notes in the margins with a dryness that sometimes slipped through the cracks, even in the spaces where she should have put kind comments. One day, someone wrote to thank her. They said her criticism had been more helpful than the entire course. That paralyzed her. She didn't know whether to feel guilty or worthy.
She finished reviewing three texts and opened the fourth, more out of duty than interest. As the PDF loaded, she reached across the table to where her black notebook rested. The notebook Glinda had given her for Christmas, elaborately wrapped and adorned with a motivational note. She had received it with a mixture of bewilderment and tenderness, but now it seemed almost sacred. Although not for what Glinda imagined.
Instead of containing the first lines of her novel, the notebook had become an improvised diary, a receptacle for lists, quick notes, and postponed tasks. She opened it mechanically and searched for a clean sheet of paper. She wrote:
– Essay 1: add note on Derrida.
– Student 2: send corrections today.
– Find a more illustrative narrative example for Student 6.
She left the pen suspended in the air for a few seconds, as if doubting its usefulness. In the margin of the page, she thoughtlessly scribbled: "How much does a poorly paid vocation cost?"
She crossed it out immediately.
She stared at the page for a few seconds. It wasn't that she didn't want to write. It was that she felt like everything she had to say was already evaporating before it even reached the paper, as if her ideas turned to smoke as soon as they passed through her throat.
Elphaba closed the notebook with a soft click and returned her gaze to the window, that constant that seemed to watch over her like a suspended promise. The city was still there, unmoved, indifferent. So was she. In her tower of books, lukewarm coffee, and other people's academic papers, holding on between temporary jobs and the fragility of a dream she didn't yet know how to name without shame.
The computer rang again. A new email. Another assignment.
She returned to work. And as the page loaded slowly and her to-do list spread like an endless spiderweb across the desk, Elphaba couldn't help but think of Glinda. In her tangy caramel laugh, in her explosive and inexhaustible energy, in the way everything in her seemed to move forward, always, even when the world was crumbling around her. She thought about what he had promised her that night after the proposal, between rumpled sheets and sweet tears: that he would do everything to build a life worthy of her. That he would take care of her, that they would be a team. That their love would also be a project.
But... what if it wasn't enough? What if she herself wasn't enough?
Elphaba wasn't afraid to love Glinda. That was easy. She was afraid of not being enough to sustain the version of the future they had both begun to imagine together. Because while she dragged herself between other people's corrections and her own barely articulate phrases, Glinda always seemed... on the cutting edge. As if she knew where she was going, even though she had no map. As if the world responded to her even when it was at war with her.
While the city continued its ritual of frantic self-preservation, while the world burned in small fires of traffic, notifications, and anxiety, in a more modest—though no less dramatic—corner, Glinda spun on her heels as if on the threshold of a battle. The space where she stood was narrow, with pale walls and the scent of industrial cinnamon, but she filled it as if it were the stage of a national theater. With her hands clasped behind her back, wearing a themed pink cap and apron, she paced back and forth with a martial energy that made even the napkin rings tremble.
She finished reviewing three texts and opened the fourth, more out of duty than interest. As the PDF loaded, she reached across the table to where her black notebook rested. The notebook Glinda had given her for Christmas, elaborately wrapped and adorned with a motivational note. She had received it with a mixture of bewilderment and tenderness, but now it seemed almost sacred. Although not for what Glinda imagined.
Instead of containing the first lines of her novel, the notebook had become an improvised diary, a receptacle for lists, quick notes, and postponed tasks. She opened it mechanically and searched for a clean sheet of paper. She wrote:
– Essay 1: add note on Derrida.
– Student 2: send corrections today.
– Find a more illustrative narrative example for Student 6.
She left the pen suspended in the air for a few seconds, as if doubting its usefulness. In the margin of the page, she thoughtlessly scribbled: "How much does a poorly paid vocation cost?"
She crossed it out immediately.
She stared at the page for a few seconds. It wasn't that she didn't want to write. It was that she felt like everything she had to say was already evaporating before it even reached the paper, as if her ideas turned to smoke as soon as they passed through her throat.
Elphaba closed the notebook with a soft click and returned her gaze to the window, that constant that seemed to watch over her like a suspended promise. The city was still there, unmoved, indifferent. So was she. In her tower of books, lukewarm coffee, and other people's academic papers, holding on between temporary jobs and the fragility of a dream she didn't yet know how to name without shame.
The computer rang again. A new email. Another assignment.
She returned to work. And as the page loaded slowly and her to-do list spread like an endless spiderweb across the desk, Elphaba couldn't help but think of Glinda. In her tangy caramel laugh, in her explosive and inexhaustible energy, in the way everything in her seemed to move forward, always, even when the world was crumbling around her. She thought about what he had promised her that night after the proposal, between rumpled sheets and sweet tears: that he would do everything to build a life worthy of her. That he would take care of her, that they would be a team. That their love would also be a project.
But... what if it wasn't enough? What if she herself wasn't enough?
Elphaba wasn't afraid to love Glinda. That was easy. She was afraid of not being enough to sustain the version of the future they had both begun to imagine together. Because while she dragged herself between other people's corrections and her own barely articulate phrases, Glinda always seemed... on the cutting edge. As if she knew where she was going, even though she had no map. As if the world responded to her even when it was at war with her.
While the city continued its ritual of frantic self-preservation, while the world burned in small fires of traffic, notifications, and anxiety, in a more modest—though no less dramatic—corner, Glinda spun on her heels as if on the threshold of a battle. The space where she stood was narrow, with pale walls and the scent of industrial cinnamon, but she filled it as if it were the stage of a national theater. With her hands clasped behind her back, wearing a themed pink cap and apron, she paced back and forth with a martial energy that made even the napkin rings tremble.
“All right, listen carefully,” she said, stopping dead in her tracks like a general before his troops. “We’ve trained for this. We know what’s coming. We know who’s coming. There will be no mercy. There will be no pause. Only strategy, speed, and teamwork. This isn’t just a test of character, it’s a test of destiny.”
In front of her, three young men stared at her, mouths agape. One of them chewed gum with the slowness of someone who has already given up on understanding. Another held a bottle of caramel syrup as if it were a secret weapon. The third seemed to be mentally writing a tweet about what he was witnessing.
“We face an unstoppable horde,” Glinda continued gravely, intoning the words as if they were a sacred oath. “They will come in waves. They will shout impossible orders. They will search for weaknesses. But they will not find them. Because today, my brave ones, we are not simple workers. We are a wall.” And destiny is written with whipped cream and character.
A pause. A reverent, dramatic silence. Then, he raised a finger.
"So... to your stations. Let them not see us tremble. Let them believe this is our kingdom!"
And just then, as if the universe had been waiting for its signal, the high-pitched ringing of a small bell was heard.
Ting.
The door opened. A wave of teenagers crossed the threshold with the roar of a controlled stampede: backpacks dangling, headphones blaring, uniforms half-done, and conversations punctuated by laughter and shrieks. In the midst of this whirlwind, someone shouted:
"I want the rainbow frappe, but without sugar, and with edible glitter!"
"I want the cookie, but without milk, and without a cookie flavor."
"Do you have blue matcha? And can I pay for it with a QR code?"
Then, and only then, did the surroundings reveal their true nature. An espresso machine blew steam in the background. A display case lit up with muffins and cookies under pretentious names. Glinda's apron had the name of the establishment embroidered in gold thread: The Pink Bubble – Coffee & Charm.
It was a coffee shop.
Glinda, impassive, stood behind the register with the confidence of a queen taking her throne.
"Good morning, young people. Welcome to the battlefield."
War... it was the midday shift.
With the agility of a strategist on the offensive and the professional smile of a five-star hotel receptionist, Glinda moved behind the counter like a perfectly choreographed storm. Her fingers flew across the cash register screen while her clear, firm voice cut through the air filled with sugar, cheap perfume, and poorly curated playlists.
"Yes, my dearest, of course we can make a Frappuccino without coffee, milk, or sugar, but what you'd be left with is basically... ice," she said with a sweetness that barely concealed her irony.
"Can you do it anyway?"
"Obviously," Glinda replied with a withering white smile. "Here in The Bubble, limits don't exist."
Meanwhile, she turned slightly on her heels and murmured to the barista on duty:
"Make her a glass of ice with cinnamon on top. Call it the "Frostbite Edition."
Teenage laughter erupted in waves behind the counter, but Glinda didn't stop. Her gaze scanned the place, identifying threats, bottlenecks, slow baristas, and above all... the real enemy. Because beyond the teenage chaos, beyond the edible glitter and failed cryptocurrency payments, there was a deeper war. A silent war.
The war for recognition.
Glinda had set herself the goal of being employee of the month. Not out of vanity—well, maybe a little—but out of justice. Because she deserved it. Because she was efficient, brilliant, unwavering. Because Susan, from the 7 o'clock shift, couldn't win it again just for making milk hearts in lattes for the depressed lawyers in the morning. Susan with her perfect bob and podcast laugh. Susan who always carried a thermos "just in case the machine breaks down." Susan who never forgot to take out the trash.
No. Not this time. This time, the acrylic plaque next to the napkin dispenser would bear her name. Glinda Arduenna Upland. And with it, the sacred right to a discount on every espresso on the menu. Including the "Double Emerald," which cost the same as a meal.
So no, she wasn't going to budge an inch.
"Robbie!" she shouted, still smiling. "I need two rainbow frappés, a guilt-free vanilla wish, and the glitter latte for the lady with the anime sticker backpack!"
"I'm on it, boss!" Robbie replied, dripping with strawberry syrup.
Glinda twirled around like she'd just won a round on RuPaul's Drag Race. Her eyes sparkled with the adrenaline of success. It was the moment. Her moment. Not a drop spilled. Not a forgotten order. Not a misplaced smile.
Glinda continued to serve customers with the fervor of a woman in the middle of an election campaign. Every second counted, and her colleagues' incompetence was beginning to stand out like stains on a white dress. A customer without their straw, another confused with their order number, almond milk mistaken for oat milk... Chaos!
Frustrated—but without losing her institutional smile—Glinda abruptly turned to the checkout girl, a lazy teenager with the air of a tragic poetess, and placed the pink apron in her hands.
"Here. From now on, you're the cashier. Breathe. Read. Don't cry if someone yells at you. You'll be fine."
Without waiting for a reply, she launched herself into the fray.
With every step, she solved problems like a ruthless CEO cruising an industrial plant about to close. She straightened crooked signs. She reorganized the muffin section. She redirected backpack traffic. She covered an unsupervised child's vomit with napkins. Made two coffees. Gathered scattered spoons. Held up a handwritten complaint in Gothic script.
"Robbie!" she shouted without stopping. "What's up with the "Sweet Excess"?"
"We're out of caramel toppings!"
"Then make one up. Use honey, glitter, and confidence. And give it a new name!"
Robbie followed her around like an unpaid personal assistant, reporting to her in an urgent tone as if they worked for a Silicon Valley multinational:
"The piercing guy asked for change, but there are no coins!"
"Offer him an expired muffin and tell him it's a limited edition."
"The girl in the fluorescent pants asked if she can use the outlet even if she doesn't buy anything!"
"Tell her yes, but then make her Wi-Fi fail. Let her learn something about life."
Glinda walked like a coffee storm on invisible heels, her apron flying like a superhero cape. Finally, she stopped, staring at the most insidious enemy: a sticky stain on a corner table. The kind of stain that had survived three generations of cleaning products.
With a frown and a rag as her sword, she knelt before the table and began scrubbing with the intensity of a new mother removing crayons from a white wall. Every movement was a judgment. Every ounce of effort, a declaration of principles. She was going to win. That stain was going to lose.
And just as she was waging her epic little battle... three students sitting together by the window, all glued to their cell phones, looked up. One surreptitiously pointed at her. Another raised her eyebrows. The third chuckled.
"Is that her?" one murmured, bringing her cell phone closer to the others.
"I swear it is. Wait... look at this."
The three leaned in, whispering intensely. The screen glowed with a magnified image. The brightness of her eyes. The perfectly recognizable jaw. The determined expression. There was no doubt.
It was Glinda.
And although her full attention remained fixed on the final battle against that filthy, sticky blob, Glinda wasn't deaf. In the distance—or rather, right behind her—the high-pitched giggles and whispers of the teenagers began to seep through the cracks in her concentration. Her perfect nails scraped the surface fervently. Her forehead already had a drop of sweat. But her ears... were alert.
"I swear it's her?"
"Yes, yes, look! This is the photo with that princess... what was her name?"
“Look at the dress she wore to the gala two years ago!”
“And now she’s... cleaning tables.”
“No, this is from TikTok. Someone posted a video of her pouring coffee. Three hundred thousand views!”
Glinda swallowed.
The stain wouldn’t budge. She scrubbed harder. But in her mind, she wasn’t at the coffee shop anymore, but walking red carpets, at conferences with renowned architects, at diplomatic receptions, at inaugurations where she cut ribbons in front of flashing lights, surrounded by reporters and headlines describing her as “the golden heiress,” “the businesswoman of the future,” “the new face of clean politics.”
Glinda Arduenna Upland, the woman who had been on the cover of five magazines in the same month. Who had led an urban renewal project that nearly bankrupted the city. Who had stood in front of the legislative council in designer heels, denouncing corruption without flinching. That she had been photographed alongside the young monarch of an exotic country, in an act of rebellion and resistance.
And now she was bare-backed, scrubbing a sticky stain with a soaked rag in front of three teenagers who looked at her like a walking meme.
The murmur grew louder. They laughed. They passed around their cell phones. One of them pretended to wipe with an invisible napkin, mimicking her pose.
Glinda didn't turn around. She didn't raise her head. She maintained her composure with the rigidity of a professional ballet dancer. But inside... something creased. Not with sadness. Not entirely. It was something else. A burning discomfort. As if part of her—an old, shiny, golden part—still hoped all this was part of a documentary, a test of humility before her triumphant return.
But it wasn't.
Not that day. Not at that moment.
Glinda took a deep breath, stood up, wiped the napkin as if she'd just signed a peace treaty, and turned to continue her rounds... as if she hadn't heard a thing.
But she'd heard everything.
And finally... she did it!
Glinda managed to exterminate the damned stain.
With one last surgical movement, the cloth left the surface spotless. She slowly straightened, like a heroine emerging from the smoke after the final explosion. She contemplated her work with an almost childlike smile of satisfaction. For a second, she allowed herself to imagine epic music playing in the background, some triumphant anthem celebrating her silent victory.
But when she turned around... the teenagers were no longer looking at her.
Now they were engrossed in another video, something new, more shocking, more immediate. A celebrity had fallen at an awards ceremony, or someone had gotten their face tattooed for love. What did it matter? The world was spinning fast.
Glinda dropped the rag with a grimace, as if it suddenly stank. It fell into the bucket with a muffled, wet sound. She dusted her hands and walked back to the cash register, upright but with less momentum. Less fire. She continued giving instructions to the team, still impeccable in her tone, her posture, her smile... but something inside her had gone a little. Just a little.
And so the rest of the day passed.
Between poorly ordered coffees, lukewarm bills, vague complaints, and the occasional customer confused by the menu.
Finally, her shift came to an end.
Glinda took off her apron with the solemnity of a sacred cloak. She folded it with exaggerated care, as if even in that gesture she could maintain a shred of ceremonial dignity. And without looking back, she walked through the doors of the establishment like someone leaving a silent battlefield, carrying with her her polite smile... and an invisible stain that still weighed on her.
Like every day, Glinda got into her car without a word.
The seat still had a light lavender fragrance—an elegant attempt to hide the persistent dampness of the upholstery. She started the engine and merged into traffic with the mechanical dexterity of someone who no longer thinks much about where she's going, only how to get there.
Along the way, she made her usual stops. She bought some household products—detergent, toilet paper, scented candles that assured "inner peace." Then she stopped by her favorite Chinese restaurant and ordered her usual items without consulting the menu. She filled up her gas tank at the same station as always, where the attendant no longer bothered to say "good night."
As she drove silently through the city streets, she saw several establishments still closed, some still covered with plastic and signs reading "Repairs due to municipal work." Others were already unrecognizable, transformed into new promises of success: boutique gyms, minimalist bars, nameless art galleries.
She passed the old Shiz.Corp building.
A majestic structure, once synonymous with power and elegance. Now, covered by scaffolding and green tarps, it was being transformed to house several more discreet establishments. Her face no longer appeared on the billboard out front. No one pointed at her. No one remembered her.
She gripped the steering wheel tightly, but said nothing.
Finally, she arrived at her building. She got out of the car with two full bags and her purse hanging from her arm. She checked the mailbox—only advertising, a folded invoice, and a political pamphlet—and got into the elevator. The dim overhead light illuminated her face, revealing the barely concealed dark circles under her eyes, her still-flawless eyeliner, and that Glinda expression of hers: proud, yet quietly tired.
As she climbed upstairs, she took a deep breath. She could already picture it: the door to her apartment, the smell of Elphaba's incense, the warm lights on, her shoes discarded right where they always were. For a second, her expression changed, almost imperceptibly.
A small smile touched her lips.
It was home. Not the one she'd imagined. But hers.
With the weight of the bags weighing on her fingers and her back a little more battered than when she'd left that morning, Glinda struggled for a moment with the lock until the door gave way with a soft groan. She entered the dimly lit penthouse, barely lit by the distant reflection of the neighboring buildings. The air smelled of unlit incense and instant soup.
Just as she'd imagined, almost all the lights were off. Only the warm desk lamp next to Elphaba's computer glowed, surrounded by a chaos of handwritten and furiously underlined papers. Glinda approached with a spark of excitement, like someone opening an unexpected gift… only to notice they were someone else's academic papers, riddled with spelling mistakes and corrections.
She sighed and placed the bags on the counter, arranging some things on the floor with that kind of loving resignation with which one loves someone chaotic. Elphaba was nowhere in sight, but a faint blue light emanated from the end of the hallway, like an ominous sign.
When Glinda reached the half-open door of the study, the scene hit her like a shock of reality.
There was Elphaba: sitting on the couch, wrapped in a ridiculously large hooded robe, like some kind of washed-up cottagecore witch. To one side, a crumpled, half-empty bag of Cheetos. On her head, her trusty wireless earbuds. And in front of her, on the screen, shone the pixelated universe of The Legend of Grimmerie 3, with magical swords, floating horses, and a warrior princess leaping from rock to rock at a frantic pace.
Glinda was silent for a second, blinking, processing the scene.
It wasn't anger. Nor was it disappointment. It was something more complex. A kind of affectionate resignation with a hint of ancestral exasperation.
She crossed her arms.
"Really?"
Elphaba didn't hear her.
Glinda didn't even sigh. She just reached out and, with the precision of a seasoned avenger, pressed the console's off button.
The screen went black. A second later, Elphaba froze as if she'd been shot.
"WHAT?!" she exclaimed, taking off her headphones with theatrical violence. "I was about to defeat Skallrion's white dragon! I'd been climbing that cursed mountain for half an hour!"
"And you wanted me to cheer for you when I walked in with four bags and dislocated shoulders?" Glinda replied with an arched eyebrow, still composed.
Elphaba opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"I swear I was going to help you carry your things downstairs when I was done."
"Of course," Glinda replied, walking toward the kitchen, leaving a cloud of perfume and judgment floating in the air. When you defeated the white dragon, saved the shadow kingdom, and collected the seven essences of eternal balance, right?
Elphaba sank into the armchair.
"It was a side quest…"
"Everything on that console is secondary."
There was silence.
From the kitchen, the sound of bags being arranged on the shelves. From the armchair, the crunch of the last Cheetos.
And then, Glinda's softer voice, barely audible:
"I bought what we were missing. I also brought Chinese food."
A pause.
"From your place or mine?" Elphaba asked, no longer sarcastically, poking her head around the door.
"Mine, of course," Glinda said, feigning indignation. "Yours even puts cilantro in white rice."
Elphaba looked at her watch and felt a small shiver.
"Shit," she muttered to herself.
What had started as “a little distraction to clear my mind” had turned into a nearly four-hour immersion among pixelated wizards, digital dragons, and a dangerous number of Chetos. I didn't need to see Glinda's expression to know she was upset; I could feel her disappointment floating in the air, like a sour perfume.
Without a word, Elphaba hurried to clean the low living room table, sweeping crumbs with her hand and piling crumpled papers in a corner as if doing so could turn back the clock. Just then, Glinda appeared with the bag of Chinese food and her impeccable ability to carry everything with one hand while the other corrected details of the world.
The two of them sat in silence at the makeshift table. Elphaba looked at her out of the corner of her eye like a guilty dog, testing the waters. Glinda, for her part, opened the containers with almost surgical elegance, without saying a word.
Searching for an escape route, Elphaba opened her mouth.
"So... how was your day?"
Glinda took a second, maybe two, to answer. Elphaba felt like an eternity passed.
"Tiring. But... good." A pause. "A customer started crying because we made her coffee wrong and 'no one ever listens to her anymore.' I had to give her a croissant as if it were an emotional sedative." And then she calmed down.
"Wow," Elphaba murmured, nodding with a lopsided smile. "Is that going in the day's report or just the war anecdotes?"
Glinda gave a short laugh and rolled her eyes.
"And you? Did you manage to write anything?"
Elphaba shrugged, stirring the noodles with her chopsticks.
"A little. I had a good morning, although afterward... well, I got distracted. But I corrected all the clients' essays. I think I can now detect plagiarism by smell."
Glinda nodded silently. For a while they ate peacefully, the sound of the noodles mingling with the rain that was beginning to beat against the penthouse windows. It was a warm night, like so many others.
And then, without meaning to, the inevitable happened.
"You know I hate it when you play on that console," Glinda said, without raising her voice.
"And I hate that you hate that," Elphaba replied, almost automatically. "It's my way of relaxing."
"Your way of relaxing lasts four hours and mutes the TV. And don't even get me started on the volume."
"I had my headphones on!"
"But you still sing the songs!"
Elphaba paused dramatically, her chopstick in the air.
"I don't sing. I hum."
"With lyrics!"
"That doesn't count as lyrics if it's in made-up Elvish."
Glinda rested her elbows on the table and looked at her with that expression that mixed love and judgment, like an irritated saint.
"So why don't you write in Elvish then, since you're so inspired?"
"Because no one would publish me."
"Exactly!"
They were silent for a second. Then, without transition, they both started laughing.
It wasn't a fight. It was the kind of cyclical, absurd argument that happens in every couple that's been together long enough to fight comfortably. Like a familiar routine, repeated with affection rather than anger.
Elphaba sighed.
"Besides, the console was a gift from your father."
"My father also gave us a robot vacuum cleaner that hates cats! Doesn't mean we have to use it."
"We can trade," Elphaba said, feigning hope. "I play, and you train the robot not to attack the animal world."
"And who trains you not to attack my patience? And besides..." Glinda continued, now with the drive of someone who has been holding back for weeks. "You said you were going to take the clothes out of the washing machine this morning."
"I took them out."
"You left them in a heap on the dining room table."
"But dry!"
"Dry isn't folded. Or tidy. Or sorted by type. Or..."
"What are you now? The Ministry of Domestic Order?"
Glinda let out a theatrical sigh, one that was as much practiced as intentional. "I'm just saying that if we're going to live together for real, with routine, a future, a mortgage, hypothetical cats, and arguments about dishes, you can't live in the functional chaos of a college student."
"Are you regretting committing to me?"
"No!" Glinda responded immediately, throwing up her hands. "It's just that sometimes... you're frustrating."
Elphaba looked at her, narrowing her eyes.
"Frustrating on what level? On the "leaves the wet sponge on the sink" scale or the "puts hot things down without a dishcloth and ruins the new table" scale?"
"A mix of both. With a touch of "wakes me up at three in the morning looking for her notebook."
"I needed it! I had an idea!"
"It was a dream about a duck who spoke Latin!"
"And it was great!"
The two looked at each other. For a second, you could see they wanted to smile. But pride was still playing chess with her eyebrows.
Glinda crossed her arms.
"And you want to talk about frustrations? Because I have my own, you know?"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, suspicious.
"Yes?"
"Yes."
There was a brief silence. And then Glinda, in a studiedly casual tone, said:
"We don't fuck as much as we used to."
Elphaba choked on her rice. She coughed, took a drink of water. Then she looked at her, her eyes wide open.
"What?"
"I said it," Glinda insisted, like someone throwing a bomb without releasing the detonator. "We don't fuck as much as we used to. At least not since we finished the trip. And we've talked about it. Well, I mentioned it. Well, I hinted."
"I didn't remember any hints."
"And what do you think I meant when I said I 'missed the Elphaba from the road'?"
"I thought we were talking about the adventurous version of you. The one who climbed on rooftops and ate stolen cereal!"
"I was also talking about the one who tied me to the back of the bed!"
Elphaba put a hand to her face.
"Oh my God." Are we having this conversation over rice and soy sauce?
"It's the only time I can find to do it! When you're not playing, sleeping, or writing!"
"Then put it in writing! Send me an official memo!"
"I'll send it to you with drawings if you want!"
Elphaba laughed, despite herself. She sank back against the couch and looked at her with a resigned smile.
"Look. I miss you too. You. The road-trip version of you who ate donuts in your underwear and sang Bonnie Tyler while licking my back."
Glinda was silent for a moment. Then she looked down with a slight blush.
"Was that romantic or an accusation?"
"Both. I guess."
"So what do we do?"
"What all mature, functional couples do," Elphaba replied, stretching out her arms. "We fight over small things. We admit we're tired." We complain about our libidos like a charger that stopped working. And then…
Silence. Then, a pause.
Elphaba knew it as soon as Glinda narrowed her eyes. That subtle gesture that preceded the storm. Or not the storm, exactly, but something worse: the cyclical conversation. The emotional spiral of each month. The stone they both stumbled over again and again with a kind of almost poetic dignity.
"So?" Glinda said, casually. "Did you think more about…?"
Elphaba didn't even need her to finish the sentence. It was already there. Again. The cursed subject.
"The wedding?" she said, her voice soft, almost with tender resignation.
Glinda leaned back on the sofa and elegantly crossed her legs, as if that gave her more moral strength. She didn't need more. Elphaba could already feel the pressure behind her eyes.
"I'm just saying," Glinda began, her tone slowly eroding with diplomacy, "if we keep saying 'when we're calmer,' 'when we have time,' 'when everything's in place,' we'll end up doing it with canes and assisted oxygen. And we won't even be able to get down the aisle without help."
"I already told you we can get married in a wheelchair with a punk nurse carrying the rings. It sounds cooler, really," Elphaba replied with a half smile, as if trying to escape with sarcasm.
But Glinda didn't smile.
"I don't find it funny."
Elphaba sighed. She rested her chopsticks on the cardboard box and rubbed her face with both hands, as if she could erase the tension.
"Glin... we already had this conversation."
"So what do you want me to do? Stop feeling like it?"
—No, but... we always end up at the same point. We don't have a place yet, we don't have the money we'd like to do it properly, you're not sure if you want to invite your parents together or separately, and I don't even know if I want to wear white or black. And don't you remember that the last time we talked about this, you ended up crying because you imagined your aunt muttering, "Oh, poor thing, she married a communist writer"?
—Because THAT AUNT EXISTS!
Elphaba looked at her. So did Glinda. They both remained silent for a second and then burst out laughing.
—Still,—Glinda continued, calmer but with that emotional tenacity that made her fearsome—it seems unfair to me that every time we bring up the subject, you make a joke, I get angry, you blame yourself, and we end up hugging without resolving anything. I love ending up hugging, but I don't like feeling like it's a way of avoiding what hurts.
That was a direct blow. Not hard. But deep. Elphaba swallowed, lowered her gaze for a moment, and then nodded slowly.
"You're right."
"I always am," Glinda said, with a very small smile.
"And that scares me."
"Why?"
Elphaba paused for a second, hesitating. Then she looked at her honestly.
"Because... every time I think about the wedding, every possible version comes to mind. The beautiful, the disastrous, the magical, the public, the ridiculous. And in all of them, you're there, looking at me with those eyes that always expect the best from me. And I... I don't always feel like I'm capable of giving it to you."
Glinda fell silent. There was no anger there, no sadness. Just an emptiness that ached to be honest.
"What if it's not about giving your best?" she asked, her voice softer. "What if it's just about giving to each other?"
Elphaba looked at her. Glinda reached across the table and Elphaba took it, as if it were the first time she'd done so.
"We don't have to have everything figured out. We don't have to make a spectacle or invite the whole damn town. We can get married on this couch if you want, with the leftover Chinese rice and the neighbor's cat as witnesses."
"Or with your father's robot vacuum cleaner."
"Even him!"
They both smiled, and for a moment they seemed closer. Not to resolving the issue, perhaps, but to being able to inhabit it together, without running away from it so much.
Without another word, Glinda snuggled into Elphaba's shoulder with the gentleness of someone who has done this a thousand times and yet still needs it. Elphaba felt her weight, the warmth of her cheek against her collarbone, and put an arm around her, slowly stroking her arm with her fingertips. That touch, almost maternal, was her way of saying, "I heard you, I feel you, I didn't leave."
"We don't have to talk about it today if you don't want to," Glinda said in a whisper, as if afraid to break the moment. "But... promise me we'll do it. Soon."
Elphaba didn't respond right away. She stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed on an invisible point, as if searching the air for an answer that wouldn't feel like a lie. Glinda didn't move. She simply waited.
And then Elphaba turned her face, looked down at her, and, in an almost husky voice, said it:
"I promise."
Glinda didn't smile, but she nodded slightly, as if the promise had hit her just right. After a few more seconds like that, in that shared refuge, she sat up.
"I have to wash my apron for tomorrow," she announced, in that tone that was a mixture of duty and domestic coquettishness that characterized her. "And today it's your turn to do the dishes, by the way."
She moved away from the armchair naturally, picking up the wrinkled apron from the back of a chair, as if this transition from promise to detergent were a logical movement in her daily choreography.
Elphaba watched her walk toward the laundry room. The light from the hallway outlined her in silhouette, that figure she knew as well as her own reflection, yet which, nevertheless, she felt increasingly distant. Not because Glinda was moving away. Not because love had weakened. But because the shadow of her own indecision was isolating her, as if enclosing her in a fishbowl from which she could only gaze.
The woman she loved.
The woman who made her world revolve.
The woman to whom she had promised a future.
And yet, she continued to give him an uncertain present. Too uncertain. Too extended.
Guilt crept up his chest like ivy. Silent, suffocating. He couldn't go on like this.
Elphaba stood up. She left her chopsticks on the table and walked over to the kitchen. Not for the dishes. Not out of duty.
Out of impulse. Out of necessity.
She had to do something.
Something.
Something.
He saw her back turned, wiping her apron with almost absurd delicacy. As if everything depended on it.
And for a second, he wanted to hug her from behind and say, "Let's get married tomorrow, even if it's in the BDSM club bathroom with Fiyero as the minister and that butler as the witness."
But he didn't. Not yet.
He just leaned against the doorframe, silent, and thought about everything he couldn't keep putting off.
And although she didn't say it that night, something stirred inside her.
Something that wouldn't stop.
Later that night, the steam from the bathroom still filtered through the hallway, and Glinda came out drying her hair with a small towel, wrapped in her satin robe. She walked barefoot, feeling the coolness of the night on her still-damp skin, her body tired, her thoughts heavy. The day had been long, like all of them lately, and all she wanted to do was collapse into bed, maybe discuss in low voices what time they would wake up tomorrow, and fall asleep without thinking too much about anything.
As she walked toward the bedroom, she imagined finding Elphaba as usual: already between the sheets, her legs crossed under the fabric, the warm light of the bedside lamp on, the book in her hands, and that look on her face that seemed to say, "Nothing happened here." It was an unspoken custom between them: when they argued, Elphaba would retreat into her pages, not out of indifference, but because she didn't know how to continue talking without saying something that would hurt more.
But this time, the room was empty.
Glinda stopped dead in her tracks. The quilt was barely wrinkled, still devoid of human warmth. The lamp was on, yes, but no one was there. The towel slipped from her hand, as if the act of drying herself had lost meaning.
"Elphaba...?" she whispered, barely, more out of habit than necessity.
And then, she felt a presence behind her.
A hand.
A breath.
A whisper.
"I'm not going to hide this time."
The voice was so soft, so low, that for a second she thought she'd imagined it. But she was there. Elphaba. Inches from her body. With that tone she only used when her defenses fell away.
Glinda stood still, her heart pounding on her lips. She said nothing. She couldn't.
Then, with almost reverential slowness, Elphaba brought her hands to Glinda's shoulders and, without taking her face from her ear, undid the knot of the robe. The fabric fell over Glinda's body with a sigh, gliding as if she too were tired.
Elphaba circled her from behind, unhurriedly, with a gentleness that Glinda missed, yes... but even more so: that she longed for, like one longs for the air after a storm.
"Trust me... this time, I will guide you," she whispered, barely audible, as she slipped a satin mask over Glinda's eyes.
Glinda didn't resist. She closed her eyes even before the mask covered them. Something inside her, something that had been silent for weeks, awoke. It wasn't desire. Or not just desire. It was that other thing. That silent complicity that existed only between them. That way of saying, "I'm sorry, I see you, I want to stay."
Elphaba took her hand and guided her with slow steps to the edge of the bed. Glinda, now naked and blind, let herself be led. As if in that moment it were easier for her to trust Elphaba than herself.
The sheet was warm. The mattress yielded under her weight with a welcoming whisper. She felt Elphaba's fingertips brush her back, her waist, her thighs. Every movement was measured, as if she didn't want to possess her, but simply... rediscover her.
Glinda sighed. She felt all the tension of the night, of the arguments, of the repeated days, evaporate from her body like steam from a bathroom.
Elphaba leaned over her, still saying nothing. Glinda's body, lying on the bed, seemed like a blank page. The mask still covered his eyes, but his mouth was half-open, as if he were breathing through it everything he dared not name. His chest rose and fell in a slow, expectant rhythm. Vulnerable. Beautiful.
The dim light from the nightstand played on her skin as if spying on her, revealing in every curve a sweet weariness, a surrender. Elphaba rested one knee on the bed and then the other, moving closer without yet touching her, just observing the contours of the woman she loved as if for the first time. There was something in that silence that wasn't cold or distant. It was dense, contained, like a hug that hadn't yet been given, but was already decided.
"You're beautiful," she murmured finally, as if it were a secret, as if she were afraid to break the moment with something so simple and true.
Glinda didn't respond, but a slight tremor ran through her belly.
Elphaba finally touched her. First her arm, barely with her fingertips. Then her collarbone. Then a slow run along the curve of her waist. It wasn't an urgent caress. It was an acknowledgment. A confirmation that she was still there. That they were both still there. After all.
"I miss you," Elphaba said, her voice breaking, as if those two words had torn something deep inside her.
Glinda swallowed. She opened her lips to respond, but only managed to utter a whisper:
"I'm here."
That was the key.
Elphaba lay down beside her, and without removing the mask, kissed her. Not on the mouth yet, but on the shoulder. Then on the neck. Then behind the ear. Each kiss was an apology and a promise. And also a question. Are we still here? Do you still love me? Will you still leave me?
Glinda turned her face toward her, still blind, but no longer afraid. Elphaba brought her lips to hers and this time she kissed her. A deep, long kiss that met them in the middle. Because it wasn't Elphaba kissing Glinda. Nor Glinda Elphaba. It was something bigger than both of them. It was what they had built and what they refused to lose.
Their bodies sought each other out as if in a choreography learned by the soul. Elphaba's hands explored slowly, lingering where Glinda's body arched, where her sigh deepened, where her trembling responded. There was no rush, no direction, only an urgency to reconnect, to feel each other, to remember that this warmth, this way they fit together, hadn't gone away. She had only been waiting for the right moment.
Glinda slid a hand down Elphaba's back, tracing an imaginary line to her waist with her fingernail, pulling her towards her. And then, without any coordination needed, they fused. Skin to skin. Breath to breath. There were no words for a while, only mingling breaths, suppressed moans, names murmured in each ear like prayers. “Glinda…” “Elphaba…”
Elphaba paused for a moment, her face buried in Glinda's neck, breathing in her scent, which was the same as always: a mix of floral cream and something warm that only she possessed. Her heart felt racing, as if each beat were a plea. As if that night, in that bed, she was rediscovering the meaning of the word home.
Glinda, still blindfolded, smiled.
“What's wrong?” she whispered.
“Nothing,” Elphaba replied, kissing her chest with a tenderness that tore at her soul. “Everything.”
Glinda slowly removed the mask. She wanted to see her. Really see her. And when she did, when their eyes met, it wasn't passion that ignited the air between them, but something deeper. It was recognition. It was the echo of all the days they had survived. And the real desire to continue adding more.
Elphaba lowered her gaze, suddenly shy, as if ashamed to be so naked before her, not in body, but in soul. But Glinda took her face in her hands and lifted it with undeniable sweetness.
"Don't go again," she begged, her voice breaking.
"I never left," Elphaba whispered.
And she kissed her. And this time the kiss was slow but unbridled, like a river that finally finds its course. They made love without haste, without rules, without demonstrating anything more than what they already knew: that it was still just the two of them against all odds. That amidst the chaos, the uncertainty, the arguments, and the unwashed dishes, they were still capable of finding each other again in the darkness. Again and again.
The warmth between them hadn't completely subsided. It was still there, vibrating between their pressed bodies, in the small gestures that no longer sought to provoke, but to soothe, to anchor. The room smelled of skin, sweat, rumpled sheets, and a story that didn't need to be explained. Glinda had one arm wrapped around Elphaba, her cheek resting on her chest, her lips parted, exhausted. Her breathing still held a slight tremor that slowed to the rhythm of her exhaustion.
Elphaba, on the other hand, wasn't sleeping. She stared at the ceiling with her eyes open, her mind awake, but calm. One of her hands slid gently down Glinda's back, drawing invisible shapes that had no shape or purpose other than to touch her. To feel that she was still there. That it wasn't a dream.
"Glinda..." she whispered finally, very close to her ear, barely moving her lips.
Glinda groaned in response. She didn't open her eyes.
"Tomorrow... I want to go out to dinner." Elphaba said, her voice soft, almost childlike, as if she were making a difficult request. As if she didn't know if she had the right to do so.
Glinda's body didn't move, but her lips curved slightly in a wry smile.
"I work full shifts..." she murmured without opening her eyes, as if she'd been repeating that phrase in her head for weeks. "Remember? Coffee at 7. Closing at 8. Cleaning until 9. Die after."
Elphaba smiled, her voice still warm.
"Ask someone to cover for you an hour early. It doesn't have to be somewhere fancy... but something nice. Just us. I want to see you in a dress... and no apron."
Glinda sighed, shifting slightly in the sheets. She seemed to want to argue, but her body no longer held the strength.
"And lose the Employee of the Month award again... is that what you want?"
"Definitely," Elphaba replied, lowering her head to kiss her forehead. "I can make you one. With glitter. And dubious spelling."
"Sounds tempting..." Glinda murmured, but she was already trailing off, the words dragged by sleep. She made a final effort to say, "But only if you wear pants and don't wear that green jacket that looks like a depressed French lawyer's coat."
"I promise to consider it," Elphaba whispered.
Glinda didn't reply. Her breathing became heavier, deeper. She'd let her guard down completely. Like a small animal that knows it's safe.
Elphaba hugged her tighter, finally closed her eyes, and for a few seconds, allowed herself something she didn't always grant herself: hope. Because she didn't need to figure everything out. Sometimes dinner was enough. An excuse to look at herself from outside the world, with borrowed dresses and dim lights. It was enough to have something to look forward to.
And then she knew, as clearly as she had known the first day she saw her:
It was time for things to start moving forward.
The alarm clock rang at 7:00 sharp, like an alarm that not only marked the start of the day, but also the beginning of the precise choreography they had both perfected over time. Glinda let out an almost theatrical groan, turning in bed with a drawl that sounded like a political protest.
"Who decided civilization had to start before nine?" "She murmured, burying her head under the pillow.
Elphaba didn't respond, as always. She just sat on the edge of the bed, still half asleep, scratching her neck and searching for her slippers with her toes. Each had her role in this dance: Elphaba was in charge of moving first, silent, practical, functional. Glinda, on the other hand, demanded a ritual of protest before rejoining society.
In the bathroom, they took turns with almost military precision. One showered, the other brushed her teeth. Steam filled the mirror, voices echoed from behind the shower curtain, commenting on the weather, some news on her cell phone, or simply that the "good" towel had mysteriously disappeared again.
"Did you use my vanilla conditioner again?" Glinda asked, peering from the doorway while detangling her hair.
"No," Elphaba lied effortlessly, finishing making the coffee.
When Glinda finally occupied the bathroom, she did so like an artist with her stage. Twenty minutes dedicated to the transformation: hair, makeup, perfectly ironed uniform. According to her, even serving lattes required "amazing" looks, because you never knew if a television producer or an exiled millionaire might walk into the café and offer her her dream destination.
Meanwhile, Elphaba, already dressed in jeans, an old black T-shirt, her hair still damp, was preparing breakfast. Toast, scrambled eggs, two cups of coffee. One with vegan milk and cinnamon—for Glinda—and one as dark and bitter as Elphaba's soul, as Glinda would say every morning. They ate breakfast at the kitchen counter, sitting side by side, with the television on silently, barely illuminating the room with its absurd headlines.
"So... Do you want me to leave early today?" Glinda asked, chewing absentmindedly.
"Yes, if you can..." Elphaba replied without looking at her, stirring her coffee with her spoon while she thought about it. "But if you can't, that's okay. Honestly."
Glinda left it hanging. Neither yes nor no. Just a fleeting smile, and then the sound of cutlery clinking against the plate.
Finally, Glinda went to get her work apron, put her makeup in her bag, and said goodbye with a quick kiss that lasted a little longer than usual, as if she wanted to burden him with a silent promise. Elphaba walked her to the door, as always.
"Have a good shift," she said.
"And you have a good day of 'boring, depressing college papers,'" Glinda replied, waving her hand before disappearing downstairs.
Elphaba closed the door and leaned against it for a few seconds. The apartment fell silent. Only the hum of the refrigerator and the clock marking the harmless passage of time.
She sighed. She turned on his laptop and prepared to delve into overdue academic reports, unanswered emails, and the endless bureaucratic responsibilities that reminded him she wasn't as free as she'd thought when he launched into writing his magnum opus.
The day was beginning. Again.
And although everything felt routine, mechanical, even repetitive… something was different. Something small, almost imperceptible. Like a crack through which a new light began to filter.
The day moved forward with the inevitable tide of responsibilities. At the café, Glinda entered like a general leading her troops: the new waiter forgot the orders again, the espresso machine jammed every third time, and a customer dropped his drink on the barely polished table. But she kept order with her steely smile and the efficiency of someone who can't afford to fail.
"Reyes, you're taking my last hour, okay?" she said to the manager on duty, subtly sliding two tickets to a concert he'd wanted to go to weeks ago.
"Again?" he grumbled, but Glinda was already patting him on the shoulder.
"I owe you three. And I have a good memory," she winked.
She had survived another day. Not because it was easy. It never was. But today more than ever, she did it for Elphaba.
Meanwhile, across town, Elphaba had managed to finish the reports she'd been putting off for days. She sent them to her "clients" with a precise—and slightly impatient—note begging them to read carefully and return the corrections before the final submission to their assigned teachers. She closed her laptop, took off her glasses, and rested her forehead on the table for a second, as if struggling to take the next step.
But she didn't allow herself to stop.
That afternoon, after eating something simple—toast, tea, an apple—she picked up her phone and started searching. She didn't want the most expensive restaurant, nor one with stars or panoramic views. She wanted something comfortable, with warm lighting, cloth tablecloths, and good background music. Something where she could look another in the eye without feeling watched. Finally, she found an option. A small trattoria in the East Village, with good reviews, and just two spots available that night. She confirmed the reservation in her friendliest voice. She hung up. She smiled, though she didn't know exactly why.
Then she tried to write.
She opened the file in her new book—the one she hadn't touched in days—and stared at the blinking white cursor. She typed a line. Erased. She typed another. Erased that one too. She pondered, her elbows on the table, until something moved inside her. It wasn't much. Just one word. Then another. A few survived the afternoon. But more than on other days. It was something.
When the clock struck five, Elphaba lit a candle, tidied up the kitchen, and went to change. She didn't dress up too much. But she chose a blouse she knew Glinda liked, put on perfume—the kind she only wore on special occasions—and sat in the armchair to wait for her, with an open book she wasn't really reading.
At six twenty-three, she heard the key in the lock.
The door opened, and there she was. Glinda came in, taking off her scarf, her cheek slightly flushed from the wind and her hair a little tousled. She barely crossed the threshold when she stopped.
"Did you get ready?" she asked with a soft smile.
Elphaba slowly closed her book.
"A little," she said.
"I promised too, didn't I?"
Glinda placed her purse on the table, took off her coat, and crossed the room to her. She bent down beside the armchair and stroked her knee, looking her up and down with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
"Do I have time for a quick shower before dinner?" she asked.
"Yes," Elphaba replied, tenderly brushing a strand of hair away from her face. "But make it quick. The place is nice... I wouldn't want to lose my reservation."
"Did I tell you you look beautiful?" Glinda whispered.
"One more time and I'll believe it," Elphaba replied, lowering her gaze to hide her smile.
Glinda stood up and walked to the bathroom, unbuttoning her shirt in the hallway. Elphaba watched her disappear through the half-open door and took a deep breath.
They had survived another day. And tonight, finally, wouldn't be like the others.
In less than an hour, they arrived at the restaurant.
Elphaba drove, focused on the traffic, while Glinda barely touched up her lip gloss with a small compact mirror. It wasn't much, but even in the smallest gestures, there was something almost cinematic about her that night. An air of lightness, as if the weight of the days hadn't fully reached her, or perhaps she'd only shaken it off with her perfume.
Elphaba glanced at her at a stoplight.
"You look beautiful," she said without raising her voice.
Glinda smiled, still looking at herself.
"I know," she replied, then lowered the mirror and winked at him. "But thanks for confirming it."
The place was small, warm, with dim lighting and tables separated by wooden screens. A jazz quartet played softly in the background. The waitress greeted them with a smile and led them to a table by a window with cream-colored curtains. They sat down. Elphaba draped her coat over the back of the chair. Glinda elegantly crossed her legs. Elphaba looked at her as if she still couldn't quite believe she was there with her, like that, in peace.
"Do you like it?" she asked.
"I love it. It's... like a secret place. But without the dampness of secret places."
They looked over the menu. Glinda flipped through it like someone flipping through a magazine she already knew by heart.
"I'm going to order the vegan risotto," she announced decisively.
"Again?" Elphaba raised an eyebrow. "Don't you get tired of eating refined grass?"
"Someone has to maintain balance in this couple," Glinda said, laying down the menu. "If you're going to order meat wrapped in meat with meat sauce, I'll counterbalance it with dignity and fiber."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"Take it as you wish. But don't complain when you're ten years younger."
"I don't care as long as I live them with you."
That silenced her. Just for a second. Then she looked down and smiled, as if trying to hide the fact that the phrase had struck a deeper note than expected.
"Okay, you beat me to it," she murmured.
They argued over the drink. Glinda wanted wine. Elphaba remembered she had been driving. Glinda promised she would only have one glass. Elphaba countered that one glass for Glinda was three in the real world. Glinda raised her hands, graciously surrendered, and they ordered mint lemonade. Elphaba said she felt like she was at a teenage sleepover. Glinda replied that it made her want to get drunk even more.
They laughed. The waiter discreetly took her order and left.
They were alone.
For the first time in a long time, there was no rush. Not a clock ticking. Not a single unanswered message. Just them, at a table for two, with the soft echo of a saxophone somewhere in the room.
"How was your day?" Elphaba asked, turning the glass between her fingers.
"Survival," Glinda replied, resting her chin on her hand. "Although I gained an hour off today. And five new enemies. And yours?"
"I finished the reports. I managed not to hit the wall. I made a reservation. And I wrote a sentence that I didn't erase."
Glinda raised her eyebrows, interested.
"What sentence?"
"I'm not going to tell you yet."
"Why not?"
"Because I want her to survive another day."
Glinda nodded, as if understanding something deeper there. She liked it when Elphaba allowed herself those little mysteries. It was like seeing a crack in an ancient wall that let in light.
"And you really didn't mind that it wasn't the most expensive restaurant?"
"Elphaba," she said with a slow smile. "I'm sitting across from you. You're looking at me like I have stars in my hair. What more luxury do you want than that?"
Elphaba didn't answer. She just looked at her. And that look said more than any line in her books.
"When we get home..." Glinda said, lowering her voice slightly. "I want no more distractions. No phones. No TV shows. No excuses. Just you. And me."
"I think it's an excellent plan," Elphaba said, without looking away.
Glinda reached across the table and brushed her fingers.
"I mean it. Sometimes I feel like we get lost in the routine. That we overlook what's right in front of us. But when I look at you now, I realize that nothing else matters. You're still the only thing I want to see at the end of the day."
Elphaba squeezed her hand.
"It's still us. Against the world."
"And the world is losing," Glinda said, laughing softly.
At that moment, the waiter brought the food. But it didn't matter. The center of the table wasn't the plates. It was that silent current that united them through the tablecloth. That unspoken agreement, reinforced once again, like an invisible vow renewed in their daily lives: our relationship continues.
While they ate, amid the usual back-and-forth of jokes and comments about the taste of the risotto ("too much lemon, as always," according to Glinda), Elphaba remained silent for a few seconds, moving her food around with her fork. She looked at her plate, then at Glinda, then back at her plate. She took a deep breath. And she spoke:
"Today..." she began, as if the word weighed more heavily on her than it should have. "I saw something on the internet today. A place. For... for the wedding."
Glinda placed her fork on her plate. Slowly. Not as if she were surprised, but as if something inside her silently aligned. Her face lit up with that perfect blend of suppressed emotion, sweetness, and tenderness that always, always managed to melt Elphaba.
"Really?" —she said in a soft, hopeful voice, as if she were afraid of breaking the moment if she spoke too loudly.
"Yes, but it's not... it's not at all certain, okay?" Elphaba hastened to clarify, blushing a little. "I just saw it. It caught my attention. But... it's more than I've done in months."
Glinda didn't say anything at first. She just looked at him. That kind of look that didn't demand more, that didn't ask for explanations, that didn't judge. One of those looks that sustain.
"Elphie..." she said in that soft voice she reserved only for herself. "It doesn't have to be the best place in the world. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be with you."
And that was that. Elphaba lowered her gaze and nodded, a barely perceptible nod. Because she knew. She'd always known it. But still, the doubts didn't completely disappear.
They weren't doubts about Glinda. Never. They were other ones. The ones that came from beneath, like a current that sometimes turns on without warning. What if it wasn't enough? What if she couldn't build the future they both deserved? What if something went wrong?
Planning an entire life wasn't a simple task. It required more than love. It required perseverance, courage, dedication. And yet, with all the possible storms on the horizon, there was one certainty that wouldn't budge: if she was going to do it, it would be with Glinda.
Always with Glinda.
Glinda, for her part, didn't need Elphaba to say it out loud. She understood. She knew that this confession—looking at a place on the internet—was much bigger than it seemed. Because she knew Elphaba's silences. She knew how to read them like someone reading an ancient map. And what was there, beneath the shyness, was love. Commitment. A step, however shaky, toward the future they both dreamed of.
"I know it scares you," Glinda said, now with unwavering calm. "And I'm not going to lie to you, it scares me sometimes, too." But that doesn't mean we can't do it. It just means it's worth it. And that we're going to do it together.
Elphaba looked up. There were no tears. But there was something deeper: that silent emotion that makes you breathe differently.
"I don't want to disappoint you," she said simply.
"You can't," Glinda replied, taking her hand across the table. "Because you're not alone."
And they weren't. Not anymore. Not like before. The old wounds, the arguments of the past, the distance that once separated them... all of that was behind them. Now they were two. Not just in the photos or on papers. In the difficult decisions. In the nights without answers. In the plans they still didn't know how to implement.
And that night, without grandiloquent promises or theatrical gestures, they reaffirmed something much more valuable: their will. The desire to build. To sustain. To be.
Because when life gets difficult—and it undoubtedly would—there is no better refuge than a shared table, an outstretched hand, and the absolute certainty that, no matter what, they had each other.
For a moment, Elphaba remained silent, watching as Glinda's hand crossed the table and rested, open, in front of hers. It wasn't a demand. It wasn't a plea. It was an invitation. An extended promise.
Glinda looked at her with that tenderness that was so hers, so soothing, so devastating in its sweetness. That way of looking at her as if she understood her even in the places where Elphaba didn't understand herself.
"I want you to promise me something," Glinda said softly, without breaking the intimacy of the moment, as if she were saying it just for her, in a corner outside of time. "Promise me that you won't give up. On anything. On the book... on the wedding... even on me."
Elphaba felt her heart sink a little. Not from fear. But from the weight and courage of those words. Glinda didn't say it as a demand. She said it as someone who knew her inside out, who had seen her fall and rebuild, who had been there when there was nothing left but rubble... and love.
"Because you never did," Glinda continued, her smile soft, her eyes moist with emotion. "Because even though I know that sometimes you feel like you can't, that you don't know how... you always kept going. You always went one step further."
Elphaba looked down at her trembling fingers, which slowly reached out and intertwined with Glinda's. Her skin was warm, soft, familiar. Like a home. A home she never thought she deserved.
"Not every day is going to be perfect," Glinda murmured, barely a whisper between them. But... if we can look into each other's eyes and continue choosing each other, even on the bad days, even when we don't know what the hell we're doing... that's what matters, right?
Elphaba nodded. She couldn't speak yet. There was a lump in her throat that wouldn't let her. She just held that hand like a rope in the middle of the ocean.
"We've come so far," Glinda said. "And we have no idea how much further we have, or what it will be like. But if we walk it together..."
She broke off. There was no need to finish the sentence. They both knew.
Maybe that was their "happily ever after." Not the promise of a flawless destination, without wounds, without stumbles. Not a fairy tale with a golden ending. But something braver: the daily decision to keep going. The certainty that no matter what happens, they would seek it together. That in every doubt, in every fear, in every uncertain step, one would be the other's beacon.
And in that warm restaurant, with empty plates and open hearts, Elphaba squeezed Glinda's hand and finally spoke.
"I promise you. Even if it's hard. Even if I fall. Even if sometimes I don't know how. I promise you."
Glinda smiled, and for a moment—just a moment—it seemed as if the world had stopped. That everything was that moment. That gesture. That promise.
And then, unhurriedly, they continued talking. About flowers, about horrible wedding cakes, about absurd book names and songs for the first dance. They laughed, mocked each other, argued about who had the best musical taste. And everything, absolutely everything, sounded like a beginning. Like a silent pact of love that was no longer afraid to be named.
And while that "perfect" night—in its own imperfect way—continued, with shared laughter, clasped hands, and promises sealed in whispers... in another part of the city, this tale was preparing to take a turn.
One that its protagonists couldn't yet imagine.
In a small political campaign center, lit by cold lamps and lit screens, a man in a suit sat alone in his office. The distant murmur of keyboards and phones barely penetrated the half-open door. In front of him, a cell phone vibrated softly on the desk.
The screen displayed a recent Ozmopolitan post. A casual photo, taken by an enthusiastic teenager in a downtown coffee shop. In the image, among other blurred faces and paper cups, a woman could clearly be seen from behind, cleaning a table.
Glinda.
Neither the description nor the comments seemed to matter to the man. His gaze remained fixed on her. He pursed his lips. He zoomed in. Yes. Without a doubt. She was the one they were looking for.
And although Glinda didn't know it yet... her name was about to enter the game again.
Notes:
And we begin a new season! I know this episode was pretty much about everyday life, but I wanted to show what their daily life was like and their struggle to build a life together before starting the plot of this season, which I warn you won't be as much about crazy adventures as the previous one, but more about overcoming the challenges of building this life together. I promise the updates will be more frequent than last time since it's a pretty long season, so look for updates soon.
Chapter 36: NEEDED SOMEONE TO BELIEVE IN
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Things I Don’t Get (Yet)”
They say the world has roads,
like threads sewn neat on perfect maps,
with signs and stops and tidy loads,
and someone waiting, perhaps.
But mine’s a crack in broken stone,
it shifts beneath my tread—
it bends when I’m alone,
and walks me where I dread.
They talk about “opportunity”
like doors that gleam and shine.
But reaching out feels strange to me—
what if the lock is mine?
Change can shout like thunder
and flash across the sky.
Or bloom in silent wonder
and never tell me why.
I don’t want to be the same.
I don’t quite want to stray.
I just want this twisting flame
to light a kinder way.
To lead me, weird or wild,
to somewhere I belong—
where I don’t fear the mirror,
and my shadow isn’t wrong.
Author: Elphaba Thropp, age 13 (Never show this. Ever.)
CHAPTER 36: Needed someone to believe in
There was always something ceremonial about how the two of them entered that room. It wasn't large, nor overly decorated, but everything in it had been arranged with intention: the deep velvet rug under the divan, the wooden dresser with its neat compartments, the rack where lingerie, belts, and accessories hung, and a low, orange light, as if the sun had been trapped inside. Every corner was familiar. It was theirs. A small, unholy temple where they honored each other in a way more brutal and true than in any other space.
Glinda, standing in the center of the room, kept her hands clasped behind her back. She was dressed in her favorite outfit: white lace with powder pink trim, self-tie stockings, and a thin necklace Elphaba had given her on an occasion they were still debating whether or not it was an anniversary. It had been Elphaba's idea to resume the sessions, not on a whim, but because she missed her like this—satisfied, devoted, provocative—and because she knew Glinda needed it too. Lately, the world outside demanded that they be too lucid, too productive. Too functional. The room was the opposite: a place without logic or purpose other than to disarm safely.
Elphaba approached slowly, wordlessly, with that gaze Glinda knew so well: dense, liquid, impenetrable. She was wearing a black linen shirt and dress pants. She needed nothing more. His mere presence was enough to prick her skin and press her lips together. He stood in front of her, just a few inches away. One hand lifted her chin, the other tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Are you ready, Princess?" he whispered, without irony, like a promise.
Glinda nodded. But she did so too quickly.
Elphaba narrowed her eyes. She still didn't say anything. She walked behind her, observing her posture. Normally, Glinda would have kept her back straight, her legs together, her neck tense with anticipation. But today her weight seemed shifted to one foot, her breathing wasn't steady, and when Elphaba raised an eyebrow, Glinda attempted a smile. Badly.
"What's that?" Elphaba said, stopping in front of her again.
"What?" Glinda asked, her voice sharp, as if she genuinely didn't know what she meant.
"That. That smile. Is that a submissive smile or an 'I left the stove on' smile?" Elphaba tilted her head. Her tone was stern, but not cruel.
Glinda opened her mouth to reply, but said nothing. She only let out a small laugh that she was clearly trying to hide. Elphaba crossed her arms.
"Glinda."
"I'm focused!"
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am!" It's just... well... I came up with an idea for a new coffee slogan while I was showering and didn't write it down anywhere, and now I'm trying not to forget it... but I haven't forgotten it, it's there, dormant, lurking... and besides, my leg itches, but I'm embarrassed to scratch it because that's not very... submissive, is it?
Elphaba stood still for a few seconds. Then she put a hand to her face and snorted loudly.
"Glinda, you literally volunteered for this. You begged me. You left me a note on my pillow that said 'I want you to tear me apart, with love.' What happened to that energy?"
"I still want you to tear me apart! Just... with patience. Yeah? Maybe with a break to write my idea..."
"A break?"
"Or you could tie me up and then leave me alone for five minutes to write it down. That would be very... humiliating. Wouldn't it?"
"No! That would be productive!" This is a productivity-free space, Glinda. No homework, no brilliant ideas, no unanswered emails.
"But it was a very good slogan!"
"What was it?"
"More than coffee... company in a cup."
Elphaba looked at her. She tried not to smile. She lost.
"That's horrible."
"That's cute!"
"It's advertising."
"IT'S MY PASSION!"
There was a silence. And then they both burst out laughing. They laughed loudly, those belly laughs that make your stomach ache and melt away any tension, the kind that only appears when you know the other so well that you don't even need to pretend.
When they finally caught their breath, Glinda walked over to Elphaba and rested her head on her chest.
"Sorry. I know you wanted this. Me too. It's just that today... my head is in a million places."
"I know," Elphaba murmured, wrapping her arms around her. "Do you want to try it anyway? No script, no roles? Just us."
"Yes," Glinda said, pressing her fingers against her back. "Just us."
"What if you let me tie you up anyway, but then I read you something from the book I'm writing?"
"The one you hide behind a password on your computer?"
"That's the one."
Glinda raised her head, her eyes glittering.
"Is it sexy?"
"No. It's existentialist and slow."
"Ugh. Well... only if I can sit on your lap while you read it."
"That's always."
Elphaba sat her firmly on her lap, positioning her with the precision an orchestra requires from its first violin. Glinda was still tied, her wrists clasped behind her back, her ankles crossed and secured with soft but sturdy tape, her face still flushed more from recent laughter than from embarrassment. Her breathing was still labored, though it was beginning to mix with small, exhausted sighs.
"Listen to this," Elphaba announced as she picked up the notebook she'd left on the dresser. Her voice still carried traces of the commanding tone she'd used minutes before, but now it was tinged with a different emotion: the excitement of sharing something intimate, something she'd been writing in secret for days.
Glinda, without resisting, eased herself as best she could onto her lap, resting her cheek against her partner's neck with a sleepy smile. Elphaba cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and began reading the first draft of what would become chapter one of her new book. Her voice lowered its cadence, modulating each sentence carefully, as if weighing each word on the scales of Glinda's reaction.
“Chapter One: The Language of Invisible Cages,” she read solemnly. “I’ve always been obsessed with the idea that it’s not confinement that breaks us, but how we narrate it. There are those who narrate their freedom as a prison, and those who narrate their imprisonment as a poem…”
A pause. Elphaba waited for a murmur of assent, a low exclamation of approval, but all she felt was the light weight of Glinda’s head sinking further onto her shoulder. She glanced at her sideways and frowned.
“Glinda.”
“Nothing.”
“Glinda, are you falling asleep?”
“Hmm…?” Glinda opened one eye with difficulty, her lips curling into a sleepy smile. “No, no… it’s just… it’s so… poetic…”
“Are you falling asleep reading my book?!” Elphaba exclaimed indignantly, slamming the notebook shut. The vibration of the impact made Glinda flinch slightly, but her expression was that of someone who knew the catastrophe had already occurred and all that remained was to await the aftermath.
"No! No... I'm... emotionally exhausted. It was a long day. I cleaned up three spills, argued with a customer who said their latte had "negative vibes," and then... well, you tied me up and made me confess my most unseemly fantasies."
"That was ten minutes ago! Ten!" Elphaba gestured with the notebook still in her hand like a sledgehammer. "You were panting and shaking! And now you're falling asleep like I'm reading you a dishwasher manual!"
"It's just that your voice is so... soothing when you're reading, like an S&M meditation audiobook," Glinda stammered, struggling not to nod off again.
Elphaba rolled her eyes with a dramatic sigh.
"You need a hobby."
"I have one. You," Glinda said, smiling, tangled in ropes and sweetness.
"No, I mean another one. Something other than working in that damn cafeteria or falling asleep while I read my existential thoughts."
"I didn't fall asleep! I was just... silently absorbing. Like when you contemplate a very complex painting..."
"You were drooling on my collarbone."
"That could also be an aesthetic metaphor," Glinda defended, blinking.
Elphaba looked at her, serious, for a few long, offended seconds. Then she simply got up clumsily, forcing Glinda to slide like a tied sack to the floor with a small "hey!" of protest. She walked over to the bed, theatrically removed her shirt, and got between the sheets without looking back.
"I'm going to sleep. You stay there and contemplate the complexity of your confinement," she muttered sarcastically, turning over.
Glinda, still tied up, rolled like a rope donkey until she could rest her cheek against the carpet.
"Elphie...?" she called sweetly. "Did you forget...?"
"Yes, I forgot. Good night," Elphaba answered from the darkness.
Glinda sighed, rolling over and shouting Elphaba's name nonstop, while the two of them giggled under the covers with a certain malice, enjoying the chaos she herself had orchestrated.
And so the next day, morning arrived mercilessly. The fluorescent lighting in the cafeteria was like an existential slap, and the coffee still wasn't strong enough to justify staying alive. Glinda stood behind the counter, dark circles under her eyes as if someone had drawn them with a permanent marker, her hair in a messy ponytail, and an expression that oscillated between "I could cry" and "I could murder," depending on the angle from which you looked at her.
She held a ceramic mug in both hands, watching it fill with coffee like someone watching the slow filling of a coffin. The dark liquid spiraled down, steaming, promising redemption or at least something close to basic brain function.
That's when Robbie, the enthusiastic youngster with the energy of a golden retriever and zero sense of self-preservation, appeared with his apron on wrong and his Monday smile as if the world weren't a cruel, pointless trap.
"Good morning, Glinda! You slept well, didn't you? Because you look like you dreamed about unicorns," he said, brushing flour off his hands as if he were in an optimistic movie and not in the trenches of a cursed Tuesday.
Glinda didn't respond. She just shifted her eyes, very slowly, from her coffee to him. It was the look of an ancient witch assessing whether to turn you into a toad or simply melt you with the power of pure contempt.
Robbie froze mid-step. The smile on his face faltered, like a cartoon character who realizes too late that he's walking on air before falling.
"Or... or not. Maybe it was a rough night," he tried, taking a half step back.
But Glinda said nothing. She didn't even blink. She kept staring.
Then the boy arrived.
He was no more than six years old, a diver with a phosphorescent dinosaur and boundless energy that knew no physical or social boundaries. He leaned against the counter, digging a sticky coin from somewhere inside him and placing it on the surface with a wet sound that made Glinda shudder.
"Hi! Can I have a chocolate chip muffin? But without the chips. And without the chocolate. Does that exist? Do you have vanilla milk but without milk? My mom said not to eat sugar, but she also said to behave, and I'm choosing the first option. How much is a napkin? Can I take five?"
Glinda closed her eyes. She inhaled through her nose. She exhaled slowly.
"Kid," he said in a deep voice, as if uttering an ancient spell. "Do you want me to destroy this cafeteria with everyone in it?"
The boy blinked.
"Does that come with the muffin?"
From the back, Robbie laughed nervously.
"Oh, that kid is so funny! He's got personality, right?"
Glinda slowly turned her head toward him again.
"Robbie."
"Yes?"
"Don't talk to me today. Don't look at me. Don't breathe on me. Don't exist in my energy field."
"But... I'm the barista."
"Then stay away from me."
Robbie raised his hands in surrender and backed away from the espresso machine as if he were backing away from a wild creature, which wasn't entirely inaccurate.
Glinda looked at the boy again, then at the coffee in her hand, then at the clock. The hands weren't moving fast enough to save her.
"I'll give you a banana muffin. It doesn't have chocolate, it doesn't have sprinkles, it doesn't have joy. But it's shaped like food. Okay?"
The boy thought for a second.
"And can I bring five napkins?"
"You can take a thousand," she said, extending the muffin like someone offering a deal with the devil.
When the boy left, content, Glinda leaned against the counter and sipped her coffee in silence, while Robbie tried to pretend the espresso machine required her full attention.
Elphaba was right. She needed a hobby. Or a flamethrower.
Glinda's forehead rested flat against the counter, as if the cold wood could absorb her soul in mini-installments until it disappeared completely. From there, she saw the world upside down: the legs of the stools, people's shoes, the muffin the boy had left half-eaten. Even the clock seemed to mock her with its motionless indifference.
Then the phone rang. A subtle buzz in her back pocket. Glinda didn't move. Another buzz. With an almost guttural grunt—a cross between a dying goat and a broken-down soap opera actress—she straightened just enough to pull out her cell phone.
"Are you still alive?" the message read.
It was from Elphaba.
Glinda smiled, her expression so small and defeated it could barely be considered human. She typed clumsily.
"No. I'm in limbo. There are muffins and children. It's hell, but with a family theme."
Elphaba responded immediately.
"This morning you weren't speaking. You were making sounds like a wounded child."
"I wasn't hurt. I was emotionally devastated and physically tied up, thanks for asking."
"Oh, please. I didn't leave you tied up that long."
"My shoulder still creaks. Like the door in the old apartment."
"That's sexy, don't complain."
Glinda laughed softly, unable to stop herself. She leaned her elbow on the counter and began typing faster. The messages flowed with that mix of irony, complicity, and affection that only the two of them could sustain simultaneously. Memes. Emojis. Horrible photos of them at 7 AM. Elphaba sent her a sticker of a witch drinking coffee with a Monday-faced look; Glinda responded with another of a princess tearing off her tiara.
Little by little, the knot in her stomach unraveled. Her shoulders relaxed, her frown melted, and in its place appeared that goofy smile. That half-idiotic expression you put on when someone texts you "I miss you," and suddenly you feel like life isn't so awful after everything.
And just as she was about to write, "Do you want me to bring you something from the place? We're stealing good croissants today," Robbie peeked out from behind her again, completely oblivious to the sacred moment he was interrupting.
"Glindaaa," he crooned in that unbearably grating voice of someone who hasn't yet learned that the world doesn't revolve around them, "the lady at table six wants to know if we have a gluten-free, sugar-free, fat-free, no-thing cake, but one that tastes just like the other one. Are you going to tell her that doesn't exist, or shall I?"
Glinda didn't immediately raise her head. She closed her eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled. As if the inner peace Elphaba had just restored had been kicked to the floor and spat out by an idiot goblin in a green apron.
She turned slowly on her heel. She looked at him.
"Robbie..."
"Yes?"
"I'm going to ask you this with much love and a deep desire not to go to jail: if you interrupt me one more time while I'm texting with my fiancée, I'm going to make you swallow the cake, the tray, and the entire oven. Okay?"
Robbie blinked.
"Does that mean I tell her there isn't any?"
"It means back off. Now. Or someone's going to die. And it won't be metaphorical."
Robbie stepped back like someone who's seen the face of a vengeful goddess in the foam of a cappuccino.
Glinda turned back to her cell phone. She typed:
"I swear if I survive this day, I'm going to give you a striptease in my coffee shop apron."
Elphaba replied:
"Dark gods, give me the strength so no one comes to invite me to a party."
With the smile still fresh on her lips, Glinda had begun typing a reply loaded with emojis inappropriate for work hours—something about an apron, flames, a bat, and the eggplant emoji just because she knew Elphaba hated it—when she glanced up reflexively. Just for a second.
And then she saw him.
Outside, beyond the fogged-up glass, among the tables on the sidewalk, a man alone. He looked like one of those you barely notice: sober suit, newspaper unfolded, coffee cup in hand. Just another customer, just another face, just another stain on the constant paint of everyday life.
Except he wasn't.
Glinda frowned slightly. The man wasn't reading the newspaper. Not really. His eyes were fixed on her. Motionless. Clearly watching her, not like someone admiring a pretty face or losing themselves in a distraction, but like someone waiting for something. There was a tense stillness in his posture, as if the important thing wasn't the coffee but being there.
When she realized Glinda had noticed, she quickly shifted her gaze to the newspaper, like a poorly disguised student caught cheating on a test. But it was too late.
Glinda wasn't stupid.
She continued to stare at him for a few more seconds. She noticed the way his jaw seemed to clench. The cup was still in his hand, but he hadn't taken a single sip since she'd looked at him. The steam from the coffee had dissipated. The newspaper page hadn't turned. The guy wasn't moving.
Something... was off.
"Glinda," a voice said at her side, snapping her out of it.
She blinked and turned her head. It was Samira, the kitchen manager, holding a tray with a "this isn't going to take itself" expression.
"Can you take this to eight? And while you're at it, stop by three. They asked if we still serve untoasted bagels. Who orders that, right? Untoasted bagels?" Is this emotional torture?
Glinda, still frowning, took a second to return to Earth. She blinked. She forced a smile, soft, automatic.
"Yes. Of course. I'm coming."
With one more glance at the window, she looked back outside.
The man had turned a page.
But something in her stillness, in her way of so clumsily feigning disinterest, still hung like an invisible thread in the air. Like a misplaced note in a song Glinda knew by heart.
It wasn't paranoia. It was instinct.
She looked away, picked up her tray, and headed off to do her homework, but her mind was no longer entirely on the cafeteria.
Meanwhile… in the penthouse, Elphaba hunched over the couch like a creature in the process of reverse evolution. She was wearing loose-fitting pants that had seen better days, a T-shirt so worn its original color was more a memory than a hue, and her signature "don't even try talking to me" bun held in place by a chewed-up pencil. A notebook half-filled with aimless notes rested on her crossed legs, and her glasses sat resignedly on the tip of her nose.
The television, on in front of her, displayed the perfect, resplendent image of Ev Locast, the renowned writer and literary guru, who was in the middle of an interview on one of those cultural channels Elphaba pretended to despise but ended up binge-watching when she needed reasons to mock the literary establishment.
"Writing is, above all, an act of listening," Ev said, in that velvety voice that seemed specially designed to irritate her. "One must begin with what interests one, with what one knows. There is nothing more universal than the deeply personal."
Elphaba snorted. She rolled her eyes. And yet, she didn't stop looking.
On the screen, Ev was smiling with that know-it-all air. Her perfect library as a backdrop. Her teacup perfectly visible. Her posture. Her voice. Her damned confidence.
Elphaba looked down for a second at her open computer on the table. The screen was still on, blinking with aggressive passivity. A document titled "New Manuscript" was waiting.
And it was empty.
Empty.
Not a line. Not a tentative sentence. Not even a damn quote for inspiration. Just the cursor, like a drop falling into a dry cave. Tick. Tick. Tick.
"Write about what you know!" she repeated quietly, sounding sardonic. "Sure, Ev, what a great idea. What if all you know is a dysfunctional relationship with a hyperactive blonde, an addiction to sarcasm, and a creative block that could be considered clinical?"
She looked back at the notebook. She'd scribbled random sentences, a list of potential titles, a couple of self-described insults.
She turned back to the TV.
"And sometimes," Ev Locast continued, as if speaking directly to her, "creative silence comes from wanting to say everything perfectly. You have to write even if it's wrong. You have to allow for chaos."
Elphaba pursed her mouth as if she'd tasted something sour. He slammed the notebook shut and threw it across the sofa. He gritted his teeth, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes.
Chaos, he said. As if he needed more of that…
He leaned forward and placed his hands on the keyboard. His fingers hovered barely over the keys, as if waiting for inspiration to land on them like a well-trained hummingbird.
Nothing.
He looked at the cursor.
"You tell me, you damn blinking script," he said dryly, "should I write about how I accidentally tied my fiancée to the floor last night because I got mad at her for yawning during my masterpiece?"
The computer didn't respond. The cursor kept blinking. Tick. Tick.
He sighed.
He got up from the sofa, walked to the kitchen, and put water on the tea. As the kettle began to hum, he checked his phone. No new messages from Glinda. Only the last photo he'd sent her hours earlier: her at work, making a ridiculous pout, with the cat-ear filter.
He smiled involuntarily. The smile faded quickly.
He looked at the blank screen again.
And then, as if something had unlocked, he wrote:
"The first time I hated her was one August morning. It was hot. She had glitter in her hair and coffee on her eyelashes, and she'd interrupted me in the middle of a perfect paragraph. She smiled at me as if that justified everything. And maybe it did."
He stopped.
He looked at what he'd written and just thought... "What the hell am I doing now?"
Back at the cafeteria, the midday light filtered through the winter clouds as Glinda said goodbye with a lazy wave and an automatic smile she'd perfected over the years. Free at last. She'd only worked half a shift, but she felt like she'd survived an emotional marathon.
As he walked out the back door, he adjusted his coat, crossing it over his chest and holding a warm, suspiciously damp garbage bag in his other hand. He left it with a grimace next to the dumpster for the 12:30 truck to take away, then turned down the street toward his car, parked half a block away.
The cold stung his face, but the thought of Elphaba and the last text he hadn't gotten around to answering still gave him a silly warmth in his chest. Her fingers instinctively searched for her cell phone in her pocket. She was about to answer when—
...something. A flash. A fleeting movement in the corner of her eye.
She stopped.
Not completely—she kept walking—but more alert now. She feigned calm, but her breathing barely caught. She sped up a little. The sound behind her did too.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four steps.
Glinda spun around. The goofy smile was gone. With a movement that could only be described as gracefully furious, she pulled the small metallic pink pepper spray can from her pocket—the same one Elphaba said was “too fashionable to intimidate anyone”—and pointed it directly at the face of the stranger behind her, her arm outstretched and her brow furrowed like a soap opera heroine ready for a fight.
"Back off! I have pepper spray, and I'm not afraid to blast your face with it!" Glinda exclaimed, with a perfect blend of hysteria and basic self-defense training from an online course.
The man in front of her—round-faced, with slightly disheveled hair and the air of an office worker who never felt comfortable in his tie—immediately raised both hands. His coat was undone, as if he'd put it on in a hurry, and his shoes didn't quite match.
"Please! Miss Glinda! I don't mean to hurt you! Nothing like that!" he stammered, taking a step back. "I just... I just wanted to talk to you."
Glinda didn't lower the pepper spray, but narrowed her eyes, scanning him.
"Are you a stalker? A traumatized former dance student? A social media fanatic who wants me to sign his nails? Because I already had one this week."
"No, no, not at all! My name is Chuffrey." "Jonathan Chuffrey," he said, with a small clearing of his throat that betrayed that he himself wasn't entirely convinced of the firmness of his voice. "I'm here on behalf of... my boss. He wants to speak with you. Discreetly."
"With me?" Glinda repeated, still alert.
"Yes. He... well, he's followed your career with interest. For some time. He thinks you could be a... important piece in something he's putting together," she explained in a tone that was meant to sound intriguing, but sounded more like she was pitching life insurance door-to-door.
"An important piece? What kind of adult film proposal is this?"
"No, no! Nothing like that. This is... political. Intellectual. Cultural," he said, using big words like someone throwing candy to distract a cat.
Glinda, suspicious but clearly curious, lowered the pepper spray just a few inches.
"And who's your boss?"
Chuffrey hesitated for a second. She looked around as if afraid she was breaking a secret rule by saying it.
"It's called Tenmeadows."
Glinda frowned.
"That name sounds familiar."
"Probably. It's... well, he'd prefer to explain it to you personally. But believe me, Miss Glinda, it's nothing illegal or shady. Just a conversation. It's a few blocks from here. But it's his decision. He's very respectful of boundaries," she said as if reciting a memorized line she'd already said to other women holding sharp objects or aerosol sprays.
Elphaba used to tell her she had an unrelenting instinct for sniffing out bad ideas. And at that moment, everything in Glinda screamed that this was a bad idea with a bow and gold foil. But there was also something—a spark, a feeling, or maybe just a stupid, curious impulse—that pushed her to keep walking beside Chuffrey.
"One more block?" "She asked, eyebrows raised, sizing him up as if she expected him to pull out a flute and start bewitching mice at any moment.
"Boy Scout," he replied with a smile so awkward it almost seemed genuine.
They walked through the streets of the old district, passing closed businesses, worn-out murals, and a couple of buildings that had been asking for demolition for decades. Glinda kept her pepper spray hidden, but not so deep that she couldn't pull it out in less than a second. She walked a few steps behind Chuffrey, like someone walking alongside a coyote who claims to be a vegetarian.
Finally, Chuffrey stopped in front of a frosted glass door with faded gold lettering:
Campaign Committee: Tenmeadows 2025 – The Future Is Now.
Glinda tilted her head, puzzled. This wasn't a skyscraper or a millionaire's secret hideout, but an ordinary corner office, with a coffee machine inside, papers taped to the walls, and a whiteboard with urgent writing on it.
"Is this a joke?" she muttered, bewildered, as Chuffrey held the door open.
"Believe me, I thought the same thing when I first walked in. But the boss has a knack for seeing gold where everyone else sees dust," he said, indicating the entrance with a slight nod.
Glinda hesitated for a second. She looked around the room as if expecting someone to shout "Not guilty!" at any moment. But when no one came and her life didn't seem to be in immediate danger, she went in.
The air smelled of reheated coffee and marker ink. A young woman with headphones was frantically typing on a laptop on a table littered with pamphlets and flyers. A half-finished poster hung on the wall with the slogan: Tenmeadows: Transparency, Truth, Tenacity… although someone had crossed out the last word and written “toast?” in pencil on the side.
“Who… or what… is a Tenmeadows?” Glinda asked, crossing her arms.
Chuffrey smiled like someone about to show someone a card that would change the entire game.
“Avaric Tenmeadows. Independent candidate for Senate. Former student body president of the university, activist, economist. And according to some polls, an emerging phenomenon with a very committed young base. And… well, somewhat eccentric.”
“And what do I have to do with it?”
“He’ll tell her that. He’s waiting for her in his office. May I?”
Glinda glanced at him. She hesitated. She tightened her grip on the coat. And then, with a dramatic movement worthy of a diva entering a casting call, she nodded.
"If it turns out to be a cult, you're going to wish I'd just pepper-sprayed you."
"Absolutely fair," Chuffrey said, now used to the tone of elegant threat.
As Glinda walked toward the office at the back, she couldn't help thinking how ironic it all was: that morning she'd put on eyeliner to hand out muffins, and now she was walking through the door of a political campaign that promised revolutions from an office with plastic chairs.
She was going to need a really good pitch. And, probably, another cup of coffee.
The door closed behind them with a barely perceptible creak. The office was perfumed with the subtle scent of polished wood, expensive coffee, and a well-curated ego. The midday light streamed through the window at a perfect angle, as if choreographed to highlight the coppery hue of Avaric Tenmeadows's hair, who was currently on the phone as if he were negotiating world peace or selling the moon on credit.
"...and tell him the media plan has to be ready by Thursday, not Thursday. I'm not Thursday. I don't live on Thursday," he said, walking easily, the jacket of his midnight-blue linen suit billowing like a civic superhero's cape. "And please don't give the security guard any cookies. We don't want another gluten incident, okay? I love you, you're the girl of my dreams, bye, bye, I'll call you in an hour."
Glinda raised an eyebrow. Avaric hung up with the precision of a magician finishing his trick and turned to them with a smile that looked like something out of a toothpaste ad that also promoted democracy.
"Was that the president?" "Glinda asked dryly, crossing her arms.
"My mother," Avaric replied without missing a beat or a smile. "I'm teaching her how to use Google Drive. It's like taking a goat ice skating, but with more emojis."
Glinda blinked. She hadn't expected that one.
"Glinda Upland," Chuffrey announced with the formality of a master of ceremonies who was, secretly, proud of his discovery. "And you already know Avaric Tenmeadows."
Avaric stepped forward with an outstretched hand, open, relaxed, charismatic. It wasn't the kind of handshake that promised power, but rather complicity. Glinda shook it without enthusiasm, but she couldn't help but notice its firmness and the faint citrus scent of her lotion.
"The very same Glinda Upland," he repeated as if tasting the sound of her name on his lips. "The woman who convinced an entire university community to donate blood in the middle of a protest." The same one who managed to stop a fraudulent renovation project before it swallowed us all up. The same one who one day was smiling with influencers on the red carpet and the next was staunchly defending foreign princesses.
"Were you stalking me?" Glinda interrupted, a mixture of distrust and amusement.
"Investigating. I like to know who I'm talking to before I speak. And well, I have Chuffrey, who's like an emotional encyclopedia."
"Thanks, I think," Chuffrey murmured, discreetly closing the door and leaving them alone.
Glinda glanced at the wall. Soberly framed diplomas, a black-and-white photograph of a young Avaric giving a speech in what looked like a college hall, and a brilliant degree from Briscoe College, the same university Fiyero had graduated from. She felt a slight tingle on the back of her neck.
"And why did you bring me here with such secrecy?" she asked, crossing her arms again.
Avaric walked to her desk, placed his hands on them, and looked at her with complete seriousness.
"Because I'm looking for someone who won't give up, even when everything is in ruins. Someone who isn't afraid to speak up, even if they're serving coffee for hours to make ends meet. Because, Glinda... I want you to manage my campaign."
Silence.
Glinda blinked. Once. Twice.
"What?"
"I want you to be my campaign manager," she repeated, as if she were stating something as obvious as the sky is blue.
"And why me?"
"Because you're not a professional politician. Because you know how to connect with real people. Because you have ideas that could move people, and you do it without needing to crush anyone to shine." And because," he added, lowering his voice slightly with a knowing wink, "you care about the world, even if you hide it with sarcasm."
Glinda bit her lip, uncomfortable. She didn't know if this guy was a genius, a dreamer, or both at the same time.
"And well, because our last campaign manager ran off with a filmmaker in Berlin, and we need someone brilliant before chaos becomes trendy."
She laughed, incredulous. She took a couple of steps toward the door.
"Look, I appreciate the flattery, the 'cool candidate' act, and the toothpaste-advertiser smile, but this sounds like a joke. I'm not the person you think I am."
"Maybe not. But you are the person you could be," he replied, still calm. "And what I need now, Glinda, is precisely someone who hasn't learned to play the game. I want to change the rules."
She stopped dead in her tracks. Because those were exactly the kinds of things Elphaba used to say.
And damn it, that was cheating.
A moment of silence enveloped the room like a pause between acts, as if even the air held its breath waiting for what she would say. Glinda, still standing by the chair, let out a soft laugh, more out of disbelief than humor. One of those laughs that comes not from something funny, but from the absurdity of a situation that surpasses any previous expectation.
"This is crazy..." she finally said, shaking her head with a mixture of exhaustion and astonishment. "An hour ago I was fighting with the checkout guy because they blocked the men's bathroom again. That was my biggest battle of the day. And now... this."
She turned to Avaric, who was still watching her with that calm, almost confident smile, as if the absurdity was part of the plan. Glinda tilted her head slightly, sizing up the man in front of her with the same gaze she used to choose between two shades of lipstick: one could be perfect, the other a mistake that would mark her entire evening.
"I've been through this before, you know," she continued. "I've been on campaigns, at talks, in debates. I've given speeches until I lost my voice. I've fought battles." She lowered her voice slightly at this point, as if remembering old scars. "Some I won. Others I didn't. But I was there. And I was never alone."
Avaric nodded politely, without interrupting. He didn't try to rush her or disguise the silence with empty words. He just waited. He seemed to understand that Glinda wasn't speaking only to him, but to her own memory, to an echo of her past that now stared back at her from the wall—from those frames with diplomas and photographs she knew so well.
"And this... this sounds to me like a car salesman with delusions of grandeur," Glinda added, crossing her arms, though not harshly. Her voice no longer had an edge, but rather the resigned irony of someone who hasn't dismissed the idea, but needs to make it clear that she isn't so easily fooled.
Avaric smiled, unoffended.
"What if the car were electric, eco-friendly, and had a revolutionary engine?" he joked, walking toward the desk without missing a beat. "Look at it this way: I'm not asking you to buy anything. Just to come see the model. You test drive it, take it for a spin. If you don't like it, nobody loses anything."
Glinda raised an eyebrow. She hated him a little for how charming he was, for how well he managed that smile, for how he knew exactly when to stop and when to keep going. She hated him a little because he reminded her of herself at that age. Ambitious. Brazen. Unstoppable.
Avaric noticed her silence and, with the skill of someone who has been selling impossible ideas for years, took a few steps closer.
"No need to decide anything now. Just... come to dinner tonight. Somewhere quiet, no reporters, no promises. I'll tell you what I want to do, how I want to do it, and why I think you're the missing piece." If you want to run away after that, I promise not to send you any more messages or follow you around the street like a stalker with self-esteem issues." She glanced sideways at Chuffrey, who shrugged with comical resignation. "A politician's word, I swear."
Glinda gave a light laugh. She was tired. She'd had accumulated sleep, she still had red marks on her wrists from being tied up all night, and she'd only had two coffees that day. But against all odds, a part of her—the old, vibrant, almost forgotten part—felt a tingle under her skin. A part that said "What if...?"
She looked at him. Long. Without answering. He approached the door as if he were about to leave immediately, but before leaving, he turned around with a crooked smile and an arched eyebrow.
"I don't like places that are too over-the-top. And if there are more than two courses, I'll get up and leave."
Avaric smiled as if he already knew.
—Noted.
—And don't say 'missing piece.' It sounds like a cheap romantic comedy.
—Also noted.
Glinda walked out the door without saying goodbye. But her pace had a different rhythm, a mixture of uncertainty and something harder to describe. As if a forgotten gear had turned again.
In the office, Avaric leaned on his desk with a thoughtful expression. Chuffrey watched him with a grimace that wasn't entirely approving.
—Are you sure this is a good idea, boss?
—Best I've had in months, Avaric replied. —But it's going to be complicated.
Chuffrey sighed.
—For her?
—Yes. And for the other one too. —And with an almost amused smile, he added, —If what they say about them is true, you have to get both of them or you don't have either of them.
—So?
—So just because it's complicated doesn't mean it's not worth it.
And she turned toward the window as the midday sun began to tint the buildings gold. As if something were about to begin, and everyone was still trying to remember which page of the script they were on.
The elevator dropped her off on the 27th floor, like every afternoon, but this time Glinda didn't move forward immediately. She stood for a second, breathing deeply in the silent hallway, still wearing her jacket unbuttoned and her hair hastily tied back, as if the day hadn't given her any respite. Finally, she walked to the penthouse door, turned the key, pushed it, and entered with a deep sigh, closing it behind her with a loud thud that echoed throughout the room. She slumped back against the door, her forehead tilted upward and her eyes still closed. One hand went to the cell phone in her pocket, but before texting, she let out a tired laugh and said aloud:
"Elphaba... you won't believe the madness that just happened to me."
She opened her eyes.
And for a second, she thought she'd entered another apartment. Or a parallel dimension. The scene in front of her bore no resemblance to the discreet, functional order the two of them used to maintain. It was chaos of scientific proportions: piles of papers covered the sofa, notes hung with tape from the lamps, the dining room chairs had been moved to form a kind of makeshift fortress from which sprouted even more sheets of diagrams, graphs, lists, quotes underlined in various colors, and what looked like a corkboard filled with red threads connecting ideas written in marker like "Truth," "Own Voice," "Hereditary Trauma," "Sex and Language." At the center of it all, moving with alarming speed from one end to the other, was Elphaba.
Or what was left of her.
She was wearing an oversized gray gown, her braids unraveled in a wild tangle that threatened to declare itself independent, and her glasses were sliding down the middle of her nose as she tried to keep them in place with one finger while simultaneously holding a coffee cup and a notebook. She walked barefoot in her tortoiseshell slippers that made an almost comical flop-flop, but her energy was that of a doctor undergoing open-heart surgery.
Glinda, her mouth half-open, watched silently as Elphaba spoke to herself at top speed:
"No, no, no... I've written that before. I can't talk about power as the absence of power again; that's a shortcut. What do I know? What do I really know? Sex... yes, but that, too, is tainted. What if I approach it from the unspoken?" No... I don't need poetry right now. I need rawness, flesh, smell, the crack in the rib of the word...
She spun around and saw Glinda, finally, frozen by the door.
"Oh. Hello," Elphaba said, as casually as if they were in a perfectly normal Monday afternoon scene. She paused briefly, looking at her like someone assessing whether she was a hallucination or someone real. "You're... early."
Glinda barely blinked.
"What the hell is this?"
"I'm working," Elphaba said, holding up a stack of papers as if that were obvious.
"Are you... researching quantum physics? Is it a new language? Is it an artistic intervention?"
"I'm writing my book."
"...in the Martian language?"
Elphaba gave a short, overly caffeinated laugh and dropped the papers onto an already unsteady pile, which eventually tumbled to the floor. She shrugged.
“I was watching an Ev Locast interview. He said you should write about what you know. What moves you. So I made a list. Well... a lot of lists. Things I'm passionate about, things I hate, things that obsess me, things that hurt me, words that repel me, smells that trigger memories, women who changed my life... you know, simple things.”
“And your brain exploded in the process?”
“I wouldn't rule it out.”
Glinda looked at her as if she'd just heard a symphony composed only of car horns.
“Love, I left you alone for half the morning. I didn't know that was enough time for the apartment to mutate into a doctoral thesis with dissociative identity syndrome.”
Elphaba sighed and sank down onto the couch, crossing her legs beneath her like a weary child. She took off her glasses, which left two deep marks on her nose.
“I can't write just for the sake of writing. I've done that all my life.” Speeches, essays, manifestos... but now I really want to do it. From myself. And I don't know if I can.
Glinda watched her for a few seconds. Her face changed, softened. She walked slowly to where Elphaba was, pushed aside a stack of books with her foot, and sat down next to her.
"Well, coincidentally... I received an offer today to return to the political front, and I almost fainted just thinking about it," she said, taking her pepper spray out of her purse and leaving it on the table as proof. "So... let's just say this house became a nursing home for women who say they're done doing any more crazy things and end up saying, 'Well, maybe just one more.'"
Elphaba smiled for the first time in hours.
"They offered you a return to politics?"
"Yeah. A young, energetic candidate with perfect teeth, puppy dog eyes, and an ego the size of the city." He had his assistant follow me, took me to his office, and offered me... well, he hasn't said it clearly yet, but it seems he wants me to join his campaign.
"And you're going to do it?"
Glinda looked up and let out a long sigh.
"I don't know. Right now I'm having a hard time deciding whether I want wine or headache pills. But... the idea made me feel... alive. Like there are still battles worth fighting."
There was a soft silence between them. Elphaba reached out and took Glinda's hand.
"Maybe writing a book or getting back into the game isn't so different. It's just a matter of finding what burns inside us again. What makes us want to scream, or dance, or break something.
"And you? What makes you want to scream?"
"Right now... the level of caffeine in my system."
They both laughed. Glinda leaned back on the couch, dropping her head onto Elphaba's shoulder.
"Promise you won't burn down the house if I go out for a night?"
"I promise... as long as you promise you don't end up on the news."
"I don't promise anything."
Minutes later, Elphaba returned from the kitchen, shambling but determined, carrying in each hand a glass filled to the brim with a thick, colorful concoction that smelled vaguely of tropical fruits, oatmeal, and something that—according to Glinda—"had the texture of moral repentance." Despite the warning, Elphaba couldn't help but take a sip on the way, instantly wrinkling her nose.
"I swear this tastes like divine retribution," she grunted as she handed the glass to Glinda. "And not the erotic kind, the real kind."
Glinda, still sitting in the armchair, her legs crossed and her hair pulled back in a high ponytail that was beginning to surrender to gravity, accepted the glass with an absent nod. She was frowning, her cell phone in front of her as if she were spying on a covert operation.
"What are you doing?" —Elphaba asked as she plopped down beside him, shuffling through a couple of papers and a notebook with encrypted notes from his recent creative frenzy.
—Field stalking,—Glinda replied with complete seriousness, without taking her eyes off the screen. —Ozmopolitan has his profile up. Check this out.
She turned her phone so Elphaba could see. On the screen was a perfectly curated photo: Avaric in a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, smiling at the camera as he helped paint a community mural in some impoverished but photogenic neighborhood. Elphaba burst out laughing.
—Who the hell takes a picture while "helping" paint a wall?
—Someone who knows how to turn a paintbrush into political capital,—Glinda said, scrolling to the next post. This time it was a video in which Avaric, in a soft, confident voice, explained his plan for a more inclusive city, while diverse, happy children ran in slow motion behind him.
"Listen to this," Glinda said, enlarging the text of a post that read: "True change begins with active listening. Let's walk together. #NewBeginning #Tenmeadows2025"
"Tenmeadows? Is that his last name or the name of a gated community?"
"Both, probably," Glinda muttered as she took a sip of her smoothie. "The guy has charisma, I'll admit. And he doesn't seem to be an idiot, which is a rarity for his species."
Elphaba stared at the screen for a few more seconds before slumping back in the chair, letting her head hang over the edge.
"So why did he seek you out? What does he specifically want?"
"Apparently, for me to be his campaign manager," Glinda replied, as if saying she'd been asked to turn off the lights before leaving.
Elphaba craned her neck to look at her, raising an eyebrow.
"And you're going to accept?"
Glinda hesitated. She looked at the ceiling. Then at her smoothie. Then at her cell phone. Then at Elphaba.
"I don't know. Not yet. What would you do?"
"Me?" Elphaba paused, then jerked her thumb toward the mess behind them. "I spent all morning trying to figure out whether I'm better suited to writing about political theory or sexual phobias. So I'm probably not the best advisor right now."
"Sexual phobias?"
"Don't ask. It's just an outline."
They were silent for a few seconds. Outside, the first mist of afternoon was beginning to creep over the penthouse windows, bathing the living room in a soft golden light that filtered through the scattered papers and thirsty plants. Glinda looked at her cell phone again and then locked the screen.
"And this 'political heartthrob' invited me to dinner to tell me his big master plan."
"And you're going?"
"Of course I'm going," Glinda replied, placing her half-empty glass on the table. "I want to see if this clown with the perfect smile is as charming when he's not behind a camera or delivering a prefabricated speech."
Elphaba smiled, sitting up straight with her glass in her hand.
"I'll bet you anything he's wearing a white shirt and a very expensive but not ostentatious watch."
"I'll accept the bet," Glinda said. "And I'll add something else: he's going to try to tell me a touching anecdote about his childhood, with tears in his eyes, just before dessert."
"That's a classic move. And what are you going to do?"
Glinda lifted her chin with a sly smile.
"I'm going to wear my emerald green dress. The one that makes even the waiters stumble. If she's going to play politics, she should know from the start who she's dealing with."
Elphaba raised her glass.
"To the war."
"To the war," Glinda repeated, toasting with a soft clink that echoed among papers, diagrams, and the anticipation of a night that, whether they knew it or not, would change more than just their agendas.
That night, the room was wrapped in the warm light of a sunset that refused to die, bathing the mirror in front of which Glinda practiced smiles as precise as a scalpel. The emerald dress clung to her body as if woven with pure intention. Every curve, every detail, every inch of fabric said one thing: I dictate the rhythm. While she adjusted her earrings and examined the angle of her neckline with a clinical eye, she repeated to himself in a low voice, almost like a spell:
"No matter what happens tonight... I'm in control."
But her moment of meditation was abruptly interrupted by the unmistakable sound of chaos: hurried footsteps, doors slamming open, drawers rattled as if they held state secrets.
"Where is it?! Where is it?! GLINDAAAAA!"
Glinda smiled. Not a sweet or pious smile, but a curve of pure superiority, like a queen looking down on her vassal's thrashing.
"Where did you hide it? Where's the console?! It was right there this morning!"
Elphaba appeared in the bathroom doorway, her hair disheveled, her shoes off, and a look that, in any other context, would have prompted a mass evacuation. Glinda turned slowly, enjoying every second as if she were on the red carpet.
"What console?" she asked, her voice sweetly venomous.
"Don't start. I'm not in the mood." My playthrough of The Legend of the Grimmerie 3 is right before the Siege of Skyhold! I can't lose this!
"Oh, dear," Glinda replied, theatrically turning in front of the mirror to see her back. "It didn't seem fair to me that I had to go to a political dinner, wearing heels and calculated smiles, while my fiancée stayed in her slippers playing at saving an imaginary swamp with pixelated spells. So I decided to force you out of the house. Or at least face the real world."
"That's emotional manipulation! And tyrannical! And sneaky!"
"And effective," Glinda crooned, striding gracefully toward the coat rack where her velvet coat hung. "Go out, have fun, go for a drink with Fiyero, or walk around town, whatever." But I'm not going to come home to find you sitting on the couch, muttering in a deep voice that the fate of the Silent Kingdom depends on you and a magical artifact that looks like a salt shaker... Again.
Elphaba crossed her arms, glaring at her.
"I'm not going to give in to this emotional blackmail, Glinda."
Glinda turned in the doorway, leaned against the frame like a rom-com actress about to deliver the final blow, and pointed at Elphaba's laptop, which lay open on the table with a blank document glowing like a silent reproach.
"Then your only alternative is to stay home... staring at that blank page all night."
Elphaba looked at her. Looked at the computer. Then at Glinda. And then back at the computer.
Her left eye twitched slightly.
"That was a low blow."
"No." "This is a low blow," Glinda said, turning gracefully and letting the emerald dress slither sinfully out the door as she left.
The lock clicked behind her. Elphaba stood, defeated and furious. Then she walked slowly to the computer. She sat down. She rested her head in her hand. She stared at the blinking cursor on the blank page.
And muttered, "Damn. Checkmate."
Shortly after, the car pulled up in front of a restaurant with a dark green marble facade and golden lanterns that evoked a carefully calibrated opulence: just enough to suggest power, but not so much as to seem arrogant. Glinda stepped out of the vehicle with measured grace and a smile that was already in play, as if she had donned not only her best coat, but also a different, sharper, more political skin.
The place wasn't the most luxurious she'd seen in Emerald City—she knew of private suites in hotels where caviar was served on carved emerald spoons—but that made it more interesting. It was a strategic choice. Avaric wanted to impress, yes, but he also wanted to seem approachable. Just another local. The kind who dined at a "normal" luxury restaurant.
From the entrance, Glinda saw him: Avaric was sitting at a round table by a large window overlooking the central plaza. His white shirt was immaculate, perfectly ironed, his collar unbuttoned as if to suggest he could relax, but only if he wanted to. A gold watch—modern, elegant, clearly expensive—peeped out just as he leaned forward to greet her, as if part of a choreography.
"Glinda," he said with measured warmth, rising with the smile of an actor in his third act.
"Avaric," she replied, shaking his hand firmly, knowing her perfume would hit her just when it should. Then he turned his face slightly in feigned surprise. "Chuffrey?"
The man in question, who looked like a more watered-down version of the politician next to him, smiled nervously and stood up as well.
"We thought it would be helpful to add another perspective," Avaric said, as if nothing could have seemed more natural.
Glinda sat down, elegantly crossed her legs, and placed her coat on the chair with a careful movement. She took the menu only out of courtesy, although she already knew what she would order. Meanwhile, Avaric ordered a wine "not too pretentious, but with character," and Chuffrey nodded as if it were a philosophy of life.
The night began.
"How about we order some appetizers to share?" Avaric suggested, opening the menu with the smile of someone accustomed to leading a gathering without seeming to.
"I'm vegan," Glinda interrupted with lethal sweetness, without even looking up from the wine she'd just inhaled with minimal theatricality. The sentence fell like a pebble into a very still fountain.
Avaric blinked, but maintained his composure. He took it as a small challenge, which only spurred him on further. "Perfect, of course, they have amazing roasted vegetables. I could..."
"And I'm celiac," Chuffrey added, raising his hand as if he were in class. Avaric turned to him for a second with a restrained look, like someone scolding a child for painting outside the borders. Glinda barely held back a smile.
In the end, each of them ordered something different from the menu, with specific instructions for the chef, which the waiter jotted down with forced professionalism. When they were alone again, the silence was brief and charged with possibility. Avaric broke it with a soft sigh, like someone who decides it's time to get serious.
"Well... since we're here, I think it's worth introducing myself properly. Not as 'the one who gives pretty speeches in the park,'" he said, with that studied cadence characteristic of men practicing in front of a mirror.
Glinda smiled somewhat knowingly.
"I was born in the Northern District," Avaric began, turning his wine glass between his fingers as if it were an object of meditation. "I won't hide the fact that my family never lacked income, precisely because my parents' last name always weighed heavily on me. But from a young age, they made it clear to me that if I wanted to stand out, I would have to do so on my own merit... or at least appear to."
He paused briefly and tilted his head with an almost nostalgic smile.
“So I did what every guy with money, charm, and too much free time does: I got into every kind of trouble possible. Parties, student arguments, theater, protests, sports, relationships… lots of relationships. And at the same time, I made sure my academic report looked impeccable. I got into Briscoe College based on my GPA and my last name, and I walked out with letters of recommendation, a degree with honors… and a couple of broken hearts.” His eyes sparkled. “I’m not proud of everything, but I learned. And fast.”
Glinda didn’t interrupt. She sipped her wine slowly, evaluating each word as if it were a stronger wine than the one in her glass. Avaric continued.
“By the time I was twenty-four, I had everything you’re supposed to want: a comfortable bank account, a healthy reputation, connections… and, honestly, unbearable boredom. I realized I had a perfectly put-together life… and nothing to challenge me. Nothing real.”
That last sentence was spoken with a sudden stillness. Glinda observed him more closely. He continued, lowering his tone slightly, as if allowing himself a moment of honesty:
"So I decided to do something different. To see beyond my own reflection. I traveled. I delved into neighborhoods I'd never set foot in, spoke to people I'd never met in my circles, witnessed things that made me uncomfortable. And when I came back, I realized I couldn't go on like this. Not if I wanted to have more than a pretty biography." He gestured with his hands, a kind of surrender. "I discovered the only thing I was truly excited about… was trying to fix what's clearly broken."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was rather expectant. Avaric had said just the right thing, with the perfect balance of vulnerability and charisma. He had opened a window into his soul… or at least, a beautifully decorated one.
Glinda leaned back slightly, her smile soft but inscrutable.
"Well, if that was a campaign speech, I must say it was a pretty good one. Although I suspect that moment of spiritual enlightenment had excellent natural lighting, no? Perhaps at sunset, on a terrace with white wine?"
Avaric laughed, delighted by the wit. He didn't defend himself. There was no need. They both knew how he played that game.
And the game continued.
Glinda settled into her chair with an elegant but firm movement, crossed her legs, and rested her elbows on the table. Her glass rested barely between her fingers, as if assessing how much patience she had left instead of wine.
"Well," she said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, "if we're going to share our biographies, we should at least be fair and honest with each other, shouldn't we?"
Avaric nodded expectantly. Chuffrey remained silent, almost restrained, knowing that Glinda was about to speak as if she were on a podium, not in a restaurant with piano music in the background.
"As you both know," she began with measured sweetness, "I've been through this circus before." I've smiled in meeting rooms where the heating worked better than the ideas, I've negotiated with men who mistook my courtesy for weakness, and I've had to disguise every word with charm so that someone, at some point, would listen to me without interrupting.
He leaned forward a little, his tone still kind, but sharp underneath.
"I've worked hard. I've invested time, energy, and more makeup than I care to admit into opportunities like these. Always with the promise that if I behaved well, if I said the right things with a soft voice and a charming smile, someday I could really make a difference. And not only that... but I could leave something behind. Something more than a fond memory or a nice photo at an opening."
She paused. Avaric kept his gaze fixed on her, uninterrupted. Chuffrey seemed to be holding his breath.
"But time and again, I've run into men with big smiles and big dreams. Dreams that, when you scratch them a little, turn out to be whims." Expensive whims of children who not only don't want to share their toys, but also want to keep all the candy for themselves... no matter who they have to push or leave hungry along the way.
Now, her smile faded completely. She spoke with implacable clarity, without embellishment.
"And I'll tell you something, Avaric. Your story sounds believable. It even sounds sincere. Perhaps it is. But anyone can tell a story well. And I... I'm sick of living in tales I didn't write. Of being the protagonist only to discover that someone else has already decided the ending for me. And that the moral, if it comes, never seems to reach those who should most learn it."
The silence that followed was thick and clear as crystal.
Then, as if all that had been said were merely an appetizer, Glinda leaned back slightly, picked up her glass, and smiled. A new smile. A dangerous smile.
"So if this is another tale, Avaric... you'd better let me write some chapters."
And she drank, her eyes fixed on him, waiting for an answer that wasn't a slogan.
Meanwhile, far from the restaurant bathed in warm light and ambiguous promises, another story unfolded beneath purple neon lights and the deep hum of a bass that seeped through the cracks in the walls. The streets of Emerald City had that peculiar way of changing faces at every corner, and Elphaba knew it. Even so, she walked with her hands stuffed into the pockets of her leather jacket, her collar turned up against the night breeze, and a sour expression that snarled at the entire world.
"Ridiculous," she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. "'It would do you good to get out for a while,' she said? Who the hell relaxes alone walking among neon signs and the smell of old fried food?"
She trudged forward aimlessly, not admitting that, deep down, she didn't want to return to the empty penthouse. She turned a corner more out of habit than curiosity... and then she saw him.
Kiamo Ko.
The name, carved in wrought iron on the awning of a restored old building, glowed a deep red. The line at the entrance stretched around the block, as always. Well-dressed, extravagant, or clearly intent on attracting attention, waited under the watchful eyes of two burly guards dressed in black. From a distance, Elphaba saw some enter without waiting, barely nodding to the doorman or quickly showing something.
"Sure. Rich people's club," she muttered.
Even so, she approached. Something about the smell of leather and the deep rumble of the music drew her like a magnet.
"Name," the guard asked when he saw her.
Elphaba stopped, hesitated for a second, and then answered curtly:
"Elphaba Thropp. I'm a friend of the owner."
The guard raised an eyebrow, flipped through the digital list on his tablet, and shook his head.
"No one by that name is listed."
Elphaba crossed her arms, about to turn away with a huff of annoyance when the other, younger guard leaned toward his companion and pointed at something on the list.
"Wait... isn't that the 'grumpy green witch'?"
Elphaba blinked. The first guard chuckled.
"Look at that," he said, turning the screen for her to see. There, written in ridiculously cursive handwriting, it said:
"The Grumpy Green Witch (with a drawing)."
And right next to it, a digital pencil sketch: a caricature of Elphaba with a grumpy face, arms crossed, and next to it another of Glinda throwing glitter.
"VIP pass," the guard added, already opening the red ribbon to let her through. "Fiyero said you could come in whenever you wanted. And that we shouldn't argue with you. Ever."
Elphaba let out a sigh of resignation and amusement. She rolled her eyes.
"Of course Glinda sent her that drawing."
And, adjusting her jacket, she entered the club, swallowed by the artificial smoke, the flickering lights, and the hypnotic rhythm of a night that promised anything but rest.
Elphaba and Glinda had only been to Kiamo Ko a couple of times, and always at Fiyero's insistence. But the truth was, even if Elphaba refused to admit it out loud, the place had something… hypnotic. It wasn't just the music, nor the carefully designed aesthetic that blended leather, velvet, and steel with a theatrical elegance. It was the feeling that everyone there had a secret story, and for one night, they told it through glances, gestures, and silences.
Elphaba crossed the threshold as if it were enemy territory, albeit with a sure gait, her boots echoing on the dark wooden floor. It wasn't long before she was lost among the low lights, the red and purple flashes, and the intoxicated murmurs of pleasure and curiosity. The club seemed different every time, as if reinventing itself according to the collective mood.
That night, the central stage was lit in intense blue hues, and a performance was in full swing: two masked performers swung from harnesses wrapped in black silk ribbons, spinning like human pendulums in a hypnotic choreography of mastery and surrender. The movements were precise, sensual, almost ritualistic. Elphaba paused for a moment, watching with a raised eyebrow.
"Good body tension," she murmured to herself, "but the pulley system is poorly calibrated. That left rope is going to fail if they keep rotating at that angle."
Some spectators around her looked at her in confusion, but she was already walking away, with the same disinterested air of someone who doesn't want to admit they just enjoyed what they saw.
She headed straight to the bar, where the bartender—a tall man with tattooed arms and a friendly smile—recognized her instantly.
"Does the grumpy witch want the usual?" he joked, deftly shaking a cocktail shaker.
Elphaba smiled slightly.
"With less garnish this time. Nothing with fire or sparks, please."
"I'll tell that to your girlfriend when she gets back," he replied with a wink, pouring an amber liquid into a rocks glass with ice.
"If she comes back," Elphaba replied, taking the glass and taking a slow sip.
There was a brief, comfortable silence between them, as if they understood each other without needing to fill the air with words. After a moment, the bartender asked with genuine curiosity,
"Are you coming alone tonight?"
"Sort of. Glinda sent me to distract myself. Like that's what I came here for," he snorted, looking around.
"Well, there are worse distractions."
Elphaba couldn't help a half-smile. Her eyes wandered for a moment to the stage, then scanned the various corners of the club: the semi-enclosed private areas, the themed rooms, the DJ booth covered by chain curtains. There was an art to all of this, she thought. An intimate choreography that wasn't limited to the stage.
And maybe, just maybe... it wasn't such a bad idea to have let herself be dragged there.
"Elphaba Thropp in my club... without threats, or chains?" said a familiar voice behind her, heavy with mocking theatricality. "I must be dreaming."
Elphaba turned her head slightly, instantly recognizing that mischievous, arrogant smile she'd known since college.
"And I thought this was one of those nightmares where everyone's naked and you show up with a crown," she replied, spinning on her stool with a glass in her hand. "Oh, wait... that already happened once."
Fiyero burst out laughing as he settled in next to her, signaling the bartender to bring him his usual.
"I can't believe this. I thought if you ever came back here it would be because Glinda drugged you or extorted you with a compromising photo."
"And who says she didn't?" Elphaba responded sarcastically, though a faint smile curved her lips. "Let's just say she convinced me to... distract myself. Which is her polite way of telling me to stop staring at her while she flirts with an idealistic twenty-something politician."
"No way... Glinda with a politician?" Fiyero asked, half amused and half cautious. “Does he have a name worth remembering?”
"Avaric, if I recall correctly..."
"Avaric? Avaric?.... Oh, I see," Fiyero exclaimed with some genuine surprise.
"Do you know him?" Elphaba questioned, a thread of concern running through her throat.
"Only by appearance and reputation. We went to the same university after I dropped out of the state school. Too much hair, too few ideas. But he seems to be in love with the sound of his own voice, so he fits in with politics."
Elphaba gave a short, dry laugh.
"Glinda says she's looking to do something different, something that matters. But you know how these things are: every time she wants to save the world, she ends up invited to a charity gala with caviar canapés and endless speeches."
Fiyero watched her for a moment, tilting his head as if trying to decipher a melody.
"Are you jealous?"
"No." The answer came out too quickly. He took another drink. I'm... cautious.
Fiyero didn't insist. Instead, he took his glass, toasted her silently, and then leaned back in his seat.
"Well, while she bores herself with speeches, you could enjoy this a little. The red room has a new installation. And if you tire of the spectacle, there's a reading session in the secret library today."
"Secret library? Here?"
"Of course. Not all BDSM is whipping, my dear. Sometimes words bind, too."
Elphaba glanced at him, unable to help but smile at that phrase.
"Damn, that sounded poetic."
"I'm getting better. I've become very refined since you stopped coming to humiliate me in debates," he said with a theatrical bow.
They both laughed, and for a moment, it was like being back in those college hallway friends, where the world still seemed malleable, and the future an unknown with possibilities. There, in that corner of red lights and veiled confidences, Elphaba didn't feel as out of place as she'd expected.
Meanwhile, back in the restaurant, as the plates were reduced to elegant remnants and crumpled napkins strewn with lipstick marks and gluten-free crumbs, Avaric concluded his anecdote with the childlike enthusiasm of someone convinced he'd just said something brilliant.
"...and then my brother, who'd put the coins in the toaster, ended up electrocuting the cat. Luckily, it survived! Although it's been terrified of toast ever since." He let out a hearty, broad laugh that echoed too loudly in the half-empty dining room.
Chuffrey laughed politely, shaking his head as if he'd heard the story before. Glinda gave a short, light laugh, more from the absurdity of it all than from real amusement.
"And did you include the cat in your campaign, or did you just use it as a metaphor for energy security?" "Glinda asked with a crooked smile as she sipped her wine glass.
Avaric raised an eyebrow, then laughed back, enjoying the friction of the irony.
"You're provoking me."
"I'm just exercising my critical sense," she replied with a flash of elegant irony. "It's part of the training for when you want to change the world, isn't it?"
The comment seemed to whet another kind of appetite for conversation. The laughter slowly died down like candles in a cooling room. Avaric leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, his fingers interlaced.
"That's exactly what I wanted to ask you, Glinda. What would you do to improve things?"
She looked at him, serious for a moment. As if the silence before answering was a test she didn't want to fail.
"In what way?"
"In all of them." Ever since the former senator got burned by that Shiz.Corp alliance scandal and the "inclusive reform" that ended up being a lifeline for shareholders... the city has been plunged into a kind of trance. There's no real leadership, no direction. The atmosphere is one of... paralysis. You have charisma, history, intelligence. What would you do if you had the chance?
Chuffrey put his fork down on his plate with a small porcelain "click." He looked at Glinda with a hint of intrigue that he tried to hide, but his curious eyes betrayed him. Everyone seemed to want to know the answer.
Glinda took a slow breath. She settled into her chair as if she needed to adjust not only her posture, but her very name in this conversation. She crossed her legs, studied Avaric for a moment… and then began to speak, not with the tone of someone improvising, but of someone who has already asked themselves this question too many times in the mirror.
“For starters, I would stop pretending that politics is about perfect plans,” she said, gently resting her fingers on the rim of her glass. “Plans break down. Speeches are forgotten. And what remains is how you treat people. What you are willing to listen to. What you are willing to lose.”
Avaric nodded, though still saying nothing.
“Most of the men I knew in politics,” Glinda continued, her voice calm but firm, “were children playing at being kings. They wanted all the crowns, all the cameras, all the attention. And they didn’t know how to share even a chair.” And if someone like me walked into the room with a smile and an expensive dress, they thought they could use me as a symbol. As a figure. But not as a voice.
Chuffrey lowered his gaze. Avaric remained silent.
"So if you ask me what I would do to improve things..." Glinda paused, took a deep breath, "...I would start by stopping telling stories that always end the same. Those stories where the same people hold power and promises are just window dressing to win elections. I would do politics like someone caring for something living. Like someone watering a plant, not like someone selling fake flowers."
Avaric watched her with a mixture of admiration and caution. Something in her smile became more restrained. More professional.
"That sounds... radical."
"Do you think so? It sounds like common sense to me," Glinda replied, putting down her glass without drinking.
For a moment, everyone was silent. The city sounded outside: honking horns, distant laughter, a wind rustling the terrace's canvas. On the table, a remnant of untouched chocolate remained, and the uneasy thought that the conversation could no longer return to the trivial.
"Fascinating, but... I need another drink to continue this debate," Avaric joked with his charming, practiced smile, as he rose from his seat with the elegance of someone who has made charisma an impermeable shield. "I'll go to the bathroom quickly, and then I'll kidnap you for another ten minutes, okay?"
Glinda nodded with a half smile, watching him walk between the tables with his confident stride, as if even the waiters would move aside out of inertia when they saw him pass. The silence he left was immediate and strange, as if Avaric's departure had turned off some background music that no one noticed... until it stopped.
Chuffrey shifted in his chair. He picked up his—empty—glass of water and realized it too late. Then he let out a small, nervous laugh.
"I didn't know you felt that way," he murmured, his voice lower than usual. "I liked what you said. About treating politics like a living thing. Like caring for a plant."
Glinda turned to him, a little surprised. It was the first time all evening that Chuffrey had spoken without Avaric looking at him first.
"Thank you," she said gently, but with a hint of interest. "Not many people stop to listen... much less offer an opinion without complaining."
Chuffrey gave a small, almost shy smile and rested both forearms on the table.
"I suppose it's easy to be impressed by the stories you hear," he replied in a calm, careful voice. "But yours... they're not tales. They're ideas. And you can tell there's an intention behind every word."
Glinda tilted her head, intrigued and a little amused by the formality with which he spoke.
"Well... that sounds more flattering than any praise I've ever received in politics," she murmured. "But tell me, Chuffrey, does everyone who works with Avaric think this way?"
He leaned forward a little, his expression measured, almost defensive.
"No, not really... no," he admitted. "Some are here just for convenience, others because they believe in him, and I... well, I'm here because I want to understand him. And I think you too... want to understand something, don't you?" Glinda couldn't help but smile, acknowledging the accuracy of his observation.
"I suppose so. But beyond understanding, I want to be able to do something that truly matters." Her voice became more serious, but without losing its characteristic lightness. "I'm not interested in being part of another story where, in the end, someone else decides what happens and who wins."
Chuffrey nodded, his eyes reflecting respect, although a subtle tension remained in his shoulders.
"That kind of conviction is rare," he murmured. "And, honestly, it can be dangerous, but also inspiring. Not many take the time to think beyond the present, Glinda. Some don't even think about the future of their city."
Glinda looked at him for a moment, assessing the mixture of sincerity and caution in the man before her. She realized that, unlike Avaric, Chuffrey wasn't trying to impress with stories or smiles; he seemed genuinely interested in the weight of his words and what they implied. And that intrigued her.
"I'm glad someone's listening," he said finally, with a faint flicker of irony in his smile. "Because otherwise, this would all be just another spectacle, and you know how I love spectacles... until they get boring."
Chuffrey allowed himself a short laugh, more out of complicity than amusement, and for a moment, the formality of the evening seemed to fade. Between them, a thread of shared curiosity emerged, a kind of silent understanding: each was sizing up the other, not with distrust, but with the caution of someone who knows that genuine allies are hard to find.
Glinda looked at him. She was about to say something, perhaps something joking to lighten the tension... but just then, as if the universe had become nervous at such sincerity, Avaric returned.
"What did I miss?" he said, drying his hands with a napkin he seemed to have brought from the bathroom, always perfectly casual.
Glinda and Chuffrey parted naturally, as if they'd been caught confessing something in an ancient church.
"Nothing important," she replied with a vague smile, before taking a sip of wine.
But as Avaric spoke again and resumed his political monologue, Glinda noticed that for the first time that evening, her other companion didn't lower his head.
Meanwhile, the club's music could barely be heard from the corner where they were, one of those padded booths that mimicked the elegance of a French cabaret but with red lights more suited to a cheap film noir set. Elphaba had her bare feet up on the seat, her boots tossed to the side. Her glass—half full or half empty, it's hard to tell—rested between her fingers like another extension of her sarcasm.
"And do you remember the rope workshop with that couple from Colorado? The ones who had a manifesto!" Fiyero said between laughs, resting his forehead against his arm.
Elphaba brought a hand to her face, shaking her head while laughing so hard her wine glass almost fell out of her hand.
"The 'Radical Ethics Polyamory Manifesto'! Gods!" he exclaimed, laughing, panting slightly. "I'll never forget the way they looked at you when you said you didn't know your own limits and that's why you were seeking them."
"I meant it!" he defended himself, laughing even more. "And they were as offended as if I'd insulted the Virgin of Aftercare."
"And then they dragged me into a twenty-five-minute gaze-hold because 'my chaotic energy was disrupting the group vibe'!" Elphaba said, widening her eyes as if she were still reliving it.
They looked at each other. They burst out laughing again, this time more uncontrolled, with that alcoholic edge where everything is funnier than it should be. Elphaba took a long drink as she tucked her hair behind her ear, slightly flushed, either from laughter, the wine, or both.
"Do you want to know something?" —he whispered, leaning closer as if sharing a state secret. —Once... in one of our first role-playing games... Glinda had me pretend I was a white-collar thief caught by the secret police. So far, so good. But her idea of a secret police force was... ridiculous. She put on a 1920s officer's hat, one she'd bought at a party store, for her French detective costume.
Fiyero was already doubled over with laughter.
—And he interrogated you?
—Yes! With a reading light! And every time he said "confess," he used a Russian accent. A terrible Russian accent.
Fiyero slid down the back of the chair, gasping with laughter, hitting one of the padded walls with his open palm.
—My God... I can't... I can't imagine it.
—And yet I lived through it, Elphaba said, raising her glass like a war survivor. —I have flashbacks every time I hear "KGB."
The laughter faded slowly, like the echo of fireworks fading at dawn. Elphaba sighed, placing her glass on the table. She leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. In the dim light, her face looked younger. Or maybe just less wounded.
Fiyero watched her silently for a few seconds. Then, in a calm voice and without preamble, he asked,
"And the book?"
Elphaba didn't answer immediately. She stared at the glass, as if inside there was a broken compass that didn't know which way to point.
"That was quite a change of tone," she murmured.
"I know. I had to ask. I know you don't want to talk about it much, but... you were writing even before you knew you were good at sex. Which is saying something."
Elphaba laughed softly, humorlessly.
"Yeah. I thought that would save me too. As if writing was enough."
"And isn't it enough?"
"Not when what comes out is garbage." His tone was dry, almost childish in its disdain. "I have dozens of pages that say nothing. Some aren't even about what I want to say. They're just... attempts to sound intelligent. Or to sound like me. But I don't know what that means anymore."
Fiyero didn't respond immediately. He took a slow, slow sip.
"What if you're changing?" he finally asked. "What if the problem is that you're trying to write like the old Elphaba... but the new Elphaba is writing something else?"
Elphaba looked at him. For a second, she wanted to make a joke, a deflection, anything. But she didn't.
"Sometimes I'm afraid I won't have anything to say anymore."
Fiyero leaned in a little closer, not intruding.
"That's not going to happen. But you don't have to say everything right now. Maybe you just need to stop writing like someone's watching you."
Silence. Elphaba picked up her glass again and murmured, "It's not fear of being seen. It's fear of being read and not understanding anything."
"So you're writing something important."
That phrase hung in the air like a small, modest, and brutal truth.
"Idiot," she whispered, smiling with moist eyes.
"I know. But I'm your trusted idiot."
They toasted without clinking glasses, just with a glance. And for a few minutes, they didn't speak again. They only listened to the gentle rhythm of the music and the distant sound of other laughter, at other tables, from other people who didn't yet know they were also changing.
"Ah, there are my bastard children of sin!" shouted a powerful voice, reverberating like a theatrical gong in the middle of the club.
Wiz appeared between the curtains with an entrance worthy of a Broadway musical. She wore a gold sequin corset, inflatable shoulder pads with black hearts, and a sculptural wig that mimicked Elsa's iconic hairstyle from Frozen, but dyed neon purple. Her makeup was half Greek goddess, half melancholic clown. And her face, urgent.
“Fiyero, honey, the artists are having an existential crisis. Again. Can you come before one strangles the other with the wrong whip?”
Fiyero stood up as if it wasn't the first time he'd heard that phrase. “The Thursday leather couple again?”
“The very same. They're yelling at each other in Morse code with their whips.” Wiz spun dramatically on her stilettos and gestured imperatively backstage. “Come on, this smells like a show cancellation… and not the kind we like.”
Elphaba, without finishing her drink, slipped on her boots without tying the laces.
“At least promise this won't involve animals,” she murmured, following them backstage.
The back corridor of the club was narrow and covered in black curtains, with dim red and violet lights that made it seem like you were walking inside a living vein. Behind the main curtain, two figures were arguing heatedly. Both were completely covered in tight black leather outfits, designed to show the bare minimum and suggest everything: lined eyes, bare crimson lips, and absolutely everything else covered by zippers, straps, and metal plates. As if two futuristic mannequins had come to life to fight for their union rights.
"You don't understand the dynamics! You're the Dom tonight, you can't be so sensitive!" shouted the one with the higher-pitched voice.
"And how do you know what it's like to be a Dom if you can't even pronounce the word 'consent' without crying?!" responded the other, with a deep voice and a suppressed vibrato, as if he were on the verge of an opera.
Both gesticulated furiously, swinging their whips like lightsabers in an erotic space soap opera.
"I'm not going to do this performance if he keeps up that emotional sergeant attitude!" —the first moaned.
—And I'm not going to be part of this progressive liberal BDSM charade where everything is talked about and nothing is felt!
Fiyero sighed, rubbing his temples.
—God. That "progressive liberal BDSM" thing again...
—Can't you just rotate the roles like you rehearsed? —Elphaba interrupted, crossing her arms. —One commands, the other obeys. Then they switch. It's theater, not couples therapy!
—Theater?! —the two performers exclaimed in unison, as if they'd been insulted in their most sacred identity.
—I am my character, —the first said, touching his chest. —I can't just "act" submissive if I don't feel it.
—And I can't dominate someone who sends me passive-aggressive messages on Messenger all day long, —the other added.
Wiz crossed his arms, tapping his cue stick on the floor. His shadow projected on the wall like a fairy-tale stepmother reimagined by Almodóvar.
“Silence!” he bellowed, and everyone fell silent as if a Tibetan gong had exploded. “We’re going to settle this like the grown-up entertainers we are. With dignity, passion… and an impromptu punishment wheel!”
Everyone looked toward the corner where Wiz had already magically prepared a wheel decorated with words like: “Hot Wax,” “Impromptu Verse,” “Role Reversal,” “Humiliation Monologue,” and “Stilt Parade.”
“The audience is packed and expecting something transgressive. So either you do the act… or I’ll bring in the emergency queer clown trio.”
Wiz already had one hand extended over the punishment wheel, with an exaggerated gesture worthy of a prime-time raffle.
“And now, fortune decides who’s going to end up with nipple clamps and a hendecasyllable poem!”
“Wait,” Elphaba intervened firmly, raising a hand. Before I spin the roulette wheel of performative sadism… can I try something else?
Wiz paused, pursing his lips, and snapped his fingers disdainfully.
“You have exactly one and a half monologues, honey. After that, spin the wheel… or spin your dignity.”
Elphaba took a deep breath and turned to the performers, who were still arguing with each other, their bodies tense, as if each glance were a failed whiplash.
“Look… I understand you’re frustrated. You both want this scene to work, but you’re bound—metaphorically and literally—by a very superficial understanding of what this dynamic entails.”
The deep-voiced performer raised a distrustful eyebrow.
“Oh, yeah? And what do you know?”
“Too much,” Elphaba replied without hesitation, though with a hint of irony. “Enough to know that it’s not about acting stronger or weaker.” Nor about who commands and who obeys. It's about surrendering power... and holding it carefully. About making the other person feel they can lose control without losing themselves. It's not a war of egos. It's trust. It's play. It's risk and refuge at the same time.
The two performers looked at her, one with his arms crossed, the other with his head tilted as if trying to translate from Elvish.
"This isn't just a performance with leather and screams..." Elphaba continued, now dropping her diplomatic tone, letting conviction speak to her from her stomach. "It's an emotional choreography. An art where every blow and every silence is rehearsed. Where the mask is used to show, not to hide. And if you don't listen to each other, if you don't respect each other, if you don't restrain yourselves... then this isn't BDSM. It's failed theater. Or worse, a parody that deserves neither whip nor applause."
Silence.
One of the performers lowered his gaze. The other opened his mouth to say something, but only a sigh came out. They looked like kids to whom someone had finally explained why their house of cards had fallen. They were no longer on the defensive. Just unarmed.
Elphaba looked at them calmly, almost maternally.
"You can make this work. But you have to stop acting like this is a battle. And start playing like you really need each other."
The two looked at each other, as if seeing each other for the first time in weeks. Finally, the one with the deep voice murmured:
"We could switch roles for the second act..."
"And... do the first act with the negotiation scene. The one we rehearsed and then dismissed as 'too slow.'"
"I like that idea," the other replied, more softly. "And we could come back at the end, with the same gesture. As if coming full circle..."
"There it is," Elphaba said with a small smile, turning on her heel.
Fiyero watched her from the side of the stage. His arms were crossed, but he couldn't hide the slight frown that had crept across his brow. When she passed him, he murmured, "Are you sure you don't want to write that chapter today?"
Elphaba glanced at him, her expression half sarcasm, half modesty.
"I don't know how to write about this," she said. "I just... feel it. As if it lives inside me."
"Exactly," he replied, serious for once. "That's the difference between those who play the game... and those who understand the game."
Wiz broke the tension by rapping twice with the cane he'd pulled out of nowhere.
"Well, the drama's over, the dramatics begin! Take your positions, you sensory aesthetic bitches!"
The performers were ready. The curtain was rising. The lights flickered like excited neurons.
And as the music began to play, Elphaba stood for a second longer, watching from the shadows.
Something inside her hummed. Like a string being stretched taut, not to break. But to vibrate.
To make music.
Finally, the night slipped gently through the city streets. The restaurant lights flickered like tamed fireflies, and a cool, almost late-summer air gently stirred the hem of Glinda's coat as she said goodbye on the sidewalk.
"Thank you for dinner, really," she said, in that measured tone she used when she didn't quite know how she felt.
Avaric smiled at her, nervous like a child who has just handed in his first drawing.
"I guess now comes the wait... Right? Or, well, you can save us from it with a resounding "no." At least that way I can go cry with dignity in a corner."
Chuffrey gave a short, polite laugh, surreptitiously adjusting his scarf. Glinda held Avaric's gaze for a moment. Then she looked down. She seemed thoughtful, but not hesitant.
"It was... an intense night," she said, without irony for once. "I saw many things I didn't expect to see. In you, in myself."
She paused. Allowed herself a sigh.
"And I'm not sure I know exactly what awaits me if I say yes. But this uncertainty feels... exciting. Challenging. Familiar, even. As if something inside me recognizes this impulse."
She looked back at them, now with a restrained smile, serene, but full of purpose.
"So yes. I will. I will work with you."
Avaric's gesture was instantaneous: a small jump back, hands raised to the sky as if he had just won a nonexistent election.
"Really?! Really, really?!" he exclaimed. Oh no, I have to make a call. Or better yet, write a manifesto. No, a playlist! This needs a soundtrack!
"Breathe," Chuffrey intervened, touching her shoulder. "You'll scare her off before you sign the contract."
Glinda laughed softly.
"There are still many things to define. Limits. Conditions. Expectations."
"Of course!" said Avaric, still visibly euphoric. "We'll talk about it calmly. With... planning. Dignity. Coffee."
"And if possible with dessert, even better," Glinda added conspiratorially.
The three exchanged one last handshake, each in their own way. Chuffrey, measured and firm. Avaric, warm and trembling. Glinda, diplomatic and subtle. Then they walked away down the avenue, their silhouettes silhouetted by the lanterns.
Glinda was alone for a few more seconds. She didn't look at her cell phone. Or at the sky. She just stood still, feeling in her chest that faint drumming that comes when something important has just changed. It wasn't fear. It wasn't pride. It was... a beginning.
And though she didn't know it yet, in another part of the city, Elphaba had also just had her own kind of revelation.
That night, the two of them walked home with something new pulsing inside.
The promise of what was to come.
Half an hour later, the penthouse door closed with a faint metallic sigh. Glinda entered with the gait of someone who has been holding the perfect smile for hours. She unceremoniously kicked off her heels and let out a moan of relief that echoed through the dark windows.
The living room was dimly lit by the corner lamp, casting soft shadows on the furniture. But she didn't take more than three steps before stopping dead.
There, hanging with graceful solemnity from the back of a chair, was a black leather mask, complete with muzzle. It gleamed faintly as if it had just been polished. Glinda frowned, then arched an eyebrow. She turned slowly around.
The dining room table—the same one where they used to eat breakfast amid laughter and breadcrumbs—was covered like a profane altar: handcuffs, collars, whips, perfectly aligned silicone butt plugs, a heart-shaped paddle, a vibrator that still seemed to have a charge… and, in the center, an empty wine glass next to a black leather notebook.
"What... in the name of...?"
Then he saw her.
Elphaba appeared from the kitchen, looking like something out of a fantasy novel and a fetish catalog. She was wearing a black satin robe open to the waist and vinyl pants that creaked with every step. Her hair was loose, she had a pencil between her teeth, and her expression completely focused as she jotted something down in her notebook.
"...Three sets of broken handcuffs, two without keys, and this... this doesn't vibrate anymore, or is it me?" —he said aloud to himself, before noticing Glinda's presence.
When he looked at her, he lit up as if he wasn't wearing a leather harness or sorting dildos by intensity.
"Love! You're back!" he exclaimed matter-of-factly.
Glinda blinked.
"Are you...? Is this... some kind of... sexual archaeology?"
Elphaba gave a deep, amused laugh.
"I'm taking inventory," she said, holding up her notebook. "Field research for an essay I'll never publish, but which has me completely obsessed."
"And you decided to do it today?"
"I was inspired. The atmosphere. The club. Fiyero almost in tears. Wiz spinning a punishment wheel. You know how it is." And she held up a dildo as if it were a Shakespearean quill. "All art begins with a good collection of mistakes."
Glinda brought a hand to her face, laughing with her fingers.
"I swear I thought I'd walked into an auction of the seven deadly sins."
"Well, technically this"—Elphaba held up a pair of tweezers—"is lust and a little bit of greed. Don't ask."
They both stared at each other, still smiling, until, as if on the same frequency, they spoke at the same time:
"I have great news!" they said together.
They laughed. Again. Now closer.
"You first," Glinda said, dropping her purse on the sofa and crossing her arms in mock mystery.
"No, you first, you're in your best clothes. I'm sure your story has more champagne."
"Yours includes more rope," Glinda replied, pointing to the table.
Elphaba shrugged.
"Typical tie. We count to three and say it at the same time."
"Like in the office?"
"Like in the office."
They both looked at each other. They inhaled deeply.
"One... two... three!"
"I'm going to write a book on fetish psychology!"
"I accepted the job with Avaric!"
There was a moment of absolute silence.
Glinda still had one foot bare and the other shod with the killer heel. Elphaba held a leather paddle in one hand and her notebook in the other, as if she were about to give a lecture.
They looked at each other in disbelief. Tenderly. With that mixture of "what the hell are we doing" and "this makes perfect sense."
And then they exploded.
The laughter was like a disorderly gale. Glinda fell onto the couch without even finishing taking off her other shoe. Elphaba placed the palette on the table as if it were a trophy and plopped down beside her.
"I can't believe we said that at the same time," Glinda said between laughs, wiping a tear from her cheek. "We're a sitcom. A weird one."
"We're an essay that no one asked for," Elphaba added, tilting her head. "But one that everyone should read."
"A psychosexual book?" Glinda said it as if she savored the concept. "Is it something that can be... monetized?"
"I don't know... for now it's more of a collection of essays and theories I have on the subject. But... If I develop it well, it could become something more."
"And what kind of things are you going to write?" Glinda asked, with a half smile and a raised eyebrow.
Elphaba took the notebook, flipping through it until she came to a page filled with scribbles, underlining, and marginal notes.
"Power dynamics, symbolism, taboos as rituals... things like that. I'm putting together a series of personal essays mixed with theory. Something like intimacy as resistance, or pleasure as a form of knowledge."
Glinda looked at her, her eyes shining, the smile still on her face.
"It's beautiful. It's so you. It's exactly what you should be doing."
"And you... are you going to enter politics? Really?" Elphaba asked with a mixture of irony and genuine emotion.
"I'm not going to," Glinda clarified. "I'm just going to help someone who believes in important things. Avaric offered me the chance to manage his campaign, and... I think I can do it well. I don't know if it's forever. But it's a start."
"They're going to underestimate you," Elphaba said, looking at her proudly. "And that's going to be their mistake."
"They've underestimated me since kindergarten," Glinda laughed. "I have experience."
Elphaba looked at her silently for a few seconds, the notebook still open on her lap.
"We're a couple of crazy people," she murmured affectionately. "A campaign manager and an essay-fetishist."
"It sounds like a sitcom with adult content," Glinda said, then smiled tenderly. "But I like it. I like this strange life."
"Me too."
Elphaba leaned toward her, and for a moment, amid the toys on the table, the handwritten papers, and the newborn ideas, they shared a slow, almost reverential kiss.
When they broke apart, Glinda looked at the notebook.
"Can I read something?"
Elphaba hesitated briefly, then nodded. Glinda flipped through a few pages until she found an underlined passage:
"There is nothing more honest than the body when it surrenders without the need to feign power. True dominance, the kind that does not seek to humiliate, is merely a way of holding what the other doesn't yet know they can bear."
Glinda read it silently. Then she looked up.
"Is this about me?"
Elphaba didn't answer. She just held her gaze with a knowing intensity. And that was answer enough.
They both leaned back in the armchair, the city alight outside, and a new chapter unfolding between them, made of words, plans, leather, doubts, political campaigns, and the kind of trust that isn't written, it's built.
"Tomorrow we're going to be exhausted," Glinda said, her eyes narrowed.
"But this night,” Elphaba murmured, caressing her hand, “together… we are unlimited.”
Notes:
I can't believe it took me so long to use Avaric in this story.
Chapter 37: TODAY I START MY QUEST
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“APPLE PIE” - Written by Glinda Upland, age 9, for Creative Writing class. (With a little unicorn drawing in the margin.)
My grandma says good girls don't raise their voices.
My mom says good girls don't get their clothes dirty.
And Mrs. DeVries, my manners teacher, says good girls don't argue with adults, even if the adults are wrong.
(I think that's cheating.)
But yesterday, at the neighborhood fair, there was a pie-making contest. And even though all the ladies wore pretty bows and aprons and said I was “too little to compete,” I still brought my apple pie.
My pie wasn't the prettiest. Or the biggest. Or the pinkest.
But I made it all by myself. With cinnamon, because I like cinnamon better than vanilla.
And when the judge tasted it, he scrunched up his face as if expecting something ugly.
But then he got very quiet. And he smiled.
And he gave me a blue ribbon.
Afterward, everyone said I was a “talented girl.”
But I was always talented.
Only now they know it.
So, the next time someone tells me something isn't for me because I'm a girl, or because I'm blonde, or because I'm polite...
I'm going to remember that cinnamon always wins.
And that being good doesn't mean staying quiet.
CHAPTER 37: Today I start my quest
The alarm went off at 7:00 AM, with that tone Glinda had chosen because it was supposedly “the least irritating of all the irritating sounds available.” A delicate melody, almost a Zen-like chime, persistent enough to enter dreams without destroying them abruptly.
They both woke up at the same time, as if their bodies had secretly synchronized during the night. Still with her eyes closed, Elphaba murmured a non-vowelable "mmmhmorning," and Glinda simply reached under the quilt and placed her hand on her stomach. They remained that way for a few more minutes, neither asleep nor fully awake, breathing in rhythm with each other, sharing that tender limbo where nothing yet required decisions.
Finally, it was Glinda who rolled onto the mattress with a dramatic sigh.
"The world awaits us," she announced, yawning, as if the world should thank her for it.
Elphaba simply grunted something unintelligible that possibly included the word "coffee."
The morning routine had acquired a fluidity of its own over the past few weeks: Glinda would shower first, and Elphaba would make breakfast (although only so she could use the time to read the news on her phone with a spoonful of yogurt in her mouth). Then they'd switch places. By the time Elphaba emerged from the bathroom, her hair dripping and a towel loosely draped over her chest, Glinda was already immaculate: pearl-colored blouse, light linen pants, subtle makeup, and that young-businesswoman attitude that seemed to say, "I can handle this, and you too."
"Are you going to be okay with everything today?" Glinda asked as she put on her earrings in front of the hall mirror.
"Sure. Correcting other people's texts, organizing my book ideas, and masturbating out of intellectual frustration. My usual schedule."
"Ah, the sacred balance." Glinda leaned closer and smoothed a drop of water falling down her collarbone. "You look beautiful when you complain about the education system."
"And you look ridiculous in those shoes."
"I hate them, but they make me feel tall, confident, and capable of ruling a city."
"Isn't it enough for you to know that you've already conquered this house?"
Glinda smiled and kissed her. A firm, lingering kiss, the kind that tasted of commitment without solemnity.
"I'll be back sooner than usual. Don't get used to this level of efficiency."
"I never do. I like to be surprised."
The door closed behind her with a soft click. Elphaba stood in the hallway for a few more seconds, staring at the blank space she'd left. Then she returned to the kitchen, finished her coffee, and sat down at her computer.
The desk was covered with papers marked with highlighters, underlined in red, and the occasional drawing of a rope tied with knots, whether correctly or incorrectly. To one side was the black leather notebook: her new bible. She opened a random page and began reviewing the topics she'd listed the night before.
Chapter 3: The power of vulnerability. / Chapter 4: Roles chosen, masks falling. / Chapter 5: What does “control” mean?
She sighed. Elphaba wasn't someone who believed in the creative process as something mystical. For her, writing was work: a succession of structural decisions, cuts, obsessions with a word. But this book had something different. There was emotion. There was responsibility.
Before she could fully immerse herself, she checked her email. Seven pending assignments: two miscited essays on Judith Butler, a monograph that confused fetishism with capitalist fetishization, and a summary of A History of the Body with more emojis than commas.
"Why are you studying psychology if you hate reading?" she murmured, opening the document.
Three hours passed without him leaving his chair. He rewrote paragraphs, suggested bibliographies, corrected grammatical errors with the same intensity with which others would operate on a heart valve. Every so often, he jotted down an idea for his book. Small insights:
"Fantasy doesn't deny the truth. It versions it."
"It's not about what you do to me. It's about what you let me be when you do it."
Midmorning, he stretched his arms, rubbed his eyes, and forced himself to stand. He went to the kitchen, made tea, and while the water boiled, he looked out the window. The city was a moving tapestry, but from the twenty-fifth floor, it seemed harmless. A distant place that could be gazed at without fear.
Meanwhile, across town, Glinda was conquering the coffee shop with a determination uncommon for someone with glitter on their eyelids. She didn't stop for a second. She completed other people's tasks without being asked, reorganized the inventory, cleaned the coffee machines like a scientist from MIT, and at exactly noon—with her cheeks flushed and her heart beating fast—she announced that she needed to leave early for a new professional project. No one dared contradict her.
When she stepped outside, she felt like a superhero with a double life. She pressed her cell phone to her ear.
"I'm on my way. Where are the kids?"
Avaric's cheerful voice came from the other end:
"At the cultural center. We're bringing coffee. And a revolutionary vision of the city's political future. Do you have any comfortable clothes?"
Glinda smiled.
"I have heels. Which is the same thing, but with pain."
And as the midday sun bathed the city with possibilities, each one immersed herself in her new routine, her new vertigo. Elphaba amidst words, structures, and scars that deserved to be told. Glinda amidst plans, ideas, and alliances yet to be built. They didn't know it, but they were writing together on the first day of the rest of their lives.
And that synchronicity—that simple, silly, and beautiful synchronicity—was love. Without bells. Without a roll. But exact.
Thus, the afternoon progressed with a rhythm marked by the contradictory energy of both women: Glinda's sunny, extroverted drive, and Elphaba's analytical and meticulous intensity. In two different parts of the city, the two worked with the same passion, albeit in completely different worlds.
At the makeshift campaign headquarters, Glinda sat in the third row of a long table while Avaric spoke, standing in front of a whiteboard covered in circles, arrows, and phrases written in red marker. His light blue shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and he spoke with vibrant enthusiasm, his voice modulated and his gestures sweeping, as if each word were part of a rehearsed scene. The room smelled of freshly brewed coffee and new paper, with the floating promise of a bright future. Glinda remained focused. There was something magnetic about the way Avaric spoke, but also something dangerously naive about some of his ideas. While taking notes in her notebook—a pale pink hardcover with a gold “YES YOU CAN” sticker—Glinda noted not only the speech’s strengths but also strategic weaknesses, contradictions, and commonplaces that could be sharpened.
Avaric proposed a campaign centered on “the new emotional politics”—a mix of authenticity, relatability, and social media—and presented a series of pilot videos featuring him helping elderly women cross the street, talking to teenagers about anxiety, and sharing “his vulnerable side” in a fabricated story about his fear of pigeons. As some of the team members applauded enthusiastically, Glinda raised a barely perceptible eyebrow. She liked the energy of the project, but it was clear it needed more depth, more real strategy, less theatrics. Despite that, she diligently jotted everything down. She wasn't there just to be a pretty face or to applaud. She'd taken this job to build something, to challenge herself, to change the script of her own life.
Meanwhile, in the penthouse, Elphaba was facing a different kind of battle. Sitting in the large dark leather armchair facing the window, her legs crossed and a blanket draped over her knees, she frantically typed on her laptop. To one side, on a low dark wood table, rested a half-cold cup of coffee and an open book: "The Erotic Mind" by Jack Morin, heavily underlined. Her computer screen displayed a document titled "Preliminary Notes. Book 1: Desire, Control, and Consent."
In another tab, paused, a supposedly "educational film" analyzed the history of BDSM in a monotonous and erroneous tone. Elphaba scrolled back through certain passages and impatiently noted:
"Myth of the trauma origin of fetish —> FALSE! Lack of rigor. Mixture of moralizing with textbook psychoanalysis. Be careful not to repeat this."
She sighed heavily, pushing back her bangs. For half an hour, she'd been trying to write a chapter on the difference between performative humiliation and destructive humiliation, but the words wouldn't quite fall into place the way she wanted. She wrote, erased, wrote something else. Then she reread everything in a low voice, intoning as if she were presenting it at a TED Talk. She wasn't convinced.
In the background, a modern piano instrumental playlist filled the apartment with an atmosphere somewhere between intellectual and melancholic. To one side, her black notebook lay open with several sketched outlines: chapter structures, tentative titles, arrows crossing names like "Glenn," "Delany," "Beauvoir," "Rubin." It was clear she was neck-deep in this project. She experienced it as a necessity. A political, intellectual, and deeply intimate act. Her way of organizing what she'd learned, what she'd experienced... and perhaps, of understanding herself.
She raised her eyes and looked toward the window. From there, she could see the sky slowly changing hue, from a light blue to the pale orange of sunset. She thought of Glinda. Was she also busy, in her own whirlwind? Did she miss her already, like her?
She sighed again, but with a smile this time. And went back to writing.
The afternoon light was beginning to slant through the windows when Glinda, sitting at her assigned desk—a small white table decorated with a tiny pot of artificial lavender—put the finishing touches on her report. Her laptop screen reflected her focused face, her brow slightly furrowed as she reread for the third time the subheadings she had organized by strategic area: Public Image, Emotional Narrative, Social Media, Real Symbolic Gestures, Mistakes to Avoid.
With a sigh, she saved the document with the provisional title “Glinda Proposal Report—Day 1” and sent it to print. The sound of the laser printer filled the small space as she stood up, straightened her pink blazer, and took the report with both hands, straightening the pages as if they were a formal letter of introduction to destiny. She was satisfied. And exhausted. She couldn't understand how Elphaba enjoyed this obsessive spell-checking ritual so much: "This is hell, a cruel trap for perfectionists," she muttered to herself, remembering how many times she'd changed a "but" to an "although," a "maybe" to a "surely."
Across the main hall, Avaric was crossing the hallway toward his office, walking briskly with his cell phone in hand. Beside him, Chuffrey was trying to keep up as he reviewed the list of meetings he'd scheduled himself, in his always calm, almost robotic tone:
"...and after the Zoom with the Corrientes influencers, you have the interview with that cultural journalist you hate, the one who said you had an "excited nanny voice."
"Why do I keep talking to him then?!" Avaric replied through gritted teeth, still not pausing. "Chuffrey, seriously... I need you to have judgment, not just an agenda."
" It was at that moment that Glinda stood in his way, a restrained smile on her face, the report in her hands as if it were an offering. Avaric looked at her with a hint of surprise and genuine curiosity.
"Forgive me for interrupting," she said with gentle firmness. "I just wanted to give this to you before the day gets away from you. It's a report with ideas and proposals I've been developing today. Some are immediate, others more long-term... I think they might be useful."
Avaric halted his pace. Chuffrey took a slight step back, understanding that this was his moment to step back. The young politician took the report in one hand and quickly flipped through it, running his fingers over the pages as if they were tarot cards. His face, at first neutral, began to light up with a mixture of surprise and admiration.
"You did all this today?" he asked, raising an eyebrow, clearly impressed.
"Yes," Glinda replied with a mixture of pride and restraint. I know I'm still getting to know the team, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to start thinking about how to strengthen what's already in place.
Avaric looked at her for a few more seconds, then back at the report. He turned a page, another... he smiled, without hiding it.
"This is brilliant, Glinda. Seriously. There are things here I hadn't thought of and others that... well, should have been on the table months ago. I think this deserves to be shared," he said, turning to Glinda with the energy of someone who'd just had a great idea. "We should present it to the team this afternoon, before the close of business. That way we can start tomorrow with a new, more defined direction."
Glinda straightened, pleased by the validation, but without losing her composure. She smiled at him with a serene gleam in her eyes, as if such professional recognition were more satisfying than any offhand compliment.
"I'd love to. I think it could be a good way to initiate the change you're looking for," she replied.
But before Avaric could take another step, Chuffrey, who had been breathing uneasily beside him like an iceberg about to crack, intervened in a subtly charged tone:
"Avaric, sorry... this afternoon is already booked. You have the meeting with the community leaders from the western district, the call with the financial consultant, and the private meeting with the legal advisor. And let's not forget the interview with the formal press.
Avaric stopped, sighing in mild frustration. He turned slightly on his heels, as if considering rearranging everything. For a second, Glinda thought he would.
"Maybe we could move something..." he began.
But Chuffrey interrupted again, this time with a tight smile and a gentle, yet insistent, tone:
“Everything for this afternoon was already coordinated over a week ago. And… some presences were confirmed with difficulty. It would be unwise to cancel.”
Glinda observed him. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him like this: as diplomatic as he was inflexible. But in that instant, she noticed something else. He wasn’t just defending Avaric’s agenda. He seemed… uncomfortable. Jealous? Insecure? Or simply annoyed by the efficiency of a newcomer? There was something there. She couldn’t put her finger on it.
Avaric, also sensing the subtle tension, took a second to think. Then he smiled with a mixture of political charisma and practical resolve.
“What if we do this?” he suggested, looking first at Chuffrey and then at Glinda. “Glinda, prepare a condensed version of the report. Tonight, after dinner, Chuffrey can send it to the team with a message from me. Tomorrow morning, first thing, we’ll open with a meeting where we present it in person and work from there. How’s that for you?” Glinda nodded professionally. Chuffrey did too, though with a slight stiffness in his shoulders.
"Perfect then," Avaric concluded, turning to head into his office. "Keep up the good work! This is just the kind of energy we need."
They both bid him farewell with measured smiles, and when Avaric disappeared behind his office door, Glinda slowly turned to Chuffrey.
"Can I ask you something?" she said, crossing her arms without losing her friendliness. "Why were you so insistent that the meeting not take place today? Was it for something special?"
Chuffrey blinked, surprised by the direct question. He faked an innocent smile and tilted his head slightly, as if he didn't quite understand the implication.
"Me? Nothing special. I just... keep track of the agenda. It's my job. Nothing more."
And before she could say anything else, he turned with his meticulous gait and walked down the hall, leaving Glinda alone. She followed him with her eyes, narrowing her eyes like someone who knows there's something lurking beneath the surface but can't quite find the thread to pull.
She sighed. Turned around. Still, she had a report to condense. Even though it was her first day, something told her the goings-on in that office were more complex than any campaign.
Back in the penthouse, Elphaba's investigative process was suddenly interrupted when someone knocked three times with perfectly rehearsed theatricality, as if her mere presence on the other side of the door was an event worthy of a prelude.
"Who is it?" Elphaba asked from inside, not bothering to approach yet.
"Your favorite neighbor!" a cheerful voice answered, with a hint of sophisticated irony that could only belong to Tibbett.
"Shit..." Elphaba muttered, looking at the mess of papers on the table, the running computer, the dirty cups, and most of all, him.
It took her a few seconds to get to her feet. She took out her headphones, slipped a black leather jacket over her sleeveless top, not bothering to fix her hair, and finally, sighing in resignation, opened the door.
"There it is!" Tibbett exclaimed, entering with feline energy, dressed in a white suit with fuchsia geometric patterns, a lavender scarf around his neck, and a tiny purse shaped like a retro telephone slung over his shoulder.
"You didn't even ask if you could come in," Elphaba snarled, closing the door behind him.
"Of course not! Since when did she do that?" she replied with a bright smile, and walked straight into the living room, now speaking as if they were in the middle of an interrupted conversation. "Well, my morning was a delightful disaster." Crope decided it was a good idea to invite his ex over for breakfast. And I decided it was a good idea to set the oven on fire. Luckily, it all ended with a mimosa and reconciliation." She took something out of her bag and left it on the table without looking. "But I didn't come to talk about that. I came for this."
She took out a black envelope with gold lettering, but before she could formally hand it over, she stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the table.
"What the hell...?"
The surface was covered with handwritten papers, some with furious cross-outs, others with circles and arrows crisscrossing several pages. A mental diagram was started on a loose sheet of paper with the words "obsession - control - need" in the center. Beside all of that, an open laptop displayed a document titled Chapter 3: The Origin of Desire. But what truly caught Tibbett's eye wasn't that.
It was the side table next to the armchair. Resting there, as if nothing had happened, was a large, naive-looking white stuffed unicorn… completely tied up with black leather straps. It included a small pink gag and a handwritten note that read: "DO NOT TOUCH – test subject under sensory observation."
Tibbett blinked. He turned slowly to Elphaba.
"What… am I looking at exactly?"
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms under her jacket. Her lips formed an impatient line, but with a glint of resigned irony.
“Before you say anything: the unicorn is Glinda’s. Her name is Lady Sparkle. And no,” he added, raising a hand, “he’s not grounded for misbehaving.”
“…So?”
“He’s a test subject. I need to practice visualization for a part of the book,” he replied, as if that explained everything.
Tibbett considered this. He looked at the unicorn. The ribbons. The title of the document. Then he looked back at Elphaba.
“You’re writing academic porn with stuffed animals. You’re officially my idol.”
“It’s not porn. It’s psychosexual analysis,” Elphaba snarled, turning to pick up a couple of dropped papers. “And the stuffed animal is a support tool. Don’t laugh.”
“And who tied him like that?” Tibbett asked, inspecting the knots with the curiosity of an experimental theater expert.
“Me. And quite enthusiastically.”
Tibbett burst out laughing, completely fascinated.
"Oh gods... if I'm not invited to read that book before everyone else, I'm going to sabotage the wedding with a free verse speech."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"You should. Because if this is only chapter three... the honeymoon is going to require a dress code."
Elphaba smiled faintly, saying nothing, and returned to her table. Tibbett finally handed her the envelope with a ceremonial gesture.
"This is what you wanted," he said bluntly. "As your unofficial lawyer, as your friend, and as the one who will end up signing your wedding as a 'witness in ecstasy'... I researched what you asked me for. And, well... I have bad news."
Elphaba stared at the envelope. Her gaze hardened. She opened it without responding yet, unfolding the printed papers with measured slowness. Tibbett didn't need to fill the silence; he knew what was coming spoke for itself.
“You’re still registered as a citizen of Rush Margins,” he said, sitting on the edge of the chair, without the theatrical tone he usually used. Now he was all professional pragmatism. “You didn’t deregister when you left, which is completely understandable considering how you left. But that means you still legally belong to that district. And, well… Rush Margins is in Gillikin’s state.”
Elphaba already knew that. But she didn’t stop him.
“And Gillikin,” Tibbett continued, “has restrictions and loopholes that haven’t been updated since… well, since women couldn’t open bank accounts without permission. And not only that. The city—this city—no matter how modern and shiny it looks, doesn’t make it easy. By law, same-sex unions are allowed, yes, but…”
“…by civil law. Not religious law. Not federal law. And with limitations on inheritance, joint property, and immigration benefits,” Elphaba added in a dry, biting voice. Her finger traced a line in the margin of the report without looking. "I knew it. I knew it could happen. But…"
Tibbett looked down.
"But seeing it written down still hurts."
Elphaba closed her eyes for a second. She inhaled slowly. Then she uttered a curse, a whispered sound that wasn't so much fury as pent-up disappointment.
"It's always the same…" she said. "Governments change, signs change, speeches change… but if you have the wrong name, the wrong background, the wrong love… they put obstacles in your way everywhere. One word on paper is enough to make everything slower. More difficult."
Tibbett said nothing for a moment. Then, with a soft sigh, he sat up.
"I can keep trying. There are appeals. There are ways. You can change your jurisdiction of birth, with effort. You can marry privately, then internationally. It's not the end of the world, El."
Elphaba nodded, though her jaw remained tight. He held the papers as if they weighed much more than they actually did.
"I know. But it's like... every time I think we can just live like anyone else, something reminds me otherwise. That our life is always going to have an asterisk."
"Or a footnote in small print," Tibbett added gently.
"Or a disclaimer, or a fucking unicorn in bondage."
That made them both laugh a little, albeit with a sour undertone.
"Are you going to tell Glinda?" Tibbett asked, softer now.
"Yes," Elphaba replied without hesitation. "But not today. Today... I want you to have a good day. It'll be enough for you to see what I did to Lady Sparkle."
Elphaba looked down at the report again. Then she folded it carefully, slipped it under her notebook, and looked back at Tibbett.
"Thank you. For finding out."
"Always. I'm part of the 'We will not let Elphaba and Glinda's wedding be ruined by last-century bureaucratic technicalities' committee."
"Are there many members?"
"Two for now." Crope left when he learned there would be no open bar at the rehearsal brunch.
Elphaba finally smiled. Small. Intimate. But real. And at the table, Lady Sparkle remained tied up, a silent witness to all the papers still left to be signed.
Meanwhile, at the campaign headquarters, the distant murmur of phones and keyboards mingled with the faint hum of the air conditioning. The main office was relatively empty that afternoon: Avaric had left for an interview, and the rest of the team was scattered with meetings, lunches, or external tasks. In that strategic corner across from the main office door, two desks faced each other like a chess game. On one side, Glinda, impeccable as always, with a pale pink blazer hanging over the back of her chair, her legs elegantly crossed, and her gaze fixed. On the other, Chuffrey, typing determinedly, his eyes fixed on the screen as if trying to pierce it with concentration.
Glinda had been watching him for several minutes. She'd noticed it from the beginning, of course, but now she had evidence beyond intuition: the reactions, the silences, the glances he thought he was hiding. And those kinds of things didn't escape her.
"You..." "You're in love with Avaric," she said without any preamble, as casually as one might comment on the weather.
Chuffrey's hands stopped dead on the keyboard. Only for a second. But it was enough. He didn't immediately look up, but let out a nervous laugh, as if he'd heard a strange joke.
"Pardon?" he muttered, lamely.
"Oh, don't make that face," Glinda retorted, resting her chin on one hand and tilting her head, delighted with the power of the moment. "It's pretty obvious, you know. You're looking at him as if he'd just invented democracy and had natural perfume."
"I'm not..." he began, but broke off, uncomfortable. His tone held a mixture of indignation and something closer to fear.
"You're not what? In love? Interested? Madly obsessed with his agenda, his perfect smile, and his vision of 'a fairer city for all'?" "Glinda enumerated with a charming but sharp smile. "Chuffrey, don't lie to me. I'm blonde, not stupid."
He closed his eyes for a second, resigned, and tried to continue working. His fingers returned to the keyboard, but they didn't type anything. Glinda let out a soft, amused laugh.
"So... if it's not that," she continued, leaning back theatrically, "why does it bother you so much that I'm here? Huh? What is it about my presence that makes you so... uncomfortable?"
Chuffrey looked at her, genuinely puzzled.
"What does that have to do with it?"
"Oh, dear," Glinda said, stretching slightly forward as if sharing a secret. "Because if you're so in love with Avaric... and I'm going to be here, working with him every day, sitting in his chair, correcting his speeches, whispering things in his ear... then you should find my presence unbearably intimidating."
A blush immediately rose to Chuffrey's cheeks, but his pride tried to remain unbowed.
"No... it's not bullying. You're just sometimes... too direct."
"Thank you," she said with a charming smile. "I learned that in debate club. And at home. And also in the two weeks of therapy I was forced to do in college."
"It's unprofessional," he grumbled, returning his gaze to his screen as if hiding in it.
"And yet you're blushing," she crooned triumphantly.
At that moment, Avaric's office door opened briefly, and he emerged with his jacket slung over one arm and his cell phone in the other. He greeted them both with a bright, carefree smile.
"Everything OK here?"
"Perfect," Glinda said sweetly. "We were just exchanging ideas... about political passion."
Chuffrey nearly choked on his own breath.
"I'm glad," Avaric replied, unsuspecting, before disappearing toward the elevator.
As soon as the door closed, Glinda looked back at Chuffrey.
"See? You shine brighter than the lights in her office."
Chuffrey covered his face with one hand, muttering something about professional boundaries.
And Glinda crossed her legs elegantly again, satisfied.
Suddenly, Glinda's cell phone vibrated on the desk. She picked it up immediately, with that automatic gesture that reveals habit and affection. When she unlocked it, a smile appeared on her face without warning, soft and unashamed, like a flower that opens without a breeze. The screen showed a message from Elphaba, probably one of her affectionate quips or a private thought, but it was enough to light up her eyes.
As she responded quickly with nimble fingers, without erasing her smile, Avaric appeared again from the hallway, this time without a jacket and holding a bottle of water. He stopped when he saw her so focused and tilted his head, curious and mocking.
"And that?" he asked playfully. "A secret admirer?" A candidate from the opposing party trying to sabotage your objectivity with sweet messages?
Glinda let out a genuine laugh, short and lilting, like a teenager whose father had just walked in on her kissing her girlfriend in the kitchen.
"Not exactly," she said, a little blushing. "She's my girlfriend."
Avaric raised his eyebrows, surprised but genuinely delighted.
"Girlfriend?" he repeated with a grin. "I certainly didn't expect that! Congratulations, Glinda."
She nodded, still smiling.
"Well... fiancée, actually."
That was enough for Chuffrey to look up from his screen and Avaric to take a step closer, genuinely interested.
"Fiancée?" he repeated, as if amused by the word. "That's even better. May I know the name of the lucky girl? Or is it classified information?"
"I doubt you'll be able to keep it a secret, so whatever," Glinda joked. Her name is Elphaba Thropp.
Avaric snapped his fingers with a delighted laugh.
"The famous Elphaba! Of course. I knew it. The way you talk about her... even though you don't talk about her that much. Which makes more sense now. And do you have a date yet?"
Glinda shook her head gently, resting her cell phone against her chest for a second.
"Not yet. There are a lot of things to sort out. Complications... personal, legal, logistical. You know."
Avaric nodded understandingly, lowering his voice a little, warmer than before.
"That's a shame. But if I can help with anything, anything at all, let me know. No fuss. I only ask one condition."
Glinda raised a knowing eyebrow at him.
"Condition?"
"Invite me to the wedding. I love weddings."
Glinda laughed with a mixture of surprise and tenderness.
"If we end up organizing it before the world ends, you can count on the invitation."
Avaric winked at her with a crooked smile and disappeared back down the hall, leaving a trail of lightness in the air.
Chuffrey returned to his computer, but cast one last sideways glance at Glinda, as if still trying to understand when she had managed to be so many things at once.
Glinda, for her part, looked at her cell phone again. Elphaba's message was still there, shining like a firefly in the forest of her days. And for a moment, amid all the speeches, campaigns, and bureaucracy, she allowed herself to close her eyes and smile just to herself.
When night finally began to fall over the city, Glinda put away her notebook, closed her laptop with a soft click, and stood up. Her heels clicked elegantly on the wooden floor as she walked around the office, stopping briefly at each desk to congratulate the team. His voice was sweet but firm, filled with genuine enthusiasm.
"Great work today, really. We're making history," he said, and the tired faces of those in attendance lit up with a spark of renewed motivation.
Avaric had already left a couple of hours earlier; he had an important interview with a national media outlet. Glinda had reviewed his speech and helped him rehearse. It didn't surprise her that he'd wanted to be alone to concentrate before facing the cameras. He was ambitious, yes, but also a perfectionist.
Chuffrey, still at his desk, looked up when he felt her approaching. Glinda gave him a friendly smile, full of complicity and a certain new respect they hadn't shared before. He responded with a brief nod, less defensive than during the day.
"See you tomorrow, Chuffrey."
"See you tomorrow, Glinda."
She left the building with a determined stride, the night enveloping her in a cool breeze. She got into her car and started the engine, letting out a sigh. Her shoulders ached, and there was a dull pressure in her temples, but she didn't feel tired. Not yet. Her mind was still working, processing, plotting.
She turned on the radio to distract herself as the traffic moved slowly by. The static cleared, and a familiar voice emerged: it was Avaric's interview, broadcast live.
“…the city needs a fresh perspective, not just political but deeply human,” he said, his tone perfectly modulated, as they had rehearsed. “And that's why I'm very happy to announce that I've recruited someone who represents that better than anyone: Glinda Upland, who is joining me as my campaign manager. Her experience, her vision, her connection with the people… are invaluable to what we want to build.”
Glinda, alone in her car, let out a soft, almost shy laugh. She bit her lip, feeling a warm flutter in her chest. She settled back in the seat as the city unfolded before her in a blur of lights and stoplights.
As she listened to each answer, each turn of phrase, she couldn't help but evaluate, analyze, and refine it in her mind. You could have paused more here... that sounded a bit rehearsed... good intonation there... that phrase is powerful, worth repeating on social media...
But what filled her most wasn't the correctness. It was hearing herself spoken of with respect, with confidence. Knowing she was valued for what she could contribute, not just for her looks or the social connections many used to envy her for. For the first time in a long time, she felt she'd recovered something. A version of herself she'd lost amidst dancing, guilt, and running away.
She briefly glanced at her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her makeup was intact, though a small wrinkle next to her eye betrayed her tiredness. She smiled anyway.
The penthouse wasn't far away. But she allowed herself to slow down a little, enjoying that voice on the radio, the way the work was beginning to take shape, and the quiet pride that slid down her back like an invisible caress.
Finally, Glinda arrived at the building. The lobby was quiet, elegant, and familiar, but her heart pounded with renewed energy. She stepped into the elevator and briefly looked at herself in the steel mirror. She tucked a lock of blond hair and smoothed her blouse with a smile she couldn't—and didn't want to—hold back.
When the penthouse door opened, a soft, almost stage-like darkness awaited her. Elphaba wasn't in the hall. Glinda squinted, placing her things carefully on the small table as she called softly,
"Love? I'm here."
There was no immediate response, only the distant murmur of the city filtering through the windows. But something wasn't right. The lights were low—not off, but subdued, warm, like on an intimate theater set. Glinda took a step, and then she saw it.
In the center of the room, the coffee table in front of the sofa was carefully arranged. On a dark, gold-edged blanket lay china plates, lit candles, cloth napkins, a small makeshift vase of wildflowers, and… Brie cheese?
“Oh…” Glinda murmured, confused and delighted at the same time. She pursed her lips, suppressing a smile that threatened to take over her entire face. Part of her filled with tenderness, another part—the one that always lived on silent alert—wondered if Elphaba had had one of her “creative meltdowns”: those sudden impulses to make something extremely beautiful, strangely intimate, and emotional… sometimes as a release, other times as a declaration of war on the world.
But before she could conclude anything, she heard hurried footsteps from the kitchen.
Elphaba appeared, clearly in distress. She was wearing her loose black silk robe over pajama pants (which Glinda recognized as one she had given her, and which Elphaba wore “only on special occasions that she wouldn't admit were special”). In one hand he carried two glasses of wine, in the other an open bottle. His hair was loose, somewhat disheveled, as if he'd debated whether to comb it or give up.
Seeing Glinda already there, she stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes wide. Clearly, she hadn't expected her to arrive so punctually.
"Oh, crap!" she exclaimed, as if it were a spell rather than a curse. Then she immediately composed herself. "I mean... hello."
Glinda looked at her, still standing on the threshold, her hands clasped over her chest and one eyebrow raised.
"Am I... interrupting a date?"
Elphaba snorted, visibly uncomfortable at being caught before she was ready.
"The idea was to surprise you. And I clearly failed because I hate timing."
"You failed delightfully," Glinda corrected, taking a step toward the scene. Elphaba approached cautiously and offered her a glass, which Glinda accepted with a smile on the corner of her lips.
"What are you up to, Thropp?"
"Nothing. Or everything." Elphaba looked back at the picnic. You had a long day… And I thought it would be nice to have a short one afterward. A night without politics. No debates. No to-do lists. Just you and me. A couple of laughs. Some absurd wine they sold me as “organically bottled” and…
“And brie cheese,” Glinda added, lowering her voice as she looked at the table.
Elphaba nodded.
“And brie cheese.”
Glinda lowered her gaze, moved, and allowed herself that second of full silence. That second when the heart settles to receive what it needs most.
“So,” she said as she approached the sofa with her glass in hand, “am I going to have to praise you for this all evening or just at regular intervals?”
Elphaba, still somewhat nervous, smiled.
“I have no objection to frequent praise.”
Finally, they both sat down on the plush rug in front of the sofa. Glinda settled in with natural elegance, crossing her legs under her dress as she inspected with wonder and growing tenderness the vegan picnic Elphaba had prepared. There were lentil empanadas, homemade bread with seeds, roasted pumpkin slices, paprika-laced hummus, fresh strawberries, a plant-based cheese board, and little handwritten signs with ridiculous names like "Brie without cows," "Anti-capitalism on sourdough bread," and "Free and Happy Pepper."
Glinda laughed with a light heart. The aesthetic was deliberately chaotic, but everything was carefully curated.
Elphaba, for her part, didn't sit down at all. She rearranged things. She checked the wine cork. She straightened a napkin that was clearly already upright. She moved like someone waiting for something... or hiding something. Finally, she took a deep breath, feigning a nonchalant posture, sat down next to her, and in an attempt to sound casual, seductive, and... something, she said,
"So, Miss Campaign Manager... how was your day saving democracy?"
Glinda giggled, turning to her with a flash of pride.
"Productive, hectic, glorious." She took a sip of wine. "Avaric is already giving interviews as if he has a guaranteed seat. It's funny, because I listen to him speak and I already know exactly what I should correct him on. In diction, in structure, in tone... And at the same time, I realize I can do it. That I can help someone sound more authentic, more human.
Elphaba looked at her with absolute attention, her chin resting on one hand, as if every word Glinda said revealed a new corner of the world to her. Her green eyes shone with more than admiration. It was devotion, mixed with a suppressed anxiety.
"And you?" "What was your day like, amidst manuscripts and ghosts?" Glinda asked casually, breaking a piece of bread. "How was your day, amidst manuscripts and ghosts?"
Elphaba laughed in a low, dry tone, almost as if she wanted to dispel the question with humor.
"Nothing that exciting. Just... researching. Rereading things. Thinking about chaos. The usual."
Glinda tilted her head.
"And did you write?"
"Hmm... a little." Elphaba shrugged her shoulders with exaggerated carelessness. "You know how it is. One paragraph, two lines, five hours of existential hatred. The usual."
Glinda didn't press the issue, but something in her stirred. She watched Elphaba's gestures: the way her fingers trembled slightly as she brought the glass to her lips, the way her eyes avoided hers just after she answered.
"Are you all right?" she finally asked.
"Yes." Elphaba smiled, her energy seemingly misplaced. I just... like it when you talk about your day. It makes me feel like everything else... doesn't matter that much.
Glinda narrowed her eyes with attentive tenderness, but accepted the change of focus and continued speaking. She recounted details about the team, Chuffrey, the horrible catering food, the joke they'd pulled with the banners.
Until Elphaba suddenly let slip a stray comment:
"Today I was reading about how ancient vows of chastity were tied to controlling the narrative... and how certain words were seen as dangerous in women. Not because they were inherently bad, but because they were empowering."
Glinda blinked.
"Is that for your book?"
Elphaba nodded, but her gaze was already elsewhere.
"I also read about initiation rituals. About how symbolic acts can liberate or imprison. That some bodies only recognize each other through play..."
The sentence hung in the air like a suspended chord. The tone had changed.
Glinda looked at her sideways. Elphaba was still nervous, and now more so.
"Elphie... is something wrong?"
Elphaba took a deep breath, like someone jumping off an invisible ledge. She stood slowly, placed her glass on the table, and turned to her.
"I want to ask you something," she said.
"Yes?"
Elphaba untied the ribbon of her silk robe and, with ceremonious firmness, let it slide off her shoulders.
Underneath, Elphaba wore her dominatrix outfit. Black, tight, with metallic details, discreetly theatrical shoulder pads, and a corset Glinda knew all too well. That outfit had a history. That outfit wasn't taken off "just because." Elphaba wore it when she wanted to speak another language. A corporeal, symbolic, electric one.
But this time... it was different.
Elphaba stood there, firm, but not defiant. There was no arrogance in her posture. Nor the haughty look that usually accompanied that outfit. Instead, there was something shaky in her determination. Something that seemed to wonder if she was crossing an invisible line.
"I'm not... proposing anything specific to you," she said, breaking the silence with a lower voice. "I just want to... explore an idea. Something I'm writing. But it doesn't make sense without you."
Glinda stood up slowly, with a mixture of caution and curiosity. She walked over to stand in front of her. She looked her up and down. Then, into her eyes.
"And what is that idea?"
Elphaba smiled, finally sincere, finally vulnerable.
"One in which I'm in charge. And you don't know what's going to happen."
An electric silence fell in the room.
Then, a slow, knowing smile appeared on Glinda's face.
"Then... surprise me."
The dim lighting in the playroom created a warm, almost theatrical atmosphere, where shadows danced on the dark velvet-covered walls. Glinda was sitting in her special chair, the one Elphaba had painstakingly modified months ago, molded to fit her body and her desires. Her wrists were firmly bound behind her with a soft, nondescript ribbon. Her torso was erect, her hair perfectly styled, even in the most absolute submission. She was wearing her black set with pink trim, as elegant as it was provocative, with a matching necklace. Her expression—a mixture of mischief and intrigue—lit up the room far more than any lamp.
Elphaba stood a few steps in front of her, wearing her usual black leather dominatrix outfit, though this time she seemed to have put it on with more uncertainty than usual. She walked in slow circles, the riding crop brushing her own open palm, as if she needed to convince herself of her role. Her gait was stiff, almost calculated, and although her posture was impeccable, her voice still lacked the commanding tone they both knew she could achieve.
"Shall we go over the rules?" she asked, with a hint of affected solemnity that didn't entirely hide her nervousness.
Glinda nodded with a complacent smile, lowering her eyelids in a gesture of surrender.
"Sure word," Elphaba said.
"Wicked," Glinda murmured.
"Tolerance level..."
"Three. But if you make me scream with laughter, I'll raise it to four."
"You shouldn't talk," Elphaba chided her, trying to sound stern. But Glinda just raised her eyebrows, like someone playfully challenging her.
"Forgive me, Mrs. Thropp."
Elphaba took a step closer. She stopped in front of her. Her silhouette, black and sharp, contrasted with Glinda's almost ethereal delicacy. There was a silence. A pause that held something different from other sessions. Something... uncertain.
Then, with a small sigh, Elphaba leaned forward and, with calculated delicacy, positioned Glinda's legs: straight, raised, held by the padded seat straps, suspended at a right angle. It was a vulnerable position, but also an elegant one. Glinda closed her eyes. She was smiling fully. Her entire body seemed to glow with anticipation.
And then... A tickle.
Not the usual brush of the riding crop, not the pressure of leather or latex, but a tickle. Faint. Persistent. Glinda opened her eyes in surprise. Elphaba was kneeling in front of her, holding a strange, feather-brush-like device, its tip subtly vibrating.
"What... are you doing?" Glinda asked between involuntary giggles, her eyes wide open, her feet kicking just a little in the air, yet unable to escape.
"I'm... exploring," Elphaba said, with a theatrical seriousness that was quickly ruined by the slight tremor in her voice. "Exploring new forms of sensual punishment, of course. As a good dominant, I should innovate my methods."
"With tickling?" Glinda blurted, her laughter growing increasingly intense. "Is this serious?!"
"Absolutely," Elphaba stated, trying not to smile, even though the corners of her lips were trembling. "In fact, I've been researching the effects of tickling as a form of control... mental, bodily, emotional... historical, even."
"Oh my god," Glinda nearly screamed with laughter as Elphaba rolled the roller over the sole of her left foot again. "I don't believe a word you say! You read one article, and now you're conducting a scientific experiment on me?"
"Several sources!" Elphaba defended herself, finally letting out a laugh as well. "And if you want, I can give you the bibliographic references later, Miss Upland."
"How awful!" "Don't lecture me now!" Glinda tried to wriggle, but she was held tight. "This is a trap! You said we were going to play for real!"
"Oh, it is," Elphaba murmured, regaining her low, almost feline tone as she slowly leaned down toward Glinda's face. "And aren't you suffering, my love?"
Glinda gasped between bursts of laughter. Her hair was already disheveled and her body trembled with laughter, but her cheeks were flushed with more than just tickling. Elphaba looked at her with a dangerous mix of tenderness and mischief, that very specific way of being affectionate and perverse at the same time.
"I hate you," Glinda murmured, with a huge smile. "I hate you so much."
"I know," Elphaba whispered, gently stroking her ankle before using the tickling roller again.
Finally, Elphaba stopped, approached slowly, set the tickling implement aside, and knelt in front of Glinda, who looked at her as if her partner had just been released from a mental asylum. Her breathing was still labored with laughter, but her expression wasn't one of amusement... but of genuine disbelief.
"You've gone completely crazy," Glinda said finally, her voice choked with laughter and astonishment.
“No,” Elphaba corrected seriously, raising a finger as if she were about to lecture at a university. “I’m being rigorous. I’m exploring new terrain of power-emotion dynamics in kink practices. I came across a fascinating essay on the “humiliating catalyst theory.” It posits that the more ridiculous or absurd the punishment, the greater the potential for ego disruption… which allows access to more vulnerable layers of pleasure and surrender. And this is a theory underexplored in our classic dom/sub dynamic, which is based on punishment and simple direct obedience.”
Glinda looked at her, her eyes wide. She blinked slowly.
“Is that an excuse to make me laugh until I lose my dignity?”
“It’s not an excuse. It’s a working hypothesis,” Elphaba replied, slightly lifting her chin in that academic witch tone that characterized her. And for your information, I've taken your psychological and emotional characteristics into account throughout our time together to prepare possible variants.
"Please..." Glinda interrupted, a mixture of fear and humor in her voice. "Please tell me you won't make me wear a diaper."
"Freud, no!" Elphaba responded immediately, frowning and shuddering slightly. "I have limits too, you know. This isn't a regression to childhood or a parody sketch. It's about exploring ridicule as a vector of emotional surrender... not utter, senseless humiliation."
"Thank goodness..." Glinda murmured, breathing a sigh of relief. Then she looked at her suspiciously. "What kind of 'variants' did you plan exactly, Dr. Freud?"
Elphaba seemed to think for a moment, stood up, and began pacing around the playroom as if she were presenting an experiment to an academic committee.
“I’ve divided the possibilities into three preliminary categories: performative theatricality, aesthetic dissonance, and micro-rituals of absurdity.”
“Oh, dear, here we go…”
“For example,” Elphaba continued, ignoring the comment, “‘Performative theatricality’ includes activities like reading over-the-top romantic poetry while tied up… in an operatic voice. Or making you recite a love letter to your mistress while holding a ridiculous stuffed animal with a proper name. ‘Aesthetic dissonance’ includes wearing spoiled-girl accessories—like bows, plastic crowns, or pink-heart glasses—while obeying stern orders. And ‘micro-rituals of absurdity’ are small tasks or punishments that seem ridiculous but require obedience: like walking in circles saying “I am the greatest servant in the universe” with a toilet brush as a royal scepter.”
Glinda opened her mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again.
“…You’re sick.”
“And you said it turns you on when I get creative,” Elphaba replied, now more confident, leaning closer with a playful smile. “Besides, I’m willing to test each proposal with you and gauge your emotional reaction consensually. I’m creating our own theoretical model.”
“Sure, a theoretical model,” Glinda murmured, shaking her head. “And does your model have a name? Something like “Humiliating Elphabism”?”
“Actually, I thought of “Graded Playful Surrender.” But I also accept “Festive Glindacentrism” as a subtitle for chapter two.”
"Elphie!" Glinda cried out between giggles, simultaneously horrified and fascinated. "You're taking notes for a damn book!"
"What if I am?" Elphaba asked with a sly smile, leaning toward her. "Maybe you'll become the most important BDSM case study of the 21st century. Wouldn't you love that?"
Glinda sighed deeply, somewhere between bewilderment and tenderness.
"I wish you'd stop being so brilliant sometimes... it makes it so hard to say no to you."
"Perfect," Elphaba whispered, cupping her face in both hands.
And so, with the enthusiastic approval of Glinda—who, honestly, didn't quite know what she was getting into—Elphaba spun the seat she was still strapped to around, theatrically turning it toward a small makeshift stage in the center of the playroom. The warm light intensified around them as if, somehow, the house itself knew a performance was beginning.
"Get ready for an experiment that will mark a turning point in the history of ridiculous eroticism," Elphaba announced in a ceremonious voice, opening a box that looked like it came from the back of an abandoned puppet theater.
Glinda raised an eyebrow. But when Elphaba extracted the objects from her mysterious arsenal... it was difficult to decide whether to laugh or scream.
A jester's hat with bells tingled in her hands. Elphaba placed it on herself with complete solemnity. Then she took out an almost identical one—albeit in an absurdly garish pink color—and placed it on Glinda's head.
"This is essential for the ritual alignment of roles in the comic-dominant dynamic," she explained with the authority of a scientist as she adjusted the hat, the bells jingling in Glinda's golden curls.
"This is a nightmare. A nightmare with overtones of a cursed cabaret," Glinda stammered, staring in horror at her reflection in the side mirror.
"Shhh, the show's beginning," Elphaba said, squatting in front of her with a disturbing energy, almost like a possessed child hostess.
With a dramatic twist, she pulled two hand puppets from the box: one a kind of frog in a tutu, the other a purple dragon with reading glasses. Glinda gaped at them as Elphaba nimbly slipped them on and began to move them around as if they were old acquaintances.
"Oh, oh, oh, Miss Glinda!" the frog exclaimed in a squeaky voice. "We're told you've been a very disobedient girl!"
"A disgrace to the Court of Comic Hearts," the dragon added in a deep, melodramatic voice, raising an imaginary eyebrow. "How dare you ignore the rules of the sacred game of submissive laughter?"
Glinda's eyes widened.
"Elphie... are you doing puppetry... as a form of punishment?"
"Don't interrupt, the puppets are talking to you!" Elphaba scolded in a neutral voice, her lips still unmoving as the puppets continued their performance.
The frog hopped into Glinda's face.
"As penance, you must confess your most shameful pranks to the Grand Jury of Stuffed Animals!"
"And recite, without laughing, the Oath of the Comical Handmaids of the Kingdom of Subordination," the dragon declared, opening his little felt mouth.
Glinda, strapped to her seat, her ridiculous hat clinking, didn't know whether to laugh until she cried or give up right then and there. Her face went from horror to bewilderment… and finally, she slumped back, laughing her head off.
"By Cosmic Glitter, this is insane! You're torturing me with Sesame Street for adults!"
"Technically, it's a performative reinterpretation for research purposes," Elphaba replied, pulling a second puppet from her pocket, this time a duck in a tie.
"NO MORE!" Glinda shouted, giggling. "That duck has nothing to teach me!"
"Oh, but Lord Sebastian the Duck has many values to share," Elphaba replied, placing the duck in her free hand and modulating a new voice, worthy of a fading British actor.
Elphaba then approached, with the three puppets surrounding Glinda.
“Do you plead guilty, Mistress Glinda, to forgetting to water your mistress’s sacred plant Tuesday morning?” the dragon asked.
“Do you agree to serve breakfast in ridiculous heels singing “I’m Too Sexy”?” the frog added.
“And accept your punishment with laughter, blushes, and a tiara?” the duck concluded.
Glinda could barely respond. Her laughter was uncontrollable, her cheeks were red, and something in her chest felt… completely exposed, but also safe. A place where she could be childlike, ridiculous, loved, and somehow, deeply surrendered.
When she managed to catch her breath, all she said was,
“My God, Elphie… I am completely yours.”
Satisfied—and visibly delighted—with Glinda’s surrender, Elphaba sat up in a single fluid motion, turning her girlfriend’s seat around again with a mischievous smile that promised more chaos. Glinda faced a small corner of the room, which Elphaba had meticulously arranged with the care of an experimental theater set designer.
"Very well, Fabulous Miss Glinda. We now move on to phase three of this clinical-humorous-emotional experiment," Elphaba announced, adjusting a pair of rectangular glasses on her nose. They weren't real, but they gave her the air of a sexy psychologist straight out of a low-budget soap opera.
She sat, crossing her legs with mock professionalism, across from Glinda, who was still strapped to the revolving throne, her ridiculous hat still on her head and a trace of laughter still on her chest.
"Based on my arduous applied psychoerotic research, I have identified three key figures in your emotional development," Elphaba said, opening a glossy book that read in gold cursive: Glinda: A Clinical Case of Pink Repression and Unconscious Glamour.
"Oh Christ... no..." Glinda whispered, as if she already knew what was coming. She tried to turn her head, but it was tied.
"Three individuals, my love, who set off your internal alarms, your defense mechanisms, your little bombs of irrational shame. Three symbolic demons who have lived rent-free in your subconscious since your adolescence. Ready?"
Without waiting for a reply, Elphaba opened a flap of the book. From it, she extracted three photos, which she hung, with clothespins, on a line in front of Glinda as if it were a school art exhibit.
"First," she said, pointing to the first photo, "your mother. Always loving... always implacable with composure. The queen of appearances, who could say 'I'm disappointed' with just an eyebrow."
The image showed her mother dressed to the nines at a family dinner, her expression stern and elegant at the same time. Glinda swallowed.
"Second," Elphaba continued, hanging the next image, "your cousin Frankini." Frustrated actor, self-centered and narcissistic influencer, and your greatest rival for the family's attention. He knows your secrets, your mistakes, your 2008 hairstyles.
Frankini's photo showed her mocking smile and a ridiculous silk scarf around her neck. Glinda grimaced audibly.
"And finally," Elphaba bowed theatrically, "the dreaded Mrs. Pennbroke. Second-year teacher. Specialist in philology, public torture, and the annihilation of adolescent self-esteem. Able to correct your accent with a glance."
The photo was an old snapshot from the school yearbook. Mrs. Pennbroke wasn't smiling. She never smiled.
"Is this legal?" Glinda managed to stammer.
"No, but it's therapeutic," Elphaba replied, still in her kinky therapist persona. "And now... the exercise. Controlled Reading of Internal Shame in the Face of Symbolic Authority Figures. Advanced Level."
Elphaba pulled out a pink-covered notebook with faded stickers. Glinda recognized the journal instantly.
"No! Not that! That journal is illegal! It was destroyed!" Glinda squealed in a high-pitched voice.
"Fake. I found it in your things last week. It was under the pink stuffed animal with a wig. The one you deny owning," Elphaba said, flipping through the pages with the delight of an archaeologist discovering artifacts from an extinct civilization.
“Elphie, I beg you…”
“Shhh…” Elphaba said, adjusting her glasses with a wicked smile. “Let’s start with Passage 12B: The day I almost died of love for Jessica Featherstone because she brushed my finger in chemistry class.”
Glinda squeezed her eyes shut.
“Dear Diary,” Elphaba read, imitating a high-pitched, dramatic teenage voice, “today Jessica accidentally touched me. It was like stars collapsing in my chest. Her fingernail is perfect. If I die tonight, it will be of happiness and man polish.”
Glinda screamed silently, shaking in her chair as the three photos “stared” at her.
“How could she have those fingernails? Why was she smiling like that? Why did she look at me when I coughed? Was it a sign?” "Am I now compromised by finger touch?" Elphaba read with growing solemnity.
"ENOUGH! ENOUGH, please, I beg you!" Glinda moaned, crimson as a raspberry, writhing as the bells on her hat jingled desperately.
"Shhh," Elphaba whispered, moving closer. "Still missing 'Poem to My New Dress That Made Me Feel Like an Invincible Princess But Also Vulnerable and Desirable But Also Tragic Like Juliet!'"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Glinda squealed, and burst into laughter mixed with gasps, a whirlwind of embarrassment, love, amusement, and total surrender.
Elphaba closed the journal with an elegant curtsy and leaned toward her beloved, tenderly stroking her cheek.
"And so, my darling, we complete phase three of the experiment. Conclusion: utter shame… and beauty." Unbearable.
Glinda, exhausted and in a state of emotional submission and exhausted laughter, murmured,
"How many more stages are there?"
Elphaba smiled, slowly removing her glasses.
"Depends. Do you want punishment... or redemption?"
"Oo, that was enough... Wicked! Wicked! WICKED!" Glinda shouted, amidst unbridled laughter and eyes filled with theatrical horror, as she struggled with her bound wrists. "Untie me, you academic maniac, this is ontological torture!"
Elphaba dropped the journal on her lap and, with a laugh somewhere between surprised and guilty, hurried to undo the straps.
"Oh gods, I'm sorry! I thought we still had some wiggle room," she said, gently removing the seat belts and pushing the ridiculous jester's hat off Glinda's head. "I admit that perhaps the "exposure therapy to traumatic figures while reciting hormone poetry" segment was a bit much. Ambitious.
Glinda, still breathless, slumped forward with an exasperated sigh, covering her face with her hands.
"You showed me a picture of my mother while you were reading aloud the poem 'Wet Dream in Chemistry Class'!" she protested, giggles stifled. "How could I not use the code word?"
Elphaba laughed too, with a hint of relief as she put the book on the table and settled down beside her on the floor.
"You're right," she said, calmer. "It was a bit much. But admit it: it was a good hypothesis."
Glinda turned to look at her, her eyes shining with laughter, her hair disheveled, and her face still flushed with embarrassment. She looked at her as if gazing at some unusual and peerless creature.
"You are... the strangest dominatrix in the world."
"Thank you?" Elphaba replied with a lopsided smile.
Glinda flopped back onto the rug, letting out a long sigh.
"Your mind is a terrifying and fascinating place. But it was fun. Ridiculously fun."
"I appreciate your cooperation," Elphaba replied as she lay down beside her, her voice now soft and intimate. "You gave me a lot of material to process. And... thank you for trusting me, even when it seemed like I was on the verge of becoming a Saturday Night Live sketch."
Glinda turned her head toward her and placed a small kiss on her cheek.
"Only because I love you. And because you make me want to explore... even when that means my fifteen-year-old self watching me read Twilight erotica in front of her old math teacher."
They both burst out laughing.
And so, lying on the playroom floor, among puppets, jester hats, and diary pages in adolescent ink, they embraced in silence.
It wasn't the night Glinda had expected when she returned from work. But it was certainly exactly the kind of night only Elphaba could give her.
They both sat on the floor, their bodies still vibrating with laughter, surrounded by the delightful chaos they had created: fallen puppets, crumpled papers, jester hats scattered like trophies from an absurd battle. Glinda rested her head on Elphaba's shoulder, and for a moment they said nothing. They just breathed together.
"I guess I'm just a tiny thorn in my side," Elphaba commented with a theatrical sigh. "Not having reached the subject's peak emotional reaction stage. I would have liked to document it. For... purely scientific reasons."
Glinda looked up with a raised eyebrow, like someone who knew she was dealing with a slightly dangerous genius.
"Don't even think about it," she warned, half jokingly and half seriously.
"Too bad... you were a great test subject," Elphaba replied with a lopsided smile, before standing up with an exaggerated groan. "I'll make some coffee. Really strong coffee. We earned it."
Glinda nodded, still caught between exhausted laughter and residual embarrassment. She watched her walk toward the kitchen, and just as Elphaba was about to cross the threshold, the witch casually turned around, as if she'd barely remembered something unimportant.
"Oh, by the way. Tibbett told me today that, due to some kind of weird legal technicality, we couldn't officially get married in this town."
Glinda stiffened as if she'd received an electric shock.
"What?! What do you mean, we can't get married? That's legal? What kind of...?!"
But Elphaba had already disappeared into the kitchen.
From inside, her voice sounded calm, with barely concealed satisfaction:
"Ah, there it is. Maximum emotional reaction: reached."
Glinda blinked, silently processing everything for a few seconds... until she let out a furious and amused shout:
"You're going to sleep on the couch with your puppets, Elphaba Thropp!"
Elphaba's laughter echoed from the kitchen. The punishment didn't matter. The experiment had been a success.
Notes:
Fun fact: the psychological theories of ridicule that Elphaba mentions actually exist, look them up, they're worth it.
Chapter 38: THINK OF IT AS PERSONALITY DIALYSIS
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Author: Elphaba Thropp, age 14
(on the side: “If Nessarose finds this, I’ll burn it.”)
“Whispers”
Eyes don’t need knives—
they slice without steel.
A glance lasts a second,
but it teaches you to kneel.
Laughter hides in throats,
spilled poison in disguise,
and I wear the costume daily—
the villain in their eyes.
Every corridor’s a trial,
every desk a stage,
where silence is a prison
and ridicule the cage.
If I walk too fast, they stare.
If I speak, they smirk instead.
If I vanish into shadows—
would they notice I was dead?
But I keep my spine unbroken,
though their voices press like chains.
They don’t know that in the silence
I am forging all my flames.
One day their whispers crumble,
and their laughter burns to dust.
Until then, I am waiting—
green, alone, but just.
CHAPTER 38: Think of it as personality dialysis
The screen filled with a garish, flickering rainbow, accompanied by frenetic xylophone and synthesizer music. Children's voices chanted a catchy melody, barely understandable due to their high-pitched tones:
— Welcomeeeee to... the Littlr ... They were child versions of Avaric and Chuffrey, dressed in colorful outfits that made them look like animators at a state-funded kindergarten.
"Hey, buddies!" shouted Avaric-Puppet, waving his rag arms. "Welcome to your favorite show about modern democracy!"
"Today we have a super, super special episode!" added Chuffrey-Puppet as he twirled around, tangling the strings holding him up. "Because we're going to talk about something that sounds complicated, but is actually reeeeally fun! Progressive polic!"
The crowd of children in the audience—all with identical smiley faces and eyes too bright to be real—began clapping and screaming like crazy. Some waved rainbow banners, others threw biodegradable confetti, and one even smashed a piñata shaped like the judicial system.
"But we can't do it alone!" "—Avaric-Puppet announced with an exaggerated wink. "We need the kindest, prettiest, and most smiley witch of all!"
"Introducing...!" they chanted in unison. "The Good Witch of Politics... Glindaaaa!"
A heavenly clatter of chimes announced the arrival of the star guest. From above, descending in a glittering bubble, appeared Glinda. Her pink dress was so large it looked like it had swallowed a dozen pastries, crowned with a glittering tiara that flashed blindingly every time she smiled. Her magic wand flickered with a silly, enchanting light, and her eyelashes were so long they brushed the edges of the bubble.
"Hello, buddyyyy!" she crooned in a higher, happier voice than usual, as if imitating a caricature of herself. I'm sooo happy to be here to talk to you about... politics with love!
The audience roared with jubilation. The bubble vanished in a cloud of floating hearts, and Glinda clumsily tumbled down from the air to land with a frozen smile on her face.
"Progressive politics," she said, as cardboard signs floated around her on visible strings, "is when you think of others, of equality, and of social unicorns who bring justice for all. Simple as that!"
The sign that read "Justice for All" fell on a little girl in the front row. No one seemed to notice.
"And with my wand of goodwill, we can transform oppressive structures into inclusive community networks—"
PFFFSSSSHHHT.
A ridiculously high-pitched sound cut through the air. Glinda's wand deflated like a punctured balloon, spinning in circles as she exhaled a long, mournful hiss until it limp and crumpled in her hand. Glinda blinked, frozen, trying to smile despite everything.
"Hehe... it's okay, guys! Sometimes magic... also needs... unions..." she muttered as she sat down on a small pink wooden stool.
As soon as her bottom touched the surface, a grotesque farting sound echoed around the stage. Long, vibrant, amplified as if from a haunted tuba. The children burst into laughter.
Glinda froze. Her face turned an even deeper pink than her dress, and for a moment it looked as if her false eyelashes might fall off from the sheer heat.
"Oh no, kids! That was the stool! The stool is broken! I didn't—"
POOF!
A burst of red smoke filled the stage, accompanied by high-pitched, unhinged laughter that seemed to emanate from a bottomless pit. When the smoke cleared, there she was.
Elphaba.
But it wasn't the Elphaba he knew. It was a cruel, theatrical, exaggerated version: dressed in a coal-black robe, a pointy hat that looked like something out of a cheap comic book, and a sharp, lipstick-painted smile. Her eyes shone with a malice Glinda had never seen before. She seemed to enjoy it. She was in her element.
"Well, well, well..." purred the dream Elphaba. "What do we have here? Sweet Glinda teaching politics like it's an ABC song?"
Glinda tried to stand, but the stool stuck to her skirt, and as she tugged clumsily at it, one strap of her dress came loose. She looked down in horror, only to see her other strap slowly slide off her shoulder, followed by the dramatic crash of tulle melting like melted cake.
"Oh Oz!" Glinda moaned, clutching her dress in despair as the puppets shrieked with laughter and the children seemed to multiply, pointing at her.
"Your ideas, my dear," Elphaba said as she floated on a broomstick decorated with tax labels, "are as fragile as that lace corset. Just a breeze and... poof!" And she blew. The dress fell away, disappearing completely, as if it had never existed.
Glinda screamed. A stifled, wounded, voiceless scream, as if the air were escaping through her hands. She stood, naked and paralyzed, surrounded by laughter, pointed at by invisible cameras, while Elphaba twirled around her, singing like a fairy witch:
"When you grow up in Oz, Glinda, you grow up to laugh! But if you wear pink... you can't lie!"
Then everything went dark. The lights went out, the music became dissonant, the bubble burst with a pop.
Glinda woke with a start.
Glinda sat up with a stifled gasp, as if her body had been dragged out of an invisible abyss. Sweat beaded her forehead, her chest heaved with uneven breathing, and her hands, still tense, clutched the sheets as if they could protect her from something more than a nightmare. The room was dim, bathed in the blue light of morning filtering through the curtains of the large window. Beside her, the annoying sound of the alarm clock hammered the air.
Elphaba sat up slowly, squinting in annoyance and confusion, her voice still raspy from sleep.
"Glinda? What happened?" she asked, smoothing her tangled hair, still half asleep.
Glinda looked at her for just a second, swallowing hard, and then looked away. Her mind still wavered between the feeling of utter ridicule and the diffuse relief of being home, of being safe. The images from the dream kept hitting her memory like a cruel mockery: the children laughing, the bubble bursting, the wand deflating, the colorful signs flying aimlessly, Elphaba laughing wickedly and uncontrollably, and the dress... that damn dress falling in front of everyone, leaving her defenseless, exposed.
"Nothing, it's nothing," she lied, her voice barely higher than usual, covering the trembling with an automatic smile. She leaned over to turn off the alarm clock with a speed that was too precise. "I just... dreamed I forgot about lunch with my mother. You know how it is. Traumatic."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, her brow furrowed. The explanation didn't fit the reaction, and she knew it. But she also knew how to read Glinda like an emotional road map. She didn't press the issue. Not yet.
"Are you sure that's what it was?" she asked, tilting her head with a slight, mocking smile.
"Of course. What else could it be?" Glinda leaped to her feet, with the sudden energy of someone who needs to escape from herself. She grabbed her satin robe and wrapped it around herself with theatrical swiftness. "Today's going to be a long day, okay? I'd better get ready."
And without waiting for a reply, she walked hurriedly toward the bathroom, leaving a scent of lavender and tension floating in the air.
Elphaba followed her with her eyes, with that expression she used when she didn't understand something and wasn't going to let it go. She tilted her head slowly, resting her chin on the palm of her hand.
"Of course it's going to be a long day..." she murmured to herself, more quietly than as a real comment. Her eyes remained fixed on the bathroom door, as if they could peer through it and discover what the hell Glinda had seen in that dream that had left her shadow in her eyes.
Because Elphaba knew her. Too well. And something was definitely happening.
Elphaba emerged from the bathroom shortly after, wrapped in her black robe, toweling her hair with the reluctance of someone who hasn't fully recovered from waking up. As she reached the threshold of the living room, she stopped dead in her tracks. The scene before her was, to say the least, peculiar. Glinda—already fully dressed, with makeup on, and her hair perfectly pulled back in a hasty but charming bun—moved around the kitchen like a whirlwind of unbridled efficiency.
There was steaming coffee, perfectly golden toast, fruit cut into symmetrical cubes, and even a small vase of daisies in the center of the table, all arranged with a precision that bordered on the obsessive.
"Well," Elphaba murmured softly, crossing her arms. "Either the apocalypse is coming, or you're trying to hide a murder."
"Pardon?" Glinda said, turning with a smile too wide, jam knife in hand. "Oh, no, I just thought it would be nice to have a morning together. Like in the movies. Isn't it lovely?"
Elphaba watched her silently for a few seconds, then narrowed her eyes, as if scanning her soul with an X-ray.
"You cooking breakfast of your own volition? When it wasn't your pre-assigned day? Not even in the movies."
"I can be spontaneous and adorable if I want!" Glinda retorted with a high-pitched laugh, setting the jam next to the tray. Besides, I didn't cook, I just assembled things. My thing is more art than technique.
Elphaba didn't reply. She approached slowly, and just as she was about to take a seat, Glinda theatrically reached out and turned on the television, as if it were the final detail of a charming morning routine.
And then it happened.
The screen came to life with squeaky, colorful music. A dragon puppet with bulging eyes and a squeaky voice appeared, prancing against a painted cardboard background, announcing with boundless enthusiasm:
"Welcome, boys and girls, to the magical world of the Time Dragon!"
Glinda's scream was immediate. High-pitched, alarmed, almost guttural. She jumped as if someone had thrown boiling water on her and pounced on the remote control.
"NO!"
The television clicked off with a sharp click. For a moment, there was absolute silence. Elphaba, frozen with a cup of coffee in her hand, stared at her as if she'd just seen Glinda transform into a goat.
Glinda was breathing heavily, her eyes wide open, and a smile frozen on her face, as if her body was struggling between following the meltdown or laughing out of necessity.
"It was..." she said, her voice shaking. "A very... shrill sound. It doesn't go with breakfast."
Elphaba said nothing. She just nodded slowly, without taking her eyes off her, and sat down in the chair.
"Sure. Very un-gourmet."
"Exactly." Glinda regained her composure with an effort as visible as it was endearing. "Now, sit down. We're going to enjoy this breakfast together, okay? Like any mature, civilized couple."
Elphaba took a sip of coffee without looking away.
"I'm sitting down," she replied calmly. Then she put down her cup and added in a dry voice, "But seriously, Glinda... What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing!" Glinda said with her best gritted smile. "Nothing at all. Today... is going to be a beautiful day."
And she began to cut the fruit with pinpoint concentration, her smile barely trembling at the corners, betraying the tremor that still resonated in her chest.
Elphaba didn't insist. For now. But she had seen it: the gesture, the shock, the denial.
And she knew—as only someone who truly loves can know—that the real drama had yet to begin.
With a piece of toast between her fingers, Elphaba chewed distractedly, watching Glinda like someone trying to decipher a poorly concealed riddle. Then, in a relaxed voice and casual tone, she asked:
"So what does the brand-new campaign manager have in store for her today? Another parade of strategic smiles and promises that sound like toothpaste jingles?"
Glinda let out a forced laugh, but it barely lasted a second. Her whole body tensed, as if someone had uttered a cursed code word. Elphaba, sharp as a scalpel in a surgeon's hand, noticed it instantly.
"What was that?" she asked, her brow furrowed, placing her toast on her plate. "What's wrong?"
"What? Wrong? Nothing!" Glinda said, so animated she sounded robotic. She took a piece of mango and popped it into her mouth with exaggerated ceremony. "Yum. Mango. I love mango."
"Yes, I know that." Elphaba didn't look away. "What I don't know is why every time I make a stupid joke, you act like I've spoken to you in a demonic language."
"Don't exaggerate, my dear. I'm perfectly fine."
"You're a worse liar than I am when I say I don't care what anyone thinks of me," Elphaba retorted, turning her chair slightly to face her. "Something's been wrong with you since you woke up." You were dreaming something, weren't you?
Glinda choked for a second on the mango and coughed awkwardly. Then, forcing an adorable, guilty smile, she diverted the conversation.
"And you? What are you doing today, Grand Data Witch?"
Elphaba rolled her eyes.
"Oh, the usual day: review statistics, analyze emotional responses to yesterday's experiment, maybe cross-reference some behavioral patterns, find the soul of humanity in an Excel spreadsheet. Blah, blah, blah."
As Elphaba spoke, Glinda's eyes darted around. It was clear she wasn't quite listening; her mind was whirring like a blender without a lid. And then, all at once, too fast, too enthusiastic, she exclaimed.
"I want to come with you!"
Elphaba blinked.
"What?"
"To your research! Today. I want to come! See how you work, help you with your... data, your graphs, your... spreadsheets and all that."
Elphaba raised an eyebrow, interrupting her monologue about categorizing symbolic patterns in dreams of humiliation in front of figures of power.
"Do you want to come with me?" she exclaimed, tilting her head, as if she hadn't quite grasped the language.
Glinda swallowed the piece of mango she had in her mouth with visible effort, as if it were a pill without water, and smiled with an energy completely out of step with the context.
"Yes! I find it... educational. And useful. And fascinating, right? I mean... you're making history. I'd love to witness it. Take notes. Be part of the intellectual process of your new book. Be your... your muse, maybe."
Elphaba looked at her, now clearly skeptical.
"Muse?" she repeated in a low tone, as if she'd just dropped something inside her.
"Or field assistant. Or lab secretary. Or... something," Glinda said, shrugging in a falsely casual tone. I can't spend all day worrying about imaginary political meetings. I'd rather invest my energy in something real.
Elphaba put down her fork and looked at her silently. You didn't have to be a psychologist to see that Glinda was grasping at anything to avoid being alone with her thoughts. The perfection of the breakfast. The stage-produced smile. The spasm before the Time Dragon. And now this.
"Glin," she said finally, in a softer voice, with that way of speaking Elphaba reserved only for when something really touched her. "Did you dream about me last night?"
Glinda's fork stopped halfway between her plate and her mouth. Her eyes widened slightly, and although she attempted a laugh, it was short and hollow, as if she'd cracked inside.
"What? No, of course not. Why would I dream..."
"Because you're acting like you're afraid I'll show up again. And now... Are you sure you want to come with me?"
"Yes!" Glinda insisted, with that bright smile she used when she wanted no one to notice something inside her was falling apart. "Sounds so much fun! Educational! Sexy!"
Elphaba leaned back in her chair and watched her through half-closed eyes.
"This is going to be interesting," she finally murmured. And then, as if resigned to being swept away by that strange current that was Glinda in avoidance mode, she added with a crooked little smile. "But I'm not letting you touch any sensitive equipment."
"I'm a sensitive woman!" Glinda protested, raising her fork like a magic defense stick.
"That's precisely why."
And then they both smiled. One because she'd managed to divert attention. The other because she knew, with absolute certainty, that she was only just beginning to understand what the hell was happening to her girlfriend.
A short while later, Elphaba was still in her robe, her hair in a messy bun and her legs crossed on the sofa, when she opened the drawer under the coffee table in the living room. Amid loose papers, half-filled notebooks, and old postcards that Glinda insisted on keeping "for aesthetic reasons," her fingers stopped on a small black card with gold lettering. The design was discreet, elegant, barely suggestive. It simply said: "The Velvet Room." And below it, a number. No logo. No address.
She studied it for a second, as if the mere sight of that cardboard rectangle would bring with it a flood of images, memories, sensations. She licked her lips and picked up her cell phone.
She dialed.
"Velvet Room?" The voice on the other end was warm, professional, feminine.
"Hello. Good morning. This is Elphaba Thropp. I was a client for a while," she said in a calm, cordial, almost academic tone. "I wanted to know if you still offer private sessions... although in my case, it would be strictly for research purposes." I'm developing a book about psychosexual experiences and projective dynamics in consensual contexts.
A pause.
"Yes, of course. I still have the client code. It's 1-9-8-B... exactly."
"Yes. I'm going with a companion. But as an assistant... I think. This afternoon, are you available?"
"Perfect. I really appreciate your time. See you at six."
She hung up and placed her cell phone carefully on the table, as if the object had symbolic weight.
Glinda emerged from the bedroom, adjusting her earrings in front of the portable mirror. She was wearing the cafeteria uniform—a pastel pink blouse with white trim, an apron with her name embroidered in gold thread, and skinny light-colored jeans that Elphaba considered illegal. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail and she wore lip gloss that perfectly matched her fake nonchalance.
"I'm here!" she announced with rehearsed energy, grabbing her bag.
Elphaba looked up, scanned her from head to toe, and smiled.
"I'll pick you up when you're out?" Glinda asked, approaching the door.
"Sure... whatever you say, 'comrade,'" Elphaba replied, slowly rising from the sofa.
"Great!" Glinda replied with a quick smile. Then she waved a hand, like a small, casual greeting, but with that choreographed delicacy she had when she didn't want to seem anxious.
Elphaba blew her a kiss in the air, a slow one, her fingers barely touching her lips before she lifted off like a lazy butterfly. Glinda caught it with a smile and symbolically tucked it into her apron pocket before stepping out into the hallway.
When the door closed, Elphaba was silent for a moment. Then she walked to the window, looked out at the city, and murmured to herself, "Welcome back, Velvet Room."
And went to pack her bag.
The afternoon at the Pink Bubble Coffee & Charm café had begun like any other, with the murmur of steaming milk, the rhythmic tapping of cups on the bar, and that ever-present aroma of freshly ground coffee that Glinda usually found comforting. But today—though no one would have guessed it upon seeing her—Glinda wasn't well. She hid it masterfully, of course. She smiled with such meticulous perfection that it became a mask. She took every order with impeccable courtesy, executing the coffees with precise, graceful movements, as if each gesture were part of an invisible choreography designed to convince the world that absolutely nothing was out of place.
But there was something nervous about the rhythm of her steps. Something excessive. She ran to the kitchen to check if there were any croissants left—when she clearly knew there were. She was cleaning the same table, which was already sparkling clean, for the fourth time. She was offering to cover for a colleague who hadn't even asked. As if her body needed to move to avoid thinking. As if the pause were her enemy. As if staying still for a second meant that all those thoughts she'd been crushing with her overflowing energy would suddenly rise up, demanding to be addressed.
"Are you okay, Glin?" Kaori, one of the new baristas, asked her, while Glinda mopped with unnecessary fury in an area that wasn't even her responsibility. "You've been mopping for about half an hour without stopping. Is something wrong?"
Glinda looked up, surprised that someone had noticed the inner hurricane she was trying to disguise with an outer storm. But she smiled. Oh, how she smiled.
"Me? Perfectly!" she replied in a sing-song voice, tossing her hair as if accompanied by an invisible fan. "It's just that tonight I have a plan with my fiancée, and I want to get everything done." Double shift, double delivery, double latte. And then...—she paused—"well, then it's time to participate in her... investigation."
The word came out like an overly sour bite that she tried to disguise as candy. She sounded cheerful, yes, but her smile tightened slightly at the right corner, the one that wrinkled when she was feigning enthusiasm.
Kaori nodded, albeit with that expression of someone who doesn't fully believe but also doesn't want to make a fuss.
"Well... whatever, you know where the sugar is. For coffee or for life." And she winked at him, returning to her station.
Glinda took a deep breath. She wasn't going to cry in the bathroom. Not again. Not over something she couldn't even fully explain. It was just... fear? Shame? Guilt? She didn't know. The only thing she knew for sure was that she wasn't ready for Elphaba to know what she'd done. And that made the idea of accompanying her to that weird study tonight feel like walking into a confessional where a dominatrix was holding the reading light.
She was about to continue her frenzy of voluntary occupation when she felt her cell phone vibrate in the back pocket of her apron. She pulled it out quickly—half-expecting it to be Elphaba canceling their plans with some academic excuse she'd pretend to regret—but no.
"Come up to the office when you can. I want to see you."
— Cayke.
Glinda stood still for a few seconds. The café continued its life around her: orders, doorbells, laughter, the steaming stream of the espresso machine. But for her, everything lowered in volume. As if Mrs. Cayke, the owner, had just pulled an invisible string and Glinda knew, without a doubt, that what awaited her up there wasn't a casual chat.
She took a deep breath. She adjusted her apron, sprayed on some refreshing facial spray she had in her purse (just in case she cried, she said), and started up the stairs to the upstairs office, with the same attitude one would have if they knew they'd at least have good lighting.
The hallway leading to Mrs. Cayke's office wasn't particularly long—in fact, it wasn't even carpeted, just a few feet of peach-colored laminate flooring between two shelves selling homemade jams—and yet, to Glinda, it felt like an endless walkway toward her destination. She walked with her back straight, her shoulders tense, and her formal smile perfectly plastered on her face. But beneath that facade, her heart pounded with a vague anxiety. Why had the boss asked to see her? Had she done something wrong? Had she left some coffee out? Or... no, it wasn't... had she read her mind? Did she know about the dream? About Elphaba? About the dress? From the damn puppet show?
She knocked on the door with two barely audible knuckles, and hearing Cayke's sing-song voice on the other side, she turned the handle with a concealed tremble. The office of Mrs. Cayke, owner and founder of the Pink Bubble Café – Coffee & Charm, was exactly as its name suggested: a baroque and saccharine riot of pink velvet, shelves lined with smiley-face mugs, crystal candlesticks, and cat photographs framed like portraits of Viennese noblemen. On a small gilt bed next to the desk lay Yip the kitten, a ball of white fur with a light blue bow and one eye permanently squinted as if calculating the stock market.
Mrs. Cayke, always impeccable, wore a purple sequin blazer with pointed shoulder pads and a cupcake-shaped brooch. Seeing Glinda enter, she smiled at her with an expression that was part proud mother, part 1950s musical actress. She gestured for her to sit with a sweeping, dramatic gesture, as if she were offering her the throne of a fairytale kingdom.
"Glinda, my dear," she said in a honeyed voice, interlacing her creamy-white gloved fingers on the desk covered with papers, perfumes, and what appeared to be a candle shaped like an astronaut cat. "You've been working in a... meow-like way."
Glinda nodded, confused, trying to identify whether that was a pun or a slip of the tongue. She felt like she was entering a parallel dimension. The woman looked at her intensely, with silver-rimmed eyes and a static smile.
"You see, Glinda, I often think of my employees as... felines." There are those like Yip: gentle, steady, silent... and others like Biscuit, my former Siamese, may he rest in peace... Oh, Biscuit, how he would bite when he didn't like something," she said, looking away with an almost religious nostalgia. "But you, Glinda, you are a special creature. A... how shall I put it? A lioness kitten."
Glinda swallowed. She knew. It was happening again. Like in the dream. Like with Elphaba. Another figure of power speaking to her with a logic she didn't understand, with indecipherable symbols, as if the entire universe had conspired to laugh at her emotional stability. The comparison to animals. The pink aesthetic. The sparkle in the eyes. The exalted tone. It all seemed an echo of the dream world that had tormented her that same morning. She felt a drop of sweat trickle down her back as her smile began to stiffen.
“I... uh... thank you very much, Mrs. Cayke. I really like working here. With all the... cats,” she finally said, her voice shaking as if she’d been forced to recite verses in a made-up language.
But Mrs. Cayke just nodded, pleased.
“I watch you, my dear. I watch you clean the counters, how you welcome each customer, how you tilt your head at just the right angle so the sunlight hits your smile. You’re the kind of energy I want here. You’re my... calico of morning light.”
Glinda didn’t know whether to thank, cry, or scream.
“And for that,” Cayke continued, rising to a small drum roll she made with her fingers on the table, “I’ve named you Employee of the Month!”
Rehearsed applause resonated from the small speaker on the desk. Apparently, there was a button for that. Yip opened one eye, meowed disdainfully, and went back to sleep.
Glinda smiled. Automatically. Mechanically. Like an automaton whose programming included phrases of thanks, nods, and feigned enthusiasm.
"Oh, what an honor! I really don't know what to say..." she stammered.
"Say meow, my dear," whispered Mrs. Cayke, winking at her.
Glinda held her breath. Her inner universe trembled. In her mind, for an instant, she thought she heard the mocking laughter of Elphaba in her witch costume, her words floating like a mist: "As flimsy as the straps of your dress..."
"Pardon?" she managed to whisper, pale.
"Meow," Cayke repeated gravely, before bursting into a sudden laugh, a sharp, high-pitched laugh like crystal bells. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! It's a joke I play on my husband." He hates her! But I find her adorable. Don't worry, you don't have to meow to be Employee of the Month.
Glinda, who had been holding her breath for too long, exhaled like a deflated balloon, almost laughing with absurd relief. Suddenly, the world was tangible again, real, without feline metaphors to judge her.
"Yes, that's... of course," she said, regaining her composure. "Employee of the Month?"
"Yes, dear. No one has sold more coffees with edible glitter than you. And your online reviews are off the charts. You have charisma, precision, good posture, and killer boots! You know that counts for a lot around here."
Glinda nodded proudly. The boots. She knew it. It had to have been the boots.
"You'll get 20 percent off the house lattes for a whole month," Cayke added, as if offering an exclusive membership to the Star Club. Although, I did notice you've been asking to leave early lately.
Glinda's smile froze. The statement was innocent, but the way Cayke tilted her head, like an owl disguised as a fashion editor, put her on alert again. Was she under evaluation? Was it all a setup?
"Oh, yes," she answered quickly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "It's temporary... I'm helping out on a political campaign. Candidate Avaric, perhaps you've heard of him."
Cayke pursed her lips and tilted her head to the other side, thoughtful. Glinda couldn't tell if her look was one of recognition or complete blankness.
"Avaric? Hmm... sounds familiar. Well, how lovely that you still have ideals." His tone made it unclear whether he'd just praised her or mocked her.
Glinda blinked. For a moment, she couldn't tell if they'd just clicked... or if they were simply speaking different languages.
"How sweet." It reminds me of when I wanted to open a socialist bakery with my twin sister. Youthful dreams,” she sighed. “Sometimes I forget that you young people still believe you can change the world. Adorable!”
Glinda blinked.
“Well, it’s not just a dream,” she said, with a tight smile. “I think politics needs more… fresh, committed voices.”
“Of course, of course!” Cayke interrupted, idly rummaging through a jar of lemon drops on her desk. “Voices like yours, sweet but with a tangy kick. Like this lemon. Pop!”
Every time she chewed, she made a small, smacking noise with her tongue. To Glinda, it sounded like a declaration of war. She swallowed. She couldn’t tell if they were celebrating her civic commitment or comparing her political ethics to a bag of candy.
But then everything changed.
Cayke accidentally dropped one of the candies, which bounced against the desk and slowly rolled to the floor. Yip, sleeping peacefully at her owner's feet, woke up with a feline leap and, without thinking, caught the candy in her mouth.
The sound was horrible: a small pop, a tiny gasp, and then… nothing. The cat opened her eyes in horror and began convulsing, trying to expel the candy from her throat.
"YIP!" Cayke screamed.
And she fainted.
Literally. Just like that. She fell back in her chair like a 1930s radio soap opera actress. Her hair scattered like drowned seaweed. The teacup slowly tipped over onto the carpet.
Glinda was left alone. Standing, paralyzed, in the scented, cat-filled office. The cat was choking. The boss had fainted. And she, still in her waitress's uniform, was in the midst of a chaos that she didn't know if it was a dream, a nightmare, or simply her everyday life since she had said yes to marrying Elphaba Thropp.
But in that moment, Glinda understood an undeniable truth: Elphaba was right: nothing could prepare you for the absurd.
For Cayke's office, usually a temple of kitsch eccentricity, Parisian glamour, and the scent of sweet vanilla, had transformed into a scene of silent chaos. Glinda blinked, frozen, while little Yip, now much less adorable than minutes before, spun around with his eyes wide open and his body convulsing. A dry, muffled, deep sound came from his tiny body. The candy—that damned lemon drop that Cayke chewed viciously, as if each bite were a passive-aggressive commentary on youthful dreams—had slid to the floor just in time to become a death trap.
Glinda screamed something unintelligible, a high-pitched shriek drowned by the vertigo of the situation, and then Cayke, with a gesture straight out of an old movie, brought her hand to her chest, staggered as if she were dancing a dramatic waltz, and collapsed onto her pink armchair.
They remained like this: the unconscious boss, the dying cat, and Glinda, standing paralyzed, her hand still extended in a futile gesture of help.
"Oh no no no no no!" she finally muttered, breaking her own spell of panic as she threw herself to her knees on the floor.
She vaguely remembered a first aid class in college—the professor was a woman with a monotone who talked about emergency maneuvers while crocheting—and, more recently, that night when Elphaba, giggling and holding a drink, explained how to handle unexpected situations during... "sensory experiments." Neither situation seemed to have ever been considered at the same time as a purple-and-white kitten choking on a citrus candy.
But she had no choice.
"Come on, Yip! Spit it out!" Glinda begged, on the verge of tears, as she clumsily wrapped her arms around the cat and hugged it to her chest.
She tried the Heimlich maneuver as best she could, pressing gently but urgently. She felt her heart pounding against the animal's soft fur, while her mind wandered: what if she accidentally killed it? What if her boss sued her? What if Elphaba found out and wrote a wry essay about the failure of human instinct in the face of the absurdity of the modern world?
Yip let out a strange sound, half meow, half whooping cough, and suddenly—pop!—the candy shot out and hit a small porcelain teacup figurine on the desk with a resounding clink.
Glinda froze.
For a moment, she thought she'd done it. She had. She'd saved a cat. A cat!
And then Yip vomited.
Glinda's whole body tensed again. Not just from visceral disgust, but from the lethal combination of unworthiness, nausea, the scent of sour tuna, and the fact that she was still on the floor, her bun undone, her apron stained, and her dignity hanging by a thread.
"Oh, sure... of course," she said with a nervous laugh, staring up at the ceiling as if waiting for a portal to open and suck her into a more just dimension.
At that moment, the sound of an elegant moan escaped Cayke's mouth, still unconscious, beginning to wake up. Glinda looked at Yip, looked at the vomit, looked at herself. She had exactly three seconds before her boss regained consciousness and found her in the most humiliating scene imaginable.
She sighed.
"This is officially the worst day of my life," she muttered, while desperately searching for napkins or a corner to hide in forever...
Outside the penthouse building, the wind blew with that icy texture that heralds the setting sun. Elphaba adjusted her black jacket, made sure she had her notebook—with her tight, furious handwriting—and stuffed a thermos into her bag like someone preparing for a long mission. Everything seemed in order. Looking up, she saw a familiar car pull up to the curb. The smile that formed her face was soft, almost involuntary, as if it sprang straight from her chest.
She climbed into the car casually, speaking before even looking.
"Thanks for picking me up. I still can't believe you wanted to join me for this, but I think it'll be fun..." she commented, as she adjusted her bag between her feet and fastened her seatbelt.
Only then did she notice the figure in the driver's seat.
Glinda stood there, perfectly composed... and yet, tenser than piano wire. She was wearing her long coat, her scarf wound with surgical precision, and black sunglasses that made her look like a federal agent in a secret mission… or a movie star escaping a scandal.
She didn't wave. She didn't smile. She just started driving, her movements smooth but robotic, as if each maneuver were programmed by an emotionally drained algorithm.
Elphaba blinked, bewildered. She gave her a tentative address:
"We can take 5th and turn onto the street by the old theater. That way we can avoid the traffic."
"Perfect," Glinda replied, dry as winter in a dismissal letter.
Silence settled in like an awkward third passenger. Elphaba glanced at her, trying to understand. Had something happened at the cafeteria? A fight with Cayke? Trouble with Avaric?
But then... something else caught her attention. A smell.
She wrinkled her nose slightly.
"Glinda...? That... smell...? Is it... tuna?"
The car continued its relentless course. Glinda didn't turn her head, didn't look up, didn't change her pace. She simply reached into the backseat, picked up a newly purchased can of pink cloud-shaped air freshener, and dropped it into Elphaba's lap with a thud.
"Use it. Use it until it's empty," she ordered in a deep voice, trembling with restraint.
Elphaba stared at her, half worried and half tempted to laugh. She took the can in both hands, studied it for a second, and then gently pressed the valve. A spray of lavender scent filled the car, mingling with the lingering sea stench.
"I'm going to pretend I'm not deeply intrigued by this story," Elphaba said, almost in a whisper.
"Please do," Glinda replied through pursed lips, her white knuckles gripping the steering wheel.
And the journey continued, the perfume wafting through the air, and Glinda, transformed into a sphinx, drove as if her dignity were hanging from the rearview mirror.
Elphaba spoke with enthusiasm. Her voice—deep, determined, filled with that analytical passion that sometimes confused the grotesque with the sublime—floated through the car as Glinda drove as if she were holding a nuclear bomb with her chin.
"I've been further refining the secondary categories of the Sexual-Fetishistic Theory of Ridicule. Particularly the performative variants of the involuntary forced role, the aesthetics of comic humiliation, and the symbolic place of infantilized attire," Elphaba commented in an almost academic tone, as if they were heading to a symposium at Harvard.
Glinda said nothing. She just nodded, or something like that. Her shoulders were raised to the level of her ears, her eyes fixed on the road as if she were piloting a ship in atmospheric turbulence, and the lingering scent of tuna-vomit-lavender permeated her coat.
"Now turn left, just past the building with the gargoyles," Elphaba said, pointing casually.
Glinda obeyed mechanically, turning with Swiss precision, and... then she saw it.
The red sign, the tinted windows, the suggestive neon lights.
The Velvet Room.
The name fell upon her consciousness like a bucket of ice-cold lingerie.
Her body froze.
Her memories flared like emergency flares: two years ago, the day she had followed Elphaba after leaving the Shiz.Corp offices, believing she was planning a crime or a secret revolutionary meeting, only to see her enter the sex shop with a completely professional expression, as if it were a library. And how, in her amateur detective clumsiness, she had ended up trapped between shelves of latex clothing, bottles with impossible names, and a haunted mechanical bed that still woke her some nights in a cold sweat.
And now... she was back. "What... what is this?" Glinda murmured, slowly turning her head toward Elphaba as if seeing her for the first time.
"The Velvet Room," she replied with a serene smile, unfastening her seatbelt. "It's the ideal place to observe authentic expressions of ridiculous roles, tragicomic power plays, and performative release mechanisms. Plus, they have happy hour on inflatables on Tuesdays. Isn't it beautiful?"
"Does your research for the book require you to come here?"
Elphaba, completely oblivious to the emotional meltdown unfolding next to her, was already opening the door.
"Don't give me that look. This is pure research. Academics are everywhere if you have eyes to see them. Besides, you promised to come with me," she added with a wry smile as she got out of the car.
The blonde sat motionless. She no longer knew if she was in a field study, a nightmare, or a karmic trap of the universe. She had survived vomited tuna, neurotic cats, and lunatic employers. But this... this was on another level.
"Can I stay in the car... for all eternity?"
"Glinda, trust me," Elphaba said, already standing outside the car with her hand outstretched like in a poorly placed romantic scene.
"My God... this is divine punishment for the lemon drop," Glinda murmured, her eyes glued to the sign.
Elphaba was already heading for the entrance.
And Glinda… there was no escape. She could only sigh, slowly get out of the car, and follow her, like a lost soul entering the purgatory of academic desire.
Or rather, the sex-shopping nightmare she could never forget.
Glinda crossed the threshold like someone entering a profane temple, each step more fearful than the last. The air had that hard-to-categorize scent: a mix of cheap incense, new leather, and latex aged by confessions. The background music was a kind of sensual jazz with industrial echoes, as if Nina Simone had been possessed by a cyborg dominatrix. The lights, dim and warm, highlighted each object as if they were sacred relics or pieces of degenerate art.
Elphaba, on the other hand, walked as if she were at home. She was carrying her notebook, taking notes on the new layout of the place, murmuring comments about the collaged posters, the slogans, the mannequins dressed as fetish astronauts, and a wax sculpture that seemed to scream soundlessly.
"Hmm... interesting update to the layout," she said quietly. "Everything's more busy, more maximalist. A bit post-millennial rococo, but with hints of conceptual performance art."
Glinda didn't know whether to sit down, run, or start hyperventilating. She had accompanied Elphaba to several such establishments since they'd been together (some even with secret rooms, reserved by password), but never to this one. Never to The Velvet Room, the original source of her initiation humiliation. Her core of aesthetic trauma.
As the two of them made their way between glass cases, shelves of impossible-to-classify artifacts, and a section that seemed to be dedicated exclusively to wigs and masks of Venetian obscenity, a young manager approached with a confident stride. She was wearing a matte pink patent leather corset, black-framed glasses, and holding a digital notebook.
"Can I help you with anything?" she asked with a professional smile.
"Yes," Elphaba replied, without even looking up from her notebook. "I have a meeting scheduled with the owner. Turtle Heart."
The manager nodded and left to make the announcement, but not before giving Glinda a brief, strangely knowing look, which seemed to identify her as a creature in an existential crisis.
“I don’t understand how it can be SO easy for you,” Glinda whispered, swallowing as she looked at a mannequin wearing a gas mask and unicorn harness. “I mean… we’ve done some crazy things in your playroom, but this… seems like a whole other level.”
“It’s not a question of leveling, it’s a question of perspective,” Elphaba replied, flipping through a French BDSM academic journal from 1996 that she had found in a clearance bin. “Besides, didn’t you say you wanted to support me more in my creative process? Well. This is creative process. Exploring boundaries. Ethnographic research applied to desire.”
“Ethno-what?”
“Shhh. Look at that poster. ‘Shame as the Aesthetics of Power.’ I almost cried.”
At that moment, the air seemed to transform slightly. The rustling of curtains and soft footsteps was replaced by a deep, soft sound: leather sandals shuffling across the polished floor, accompanied by a fragrance of sage and burnt honey.
Turtle Heart appeared.
Middle-aged, with a long, supple body like an old willow, he wore a wrinkled linen tunic, several necklaces of wood and volcanic stone, and dreadlocks that fell to his waist. His face was kind, but full of those creases that only form in those who have lived many lives, and none of them completely sane.
"Elphaba Thropp," he said in a cavernous, melodious voice, like an ocarina of mystical wisdom. "I always get an electric shock when I know you're coming."
"Turtle Heart," Elphaba replied with a smile. "I'm glad you're still so... you."
He gave her a slight bow, his fingers resting on his chest.
"And you keep talking as if you're going to transform the world from the crotch of your soul."
Elphaba nodded. Glinda blinked. Twice. Then she turned slowly to look at a sculpture made of golden plugs and empty absinthe bottles.
"We're... all crazy," she murmured.
"And this beautiful creature?" Turtle Heart asked, looking at Glinda gently. "Is it accompanying you, or has it come to rescue you?"
"My fiancée," Elphaba said casually, flipping through a catalog of posthumanist inflatable contraptions.
Turtle Heart seemed to light up.
"Ah... so it's here to expand," he said, and without further explanation, he turned and invited them to follow him.
As they walked between shelves with names like The Erotics of Body Architecture and Tools for Ego Dissolution, Elphaba spoke with genuine enthusiasm, oblivious to the way Glinda clung to her arm as if she were about to be sucked into a velvet vortex.
"I'm writing a book," Elphaba began, addressing Turtle Heart as they passed a wall covered with whips organized by color palette. "Something hybrid: theoretical essay, personal chronicle, sensory log... I want to understand how ridicule, shame, play, and fetish operate as languages of power in intimacy. Not as symptoms, but as keys. As poetic devices."
Turtle Heart smiled with half-closed eyes, with that mix of shaman and postmodern gallery curator.
"The language of desire isn't a language, it's a living archive. I love what you're proposing. The Velvet Room always has a place for explorers of the symbol."
“I’m looking for a place where I can observe,” Elphaba continued, as they passed a section with wax statues posed in fetish kabuki theater scenes. “But not as an intruder or a voyeur. As an implicated witness. As someone who not only records, but resonates.”
Turtle Heart nodded slowly.
“Then this is your cathedral,” she said. “Come with me. I’ll take you to the break room.”
Glinda no longer knew what dimensional plane they were on. She followed them both, a tense smile frozen on her face, as if she'd just discovered she was in a secret episode of Black Mirror. They crossed a heavy black velvet curtain and entered a room decorated as if a gothic interior designer had fallen in love with a Tokyo bar in the 1990s. There were cage-shaped pendant lights, antique wood walls, marble details, black leather everywhere, and neon lights that proclaimed phrases like "Surrender is the beginning" and "Every body is an altar."
But there were no chairs. No sofas. No poufs. Just a red rug in the center of the room.
Glinda blinked.
"Where...?"
Turtle Heart snapped her fingers.
From the shadows emerged five people, of varying ages and body types, completely covered in shiny leather outfits, with harnesses, wrist cuffs, and silencers. One crawled out and took the form of an ottoman. Another knelt, crossing his arms as a backrest. A blonde woman formed an elegant bergère chair with her extended body. Yet another, expressionless, offered her thighs as a double seat. All without speaking. Only with a strange, quiet devotion.
"Please," Turtle Heart said, with an open hand. "Have a seat. They're very comfortable."
Glinda couldn't believe it. Literally, she couldn't. She was sure her brain had set the "This content is not available in your emotional region" signal.
"Is that... legal?" she whispered, without moving.
"Consensual," Elphaba corrected in a calm voice, inspecting the shape of the human backrest. "And sustainable. They don't use animal-derived materials. Only voluntary sources."
"But are we going to... sit? On... them?"
"So, do you prefer the floor?" Elphaba asked, already settling elegantly onto the back of a man with a firm torso and flexible neck. "This one has a good lumbar angle." You should try it.
Glinda stood for a moment longer. Then, resigned, she sat down with extreme caution on a woman with padded knees who offered her her lap as a seat. The submissive woman held her hands, as if to steady her. Glinda didn't know whether to cry, apologize, or simply enter a voluntary coma.
"Something to drink?" Turtle Heart asked, slowly pouring some kind of aromatic infusion into cut crystal cups. "Cacao flower, ancient ginger, and a hint of ceremonial mint. Excellent for opening the senses."
Glinda took the cup with trembling hands.
"Excellent for dying of a heart attack," she murmured, while Elphaba smiled, delighted by the scene.
"Well," Elphaba said, casually crossing one leg over the soft backrest. "We're ready. Can we ask you some questions for the chapter on the erotic architecture of role-playing?"
"Of course," Turtle Heart said, sitting on a throne-like structure made of three intertwined people. "Ask whatever you need. In this room, no wish is taboo. Only ignorance."
Glinda swallowed the entire drink in one gulp.
She was going to need a lot more than ceremonial mint to survive this.
With the courage and surgical clarity of a writer truly possessed by her purpose, Elphaba took the notebook she'd tucked under her coat—a small black Moleskine with curled edges and coffee stains—and began asking questions in a disarming tone, as neutral as it was disturbingly specific.
“Do you think there’s a line between staged submission and symbolic surrender?” he asked, without flinching. “Where is that line drawn when the ritual involves devices of public exposure? What role does the unspoken spectator play in the dramaturgy of humiliation?”
Turtle Heart responded with Zen-like calm, his voice deep and serene as if he were dictating a guided meditation, though his words were anything but gentle.
“Ritualized humiliation doesn’t seek harm, but rather the dissolution of the self as a façade. It becomes an inverted mirror: the more ridiculous one appears, the more naked the truth is. The catalyst is always personal. Sometimes it’s a word. Sometimes it’s a piece of clothing. Sometimes it’s a childhood memory embedded in the unconscious and sublimated through a scene.”
Glinda, meanwhile, clutched her empty glass so tightly she was about to dig her fingernails into it. She looked around, searching for some kind of side table, a shelf, something. It was then that her "human seat" stretched out an arm with rehearsed elegance and placed her open palm in a crisp gesture: live tray. Eyes wide open, Glinda hesitated for only a second… and then, as if the universe were dictating the rules of the game, she put down her glass with a forced smile, grateful and hysterical, on the verge of collapse.
"Thank you," she whispered in a choked voice.
Elphaba, oblivious or perhaps deliciously aware of her girlfriend's trembling, continued with the interview.
"There's a school of thought," she continued, flipping through her notes, "that posits that ridicule isn't an obstacle to desire, but its vehicle. That there's nothing more erotic than failing to maintain one's mask."
"Exactly," Turtle Heart agreed. "Ridicule is the crack through which reality seeps in. And that's why it's so powerful. Not because it causes shame, but because it takes away control. And without control… one is truly present."
Glinda swallowed.
Something in that sentence struck her like a mirror thrown from an uncomfortable height. It takes away control. Being truly present. Was that what she felt right now? Was she… present? Too present?
Elphaba continued.
"And what do you think of personal symbols? Objects or gestures that, outside of an intimate context, would seem innocent or even ridiculous, but within the scene are devastating. What I call 'the invisible trigger.'"
"Oh, yes," Turtle Heart said, smiling through heavy eyelids. "They're my favorites. Those elements that don't need whips or cages to transform. Like wearing an old outfit from when someone was five, or repeating a phrase their teacher once said, or tripping someone in a choreographed way to make the whole room laugh. Humiliation is most potent when it touches on something that was once real. Something that is remembered, even if it is denied."
Glinda closed her eyes for a moment.
In her mind, she couldn't help but imagine herself stumbling on her heels in the middle of a room full of executives, hearing laughter all around her. Or watching someone ask her to give solemn speeches… dressed in the school uniform of her adolescence. Or having Elphaba repeat, in front of others, that phrase she used to mock her tongue-twisters with. "A young lady doesn't say 'That's unacceptably shocking' with a mouthful of muffin."
She felt a wave of warmth and embarrassment—a mixture of laughter, blush, and something else—rise up her neck like an elevator without buttons.
"Is everything all right, love?" Elphaba asked, turning around for the first time.
Glinda smiled that smile one trains for years to use during diplomatic events and nervous breakdowns.
"Perfectly," she said. "I'm learning so much."
And, in a corner of her mind, she couldn't help thinking:
"Is this what Elphaba feels when she writes?"
Because if it was... now she understood.
And the worst part—or the best part—was that, even if she wanted to, she couldn't dismiss that revelation.
Elphaba was still writing frantically, each word of Turtle Heart seeming like a spring of liquid gold for her pages. The intensity of her gaze contrasted sharply with Glinda's distraught expression, which had already lost all pretense of composure. Her mouth was still half-open, her eyes glittering as if she were trying to blink away, but had forgotten how.
Turtle Heart, with the calmness only mystics or the functionally insane possess, stood up without altering his tone.
"Perhaps I can show you what I mean with a simple example," he announced.
With a sharp clap, like someone calling for silence at a tribal assembly, three of the "seats" stood up without a word: a burly man in a leather mask, a petite woman in a white latex mask, and another woman with an ambiguous, androgynous, and elegant figure. They lined up next to the fake fireplace, illuminated by the dim neon light that tinged their glistening skin red.
"Very well," Turtle Heart said in an almost gentle voice, as if he were about to ask them to serve tea. "I want each of you to act as if you were a different animal. But not obvious animals. No. I want the opposite." You, Florencia, a jellyfish. Hector, a giraffe who thinks he's a mosquito. And you, darling, play an onion with low self-esteem.
And then... they did it.
Glinda giggled nervously, covering her mouth.
The androgynous woman began to tremble her arms like floating tentacles, moving forward slowly with an impossible-to-describe marine cadence. Hector craned his neck and buzzed ridiculously as he walked clumsily in circles. And the onion... the onion muttered things like, "Sorry I exist, but I have capes," while pretending to hide behind a curtain of shame.
"What are... what are you doing?" Glinda stammered.
"You're obeying," Turtle Heart replied gently. "Not because I punish you if you don't. Not because you have to. You're doing it because the impulse to obey an absurd order is, in many cases, stronger than the will to resist it. Because it's liberating. Because it pierces the ego." Because it makes them present.
Elphaba couldn't write fast enough.
"It's what Foucault said, but with onions," she murmured.
"The more ridiculous the order," Turtle Heart continued, walking slowly among her performers, "the purer the act of obedience. Because there is no rational alibi. You can't justify it with logic. All you have to do is surrender."
Glinda felt heat rise in her abdomen. It wasn't just shame. It was... something else. Something like fear. Or the vertigo of being on the verge of an intimate revelation, the kind you don't even say in front of a mirror.
One of the performers began to bark. Another pretended to be a broken chair. And yet, it all seemed strangely solemn. Like a ritual in a religion no one dared admit they understood.
Elphaba looked up and looked at Glinda.
"Are you all right?" she asked, now genuinely concerned about her fiancée's immobility.
Glinda looked at her with moist eyes, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
"I don't know," she whispered. "But I think... I think I'm understanding things I didn't want to understand. Or that I did. I don't know."
And for the first time in a long time, Elphaba didn't know what to say.
Glinda was trembling like a leaf caught in an uncertain current. Her glass was still held in the human hand on her chair, but she didn't even notice. Her cheeks were red. The heat was no longer just physical. It was emotional, existential. As if a part of her was being gently plucked from its hiding place and exposed to the light.
Elphaba was about to intervene when Turtle Heart, without violence but with almost ritualistic firmness, raised a single finger in her direction. Silence. Authority without aggression. A gesture so simple and precise that Elphaba stopped.
"Your aura," she said to Glinda in a soft but resonant voice. "It's at war with itself. Something wants to come out, and something won't let it. Can I help you?"
Glinda didn't know what to say. Everything inside her screamed "no," but her body... her body wanted to scream "yes." Her gaze searched for Elphaba, who was looking at her with a mixture of concern, curiosity... and something deeper. Something visceral. Glinda swallowed.
"Y-yes," she whispered, trembling.
Turtle Heart nodded with the calmness of a Zen shaman.
Gently, he brushed a strand of hair from her face. Then, with a single finger under her chin, he invited her to stand. Glinda obeyed as if she could do nothing else. Her breathing was rapid, ragged, but her eyes were open, fixed. She was not a victim. She was a woman facing a mirror she had always run away from.
Turtle Heart took a step back and simply... looked at her.
He looked at her like someone contemplating a fractured portrait, trying to understand its beauty through the cracks. There was no mockery in his eyes, only a clinical, deep compassion, like that of someone who has seen many masks and knows when one is about to crack.
Then, in a voice almost a whisper, he gave her his first command:
"Stand on your toes like a ballerina who has forgotten how to dance."
Glinda did so, unbalanced, clumsy, and yet... beautiful. Ridiculously beautiful.
"Now, spin around as if searching for your dignity in the air."
She spun. Clumsily, vulnerable. But without stopping.
Elphaba had stopped writing. Her notebook lay forgotten in her lap. Her eyes couldn't leave Glinda's. The woman she loved seemed to be dissolving before her eyes... and at the same time rebuilding herself with every absurd movement.
Turtle Heart continued, now with more precision, as if pressing internal keys in Glinda's soul.
"Laugh as if your laughter doesn't belong to you."
"Bow to an invisible audience that hates you."
"Apologize to the floor for trampling it with such ego."
Each command was a dagger and a salve. Glinda obeyed, not like a broken doll, but like a warrior who chose her own battlefield.
Turtle Heart, observing with surgical attention the scene he had created, noticed the way Glinda's eyes, each time she carried out an order, shifted toward Elphaba. It was a reflex, a necessity. The tension grew, throbbing. The aura vibrated between the three figures like an invisible bond, ever tighter.
Then, with a sinister, almost pedagogical calm, Turtle Heart raised the stakes.
"Now," he said with a faint smile, "sing your school's anthem as if you were a little girl who just ruined her audition."
Glinda swallowed. She took a step back, her jaw clenched.
"And then," he continued, twirling slightly like a satisfied theater director, "do a catwalk walk... as if you were the only one at the party who didn't know her dress was ripped in the back."
The silence was absolute.
Glinda obeyed. One step. Two. Her face flushed. Each command was more absurd, more offensive. A heat rose in her chest; it wasn't just embarrassment anymore, it was something closer to anger. To a broken heart.
"Stop it!" she exclaimed suddenly, her voice cracking with a mixture of rage and shame. "This is all your fault, Elphaba!"
Elphaba froze.
"If it weren't for you and your stupid experiment last night... if you hadn't convinced me that playing with ridicule was fun!" All day I haunted myself because of you! I saw myself in mirrors, in shop windows, in every damn reflection in that city... and I couldn't stop thinking about how much of an idiot you thought I was!
Elphaba said nothing. The blow left her speechless. The notebook had fallen to the floor.
Guilt pierced her chest like a hot knife. She hadn't planned this. None of this. Her experiment was a theoretical exploration, a night of play, of lovers. He didn't want to hurt her. Not like this. Not really.
But Turtle Heart didn't seem perturbed. He took a step closer to Glinda and spoke with unexpected, profound tenderness.
"She's not the problem."
Glinda turned to him, her eyes moist, confused.
"This didn't start last night," he said, without raising his voice. "This has been going on for a long time. Since you were little. Since you discovered that the world rewards perfect girls and punishes those who laugh too loudly or stumble in public."
Glinda blinked, feeling the tremble in her lower lip.
"All your life you've avoided ridicule like the plague... because you thought that if the world ever saw you in it, it would know who you really were."
Turtle Heart leaned in a little, almost in a whisper.
"But you don't care so much about what the world thinks anymore, do you? What really scares you now... is how she sees you."
Glinda turned slowly to Elphaba. And yes. There it was. In her eyes. All the fear, all the insecurity, all the hope encapsulated in a single look: Do you see me? And if you see me like this... will you still love me?
Elphaba wanted to speak. To say something. Something to save her. To hold her back. To protect her.
The room seemed to have lost all sense of time. The air was thick, charged with an inexplicable mix of shame, desire, and truth. Turtle Heart stood with a serene yet powerful presence, like a modern-day shaman in the midst of a revelation ritual. Elphaba remained still, standing beside her fallen notebook, feeling the weight of every word Glinda had just thrown at her. But she didn't fight back. She couldn't. Because deep down, she knew he was right in some way. He hadn't protected her. He hadn't known when to stop. And yet, there was something else immobilizing her: Glinda wouldn't look at her.
That was the hardest blow. Not the scream, not the reproach. But that terrible instant when Glinda's eyes, always so full of light, refused to meet hers.
"You're not finished yet," Turtle Heart said, his voice low, almost whispered, but with the clarity of emotional thunder. I asked you to let her see you.
Elphaba narrowed her eyes, confused.
"What more do you want from her?" she murmured, barely.
But Turtle Heart didn't answer. He spoke directly to Glinda, his voice like a caress that also burned:
"Act like a puppy."
Elphaba blinked, incredulous. Glinda took a step back.
The order had fallen like a bucket of ice water. For a long second, Glinda looked petrified. Indignation, shame, the absurdity of the situation... all of it crossed her face. Elphaba watched this emotional parade like a silent symphony. She was going to intervene, stop it, say that enough was enough.
But then, Glinda looked up.
And it wasn't a look of pleading. Nor of shame.
It was a look of fire.
Defiant. Hurt. And free.
Without taking her eyes off Elphaba, Glinda knelt on the floor. Her hands touched the carpeted floor with measured awkwardness. Her skirt bunched against her knees. Her back arched. A blush covered her cheeks, but she didn't lower her head. She barked. Not with ridiculous enthusiasm, not with humor. But with fierce determination. Another bark. She crawled a few inches, palms open, eyes fixed on Elphaba. Her tongue slightly protruding. A perfect pantomime.
And yet… it was so real.
Elphaba felt struck by something unrecognizable. As if the world had exploded in two halves: one where Glinda was still the polished, shining goddess of diplomatic receptions, and the other—now—where it was this: a body on the floor, a woman in the flesh, facing her deepest fear, not with dignity… but with honesty.
Glinda barked once more, approaching. She stopped in front of her. Still on all fours, she held her gaze.
“Is that what you wanted to see, Elphaba?” she hissed, her voice trembling, but not breaking. “Is that how you see me? Ridiculous? Fragile? Your experiment on legs?”
Elphaba felt her throat close. She couldn’t respond. He didn't want to lie to her, or comfort her with empty words. The only thing that was true in that moment... was the act.
So without another thought, he fell to the floor.
His knees hit the carpet with a thud. He braced himself with his hands. Her coat fell open at the sides. Her long black hair fell over her face as she descended, lowering her forehead, assuming the same pose. Her knuckles clenched in the fabric. A gasp escaped her mouth, not from physical exertion, but from emotional exertion.
And then... she barked.
A single sound. More of a whisper than an actual bark. But she did it.
Glinda blinked, surprised. She stepped back a little. But Elphaba moved forward. Like a mirror. Like an echo that didn't shy away from ridicule, but shared it. Her nose reached out to meet hers, barely touching hers. And when Glinda made a move to step aside, Elphaba followed her, her brows furrowed, as if she refused to leave her alone in that abyss.
"If you're going down," she whispered, panting, as if the words were escaping her bones, "then I'm going down with you. I don't care how idiotic we look. I don't care about the experiment. I don't care if they laugh."
She touched his cheek with the tip of her nose.
"If this is your way of showing your true self... then this is how I see you."
Glinda shuddered.
The rage dissolved in her pupils. Her eyes filled with tears.
"You don't know how much that scares me," she murmured, trembling.
"I know," Elphaba replied. "Me too."
And then, for a moment that couldn't be described as tenderness, madness, or art, two women stared at each other inches above the ground. On all fours. They had become the exact symbol of everything they had fled: the ridiculous, the absurd, the disarmed.
But they did it together. And together, they didn't break.
Shortly after, the two of them were taken to a different break room.
The new break room had something comforting, almost maternal, about its dim lighting and decor heavy with soft fabrics, oriental cushions, and barely perceptible incense floating in the air. It wasn't a place intended to erase what they had just experienced, but one that allowed them to assimilate it with dignity, without haste. On a small, aged wooden table, two cups of chamomile tea steamed between them. Elphaba held hers with both hands, as if clinging to the warmth escaping from the enameled rim. She looked at her. She looked at Glinda with a tenderness that was difficult to hide, a tenderness that filled her eyes like steam on fogged-up glass.
Glinda didn't speak. Her legs were crossed, her hands tangled in her lap. At times, she still looked embarrassed, but not entirely. There was a strange kind of serenity in her eyes, like someone finally resting after holding a mask for too long.
Finally, Elphaba was the first to break the silence.
"Glinda," she said, her voice so soft it barely disturbed the air. "I'm sorry. I really am. I had no idea that my experiment... that all of this would affect you like this."
Glinda lowered her gaze, and for a second, Elphaba thought she wouldn't respond. But then, with a small, almost secret smile, Glinda shook her head.
"It didn't hurt me, Elphie... It showed me something inside me I wanted to ignore," she murmured. "It was like... like something trapped inside me had always found a way out. It was my fault too. I should have told you what was happening to me this morning... But I didn't know how... until an hour ago."
Elphaba blinked, moved. Not by what Glinda was saying, but by how she said it. With a new openness. Vulnerable. Without shields.
Glinda slumped gently against her shoulder, snuggling as if that corner between her neck and collarbone was the only place in the world she needed to occupy. Elphaba didn't hesitate to put an arm around her, pulling her closer. Her hand thoughtlessly stroked her golden curls, as if to soothe something more than her body. As if she could protect, with a tiny gesture, everything that afternoon had stirred.
"I was afraid," Glinda said after a while. "Not just of ridicule. Afraid that you would see me and not like what you saw. That you would think I was... childish. Frivolous. Stupid."
"I would never think that," Elphaba replied instantly. "Never, Glinda."
"I know," she said, almost in a whisper. But sometimes I only know it in my head. Not in my chest.
They fell silent. A pause without tension. A pause that listened.
"I've been thinking," Elphaba finally said, her words coming out slowly, as if she were still testing them out as she spoke. "Maybe I should stop with the book. At least... this approach I was taking."
Glinda sat up suddenly, incredulous.
"What?! No! But this is what you always dreamed of writing. The book they owed you. Your voice, Elphie. Your story."
Elphaba smiled, amused by her fiancée's sudden impetus.
"Yes," she said. "But precisely because of that. Because it's my story. And I realized, in there..." She looked away for a moment, remembering the performance, the unfurnished room, Turtle Heart's orders, and the way Glinda looked at her, always, amidst the absurdity, "that I was doing it all wrong." She was approaching it as if it were another academic paper. Another clinical trial. Cold. Distant. As if she wanted to avoid feeling everything that's really in it.
Glinda looked at her silently. Listening with her eyes as much as her ears.
"But that's not my life anymore," Elphaba continued, taking her hand. "I'm not just theory anymore. I've seen so much… and learned so much. About what scares us. About what makes us feel ashamed. About what we choose to reveal and what we hide. About how ridicule can be a mirror… and a door."
She gently squeezed her fingers.
"I want my book to be human. True. I want to write from here." She brought Glinda's hand to her chest. "Not just from here," and pointed to her temple.
Glinda didn't respond immediately. But her eyes filled. And after a second, she leaned down to kiss Elphaba's forehead with reverent slowness, like someone who doesn't want to interrupt a prayer.
"Then... write it," she whispered. "But do it with us inside."
Elphaba closed her eyes. She squeezed Glinda's hand. And she knew that for the first time in a long time, what she was going to write wasn't just going to be brilliant.
It was going to be her own.
Notes:
And with that, I conclude a mini-arc for the season. I wanted to give our protagonists a bit of a lighter arc before diving into the drama ahead, so brace yourselves because in the next episode, we'll return to the personal and political drama.
ValFayre on Chapter 1 Wed 23 Apr 2025 07:19AM UTC
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