Chapter Text
Shiz was as beautiful as it had looked in the photographs and the colorful brochures that Galinda had spent days poring over. The round towers had been painted soft shades of gold and coral, their windows facing out to the endless miles of poppy fields. The late afternoon sunlight sparkled off the water of the canals, which were currently clogged with gondolas filled with arriving students and their families. Galinda watched as a man and woman pulled their daughter into a simultaneous embrace, like they couldn’t decide which one of them should hug her first. She turned away, looking down at the colorful fish swimming in the water of the canal, so close she could have reached out to touch them. She tried to ignore the pang in her chest.
Father hadn’t been able to come with her. He’d said goodbye to her at the Emerald Palace the day before, while the carriage waited outside to take her to the train station. “You’re sure you have everything?” he said, even though she’d checked and rechecked her list earlier that morning.
“Yes, Father. Everything’s been arranged.”
“Good, good.” He straightened the W pin that he’d fastened onto her lapel. “You’re going to have such a good time. So good a time that you’re probably going to forget all about me. You’ll be too busy hanging out with all of your new friends.”
Friends. Galinda didn’t know if she’d ever really had a friend--well, she had plenty of friends but they were all the daughters and sons of Father’s advisors, so they didn’t really count. The people she met while attending public functions in Oz didn't count either. They spent time with her because she was her father’s daughter. They couldn’t have cared less what she was like as a person. But maybe he was right. Maybe Shiz would be different. He'd already sent word to the Head Shizstress that she was supposed to be treated like every other student. No special treatment. “ You know I could never forget about you. I’ll write once a week, as long as you write back.”
“Of course I will. I know how much you hate being out of the loop,” he said, hugging her tightly. She breathed in his familiar scent of cologne and fabric softener and a hint of whiskey. “I’m going to miss you, kid.”
“I’ll miss you too.”
“But you’re going to have a great time.” He released her, giving her hands one last squeeze. “Let me know if you need anything, anything at all. You can always talk to Madame Morrible. And Galinda…” He glanced at the two snow Monkeys standing on duty outside the doors to the receiving room. “Let me know if you see anything…suspicious. Anyone who seems like they might be causing trouble.”
Galinda’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
His eyes flashed around the room--up at the crown molding around the ceiling, over to the landscape paintings on the walls, and beyond them to the view of the gardens outside the leaded windows. “I don’t want you to worry--”
She squeezed his hand. “Father, I’m nearly twenty years old now. You can tell me these things.”
He sighed. “There have just been some...mutterings of discontent, in certain corners of Oz. There are some who would prefer it if I wasn’t on the throne anymore.”
“But why?” Galinda couldn’t believe that anyone would hate Father. Not when everything he did was to make things better for Oz. He hadn’t even been born here, but he’d wanted to make it a better place anyway. When Galinda was younger, back when she didn’t quite understand what it meant to have dead parents, he’d told her that they were alike in that way. They were both strangers in the Emerald City, but they could create their own sense of belonging by making people love them.
“They're radicals. They want to cause chaos. Who knows what their reasons are." He shook his head. "Now, it’s nothing you need to worry about. You’re not in any danger. I just need you to let me or Madame Morrible know if you see or hear about any…seditious activity. Particularly among the Animals.”
“The Animals?” Galinda had only met a handful of Animals in her life, outside of the Monkeys who comprised the Emerald Guard. They were nice enough, she supposed, but they didn’t say much. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time one of them had spoken to her.
“Yes. We have reason to believe that some of the…seditious talk is originating in some of their more educated circles. You know that Shiz still has Animal professors? They may be very different from the kinds of Animals you’re used to. Less...respectful.”
A shiver crawled down her spine. “If I hear anything, I’ll tell you.”
“That’s my girl.” He hugged her one last time, holding on for a moment longer than usual. She let him; she hadn’t been away from the Emerald City for more than a couple of weeks at a time, and now she wouldn’t see him again until Lurlinemas. “Well, I suppose you’d better get going,” he said when he let go. “You’ll want to get to Shiz at a reasonable time."
She almost said she wished that he could come with her. But she was sure that he would have accompanied her, if he could. His duties as the Wizard kept him busy, and she didn’t want him to think that she was unhappy. He already gave her everything she could ever want. So instead she smiled at him, told him that she loved him, and followed the Monkeys out to the waiting carriage.
She shook her head, trying to clear it, and looked back at her luggage. All of her trunks were brand new and painted a soft pink, stamped with the Upland monogram on one side and her own golden G monogram on the other. There would be porters at the dock to take her luggage upstairs to her suite (a private one; Father had reserved it specifically). Right now, her job was to network. It shouldn’t be very hard, because everyone at Shiz would no doubt be curious to meet her: the last scion of the Upland family and the adopted daughter of the Wizard of Oz. But right now, the emphasis was on the Upland part of her name, bestowed by parents she didn’t remember. She was here to make connections with other powerful Gillikin families, connections that could turn into trade agreements in later years. Father always said that the best way to attract flies was with honey, not vinegar. For a long time Galinda hadn’t understood what that meant. Now, as her boat gently bumped against the side of the dock and a porter reached out a gloved hand to help her disembark, and as she felt the soft weight of dozens of pairs of eyes on her, she did. Father was far too busy to go to Gillikin himself. But Galinda could. She could make the connections-and the friends-that he couldn’t.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t have any family to see her off. She didn't need them. She could charm people all by herself. She held her back straight, her shoulders back, smiling a warm smile at the boy and girl disembarking from the next boat. She vaguely recognized the girl; her father might have been on the Gillikinese ruling council.
The boy gasped. He had wavy dark hair and pointed dark glasses. “That’s her,” he whispered, in a poor sotto voce, to his companion.
“I told you she was going to be here,” the girl replied in a loud whisper. “My father said she would be.”
Galinda pretended she didn’t hear them, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both. I’m Galinda Upland.” For a moment they both just stared at her with wide eyes. “And you are…?” she pressed, gently.
“Pfannee, your Highness,” the boy stammered, pushing his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose with a fingertip. “And this is--”
“ShenShen,” the girl said, holding out a hand for Galinda to shake. Yes, she definitely had a father on the Gillikinese ruling council. That was as good a place as any to start. “Your Highness, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I collect all of your covers of Ozmpolitan--”
“That’s so kind!” Galinda shot a look back towards the boat, to make sure the porters were unloading her luggage correctly. It wouldn’t do to have any of her trunks get broken, or soiled. "But please, there's no need for honorifics here. I'm a first year student, just like the rest of you."
"And she's so modest too!" Pfannee whispered, like he didn't know Galinda was listening.
“We really should take our seats for the opening remarks, shouldn’t we?” She pretended to check the clock hanging on the other side of the courtyard, turning away from another embracing family. Pfannee and ShenShen both nearly fell over each other in their rush to accompany her. She suspected that if she'd told them that she wanted to skip the opening remarks and go swimming naked in the canals they would have accompanied her.
Pfannee was talking a mile a minute, asking her questions about the Emerald City and then not bothering to wait for an answer before he started talking about his own (very large, apparently illustrious) family. “There’s a statue of my grandfather in the portrait gallery. He funded an entire floor of the library. Look, if you stand right here, you can see him--” He grabbed her arm and yanked her towards him, one arm pointing up towards the glazed windows of the school, and Galinda crashed right into another person. She squeaked as her heel trembled, knocked off balance--
But before she could fall, strong arms caught her. “Are you all right?”
The girl staring down at her was green. At first Galinda thought it was just the angle of the sunlight playing tricks on her, but then she realized it wasn’t the sun at all. The girl’s skin was actually green. It was a pretty shade of green--not quite forest green, but not frog green. Not grass green, either. Galinda knew there were different shades of green--she’d grown up surrounded by them, after all--but this girl seemed to defy all of them. She’d never seen anything like it.
She realized that she’d been silent for too long and the girl was waiting for an answer, her brow furrowed slightly. Her hands rested at Galinda’s waist, their soft warmth sinking through her light pink dress. Upland colors, not Emerald City colors. Galinda could feel the scratch of her fingernails against the fabric. She looked up into the girl’s soft green eyes. They looked almost mossy, like the covering the rocks in the palace ponds got when it rained. “You’re green,” she breathed in awe.
Galinda didn’t know what possessed her to say it. Of course the girl would know she was green. It was a stupid thing to say. But she still wasn’t expecting the girl’s eyes to narrow, turning hard and cold. “I am,” she said, almost sardonically. “It can be a bit of a shock at first. I hope it wasn’t too distressing, your Highness.” She set Galinda back down, only letting go of her once she was sure she could stand on her own. Galinda felt the sudden cold on her skin where the girl's hands had been.
The girl turned to the crowd that had begun to assemble around them. “Let’s get this over with. No, I am not seasick. No, I didn’t eat grass as a child. And yes, I have always been green.”
Oh, Oz. The girl was offended. “I didn’t mean--”
But it didn’t matter because Pfannee and Shenshen were already dragging her away. “We have to get you away from that lunatic, your Highness,” Pfannee said.
“Yeah. She was totally unhinged,” ShenShen replied. “But what can you really expect from someone who’s green?” They both shuddered.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with that. And please, there's no need to call me your Highness,” Galinda said as they pulled her down between them on the first bench facing the stage. Other students were starting to file in, huddling in small groups and clutching their orientation packets to their chests, book bags slung over their shoulders.
“That’s because you’re so good, Galinda,” Shenshen said in a voice that would undoubtedly carry across the quad. Galinda winced. “Really. I don’t know how you do it. Maybe you just don’t know, having been raised in the Emerald City. There must be green everywhere there. But green skin…it’s unnatural.”
Galinda resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I understand that green is not a usual skin tone. But it’s not like it’s her fault--” But then the Master of Ceremonies introduced the faculty and announced that Madame Morrible would be delivering the opening remarks, and Galinda stayed quiet.
Madame Morrible came to the front of the stage, looking regal as always in her red and gold robes. Before she began to speak she nodded at Galinda and gave her a soft almost smile. Galinda sat up a little straighter, almost instinctively. She could practically feel Madame Morrible’s hands on her back, pressing inwards. Proper young ladies don’t slouch, Miss Galinda. “Good afternoon, and congratulotions on your acceptance here at Shiz. We have nothing but the highest of hopes…for some of you.” The crowd tittered, but Galinda knew it wasn’t a joke. Madame Morrible expected great things, from a few of them. Only the best and the brightest. But especially from Galinda.
Everyone was expecting great things from her. Father, Madame Morrible, all of Father's advisors, everyone in the Emerald City. Everyone knew her story. Everyone knew how lucky she was. Everyone was expecting her to make good.
She glanced back and found the girl with green skin standing near the stone archway that served as the entrance to the quad. The girl caught her eye, her expression carefully neutral--although Galinda saw a muscle work in her jaw. Galinda gave her a small wave, but the girl didn’t wave back. Unfriendly. Galinda should have been offended, but her rudeness was almost refreshing. Normally everyone was too afraid to treat her with anything but sycophantic deference, because of who her father was. Was the girl with green skin even a student at the school? She wasn’t wearing the uniform, like everyone else. Had she traveled far to get to Shiz and just hadn’t had a chance to unpack yet?
By the time Galinda snapped herself out of her reverie, Madame Morrible had already finished speaking. That wasn’t surprising; Galinda had listened to enough of her speeches to know that the sorceress didn’t believe in using more words than she needed to. “Why would you use ten words when you could use three?” she’d asked Galinda one day, as they walked in the Palace gardens on an unseasonably warm day.
“Because using ten is more fun!” Galinda giggled. She’d only been seven then and she was happy to be out of the confines of the classroom, feeling the sun on her face and the crunch of the grass beneath her green velvet slippers.
Madame Morrible had patted the top of her head fondly. “Yes, I suppose your father would have told you that.”
Now, as Madame Morrible walked away from the podium, Galinda thought about going after her and begging her to let her into Sorcery Seminar one last time. Maybe the sorceress would take pity on her now that they were at Shiz. She knew better than anyone, even Father, just how badly Galinda wanted to be a sorceress. Galinda had wanted to be a sorceress as long as she’d been able to want anything. Father had bought her a training wand for her sixth birthday and then hired Madame Morrible to tutor her privately every summer since she was seven. So Madame Morrible also knew, better than anyone else, just how hopeless Galinda was at magic. For years and years and years she hadn’t been able to so much as levitate a coin--much less perform transformation spells or weather spells or even a simple invisibility charm. Her abilities simply weren’t up to the level that Madame Morrible required for admission into her Sorcery Seminar and she wouldn’t bend the rules for anyone, not even the Wizard of Oz’s daughter.
Adopted daughter, the small voice at the back of Galinda's head said, the voice that Galinda tried not to listen to.
Madame Morrible had sat her down on the first day of summer break in Galinda’s pink and green sitting room. She’d slipped Galinda’s admissions essay out of her briefcase and set it on the table in between them. Galinda’s looping handwriting stared up at them: Magic Wands--Need They Have A Point? Galinda had thought the idea was particularly clever, arguing that since magic wands were just a way to channel inherent magical abilities (backed up by every magical text that she had ever read) it didn’t really matter what they looked like. They could be straight or curved, long or short. Most of the training wands on the market were so long and bulky, more like spears than magical wands. They would be much cheapter to make, and easier to maneuver, if they were smaller.
Galinda had known that she wouldn’t be able to get into the Sorcery program on the strength of her talent alone, but she’d thought that perhaps she could persuade Madame Morrible with a well reasoned argument backed up by evidence. But she could tell, from the sympathetic look in the sorceress’s eyes, that it hadn’t been enough. “Dearie, I simply don’t think that the Sorcery program is a good fit for your…abilities,” she said, handing the essay back to Galinda. “Your father told me you’re also interested in architecture. Why don’t you study that instead?”
Galinda wanted to tell her that she wasn’t passionate about Architecture the way she was passionate about Sorcery. She liked being able to recognize different building styles and the history behind them, but she didn’t think about them as often as she thought about magic: every day of her life. She didn’t dream about being able to design buildings the way she dreamed about being a sorceress, able to give Ozians their heart’s desire with a mere wave of her hand, just like Father. But she knew it was no use arguing with Madame Morrible. She only took the best of the best--and after all of these years, even Galinda had been forced to acknowledge that she had no natural affinity for magic. So she’d forced herself to smile at Madame Morrible and say “Thank you for your consideration.”
That night she had crumpled the essay into the smallest ball she could make and thrown it into the fireplace, watching with satisfaction as it turned to ashes.
Father had taken her disappointment in stride. “Well, we really need architects more than we need sorcerers,” he’d told her over dinner. “Magic as a science is tricky and inexact. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But math never lies.” He’d reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “And I know you’re going to be the best architect working in this city, kid. If that’s what you want to do.” His words had helped, a little bit. But it had still served to remind Galinda of just how different they were, as if she hadn’t already known it. No matter what the adoption paperwork said, Oscar Diggs wasn’t related to her by blood so he couldn’t pass down his magic to her. Galinda knew the Upland family had a history of magic; perhaps he’d adopted her hoping that she would someday show an aptitude for it. If that was the case, he was probably sorely disappointed.
So Galinda didn’t try to plead her case with Madame Morrible one last time. She half listened to Pfannee and ShenShen prattle on about something meaningless while she surveyed the courtyard looking for other people to network with. There was a Munchkin sitting two rows behind her, trying to catch her eye; she gave him a polite smile and then looked away. There was the Governor of Munchkinland’s daughter, sitting in a beautiful wooden wheeled chair. Miss Nessarose Thropp, Galinda’s brain supplied. She would be a perfect person to talk to, since she would be Governor herself someday. The Governor had opted to skip over his firstborn child because of some defect that he claimed prevented her from ruling properly--
The green skinned girl was standing next to Nessarose, speaking to her quietly. They laughed, and from just the way they looked at each other Glinda could tell they were sisters.
Governor Thropp must have considered green skin a defect. Oh.
Galinda had always wanted a sister. But she was her birth parents’ only child, and they had died when she was less than a year old. They’d gone to see a play in Frottica and left her at home with her Ama. By the time the play finished the wind had picked up and the air was filled with driving snow. All of her parents’ friends had begged them to stay in Frottica until the storm passed, but they’d insisted they needed to return home. They’d faced snowstorms before, they’d said. They would be fine.
They never made it back. Ama Clutch sat awake into the night, long after Galinda had fallen asleep. Finally, just after three in the morning, she called the police. The carriage was found the following afternoon, at the bottom of a steep ravine. The horses had slipped on ice and hadn’t been able to catch themselves before they went over the edge of the cliff, taking the carriage down with them. There were no survivors. Galinda's grandmother had been inconsolable. She'd died from a broken heart a month later. And her only aunt had disappeared two weeks after that. At 10 months old, Galinda had been all alone in the world, until the Wizard adopted her. He said he knew what it was like to not have any family, and he hadn't wanted her to grow up alone like he did. "Your story reminded me of myself," he'd said, when Galinda had asked about it. But he didn't volunteer anything else. Father didn't talk much about the world that he came from.
Suddenly Nessarose Thropp flew into the air, screaming. Other things were flying into the air too: bookbags, pencils, room keys, even the benches that had been lined up in neat rows in front of the dais. ShenShen pushed Galinda out of the way as the bench nearest to them slammed against the wall with an almighty crack. “What in Oz?” Pfannee asked, holding his bookbag to his chest like a particularly ineffective shield.
As suddenly as everything had risen into the air, it all came crashing back down-except for Nessarose, who glided neatly to a stop at her sister’s feet. People scrambled to pick up their dropped bags and books and room keys, shooting disbelieving and frightened looks at the Thropp sisters. For a moment Galinda almost felt sorry for them until she realized what had actually happened. The eldest Thropp daughter had used real magic, magic that would certainly get her accepted into Madame Morrible’s Sorcery Seminar. Sure enough, Madame Morrible was already striding across the lawn towards them, with a smile on her face.
Something that might have been jealousy twisted in Galinda’s gut.
Madame Morrible tried to play the display of magic off as hers, but Galinda knew better. She had seen the look in the girl’s eyes when she’d realized what she’d done, the way that Nessarose had glared at her. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. Then Madame Morrible walked over to the older sister and drew her aside, leaning towards her so they could talk in low voices. Galinda watched the girl’s eyes light up, a smile spreading across her face, Madame Morrible grabbing her hands and squeezing tightly.
And then they began to walk across the lawn towards her. “Miss Galinda,” Madame Morrible said, inclining her head slightly because she was just Galinda Upland here, not the Emerald Princess. “You’re settling in well, I trust?” She kept talking before Galinda could get a word in edgewise, tugging the other girl forward. “This is Miss Elphaba Thropp. She is a…rather new addition to the student body, and I’m afraid there’s been a bit of misunderstanding about accommodations. There are no free rooms for her, so I told her that she could room with you. You have a private suite, don’t you? I’m sure there’s room for another bed and desk.”
“I…” Galinda had never shared a room with anyone before, and she didn’t really want to start now. Especially if her new roommate--Miss Elphaba--despised her as much as she clearly did.
Elphaba looked down at the tall black boots she was wearing. They should have looked ridiculous on her, especially when paired with her long black dress, but instead she managed to look almost regal. It was just the tiniest bit infuriating, how she clearly didn't give a fig about what she wore and certainly didn't spend hours obsessing over her wardrobe, but looked pretty anyway. “Madame Morrible, I really don’t want to cause any trouble. I’m sure I can stay with Nessa until we can find something more permanent--”
“Nonsense,” Madame Morrible said. “I’m sure that Miss Galinda will be happy to help you.” She looked at Galinda, her gaze almost beseeching. We’ll talk about this later, it seemed to say.
“All right,” Galinda said, looking down at Elphaba’s shoes.
“That’s very good of you, dearie.” Madame Morrible squeezed her shoulder. “The extra furniture should be in the suite within the hour, Miss Elphaba. Miss Galinda, I hope your first week goes well. I’ll expect you for tea after your last class on Friday, so you can tell me about how you’re settling in.” She gave Galinda a small, almost private, smile and then strode back across the quad and through the stone entryway.
For a moment, the two reluctant roommates just stared at each other. Miss Elphaba seemed, if not quite apologetic, then not far from it either. “I’ll see you upstairs,” Galinda finally said, shouldering her bag and turning away.
Miss Elphaba didn’t call her back.
//
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“It’s quite all right, Miss Elphaba.” Galinda’s voice came out stiffly formal, like she was speaking to a member of Father’s ruling council. She didn’t look at her new roommate, focusing instead on arranging her Architecture books on the shelf above her desk.
“You don’t need to call me Miss,” Elphaba said, as she made her bed. Galinda noticed she didn’t hang anything in the wardrobe, or set any bottles of perfume or makeup out on her vanity. Then again, Madame Morrible had said that Elphaba hadn’t been an enrolled student so perhaps she hadn’t brought any of her own belongings because she had just come to drop off Nessarose. What was she planning to sleep in? “We’re going to be roommates. You can just call me Elphaba.”
“Oh.” Another uncomfortable silence stretched out between them. “Then you can call me Galinda.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Not Your Highness?”
“I…no. I’m not a princess here. You don’t need to follow formalities.”
“Good to know,” Elphaba said in a way that suggested she didn’t believe her. Silence fell again.
Galinda tried to stifle a sigh. This was going to be a long year.
She left the dorm as soon as she’d unpacked, to find Pfannee and ShenShen and meet some other students. Pfannee and ShenShen were suitably apologetic, exclaiming over and over again that they didn’t understand why Madame Morrible would make her share a suite with someone that had Elphaba’s verdigris.
ShenShen gasped so loudly that everyone sitting in the dining hall turned to look at her. “You could write to the Wizard. I’m sure he could have Miss Elphaba expelled!” Pfannee nodded in agreement.
“Well, I certainly don’t want to expel her!” If she wrote to Father and explained that she had a roommate that hated her, he probably would write to Miss Coddle and tell her to foist Elphaba upon some other unsuspecting private suite enjoyer. But Galinda knew that Madame Morrible wouldn’t ask her to room with Elphaba unless she had a good reason for it. She had to at least wait until her tea with the sorceress at the end of the week before she wrote to Father.
She just had to get through five nights with Elphaba.
“You’re so good, Galinda,” ShenShen said, patting her shoulder while Pfannee’s eyes glistened with surprising tears. “I could never be so patient with someone like that.”
“She’s an abomination,” Pfannee whispered. “I’m shocked the Governor even lets her out of the house--”
An almighty crash split the air. Galinda swiveled around to see Elphaba standing near a table behind them. She’d dropped her tray and her bowl had shattered, sending hot stew running everywhere. An apple bounced across the floor, knocking against someone’s foot. He picked his foot up quickly, like he thought he could catch green skin just by touching an apple that Elphaba had once touched. For just a moment, Galinda felt sorry for her. It must be entirely exhaustifying to spend so much time around people who hated her for something she couldn’t control and couldn’t change. She knew how it felt to be different. She couldn't imagine being hated for it too.
Then she realized Elphaba was looking right at them. Oz, had she heard Pfannee?
Judging by the way she was glaring at them, she must have. Hell and Oz.
One of the staff members bustled over to clean up the shattered porcelain. He tried to say something to her, but Elphaba was already moving, right out of the dining hall. “I think you hurt the artichoke’s feelings,” ShenShen said, and she and Pfannee both started to laugh. Galinda felt vaguely ill.
She knew it would look suspicious if she left right after Elphaba, so she forced herself to eat a few more bites before she said “I’m not feeling well. I think I need to lie down for a while.” Pfannee and ShenShen fought over who would get to walk her upstairs, but Galinda insisted she could get to her dormitory by herself. She barely had the presence of mind to grab a few things for Elphaba, since she hadn’t had anything to eat. As soon as she was alone in the hallway, the voices of the dining hall fading behind her, Glinda raced up the stairwell.
Elphaba was sitting at her desk, reading a book. She was still wearing her dress from earlier in the day. “I’m so sorry they said those horrendible things,” Galinda started to say, but Elphaba cut her off.
“I didn’t hear you stopping them,” she said, her voice flat.
Galinda bit her lip until she tasted blood. Oz, things were going from bad to worse. She was used to charming every person she met--why was it so impossible for her to charm Elphaba Thropp? “I brought some things for you.” She set them out on the desk: an apple, a couple pieces of bread, a cookie. “I know it isn’t much, but…”
“Thank you,” Elphaba said stiffly. She still didn’t look at Galinda, but her voice softened a little bit.
“And for what it’s worth…I think your skin is a very nice shade of green. I was just surprised, when I said that. I wasn’t expecting to see you. But I didn’t mean to imply--”
“It’s all right,” Elphaba said, setting aside her book and rolling the apple across the desk. “Nessa says I could have been less…prickly. When most people bring up the verdigris, they mean it as an insult.”
“I can imagine,” Galinda said, and then blushed. “I didn’t mean--”
“That’s all right.” Elphaba gave her the tiniest of smiles, but it seemed real--not like the plastered on smiles that Father’s courtiers wore at the Emerald Palace.
“I’m normally better at this. Father did teach me how to talk to people. It’s not like I’ve been locked up in that palace for the last twenty years--”
Elphaba let out a small laugh, tearing off a piece of bread. “Father would have locked me up if he could.”
At first Glinda thought it was just another joke, a piece of back and forth banter in the game they were playing. But Elphaba’s face didn’t relax into a smile and she realized it wasn’t. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” Elphaba said, quickly. Maybe too quickly. “I’m here now, in any case.”
Another silence. Softer, this time.
Glinda cleared her throat. “What are you going to wear to bed tonight, since your clothes haven’t arrived yet?”
Elphaba shrugged, biting into the apple. She didn’t look at Galinda. “Just this, I guess. I’ll buy some things in town tomorrow. I’d ask Nessa to lend me something of hers, but I’m a little bit taller than she is-”
“You could wear something of mine, if you want.” She pointed to the chests stacked along the walls, to her dresses hanging in the wardrobe and her winter dresses hanging on a clothing rack that she’d just managed to tuck into a corner of the room. Father had always made sure that she had plenty of outfits. “First impressions are important, Galinda,” he’d tell her when the boxes arrived from the dressmakers’. “You can’t make another one.”
Elphaba’s skin seemed to turn a little greener. “I couldn’t impose.”
“You wouldn’t be imposing. As you can see, I have plenty. You can borrow something until your things arrive.” Galinda skipped to her wardrobe, rummaging among a row of identical white nightdresses. She pulled one out at random, the silk soft against her fingertips. “Here.” She set it on the edge of Elphaba’s desk.
Elphaba ran her fingers against the silk, her expression impossible to read. “Why are you being so kind?” she asked, her fingers trailing across the embroidery near the bodice: a green W.
“Why would I be cruel?” Galinda asked honestly. She had everything she could want. So many others in Oz weren’t as fortunate. What was the point in holding it against them?
Elphaba didn’t say anything for a moment. When she did say “Thank you,” her voice was low and soft.
“Of course,” Galinda replied. “What are roommates for?”
And for that night, at least, their silence felt a little less pointed. They weren’t friends yet-not quite. But maybe someday they could be.
Maybe surviving five nights with Elphaba Thropp wouldn't be quite so terrible.
Chapter 2
Notes:
Hi everyone! Welcome back!
Thanks to everyone who read the first chapter-and thanks especially to everyone who left reviews! They really do help a lot with motivation so I can get the chapters out more quickly. We're doing a little bit more set up in this chapter and then next time we'll start moving back into Act 1 canon. I'm thinking this story will update on mainly Fridays moving forward.
TWs below.
Enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Galinda’s first week of classes passed uneventfully. She took most of her classes with the rest of the first years, including Elphaba, and her elective class--Introduction to Architecture---on Friday afternoons.
Her tentative truce with Elphaba held. They didn’t have any more arguments, even if the tension in the air didn’t fully dissipate. There were a few close calls. The first time Galinda switched her pink lamp on at night she could hear the rustle of blankets as Elphaba turned over onto her side. “How long will you have the light on?” she asked.
“...All night?” Her voice tilted up at the end, turning it into a question. Galinda had slept with a lamp on for as long as she could remember. She'd never liked the dark. Her bedroom in the Emerald Palace was so big that the corners were plunged into shadow. Sometimes when she woke up in the middle of night, still half in the throes of a dream, they seemed to move strangely.
For a long moment, Elphaba didn’t say anything. Galinda could practically hear her disapproval. “All night?” she repeated.
“Yes. Will that be a problem?”
“No,” Elphaba said, unconvincingly. She turned over but Galinda knew she didn’t go to sleep. Her breathing stayed uneven, almost annoyed. Galinda was beginning to get the feeling that almost everything she did annoyed Elphaba. It was strange—she’d been able to charm everyone at Shiz except for her roommate. But Elphaba Thropp was unlike anyone she’d met before. She was entirely unapologetically herself. And Galinda couldn't seem to stop thinking about her.
Elphaba’s belongings arrived the next day. Her clothing fit into one trunk: a handful of dresses, two nightgowns that were beginning to fray near the elbows, another pair of boots, and the most basic of toiletries. All of the dresses were at least ten years out of date. Most of the stockings had holes near the toes. Galinda tried to focus on her Architecture homework as Elphaba unpacked, hanging the dresses far apart in her wardrobe so it looked like they took up more space. Galinda didn't say anything, even though she thought it was strange that the Governor of Munchkinland seemingly couldn’t afford to buy his eldest child the kinds of clothing that her rank entitled her to.
Galinda rarely saw Elphaba in the dining hall. At first she thought that Elphaba, understandably, didn’t want to eat in front of the other students after Pfannee and ShenShen had been so cruel to her. But Elphaba didn't really seem to eat full meals. She usually only took one or two things from the table of foods that students could take upstairs with them if they were too busy for a sit down meal. She didn't go into town often, so Galinda doubted she was eating there. Sometimes she brought extra food back to her dorm room, pretending she'd brought leftovers but Elphaba could have some if she'd like. Elphaba always ate them, usually while Galinda wasn't in the room.
On the first day of classes she invited Elphaba to have breakfast with her before Linguification, but Elphaba shook her head. “The last of my textbooks just came in at the book store. I have to pick them up.”
The bookstore was at least a fifteen minute walk from campus. If Elphaba was planning to go there and get back before class started, she wouldn’t have time to stop at the dining hall. “I could pick something up for you if you want--”
“I’m fine, Galinda,” Elphaba snapped, and then her voice softened. “You don’t need to worry about me,” she said more quietly. “I’ll get something to eat at a coffee shop in town.”
Elphaba wasn’t at dinner that night. In fact, Galinda didn’t see her in the dining hall until lunch the next day, when she picked up a small salad and a couple of apples. While Pfannee droned on about the cute boy that he shared a desk with in Alchemy, Galinda watched as Elphaba went over to the till and drew a small coin purse out of the pocket of her skirt. She talked with the cashier for a moment, opened her purse and rummaged inside, and then handed him some bills and put the apples back.
Galinda didn’t want to be concerned for her roommate, but she couldn’t help it—especially since Nessarose didn’t seem to be counting her pennies at all. She’d come up to Galinda to introduce herself after Linguification and said she hoped that they could be friends. She seemed like a nice girl, with a pretty smile and a sketchbook that she kept half hidden under all of her textbooks. Galinda saw her doodling in class sometimes, when their teachers’ lectures had droned on for too long. Nessarose always wore the newest fashions and she wore a new dress practically every day of the week. Her shoes all seemed brand new too. She took every meal in the dining hall, sitting with a different group of people every time. If the Thropps were poor, she was doing a very good job of hiding it. But Galinda suspected the Thropps weren’t poor at all.
Elphaba always seemed to be absorbed in her schoolwork or the piles of books she checked out from the library, so Galinda found herself spending less and less time in her dorm room, exploring the campus and finding quiet and out of the way places where she could do her homework. It was hard to get any work done in any of the common areas, because people were always coming up to introduce themselves. Even if no one was talking to her she could always feel the stares on the back of her neck, the whispers behind hands that stopped when she turned around.
It's terrible what happened to her parents, she imagined they might have said. But it seems like it worked out for her in the end, didn't it?
And then there were her classes. Galinda liked some of them more than others, but overall she loved being at Shiz. She loved being in a classroom full of her peers, instead of in her study at the Emerald Palace with only a governess for company. She loved meeting all of the different professors and seeing the enthusiasm with which they talked about their subjects. She only had one Animal professor—a Goat named Dr. Dillamond, who taught the first year History seminar. Galinda hadn’t particularly been looking forward to History—the readings on the syllabus looked positively formidable—but it was required for all first years. She arrived late on the first day, having gotten lost in the wrong tower while trying to find the classroom, and the only open desk was next to Elphaba. She’d tried to ignore the flush that colored her cheeks while she pulled her books out of her bag, while Dr. Dillamond went over the syllabus that had been mailed to them the week before.
Galinda was only half paying attention as he took attendance. “Gli-i-inda Upland?”
“Present. And it’s Galinda. With a Guh,” she said, but she looked up from her pencil sharpener. There was something different in the way he said her name, a pause that hadn’t been present when he said any other student's name. She felt the soft hairs on her arm stand at attention.
The Goat marked something down on his sheet of paper and there was another unusual pause. He looked up and gave her a quick smile. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Miss Gl-i-inda." The pronunciation was still wrong, but at least he seemed to be making an effort. "I was very good friends with your parents while we were at Shiz together.” He looked down at his sheet of paper again. “Amerie Zapeta?”
But Galinda was no longer listening. Or rather, she couldn’t move past what he’d already said. I was very good friends with your parents. Galinda knew very few people who had actually known her parents in real life, especially on anything more than a superficial level. All the people who would have known them best—her grandparents, her aunt—were all either dead or missing. She’d met some people in the Gillikinese nobility who had known her parents at their respective preparatory schools, but the things they told her could have applied to anyone: her parents had been popular, vivacious, outgoing, kind. Almost none of the stories had a personal touch to them. Father knew even less because he had never met her parents. He said that perhaps it was a blessing, because the less she knew about them the less she would miss them. Galinda didn’t think that was true. She still missed her parents plenty, but she could only miss them abstractly. She could only miss the idea of them, because she knew hardly anything about who they were as people.
If Dr. Dillamond really had known her parents while they were at school, maybe he could tell her more about them. Maybe she could finally flesh out the picture of them that she tried to build up in her head: their likes, their dislikes, their passions and foibles and, most importantly, what could have possessed them to try to drive home from Frottica in weather like that.
She tried to pay attention to the lecture but she kept losing focus. As soon as Dr. Dillamond dismissed them she rushed to the library, asking the librarian sitting at the front desk if the school kept any of their old yearbooks. She didn’t want to get her hopes up, not yet, but she could already feel her heart start to beat a little bit faster. The librarian, almost unconsciously sitting up a little bit straighter, told her that any old yearbooks would be kept on the second floor.
Galinda roamed the stacks, searching until she found the rows and rows of golden Shiz yearbooks. The years were printed on the spine, an incomplete set going back fifty years. She trailed her fingers along their spines until she reached the years that her parents would have been in Shiz. Two of the yearbooks were missing, but the yearbooks for their first and second years were still there, neatly wedged into place. She pulled them off the shelf almost reverently, feeling the reassuring weight of them in her arms.
“What are you looking at?” a voice asked behind her.
She nearly dropped the books on her feet. Elphaba was standing behind her. Their History textbook was tucked under her arm, her half finished essay slipped in between the pages to mark her place. They were less than a week into their classes and she’d already started working on an essay that wasn’t due for another two weeks. “I’m sorry,” Elphaba said, shifting the book to her other arm. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just didn’t know you studied in the library.”
“I don’t, usually. I was looking for these.” Galinda held up the yearbooks and then sat down on the carpet, her back resting against the shelves. Elphaba sat down beside her, setting her textbook on the ground. “I found books for two of the years they were at Shiz.” Elphaba didn’t say anything, but she didn’t go back to her desk. Instead, she watched as Galinda began to flip through the pages until she reached the class of first years.
Galinda scanned the list of names, trailing her finger along the glossy paper until she found her father, near the top. Highmuster Arduenna. He had a head of blond hair, a shade darker than Galinda’s, and friendly eyes that were creased in a smile. They were deep brown eyes, just like hers. Flipping to the end of the list, she found her mother. Larena Upland. Her hair was the same shade as Galinda’s, hanging around her shoulders in perfect curls. Her skin was flawless, her blue eyes full of the same vivacity as Father’s. She wore a pretty light blue dress, a necklace with a single pearl hanging around her neck. Galinda touched her picture, almost unconsciously.
Galinda treasured every photograph she’d ever been able to find of her parents. There weren’t many, comparatively speaking; they’d only been 24 years old when they died. Before Galinda had been dispatched to the Emerald Palace her old nurse, Ama Clutch, had made a photo album for her with every picture of the Uplands she could find. Galinda had pored over it so many times the corners of the pages were turning soft and worn. Stupidly, it hadn’t occurred to her that there could be more photos that she hadn’t found yet.
She stared directly into her mother’s eyes. Almost everyone who had ever met Larena Upland said she was beautiful. Galinda had been told, more times than she could count, that she should be grateful she’d gotten her parents’ looks. But Galinda was more interested in what the picture couldn’t tell her: what were her parents like behind the camera? What made them laugh? When had they fallen in love? What had they studied at school? What would they have done with their lives if they’d had a little more time?
Maybe Dr. Dillamond had some of those answers. She flipped back to find his picture, under the Ds. There he was: Desmond Dillamond. He looked much like he did now, except his fur was perhaps a little shorter and his glasses had rounder frames. He was also smiling broadly. Almost everyone was; they all knew how lucky they were to be at Shiz. They were all waiting for their lives to begin.
They had no way of knowing that some of their lives would be shorter than others’.
She paged ahead further, into the photographs of student organizations and sponsored events, her heart rate picking up every time she saw a flash of blonde hair. But she didn’t find her parents again until she reached the third to last page. They were sitting at a table in the library with Dr. Dillamond and two other students that Galinda didn’t recognize, their heads bent over a book. Her parents were holding hands, their fingertips just visible at the edge of the photograph. Galinda felt sudden tears sting at the backs of her eyes.
There was a rustling beside her and she felt Elphaba wordlessly press a handkerchief into her hand. “Thank you,” Galinda whispered, dabbing furiously at her eyes.
Elphaba didn’t say anything else. She didn’t have to.
Nessarose was sitting alone at dinner that night, glancing up nervously every so often as she cut her meat into smaller and smaller pieces. No one was ignoring her, exactly—but no one else was asking her to sit with them either.
Before Galinda really had time to think about it, she walked towards her table instead of Pfannee and ShenShen’s. She set her tray down on the opposite side of the table. “Nessarose, do you mind if I sit here?”
Nessarose looked up in surprise, then at the empty chairs surrounding them. “I…no, of course not. Please take a seat.” Galinda did, ignoring ShenShen’s waving hand. “And you can just call me Nessa. Most people do."
“Galinda Upland. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She held out a hand for Nessa to shake.
“I know who you are,” Nessa said, and then blushed. “Sorry. It’s just that--”
“It’s quite all right,” Galinda said, giving her a conspiratorial smile that was designed to put her at ease. “I’d be surprised if anyone in this room doesn’t know who I am.”
“Well yes, there’s that. But I’ve also been hearing a lot about you from Elphaba.”
Galinda hoped her blush didn’t show on her cheeks. “All good things, I hope?”
“Of course,” Nessa said, but Galinda couldn’t tell if she was lying to make her feel better. “I’m sorry about her. She can be so prickly around people she doesn’t know. She always believes the worst about them.”
Galinda recalled the way Pfannee and ShenShen had talked about her, when they’d never even had a conversation with her. They’d called her an abomination, as if she’d committed some crime against nature just by virtue of being born green. “I’m not surprised, given how people act around her.”
Nessa’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes, people can be cruel.” She glanced around the dining hall, at all the people who weren’t quite looking their way. “Though I’m sure you don’t experience that, being the Wizard’s daughter and all.”
And she was right. No one would dare insult Galinda to her face. But that word, daughter, made something in her chest ache. She wasn’t his daughter, not really. She was only in the position she was in because her entire family had died and there had been no one left to take her in. At least Elphaba and Nessa had each other. They would always know they’d had someone to belong to, since the moment Nessa was born. Galinda didn’t have that. Most of the time it was fine, because Father treated her like the daughter he’d never had. But sometimes she still managed to feel unspeakably lonely.
If anyone knew how she was feeling, she knew they would call her ungrateful. She had everything she could possibly want, and she still wanted more. She wanted the one thing that Father could never give her.
She must have been quiet for too long, because Nessa’s face fell. “I said something wrong, didn’t I?”
“No, not at all.” Galinda smiled at her. “You’re right. I’m lucky, in many ways.” She didn't want anyone to think she was being ungrateful, not when she knew just how lucky she was. She tried to change the subject. “That’s a beautiful dress. Where did you get it?”
Nessa smiled, fingering the pale green sleeve of her dress almost absentmindedly. “Oh, this? I got it at a boutique in Munchkinland last year.” Boutique clothes were pricey. If Galinda had to guess, Nessa shopped at boutiques almost exclusively.
“At least one of the Thropp sisters appreciates color.” She tried to keep her voice light, not wanting it to come off as an insult.
Nessa certainly didn’t seem offended. “Well, Elphaba has always been original.”
“Do you shop at the same stores?”
Nessa bit her lip. “Elphaba doesn’t really like to shop, especially not for clothes.”
Did she not like shopping, or did she just not have any money? But Galinda didn’t push, not wanting to make Nessa suspicious. “Does your father give you both allowances?” Nessa nodded. “And Elphaba gets the same amount as you do?”
“Why wouldn’t she?” Nessa asked, sounding genuinely surprised.
Galinda toyed with telling her about the skipped meals, the bare wardrobe, the threadbare shoes. She’d heard how large the Governor’s House, Colwen Grounds, was. It was possible that Nessa didn’t know that her sister didn’t have the same opportunities she did, especially if Elphaba was determined to hide the disparities from her. But Galinda didn’t know how Elphaba would react to her going to Nessa first, instead of talking with her. Maybe she was a picky eater or had to eat specially prepared food. Maybe she really just preferred to eat in her room because she wanted to avoid the other students’ stares.
There was an orphanage in the Emerald City, two streets down from the Palace, where Galinda had volunteered for three hours a week ever since she was twelve years old. Father had encouraged it, saying that it was important to see how other people in Oz lived, especially the more unfortunate. "Not everyone lives the way you do, Galinda," he'd said. So she’d seen plenty of hungry children before, children whose parents couldn’t afford to feed them. But she’d never heard of a father who could more than support both of his children but only chose to support one of them. It made rage flare in her gut.
Instead all she said was “Have you talked to her recently?”
“Elphaba? A little bit, but we've mostly been busy with classes,” Nessa said. “Why?”
‘No reason,” Galinda said. “I just wondered if you were close. I don't have any siblings, as you know, and it's interesting to hear about other people's.”
Nessa thought for a moment as she took another bite of her pasta. “I wouldn’t say we’re very close. We love each other, of course, but…we have very different interests. And…” She hesitated, dragging her fork through her pasta. “It’s not that I don’t love Elphaba. I really, really do. But she’s not always the easiest person to live with. She doesn’t try to make trouble, but you saw what happened in the quad on our first day.” Galinda remembered how Nessa had turned away from her sister after she'd returned to the ground, how she’d whispered something that had made Elphaba’s face fall, and Galinda had been sure it wasn’t the first time Elphaba’s magic had reacted like that. “It’s…tiring. I'm freakish enough as it is. Having Elphaba nearby just compounds it. I wish she could be a little more normal sometimes, but she can’t be. I know Father wishes that too.”
“Some things Elphaba said, about your father—”
Nessa winced. “He’s never liked Elphaba. It’s unfair, but it’s the truth.”
Galinda wanted to ask her if he disliked her so much he wouldn’t give her enough money for food. Instead, she steered their conversation to safer topics: their Linguification homework, their History essay. But Nessa’s words stayed lodged in her head. He’s never liked Elphaba.
"You're certainly not freakish, Nessa," Galinda said. Nessa smiled so brightly her eyes lit up.
They talked about their classes for the rest of the meal, but Galinda simply couldn't understand how someone could dislike their own daughter that much, especially for something she couldn't help.
After her last class, Galinda went to Madame Morrible’s office for tea.
Madame Morrible’s office was at the top of one of the school’s towers, with a commanding view over the canals, across the poppy fields, and down to the city of Shiz itself. It was a large room, but cozy: a soft rug covering the stone floor, two overstuffed armchairs positioned in front of a fire blazing merrily in the grate, long cabinets lining the walls filled with teaching awards and all manner of magical curiosities. “Take a seat, dearie,” Madame Morrible said as Galinda opened the door. A tea kettle started to whistle in the background and she silenced it with a wave of her hand.
Galinda sank down into one of the chairs in front of the fireplace, closing her eyes for a moment. She heard Madame Morrible’s shoes clicking on the stone, and then the sorceress handed her a cup of tea. Rosewater and lavender—her favorite. “How was your first week, dearie?” Madame Morrible asked, taking the seat across from her. “I want to hear about everything.”
Galinda told her about her classes, her homework assignments, Pfannee and ShenShen and Nessa. Madame Morrible’s lips pursed when she told her about Dr. Dillamond. “Well I’m not sure how well he knew your parents, dearie. There were many people—and a few Animals—in their year. That doesn’t mean they were friends with everyone. And in any case, that was a very long time ago. I doubt Dr. Dillamond kept in contact with them after they graduated.”
Galinda thought about the picture in the yearbook: her parents, Dr. Dillamond, and a couple of other students all crowded around the table with their heads bent over a book. They’d certainly seemed close then. And Frottica wasn’t too far from Shiz. It would have been easy enough for them to keep in touch if they had wanted to.
But Madame Morrible had already started to talk again. “How are you enjoying architecture, dearie?”
“It’s interesting,” Galinda said truthfully. It wasn’t Sorcery, but she’d gotten the top grade in the class on her first assignment. It had made her strangely proud, considering she’d never had to compete with anyone for the best grades before.
Madame Morrible set her teacup aside, studying Galinda with her piercing dark eyes. “I don’t usually do this, Miss Galinda, but…a spot has opened up in my Sorcery Seminar, if you would like to take it. You would have to take it on as an extra class, so you'd have more homework, but I understand how much you wish to study Sorcery.”
Galinda nearly dropped her teacup. “I…but Madame Morrible, you know my powers aren’t—”
“You haven’t shown any appreciable magical talent yet.” Madame Morrible drummed her fingers on the side table. “But occasionally magic manifests itself in times of great change—and what change is more fundamental in a girl’s life than that from child to woman? I am willing to let you join Sorcery Seminar for one year, in order to monitor any…changes that may result.”
For a moment, Galinda couldn’t speak. She’d always wanted to join Sorcery Seminar, and now she finally had her chance! But just a couple of weeks ago, Madame Morrible insisted that she couldn’t take her on as a student. What had changed?
Galinda glanced over at Morrible’s desk, where a letter with Father’s seal was half visible under the bowl of teabags. Her heart sank. “Did you talk to Father? Did he put you up to this? Because I don’t want you to take me on as a student if you don’t believe that I can ever become a great sorceress, like you.”
Morrible smiled at her indulgently. “No, dearie. He didn’t. When I decided to take on Miss Elphaba as a student, I knew I would ask you to study with her. Fledgling magic can be encouraged by the right sort of company.” She squeezed Galinda’s hand. “Well, dearie?”
“That’s a very generous offer, Madame Morrible. But if you want me to be in the class…of course I will be.” They both knew she’d wanted to be a sorceress ever since she knew what the world meant. She certainly wasn’t going to turn down an offer to study magic in Madame Morrible’s private seminar. Even if she wouldn’t be any better at it now than she had been for the last decade.
“I’ll leave the paperwork with Miss Coddle tonight,” Madame Morrible said. “You’re sure you can take on another class this year, dearie?”
Galinda nodded, her jaw set. “I’ll work as hard as I can.”
“I know you will, dearie.” They drank their tea in silence for a few moments. It had begun to rain outside the dormer windows; Galinda watched a group of students flee for cover, their book bags pulled over their heads to protect them from the rain. “How is your roommate settling in? Have the two of you been getting along?”
“Yes, mostly,” Galinda said.
“How has she been finding Shiz?”
“I think she likes it. She’s always working on schoolwork when I get back from classes.” She picked at a loose thread in the arm of the chair. For a moment she almost told Madame Morrible about how frequently Elphaba was skipping meals and nearly asked for her advice. But then Madame Morrible would have to talk to Elphaba, might even talk to Miss Coddle. Word might get out that the Governor of Munchkinland was mistreating his daughter. Elphaba would feel humiliated. So she didn’t say anything, just stirred her tea and watched the tea leaves settle at the bottom of her cup.
“Thank you for your kindness and generosity in sharing your room. As I’m sure you’ve realized, Miss Elphaba was never meant to be a student here at Shiz. But power like that can’t be left underdeveloped, so that it withers on the vine—or in Munchkinland, as the case may be. Just think of all the good that power like hers could do for your father. For all of Oz.” Galinda nodded. She took another sip of tea, but it was starting to go cold and it twisted in her stomach. “Real magic is already rare as it is. Miss Elphaba could be very, very useful to us. That’s why I’d like you to be especially friendly to her. Make sure Shiz feels like her home.”
“Of course, Madame Morrible.” Her stomach twisted further. She knew this feeling, felt it every time she saw a girl strolling down the long streets lined with shops in the Emerald City, hand in hand with her mother.
Jealousy.
She wasn’t being invited to Sorcery Seminar because Madame Morrible had suddenly changed her mind and decided she would make a good sorceress. She was being invited to Sorcery Seminar to be a companion for Miss Elphaba, who had shown more magical talent in five minutes than Galinda had been able to muster in her entire life.
“I knew I could count on you.” Madame Morrible grabbed a plate of scones off the windowsill and set it on the table in between them. “Would you like something to eat, dearie? I’m sure you’ve had a long week.”
“I’m not hungry,” Galinda said, even as she grabbed two scones. “But I will bring some back for Miss Elphaba. I know she’s partial to them.”
When Galinda came back from the dining hall that night, both of the scones had been eaten. “I brought extras,” she said, setting some fruit and a small bowl of soup with a lid closed over the top to keep it warm down on the edge of Elphaba’s desk.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been bringing back extras a lot lately.”
Galinda bit her lip. “You seem like you might appreciate them.” She could tell, just from the shift in Elphaba’s silence, that this had been the wrong thing to say. “It’s just that you’re rarely in the dining hall,” she said quickly. “I want to make sure you’re getting enough to eat.”
“I am, thank you.” Elphaba’s voice was flat, almost annoyed. “You don’t have to worry about me, Galinda. I can take care of myself.”
“You were short of money for breakfast this morning.”
Elphaba’s hand tightened around her pen. “It’s none of your business, Your Highness.” Galinda’s title had never sounded so much like an insult before. “I don’t need your pity.”
Galinda took a step back, like she'd been slapped. “Oh, it wasn’t pity. More like concern--”
“I don’t need that, either,” Elphaba said. “And I certainly don’t need you to watch me pay for my breakfast—”
“Your father doesn’t give you an allowance, does he? At least, not the same allowance he gives Nessa.”
Elphaba was quiet for so long that Galinda worried she wasn’t going to answer at all. “He doesn’t give Nessa an allowance,” she finally said. “She can buy whatever she wants. For me, there are…limits. Most of the week’s money went to my textbooks. Next week, there will be more money for food. I won't need your extras."
“But…why are there limits for you?” She simply couldn’t imagine why Elphaba’s father wouldn’t make sure she had enough to eat.
“Because I’m not going to be the next Governor,” Elphaba said simply.
Rage built in the pit of Galinda’s stomach. “So he thinks you should starve?”
“Galinda, it’s only a week—”
“Still. It’s unacceptable.” She stood up. She didn’t know where she was going to go—to Nessa maybe, or even Madame Morrible—but Elphaba’s hand closed around her wrist. Her fingertips sent hot sparks dancing though Galinda’s skin.
“Galinda, don’t,” she said warningly. “I don’t want you to interfere for me.”
“But--”
“It isn’t worth it.”
“It is if you can’t eat.”
“It’s only for two more days.”
“That’s still two days.” This time, when Galinda shoved the food towards her, Elphaba didn’t protest. She took the lid off the soup and took a couple of bites. “Does Nessa know?”
Elphaba shook her head. “She would lend me some money, if she did. But she’ll worry.”
“Perhaps she’ll talk to your father—”
But Elphaba was still shaking her head. “Father loves Nessa, but he won’t listen to her. Not about this, at least.” There was something hard in her voice that told Galinda the conversation was finished. For now, at least, because there was no way Galinda was going to let this go. “And it doesn’t give you an excuse to go poking into our business.”
“It does if you’re starving.” Galinda sat down on the edge of her bed.
“I’m not starving,” Elphaba said, even though she’d already finished the bowl of soup. “And really, I don’t see why you care—”
“I’m Galinda the Good. I’m supposed to care.” It was what Father had told her, when he'd given her the title, when it became clear that she didn't have magic. He'd been trying to make her feel better. She could use her unique position to be a voice for the most marginalized people in Oz: children, single mothers, the sick. “I visit orphanages at least once a week, and last year I helped rally support on a child welfare bill—”
But Elphaba was shaking her head. “I’m sure you're only shown the nice parts of things.”
“I’ve seen things—”
“Sanitized things. Polite things that look good for your image. So you can be a saint.” Her voice wasn't sharp, but her words still had edges. "I don't need you to be a saint, Galinda. Not for me."
“That’s not fair,” Galinda sniffed, tears pricking at the backs of her eyelids. She tried to wipe them away, but Elphaba saw. Her face fell.
“Galinda, I didn’t mean to…I know you’re trying—”
Galinda found she couldn’t look at her. Instead she looked down at her green sheets, fresh from the Emerald City. “I can be good,” she said, firmly. “That’s what I’m good at.” Maybe it was all she was good at. Not sorcery, certainly. Not like Elphaba. But she could make people smile and laugh. She could charm a banker into donating money to a campaign for children's education. She could convince a group of housewives to throw a charity bazaar in the square in front of the palace. She could tell everyone who listened that Father was just and kind and that he cared about everyone, even the most vulnerable. She could make a difference that way.
At least, she’d liked to believe she could. But Elphaba’s words hurt more than she wanted to admit, even to herself.
She stood. “I’m going to take a bath.”
Elphaba called after her, but for once Galinda didn’t listen. She shut the bathroom door behind her and leaned against it, waiting until her breathing evened out again. She was beginning to think Elphaba actively disliked her. It wasn't a nice feeling.
Clearly, befriending her was going to be harder than she’d thought.
Notes:
TWs: referenced financial abuse, child neglect
We'll get some more glimpses into Galinda's childhood as we go along so we can get more of an insight into why she is the way she is. I think she's a little more empathetic here because of the philanthropic work she's done in the EC, working more closely with vulnerable people than she might have done in canon where she would be more insulated into the Gillilkinese nobility and possibly isolated in somewhere more provincial like Frottica. Notice that the groups of vulnerable people she discusses do not include Animals.
Writing updates (since I know some of you are reading some of my other fics-I currently have 6 that I'm writing): Strangers will update tomorrow. Chapter 3 of the Pride and Prejudice AU and Chapter 9 of IGLD should hopefully go up on Sunday. It's looking like there won't be any OST this week. Other stories were just flowing more easily. I'll make sure 38 is up next weekend.
Thanks for reading! Have a great week!
Chapter 3
Notes:
Hi everyone! Welcome back!
We lay a little more of the groundwork this chapter and then next chapter we'll be jumping into some more events from the movie!
Reviews and Kudos welcome! Enjoy!
Chapter Text
Galinda spent the next couple of days avoiding her dorm room as much as she could, studiously ignoring all of Elphaba’s attempts to make conversation. She continued to bring leftovers back from the dining hall, leaving them on Elphaba’s desk. They were always gone when she got back.
She was having breakfast in the dining hall the following Monday, staring down at her Sorcery Studies textbook (even though she’d only missed one Sorcery Seminar, she had nearly a hundred pages of readings to catch up on) when someone plunked their tray down on the other side of the table. “Is anyone sitting here?” Elphaba asked, sliding into the seat across from her. Galinda noticed, just as Elphaba must have wanted her to, that her tray was full. Clearly, her allowance had come in.
“No,” she said, not looking up from her reading on different types of crystal balls. She’d always been interested in scrying, even though she didn’t have any more talent for it than she did for any other branch of magic.
Elphaba ate in silence for a couple of minutes, drawing a spoon listlessly through her oatmeal. “I’m sorry about what I said,” she finally said, as Galinda turned another page. “I shouldn’t have reacted that way. You were being kind and trying to help. I’m not…used to people trying to help. I’m not used to people caring, like you did.” The simple way she said it, like it was an objective truth—her objective truth, maybe—made Galinda’s heart feel like someone had shoved it into a vise and stomped down hard.
“I do care,” she said, reading the same paragraph twice and not taking in a word. “My title isn’t just a title to me. I genuinely want to help others. It’s the least I can do, given the life that I have.”
“Adopted by the Wizard of Oz,” Elphaba finished, and if there was a hint of longing in her voice Galinda pretended she didn’t hear it. “I’ve met a lot of people who pretend to care, who want to contribute to the right causes but don’t really care about the people they’re supposed to be helping.”
“I’ve met those kinds of people too,” Galinda said. Many of them served on the charity boards, the bored wives of rich financiers and politicians, who saw the meetings more as social gatherings than as opportunities to help the people who really needed it.
“I assumed you were one of them, because you come from the Emerald City. I was just…embarrassed, I think, because I thought I had done such a good job of hiding everything.”
“Why didn’t you want anyone to know what was happening?” Galinda asked. “Maybe they could have helped—”
But Elphaba was already shaking her head. “People aren’t exactly…inclined to give me the benefit of the doubt. Who would they believe—me or my father, who’s the Governor of Munchkinland and would just say that I’m lying for attention because I’ve always despised him?”
“No one would believe that.”
“Everyone already does.” Elphaba’s voice was almost unnaturally calm, like she was trying to explain something obvious to a particularly dense child. “Nessa says that you’ve been sitting with her at lunch. I wanted to thank you. I know it’s been hard for her to make friends, with a sister like me.” There was a self deprecating note in her voice that Elphaba didn’t seem to notice, like she was so used to putting herself down that it hardly registered.
“Why should that matter?” Galinda asked, closing her book. She could feel the stares on the back of her neck, could hear the murmur of whispers. Pfannee and ShenShen would hear she’d had breakfast with Elphaba before their first class started, and she was sure they’d interrogate her about it at lunch. Surprisingly, Galinda found she didn’t mind.
Elphaba’s brows furrowed slightly, like she thought it should have been obvious. “Nobody wants to be friends with anybody who has a freak for a sister."
“You’re not a freak,” Galinda said.
“Of course I am,” Elphaba said, like it was an objective fact. “Do you see anyone else here who has green skin? Or can't control their magic?”
“That doesn’t make you a freak. I certainly don’t think you’re a freak, for what it's worth. I think you can be a bit arrogant and stubborn to the point of stupidity, but you’re not a freak.”
Elphaba was quiet for a minute. Galinda thought she saw the corner of her lips curl into a smile, but it happened so quickly that she couldn’t be sure. Elphaba split a muffin in half, inching half of it across the table towards her. “Truce?”
She was looking at Galinda so earnestly that Galinda couldn’t entirely stay mad at her, even though she wanted to. “Truce,” she said, taking the other half of the muffin.
Galinda found she couldn’t concentrate in History class that afternoon. This was becoming a regular occurrence. She really did try to pay attention, but every time she tried to think about the Great Drought or the Animal Communes or the long list of different Ozmas that occupied the throne before Father arrived in his balloon she almost inevitably ended up thinking about her parents and the picture of them in the yearbook with Dr. Dillamond. Whatever Madame Morrible said, it was proof that they’d known each other, maybe even been friends.
Galinda had to ask the professor what he knew. She would fail the class if she didn’t. She’d already asked Elphaba twice if she could borrow her notes to study and even though Elphaba had let her, Galinda knew she was starting to get suspicious. So at the end of class Galinda took her time packing up her books and tidying away her pencils, while all the other students filed out around her.
Elphaba lingered with her. “Do you want to walk to Sorcery Seminar together?”
Truthfully, Sorcery Seminar had almost entirely slipped her mind. “I’ll meet you there. I have a question to ask Dr. Dillamond.”
Elphaba nodded, seemingly not at all suspicious as she hoisted her book bag over her shoulder. “I’ll see you there then?”
“See you there,” Galinda replied. It took everything she had to wait until the classroom door closed behind her before she practically bolted over to the professor’s desk.
Dr. Dillamond was flipping through a stack of papers from another class. When she came to stand in front of her, he gave her a friendly smile. But even though she scrutinized that smile as carefully as she could, she couldn’t tell if there was any familiarity in it. Did he think she looked more like one of them? Did he think she acted like them, or talked like them? A list of questions was unspooling in her head, faster than she could stop them. Maybe, for the first time in her life, she was about to get answers that mattered. “How can I help you, Miss Gli-i-inda? Did you have a question about last week’s readings?”
“I have a question, yes, but not about that.” Galinda pulled the yearbook out of her bag and set it on the desk in between them, flipping three pages from the back until she reached the picture of the six students sitting around a table in the library. “Who are these people with you and my parents?”
Dr. Dillamond didn’t say anything for a long time. When Galinda looked up she was surprised to see that he looked stricken. He was looking down at the yearbook like he’d never seen it before and had no idea it existed. “Where did you find that?” he asked.
“In the library,” she said. “I found the yearbooks from your first two years. I know my parents are there.” She pointed to them, their blond heads bent together. “But the other three people are facing away from the camera. I can’t tell who they are.”
There was another long stretch of silence, so long that Galinda worried that he wouldn’t tell her anything at all. The professor tried to speak, shook his head, and tried again. He tapped one hoof gently on the photograph, pointing to the boy sitting next to him. He had dark hair that curled over his ears and forehead. “This is Everett Tenmeadows, another friend of ours. The girl next to us is Lidia Parkhurst. She was one of only three Vinkan students at Shiz at the time. And on her other side, next to your father, is Amaryllis Arduenna. We were very good friends while we were at Shiz.”
Galinda wanted to tell him that she already had a father, who had raised her like his own daughter even though they didn’t share any blood. But she was distracted by the thought that she was looking at her aunt, flipping through the class list to find her school picture. She found it near the top of the list, just above her brother’s name: Amaryllis Arduenna. Her hair was a shade lighter than his, but they had the same eyes. Except the expression was different: where the camera had managed to capture the laughter in Highmuster’s eyes, his sister’s eyes were cool and calculated.
Galinda knew a little more about her aunt Amaryllis because Father had met her before. She’d worked at the palace for a few months before Galinda’s parents died. “She was one of the smartest people I’d ever met,” he said. “You could tell as soon as you met her. There was something in her bearing that made people sit up and pay attention. It really is a shame that she disappeared when she did. You would have really liked her.”
He’d never mentioned that if she hadn’t disappeared Galinda probably would have gone to live with her instead.
“Did you all stay in touch with each other after you left school?” Galinda asked as she eased the book shut.
Dr. Dillamond was quiet for a moment. “We did, yes. For a while.”
“Are you still in touch with them now?” Perhaps he had their addresses. Then she could write to them and tell them that she was seeking information about her parents and aunt.
“I haven’t spoken to Everett in years.” Tenmeadows. The name sounded familiar, but Galinda wasn’t sure why. She scribbled it in the back of her notebook, to think about later. “And Lidia…well, she died shortly after your parents.” The pain in his voice was still raw, like she’d died only weeks ago instead of nearly two decades ago.
“Oh. I’m so sorry—”
He shook his head. “It’s quite all right, Miss Gl-i-inda. It’s only fair that you should have questions about your parents and their time at Shiz.”
Galinda summoned up all of her courage, clearing her throat and saying the words before she could stop herself. “Could I visit sometime during office hours, so you can tell me about them?” There was a long, fraught moment of silence. “Please. I’ve never met someone who really knew them.”
“I’m sure your parents had plenty of friends back in Gillikin. Why don’t you ask one of them?”
“I have. But they all say the same superficial things. I know my parents were more than beautiful, or funny, or kind.” The words came out faster than Galinda could keep them in. “But no one seems to know anything about who they were as people. No one seems to know what made them laugh, what they did on a rainy day, what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives. And I know there was more to them than that. Oz, I don’t even know what they studied while they were at Shiz.”
“Your mother studied Sorcery,” Dr. Dillamond said, almost automatically. “Your father-Highmuster, I mean-studied History. I met him on our first day of classes as first years, in our first History Seminar. We were deskmates. As you can imagine, I wasn’t a very popular student. Nobody wanted to sit with me. But your father didn’t care. He sat down right next to me, even though there were several other seats available, and asked if he could borrow a pencil. Your father’s capacity for kindness always astounded me.”
Galinda looked around the classroom, with its rows of desks stretching upwards and the heavy wooden panels that swung down to cover the windows so they could all see the projector. She imagined a boy that looked like Highmuster Arduenna's yearbook photo, with his smile that couldn’t be contained by a photograph, sitting down next to a younger looking Dr. Dillamond (wearing a smart green and white cardigan and the same rounded glasses he’d worn in his own yearbook photo).
She was so busy focusing on the second part of what he’d said that she nearly forgot about the first. “My mother studied Sorcery?”
“Yes. She was quite talented. I believe Madame Morrible said Larena was one of the most promising students she’d had in decades.”
Galinda froze. Madame Morrible had never said anything about her mother studying Sorcery, or about her mother having magic at all. “Are you quite sure?” She didn’t realize that her hands had tightened around the edge of the desk until she looked down and saw that her knuckles had turned white.
“Yes, of course. Didn’t Madame Morrible tell you?”
“No, she didn’t.” Galinda glanced up at the clock. She only had five minutes to get to Sorcery Seminar. “I should go. But can I come by during office hours?”
Dr. Dillamond hesitated for only a second before he said “Of course you can, Miss Gl-i-inda. You can visit at any time.”
Galinda’s head pounded and her heart raced as she walked down the hallway. The voices of the other students seemed to filter through a very long tunnel to reach her. When they smiled at her, her own smile didn’t reach her eyes. Madame Morrible hadn’t told her that her mother had magic, or studied sorcery, or was one of the most promising students she’d had in decades. It felt like the very ground beneath her feet wasn’t as steady as it had once been. Her mother had had real magic, enough magic that even Madame Morrible had been impressed, and Glinda didn’t have enough to perform even the simplest of levitation spells.
Somehow she managed to find her way to the Sorcery Seminar classroom. It was located right next to Madame Morrible’s office, a small room with a couple of tables in front of the window and a cabinet full of old magical books that were so old their binding was starting to come undone. She slid into the seat next to Elphaba, setting her bag down on the desk next to her. Madame Morrible was writing something on the board, but Galinda’s vision blurred and she couldn’t tell what it said.
Elphaba leaned closer to her. “Are you all right?” she asked. Galinda realized that her hands were shaking as she laid out her pencils.
“I’m fine,” she whispered, hoping that Elphaba would understand she meant I’ll tell you later.
Madame Morrible turned away from the chalkboard. “How good of you to join us, Miss Galinda. I trust you did the readings I assigned you?”
“Yes, Madame Morrible.”
“Wonderful. Now, I ordered you a new training wand but as it has yet to arrive I thought you could read the chapter on levitation spells, while Miss Elphaba practices.”
On another day it might have irritated Galinda to have to sit still and watch while Elphaba practiced magic effortlessly. But today she just nodded and pulled out her textbook, glad to have the space to think. Or, rather, not think; thoughts and feelings spun around her head without anything to ground them.
Her mother had had magic, and Madame Morrible had never told her. Why wouldn’t she tell her something so important? Was she simply trying to spare Galinda’s feelings? It was one thing for there to be magic in her family lineage; it was quite another for her own mother to have it, when she didn’t have any. It made all the wanting and wishing that she’d done in her life—to be a sorceress, to be able to use magic as easily as Father and Madame Morrible could—feel even more laughable. She should have had magic, but she didn’t. How could that ever not be a disappointment?
How could she ever not be a disappointment, no matter what Father said?
When she was younger, she’d always begged him to tell her the story of how he’d found her, even when she was old enough to realize that he hadn’t really found her at all. ‘Found’ had a certain implication to it, like she’d been discovered on the front steps of the Emerald Palace wrapped in a soft pink blanket with a tear-stained note pinned to it reading please take care of my baby in shaky script. In reality, everyone who was anyone in Oz would have known her parents were dead. The Arduenna family was one of the oldest and most noble in Gillikin. The Uplands were among the ten richest families in Oz. She was the heir to one of the oldest names and the greatest fortunes in Gillikin. Her parents’ deaths had been front page news in every single newspaper, as far south as Quadling Country.
But the way Father told it, it sounded like a story. He had come to Oz quite by accident five years before she was born, his balloon blown in on serendipitous winds. Soon after he arrived he brought electricity to the Ozians, and they made him their king. He had all the power and influence and riches that he had ever dreamed of. He couldn’t be happier, he told anyone who would listen, and he thought that was true. But sometimes, when the nights were a little too dark and a little too quiet, he felt that something was missing. He didn’t know what it was until he saw her picture in the paper, two weeks after her parents died—her big dark eyes, her cherubic smile, her cloud of wispy blonde hair, her tiny hands fastened around a stuffed lion that was almost as big as she was.
(She still had Lion. She’d brought him to Shiz with her, tucked under her winter clothes in a trunk at the back of her closet. His fur had been washed so many times that he was no longer golden and almost all of his mane had been pulled out over the years. Father had offered to buy her a new lion for years, but Galinda had always refused. Lion might not be much to look at anymore, but he was still her good luck charm. He was one of the only objects she owned that connected her two lives: the life she used to have, and the one she had now)
Father said that he’d seen her photograph and realized exactly what his life had been missing, up to that point: someone to love and care for. And there she was, without any family left in the world. He knew what it felt like, to be alone like that. He had never told Galinda much about his life before he came to Oz—she suspected that he avoided dwelling on painful memories—but she knew he’d had more than his share of hardships. His mother had died when he was only a year older than Galinda was now. His birth father had left before he was born and, when Father found him again, hadn’t remembered who he was. His stepfather had never really loved him. Madame Morrible said Father had loved a man back in the world he came from, but he had died and his death had hurt Father so badly that he’d decided it was easier not to love anybody again, to keep his heart locked away in his chest where it could never be hurt.
But Father said that none of that mattered when he saw her picture. For a moment it had felt like he was looking at his younger self, even though they didn't look anything alike. There had been no one to love him, but he could save her the way no one had saved him. So he wrote to Galinda’s nearest living relative, a second cousin who had only met her mother a handful of times and had six children of his own, and asked if he could bring Galinda to the Emerald City.
As soon as Father saw her, wearing the pink and white dress Ama Clutch had dressed her in, with little pink ribbons tied around what passed for her ponytails, he’d known that she wouldn’t be taking the return train back to Gillikin. Galinda’s cousin had been happy to leave her there, since he already had more children than he could handle. He still sent her birthday and Lurlinemas cards, with the customary gifts of money and pictures of his growing family. He and his wife had eight children now, and ten grandchildren.
Galinda had never, ever doubted that Father loved her. He couldn’t be with her all the time—he was the Wizard of Oz after all, and he had much to attend to—but he always carved time out of his busy schedule to play with her and they always ate dinner together. When she was younger he’d always put her to bed and told her the best bedtime stories that were so long and detailed they sometimes spilled out over multiple nights. He didn’t mention her parents at all, unless she mentioned them first. She’d never felt that she wasn’t able to ask about them; he just didn’t know much more about them than she did.
But everyone else in the palace, all of the courtiers that came to see him and made demands on his time, always exclaimed over how much she looked and acted like them and wasn’t it a pity that they had died so tragically young and wasn't Galinda so lucky to be adopted by the Wizard and shouldn't she feel so very grateful? They would never let her forget that she was the Upland heir, so Galinda couldn’t forget it either. Even though some days she didn’t want to have two different lives. Sometimes she just wanted to be the Wizard’s daughter, instead of his daughter and something else, from a background she couldn't remember. Or worse, almost his daughter. She’d always thought that if she could just have magic like he did, if there could be something else that connected them that wasn’t just their love of stories or ice skating or their hatred of zucchini, then maybe she could reconcile it all.
Now, she was beginning to think that she might never be able to. Maybe she would always feel split in half, half Upland and half Diggs. Her two halves should have been able to fit together, but they didn’t. Not perfectly. Maybe they never would.
Her thoughts were racing so quickly that it took a while to realize that Elphaba wasn’t, in fact, effortlessly levitating the coin. Instead she was staring down at the table, looking at the coin like it had personally wronged her. Her shoulders were rigid with tension and her glasses kept sliding down her nose, so she had to nudge them up with a fingertip. The coin remained stubbornly hunched in the center of the table.
“Relax your shoulders, dearie,” Madame Morrible said, coming to stand on the other side of the table. “Clench your toes. Put every ounce of your energy, every ounce of your focus, into moving the coin.”
Elphaba’s brow furrowed in concentration. After a moment she sat back, rubbing her temples like they hurt. “It’s no use. Oz, it’s like I can only use my powers when I don’t want to.”
“Don’t be discouraged, dearie. Sorcery isn’t like any of your other classes. You don’t need to find the right combination of words, like in Linguification. You don't need to perform an experiment correctly, like Biology. It’s all about finding that power within you, and bringing it out into the world. Sometimes that isn’t easy, or straightforward. For most people, it never happens at all.” Galinda felt the words lodge under her skin, even if they hadn’t been directed at her. Some people hoped and hoped and wished harder than they had ever wished for anything in their lives to perform just the smallest, simplest spell, but it didn’t work. They didn’t have any discernible magical talent at all.
A pane of glass in the bottom left hand corner of the window shattered. Everyone jumped, except for Madame Morrible, who clapped her hands. “See, dearie? You have that raw power. All we need to do is direct it towards the coin, and not at the glass.”
Elphaba looked down at her hands like she wasn’t quite sure they belonged to her. “I didn’t…”
“Of course you did,” Madame Morrible said proudly. “Who else would have?”
Galinda felt Elphaba’s gaze land on her, just for a moment—soft but insistent.
At least someone believed she could be a sorceress. Even if they couldn’t be more wrong.
Galinda left Sorcery Seminar as soon as Madame Morrible dismissed them. She didn’t even bother packing her books into her bag; she just carried them in her arms as she walked up the winding staircase that led to their dorm. Elphaba followed behind her like a shadow.
“Are you going to tell me what happened in Sorcery Seminar?” she asked, dropping her book bag on her bed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Galinda said. “Nothing happened in Sorcery Seminar. Nothing ever happens in Sorcery Seminar. Not to me at least.” She was sure that Madame Morrible had only let her in as a courtesy to Father, whatever the sorceress might say. They’d all seen what Elphaba had done in the quad. She was perfectly capable of performing magic without Galinda.
“Galinda, I know what my magic feels like. I didn’t break that glass.”
“And I suppose you think I did?” Galinda’s laughter didn’t sound quite as unbothered as she’d meant it to.
“That was my first thought, yes.”
“I’m afraid you’re quite mistaken, Miss Elphaba. I’ve been taking private lessons with Madame Morrible since I was seven years old and I have never demonstrated even the faintest hint of magic. Even though my mother’s family has a history of it.” She began to pace, their room suddenly feeling too small and too cramped with all of her boxes and trunks. “Oz, that was bad enough. But Dr. Dillamond just told me that my mother studied Sorcery while she was at Shiz. Apparently Madame Morrible said she was one of the most promising students she’d ever taught. And I don’t have any magic at all.”
“...You just found out that your mother had magic from Dr. Dillamond?” Elphaba asked. “Didn’t Madame Morrible tell you?”
Galinda sighed. “No. I didn’t have the faintest idea why not. Maybe she didn’t want to tell me because she knows that I’m hopeless at magic and she didn’t want me to feel worse.”
She flopped down on her bed and suddenly saw the letter one of the porters had left on her desk, in its telltale green envelope. She quickly snatched it off the desk, sliding a fingernail under the W seal to break it.
Just seeing Father’s spiky handwriting, spilling onto two pages of paper, was enough to make some of the pressure on her chest lift. She read eagerly, almost faster than her mind could take in the words:
Dearest Galinda,
I hope you are having a wonderful first week of classes! The palace is already starting to feel terribly empty without you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve passed by your sitting room and been surprised to not hear you playing away on your piano, or how strange it is to not see all of your fashion books stacked up on the table in the sitting room, just waiting for you to come back for them. I’m sure I don’t need to ask if you’re missing me. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t thought about me at all in the last week. I’m sure you’re having the most wonderful time, and I look forward to hearing all about it in the return post. I want to hear all about your classes and your friends and even your homework. Madame Morrible tells me that you’re sharing a room with a student who enrolled unexpectedly. How is it? Do I need to petition Miss Coddle on your behalf to get you your room back? It’s very good of you to help out, but you don't have to be good all of the time if you don't want to.
Galinda could feel a smile spread across her face, obliterating her bad mood.
Father spent the next few paragraphs catching her up on the Emerald City gossip, the new bills that were being discussed in the legislature that would go to his desk for final approval, the progress of her charities, and the new dresses he was buying her for the Lurlinemas celebrations. Father loved buying new clothes for her, almost as much as Galinda loved wearing them. Galinda got the sense that he had never really had the opportunity to wear fine things before he came to Oz. She made a mental note to tell him to keep the Lurlinemas dresses back at the palace; she wasn’t sure they would fit into her wardrobe at Shiz, which was already packed two rows deep with her dresses.
Father finished with:
I hear that Madame Morrible ended up accepting you into her Sorcery Seminar. By the time this letter reaches you, you’ll have had your first class. Remember, even if you only have enough magic to fill up a teacup—or even none at all, you’ll always be my magical daughter. You don’t need magic to charm everyone you meet. You do it effortlessly all on your own. I’m sure anyone in the Emerald City will agree.
Have fun in your classes, but don’t study too hard. Make sure you have some fun too. Don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do, but let yourself try some new things too. Let me know if you hear anything about what we discussed. I’ll be awaiting your next letter—and of course, I’ll be waiting to see you again when you come back for Lurlinemas. I have a feeling these next few months will pass a lot more slowly for me than they will for you. I know you’ll have a fantastic time.
Much love from,
Your Father
P. S. I’m sending some cookies from that bakery you like on Citrine Street. You’re welcome to share them with that roommate of yours.
Sure enough, the cookies were sitting in an emerald tin at the foot of her bed. Galinda felt her stomach twist with a sudden rush of homesickness. She and Father often walked to the bakery at the end of the week, watching the Emerald City transform around them in preparation for the weekend. Everyone seemed happier and friendlier, the city suffused in the soft glow of the late afternoon sunlight.
Elphaba was sitting at her desk, working on their Sorcery Seminar reading. She’d also gotten a letter, but she’d pushed it aside without reading it. Galinda brought the tin over, perching on the edge of her desk. “Would you like some cookies from the Emerald City? Father sent them. They’re some of my favorites.” She opened the tin and handed it to Elphaba, so she could have first pick. There were a variety of different types of cookies, all frosted in green and pink.
Elphaba picked through the cookies carefully, like she’d never seen a box of them before. “They’re yours, Galinda. You don’t need to share—”
“I know. But I want to. Roommates do these things for each other, you know.” She looked at the envelope with Elphaba’s name scribbled on the back, pushed all the way to the edge of her desk. “Do you ever get homesick?”
“No,” Elphaba said flatly, which was fair enough. If her father was like Frexspar Thropp, Galinda doubted she’d miss him either. Elphaba took a chocolate cookie and started to nibble around the edges.
“Those are my favorites,” Galinda said, taking the one next to it. For a moment they ate in silence. If Elphaba was bothered that Galinda was sitting on her desk, she didn’t say anything.
“They’re really good,” Elphaba said, closing her eyes as she savored her first couple of bites. Galinda understood; she couldn’t help but savor the cookies at Bakery Citrine either. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me until we’ve actually gone to the Emerald City and had them fresh out of the oven.”
“We?” Elphaba said too quickly, like she thought Galinda might have misspoke.
“Well of course. They’re delicious now, but they’re even better when they haven’t been shoved in a box for three days—”
“No, it’s just that…you would want to show me around the Emerald City?”
“Of course I would,” Galinda said. “I’ve never had anyone to show around before.”
“What about all of your friends?” Elphaba broke the cookie in half, to make it last longer.
“I don’t have many.” Elphaba shot her a disbelieving look. “Well, I have friends but it’s mostly just out of convenience since their parents work for Father. I’ve never really made a friend on my own. Certainly no one that I would take to Bakery Citrine. Only my closest friends get to go there.”
It was hard to tell, given Elphaba’s complexion, but Galinda thought she might be blushing. “So does that mean that we’re friends now?”
“I guess it does.” Elphaba nodded once and then looked away. Galinda didn’t know what she might be thinking. Oz, she hoped she hadn’t offended her.
“I’ve never had a friend either,” Elphaba said after a moment. She cleared her throat to change the subject. “I think you should talk to Madame Morrible about why she didn’t tell you your mother had magic. That’s an…odd thing to keep from you.”
Galinda shrugged, breaking her cookie into smaller pieces and lining them up neatly on top of Elphaba’s textbook. “She’s a sorceress. I’m sure she has her reasons.” Galinda had always known there were things that Madame Morrible didn’t tell her, because they weren’t relevant to their lessons. But not telling Galinda that her mother had magic…surely that was relevant to her?
But Galinda was almost sure she knew why Madame Morrible had kept it a secret. She must have known that Galinda would react like this, because it would prove what she’d always known but had just been too polite to say.
Galinda would never, ever have any magic of her own. The best she could do was watch Elphaba excel without her. Somehow, that would have to be enough. Even if Galinda didn't see how it ever could be.
gracelylilt on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Sep 2025 05:58PM UTC
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Embracingtheplotbunnies on Chapter 1 Sun 07 Sep 2025 01:10AM UTC
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DangerousMouse on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Sep 2025 08:46PM UTC
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gracelylilt on Chapter 2 Sat 13 Sep 2025 04:05PM UTC
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Embracingtheplotbunnies on Chapter 2 Sun 14 Sep 2025 04:49AM UTC
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alexdanverslexiegrey on Chapter 3 Fri 19 Sep 2025 05:37PM UTC
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