Chapter Text
Gaining wings is, undoubtedly, the most painful thing Glinda has ever experienced.
She doubts anything will ever top it- the excruciating feeling of them breaking through the skin of her back, thick, hot blood gushing down from the wounds as new bones sprouted and shifted and a million feathers exploded into being.
It hurts. It hurts so much more than Glinda will ever be able to put into words, and she wants to scream from the pain but her muscles are locked so tight she can’t even open her mouth. She curls into a tiny ball, her bones cracking and her organs shifting and her very atoms shaking apart, and she waits for what feels like hours but is likely only a few minutes.
Slowly, feelings other than pain return.
Glinda’s back feels tender and raw, itching and stinging like crazy as she struggles to her knees. She staggers under a new weight, catching a glimpse of pale feathers in the corner of her eye. There’s someone talking, someone trying to get their hands under Glinda’s arms and help her to her feet.
She knows that voice, doesn’t she? The haze that had overcome her, the overwhelming tsunami of pain and adrenaline, fades just enough for Elphaba’s panicked voice to come through.
“Glinda?” she’s asking. “Hey, hey, tell me you’re okay. Please, Glinda, look at me.”
Glinda stumbles on shaky legs, her head lifting with great effort, pale hair falling away from her eyes so she can blink at her own reflection, shimmery and warped as it appears on the emerald walls. Her entire being feels wrong.
“My Oz,” Morrible breathes nearby. Glinda’s heart is still pounding rabbit fast in her strange new chest, all the air caught somewhere behind her lungs instead of filling them. Her ribs won’t expand. Her legs can’t hold her weight.
The girl staring back at her in the polished reflection cannot possibly be Glinda. It just can’t be.
The wings are gorgeous. They fall down Glinda’s back in a waterfall of soft white feathers, the wingspan large enough that they’re dragging on the ground, sending sparks of new sensation to her addled brain. Glinda has seen wings like this before. Not on a person, but on the swans that lived in the lake by her house, the envy of every Bird who saw them.
Glinda’s fingers ghost over the fragile feathers, the downy surface still damp and new, the edges curled and useless. They’re so beautiful, pristine white all the way through except for where blood is still running from the wounds on her torn back.
They’re so beautiful, and wonderful, and disgusting , and Glinda feels terror burn like ice water in her lungs, ribs collapsing in on themselves as she crumbles back to the ground.
Her wings are beautiful and they are revolting, and there’s absolutely nothing she can do to change them.
“A spell from the Grimmerie can never be reversed,” Morrible explains calmly.
There’s salt on Glinda’s cheeks and iron on her lips and her two new appendages feel like chains weighing her down. They drag at the sensitive, broken skin on her back, the red spreading and overtaking the beautiful white. For the moment, she is flightless, grounded, trapped within the palace walls on legs too weak to run.
Movement blurs around her. Voices rise, glass shatters, there’s someone screaming and screaming and Glinda is screaming.
The sun falls. Morrible’s hand sits like lead on her shoulder. Her body trembles with cold and fatigue. Glinda may be the one with wings, but at the end of the day—their one short day—it is Elphaba who gets to fly away.
***
That day, the day she gained wings, the day her world fell apart, was the absolute worst day of Glinda’s life. Sitting there, crumpled on the floor, too exhausted and sore and weighed down to move. She could barely breathe or think or speak, everything a blurry haze of broken glass and piercing screams.
The monkeys. The guards. Glinda. Elphie.
Glinda learns, very quickly, that having wings is an absolute nightmare. It’s the most overwhelming and overstimulating feeling in the world— her new appendages coming with thousands of new nerve endings that the human brain wasn’t designed to handle.
At first, the wings are damp and new, dulled to touch. But as they dry and straighten out, she realizes that they’re sensitive. Every brush of them against any surface, every drag of her fingers over the tops, and it sparks off in her head like fireworks, blistering and painful.
Her wings are too heavy to lift for days, dragging on the ground behind her and making her dread the very thought of moving. She ends up sequestered in an emerald room, food and bandages being brought to her as she lies splayed out on the bed, the palace doctors trying fruitlessly to give her a pain medication that can take the edge off enough for her to even function.
It becomes rapidly apparent that Glinda gained much more than just wings. Her whole anatomy has been changed. Her shoulders are stronger, her chest broader, her legs weak and thin. Her nails curl like talons as they grow, her eyes flick with a strange third eyelid. Her every sense is heightened and sensitive— everything except for taste.
Her stomach aches. A persistent hunger that gnaws at her just minutes after being fed. No amount of food can keep it at bay, her metabolism working two, three, five times as fast. Healing takes energy, and without the means to sustain it, the process drags on for weeks.
Glinda knows there are announcements that have been made. Her parents have been notified; she’s been pulled from school. She’s a ward of the Emerald Palace now, not quite an employee and not quite a prisoner. At least— on paper. News of her transformation has been warped into fodder for a witch hunt that Glinda is too weak to protest against.
By the time she can leave her bed, the damage has already been done. Elphaba is gone- and only the Wicked Witch is left in her place, an enemy of all of Oz whose reputation has spread all the way to the tops of the Gillikin mountains and the depths of the Quadling marshes.
Glinda supposes she should be grateful. That’s what Madame Morrible says when she comes and visits the girl, a thoughtful pinch between her brows as she watches the doctors slave away.
“Intriguing,” she ponders aloud. “Spells from the Grimmerie are not well studied. Yet intent, mindset, thought— it all plays a part. Miss Elphaba was clearly thinking about birds; that much is obvious. But, that she was thinking about you while casting…”
Glinda doesn’t know what it means. Elphaba’s spell was supposed to hit Chistery, not Glinda. And while she wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone, she can’t help but wonder what Elphaba was possibly thinking that could have amounted to this. This pain. This constant, terrible pain.
Eventually, Glinda learns to live with it. She learns how to manage the ache, how to dull the sensations, how to push them to the back of her mind so they stop overwhelming her and sending her into fits of panic and overstimulation. She learns how to breathe again, how to move again, how to walk and talk and be .
Eventually, Glinda even learns how to fly.
But her wings never stop hurting. Not really. Her feathers are often damaged in some places, and even the slightest levels of disarray are uncomfortable at best and blindingly painful at worst. Her feathers are meant to be a pearly, crisp white- but the ones near the base are stained a permanent pink, and the outer tips are a dirty grey.
Sometimes, when Morrible needs her looking her best for a public appearance, she’ll coat them in an itchy, awful powder, giving the appearance of gleaming whiteness. The audience eats her up every time. She’s beloved by all of Oz, a beauty the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the age of Fairies.
They call her an angel. They see her wings not as a mutilation, but as a gift. If only they knew what a pain they were. If only they knew how much of their angel was just a whisper-thin mask.
The wings are far from angelic. They get waterlogged too easily and are impossible to clean. She knows they’re meant to have an oil that protects them, like a real bird, but she can’t reach the nub on her back that will help create it, can’t get her hands on enough of her wings to spread it out. Every now and then, when they get too dusty and pitiful looking, Morrible will order her handmaidens to hose them down.
But no one, absolutely no one, is allowed to touch them.
Morrible sometimes does. Morrible sometimes will reach out and grab a fistful of feathers, yanking at them hard enough to break. Glinda had screamed so hard the first time this happened that she’d almost ripped her throat apart. She has come to be much better about the sensation these days, but it is still hard to focus or think whenever someone dares to put their hands on her wings.
Still— mussed feathers are a nightmare. Glinda has taken to curling her wings around as far as she can get them, running her fingers through the feathers to try and sort them out every night. Sometimes, just wiggling a slightly crooked feather back into place will send a wave of relief through her system.
It’s somewhat pleasant. One of the few things Glinda can look forward to each day. She spends much of her mornings training with Morrible, and her afternoons are spent being dragged around as a puppet for the Wizard. But the evenings are her own, when Glinda gets to finally spread her aching wings out and sort through what feathers she can reach, soothing and peaceful.
Often, little feathers will break off, fluttering to the floor. Glinda burns every single one of them, the idea of someone getting her hands on them making her stomach twist with dread. For some reason, Glinda hates the idea of other people looking at or touching or admiring her wings. It just feels wrong.
The way the public smothers her with praise feels stifling, when before—back when she was nothing but a naïve college student—Glinda would’ve assumed it would feel exhilarating. Now, the compliments hit with a dull pang, a hidden flinch and a strained smile as she fights to keep her wings still as her skin crawls.
She hates it. Her wings have been nothing but pain and trouble, and here they are, screaming in delight. It’s a stark difference from how she’s treated inside the palace walls, where everyone with clearance knows just how far the spell went.
Glinda is…different now. Birdlike in ways that put everyone on edge. Unsettling and strange. Her enhanced sight and hearing make her an efficient spy, perfect for the Wizard’s wishes. But her new vocalizations are weird and off-putting, and Morrible has punished her more than once for letting them slip when other people are around to hear.
Her body isn’t fully bird or fully human. It sits somewhere in between, not suited for being either. She manages to walk and talk and eat like a person, to dress in pretty clothes and smile with glossy lips and wave at the yelling crowd even as her ears are searching for whispers.
But her stomach always aches with hunger. Her muscles always burn with soreness. Her lungs always struggle for air. She has to use a metal file to shorten her nails. She has to cover her ears with headphones to fall asleep. She has to wear special goggles when the sun is too bright.
She has to endure all the ways Morrible uses these faults against her.
All in all, Glinda is miserable. Every day in the palace feels like torture, forced to parade around in front of the public, yanking her wings away from curious hands that reach out to touch. Behind closed doors, she takes the brunt of Morrible’s anger and frustration over her inability to track down and apprehend Elphaba, and the evenings she spends sequestered away, never allowed to see a friendly face.
The years pass slowly, an endless cycle of hurt. It takes the better part of the first year before Glinda is able to take flight, to actually push herself into the air instead of just gliding down onto a platform to the awed cries of a crowd. Morrible makes Glinda her own pet project— emphasis on pet.
It’s not like she is human anymore, after all.
The only reason she’s still alive, the only reason Morrible wants to keep her alive, is because of Elphaba. Glinda is useful, much as Morrible resents her for it. She’s the public face for a regime that previously could only plan from the shadows. A propaganda machine. An efficient spy. And an obedient hunter.
Morrible has her well-trained. Fast. Focused. Deadly. Her white wings will call the witch right to her if all goes as planned. Glinda is both the bait and the trap. She is the leverage Morrible has been using all these years, slipping messages to the western sky of what will happen to the precious Angel of Oz if the Wicked Witch steps too far over the line.
Sometimes, Glinda wonders if Elphaba gets these messages. Sometimes, Glinda wonders if Elphaba cares. Would it stop her? Does she know? When the report comes in that Elphaba has raided yet another site, attacked yet another troop. When Morrible goes marching into Glinda’s room with chains and a boiling rage.
In those moments, her worst moments, all Glinda can think about is Elphaba.
***
By the time Elphaba finally does return—a shadow against the emerald glare of sun off the tallest building—Glinda is but a shell of her former self, barely having the energy to fight. Morrible had wanted a grand showdown in the sky, but these days, Glinda has all but been waiting for the chance to just…let herself fall.
Turns out— Elphaba won’t let her. Not even when Glinda begs.
“Please,” she whispers, wings limp and useless. Gravity pulls at her, eager and wanting, while a single arm strains against an impossible weight.
“NO,” Elphaba growls. “You don’t get to die like this! I won’t let you!”
She hauls Glinda closer, trying to steer them both towards a rooftop to land on, their bodies collapsing against the stone and tearing through clothes and skin and feathers. Elphaba is panting, arms trembling, and her magic is in upheaval as her eyes bulged in terror and adrenaline.
Glinda just…lies there. Flopped over on her back. Staring into the stormy sky. Morrible will be angry with her. It’s a distant fear, barely even registering these days.
“Why not?” she asks.
“What?”
“Why won’t you let me die?”
There’s a heavy pause, broken only by Elphaba’s ragged breaths. She’s gaping at Glinda, dragging herself to her feet to come closer.
“Be-because I— Because you’re my friend, Glinda! I— I don’t—” She sucks in a sharp inhale, eyes suspiciously shiny. “I can’t lose you.”
Glinda’s head rolls, cheek pressing to the rough stone. She looks up at Elphaba, taking in the paleness and panic in her face. “But…you left,” she says quietly.
You left me behind. You left me like this. You left me all these years.
You left me.
And maybe Glinda knows that her death during a fight with the Wicked Witch would only serve to make her a martyr. Maybe Glinda knows this isn’t the right way to go out. But she just…doesn’t care anymore.
Stopped caring years ago, really, back when she realized Elphaba was never going to come. No one was ever going to rescue Glinda.
A strange thing happens to Elphaba’s face then. It twists and shudders, a terrible expression overcoming her. Glinda doesn’t understand why she looks so distraught. Why she collapses to her knees at Glinda’s side, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Elphaba says, over and over again. “I’m so sorry, Glinda.”
Glinda just blinks at her. She forgave Elphaba a long time ago.
“It’s okay.”
“No.” Elphaba shakes her head roughly. “No, Glinda, it’s not okay.”
There is a mob somewhere below them. There are storm clouds growing darker overhead. They don’t have much time. But there, on that rooftop, they come up with a plan. Maybe a dumb one. Maybe a desperate one.
But a plan nonetheless. A plan…and a promise.
“Promise me,” Elphaba whispers, forehead pressed to Glinda’s, hands clasped tightly together. “That you’ll wait.”
Glinda swallows hard, wings shifting restlessly behind her. I p romise.
Elphaba leans down to kiss Glinda’s cheek, Glinda breathing in the scent of parchment and petrichor that is so uniquely Elphie.
“Hold out, my sweet,” she asks of her. And then—
Glinda watches her leave. Again. Nothing to hold on to except an old, crumpled hat, and the weight of all the things left unsaid.
***
Things…change, after that. Glinda barely processes any of it. She knows that at some point, the Wizard leaves, Morrible gets arrested, and Glinda gives a speech she doesn’t remember a word of. The citizens of Oz are used to the sight of her coming down from the sky, her white feathers a beacon of hope and goodness.
She is their angel— even if Glinda only sees herself as a freak.
Somehow, a tale gets spun. Something relatively believable, something that starts what both girls know will be a long process. The Emerald City wasn’t built in a day, and the road to Elphaba’s return will not be an easy one.
For a while, Glinda is alone. No Morrible. No Wizard. No Elphaba. But she’s too busy to really care, throwing herself into rulership with an energy and enthusiasm she hasn’t felt in years. Deep in her chest, a tiny spark’s been reignited.
Something that feels like hope.
She holds onto the tiny flame, lets it fuel her day after day. Glinda made a promise, and she’s determined not to break it. Instead of training, her days are spent planning and drafting and consulting. She holds court, she hears petitions, she appoints new staff.
She blinks at the blue-eyed soldier across from her and discovers she still remembers how to smile.
Things start to come together, piece by piece, as Glinda builds the foundation for a new Oz, one that will be willing to accept Elphaba for who she really is. She creates a Council of carefully vetted members. She overturns every anti-Animal law. She orders the Wizard’s vault opened up and vows to use the money to right every wrong she’s helped perpetuate all these years.
It’s shocking, how easy it comes. How willing the citizens are to listen to her, to adapt, to adjust to this new world that she throws at them. At times, when she’s standing above a crowd, her crown gleaming and her wings spread, she looks into their awe-filled eyes and wonders if they really see her. If they’re really listening to her.
Or if they just see something divine, something unnatural, something too inhuman to question.
Either way— it appears to be working. Rumors spread. Attitudes change. During the day, Glinda buries herself in her work, weaving stories and stitching lies, clinging to her promise when the times get tough. And in the evenings, Glinda lets her wings hang down, fingers carding through her feathers, and she waits.
Patient. Hopeful. Nervous.
Until there’s a gentle knock on the balcony door and an emerald green shadow peering back at her through the glass.
“Hi,” Elphaba whispers, closing the door gently behind her. Glinda all but falls into her arms.
“Hi,” she whispers back. Her wings drag behind her, draped across the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Elphaba says, tangling with a million other words that stay trapped behind her tongue. Glinda just shakes her head and holds on tighter.
They could’ve stayed like that for hours, but Glinda is exhausted, and she can feel herself wavering, her wings rustling behind her as she starts to get antsy about having her back facing her bedroom door. That’s another thing that came with the wings— a desperate need to keep them protected.
“Come on,” Elphaba eventually says, guiding them both over to Glinda’s large bed. She sits them down gently, and Glinda keeps her gaze on the sheets as she fights through her sluggish thoughts to try and figure out what to say.
“Hey,” Elphaba says softly. She reaches for one of Glinda’s hands. “We don’t have to get into anything tonight if you don’t want.”
Glinda’s eyes rove over Elphaba’s face, taking in the wrinkles on her forehead and the makeup smudging her eyes. She’s older now. Different. More confident and sure of herself than she was at Shiz but also tempered somewhat, like she finally got a handle on her wild emotions.
With a tiny nod, Glinda lets the conversation slide away from anything heavy or important, lets Elphaba’s voice wash over her as the older woman picks up on her hesitance and fills the void with rambly nothingness. It’s nice— just to sit here in her presence.
To remember that she is here and real and alive.
There were times, when reports got slim, where Glinda wasn’t so sure about that last one.
Eventually, Glinda’s head starts to get a little fuzzy, her eyelids growing heavy with exhaustion. She blinks slowly and watches Elphaba’s lips lift into a smile. “You can go to sleep, Glinda,” she says. “I’ll watch over you.”
But— Glinda can’t. Because in order to sleep, she has to roll onto her stomach. And if she’s on her stomach, then her entire back will be displayed to Elphaba, exposed and vulnerable and—
Panic cuts through the fog, something fierce and wild. Glinda shakes her head, swallowing hard and shivering as she remembers the feeling of Morrible’s clawed hands digging into her wings, ripping at the soft feathers and breaking the shafts. Of being woken up by chains and leather dragging her out of bed.
Elphie would never, she tries to logic with herself, but the idea of lying down in someone’s presence still scares her. Elphaba tips her head to the side, calculating, before she apparently decides to let it go. “Okay,” she agrees easily. “We can just talk.”
Their next three meetings go exactly the same way. Eventually, Glinda finds her own voice, bantering back and forth with Elphaba, filling her in on the palace gossip, and complaining about how hard it is to run an entire country.
Politics, she spits out. Ugh.
Elphaba never pushes her on the topic of her wings. Glinda often ends up sitting practically on Elphaba’s lap, leaning into her solid weight as she lets her wings splay out behind her, away from where Elphaba can reach. They simply pretend they aren’t there, acting like they used to back in their dorm at Shiz when their biggest worries had been homework and pop quizzes.
But every time before she leaves, Elphaba dips down and presses a gentle kiss to Glinda’s forehead, running her hands over the girl’s upper arms and promising her she’ll see her again soon. Glinda clings to that promise every morning, letting it guide her through her day.
It’s on the fifth goodbye that Elphaba finally crosses a line. She leans down to kiss Glinda like normal, and Glinda leans into it, her wings fluttering happily. She isn’t prepared for Elphaba to reach out, to slide her hand down the edge of Galinda’s left wing instead of her arm.
She’s sure it’s meant to be soothing. To be gentle and loving. But the sudden sensation makes her wings jerk, unable to stop the shiver that runs down her spine or the goosebumps that litter her skin. Her feathers puff up slightly before she can stop them, panic and fear clawing up her throat. Elphaba pulls back, brow scrunched in worry as if scared she hurt Galinda.
Except- it didn’t hurt. Elphaba hadn’t dug her nails in. She hadn’t gripped any feathers. She hadn’t yanked or pulled or twisted. She’d simply brushed her hand down the tops, a gentle gliding weight.
And it had felt good. Amazing, actually. So much so that Glinda has to stifle her gasp, the shadow of fear outweighed by the sudden desire to lean back, to tilt her wings until the underside is presented fully to the woman in front of her, vulnerable but willing. She wants Elphaba, in a sudden rush that confuses her as much as it delights her.
“Glinda?” Elphaba asks, worried. “Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?”
Glinda shakes her head, but her wings are clasped stiff and small behind her back. Elphaba’s gaze drifts to the trembling feathers, and her face falls.
“I’m sorry,” she says, taking a step back. Glinda resists the urge to grab for her. Watching Elphaba leave each evening is like taking a fresh knife to the heart. “It’s— I’m sorry. I won’t touch them, if you don’t want me to.”
And— Glinda doesn’t know what to say. How to explain.
“But, um, can I ask why?” Elphaba cringes, apparently regretting her words. “O-Only if you’re comfortable!”
The nervous way she rubs at the back of her neck makes something in Glinda settle. There’s a curious gleam in Elphaba’s eyes that tells her this is at least partly an academic curiosity— a desire to know more about the way something works in the world. Elphaba’s mind is always hungry for knowledge.
Glinda takes a breath and tries to find her courage. “It…hurts,” she replies. “Usually. When other people touch them.”
Elphaba frowns. “But you touch them all the time.”
It’s true— Glinda can’t help but fidget with them, even in Elphaba’s presence. “It’s different when it’s me,” she explains. “I can feel it. And- and I have to, or they’d get so messy I wouldn’t be able to fly.”
Elphaba peers over Glinda’s shoulder at the white expanse that trails to the floor. “A lot of them are messy right now,” she notes. “Is it uncomfortable?”
“Yes.”
“Would it feel better if they were fixed?”
Glinda’s heart is racing so hard she can hear each rush of blood. “Yes.”
Elphaba hums thoughtfully. She looks at Glinda carefully. “If I promise to be careful…will you let me try?”
Glinda can barely breathe. “Why?” she asks. Her wings shuffle behind her, restless and aching.
“Because they’re hurting you. Every time you move and one of the crooked ones catches against the bed, you always wince.” A flash of guilt crosses Elphaba’s face. “I-I asked a friend of mine. A Raven. And he said that wings have to be preened regularly. That it’s vital.”
Preened. It’s a term Glinda recognizes, of course, but not one she’d ever dare to utter within the walls of the palace. Glinda is not a bird. She is a monster, a freak of nature. Morrible always said—
“I don’t give a shit what Morrible said,” Elphaba cuts her off. She curls her hands into fists before taking a deep breath. “M-my friend said preening is meant to feel really nice. That it’s necessary for proper wing health.”
Glinda swallows hard, pulse still pounding. “I don’t know…”
How does she explain to Elphaba that she’s scared, not of Elphaba, but of how Glinda herself will react? The last time someone tried to pin her on her stomach and touch her wings, she’d freaked out so badly they had to keep her sedated for 24 hours. Her wings are large and strong and a hit to the head could kill someone.
Glinda can’t bear the thought of hurting Elphaba. She can’t.
Elphaba sighs, reaching out and squeezing Glinda’s hand. “Whenever you’re ready,” she says gently. Glinda tangles their fingers together and holds on tight.