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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. 

Chapter Text

Elphaba lives as the Wicked Witch of the West for almost five years.

She’s not really sure who coined the name. She knows it was Morrible who first called her a ‘wicked witch’ and the rest must’ve come sometime later. She doesn’t really care to remember when the name stuck. All she really remembers is what it did. 

When she’d fled the Emerald City, she never could’ve imagined this was the life that awaited her. She’d always been an outcast, but now she was properly on the run, unable to risk showing her face to anyone. There was no one she could turn to. No one she could trust. 

It was…humbling. To realize how many small, simple things she’d taken for granted growing up. Electricity. Running water. Plentiful food. Elphaba hadn’t realized how few people in Oz had those things. 

Now, she doesn’t even have a home. Now, she has nothing but the clothes she was wearing when she fled the city, the sound of shattering glass and painful screams echoing through her ears. 

Scream. Pain. Blood. Feathers. Glinda. 

Elphaba’s breath catches in her throat every time she thinks of what she left behind. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, let alone Glinda. When the screams had started, Elphaba had panicked, blinded by fear as she begged Morrible to tell her how to make it stop. 

But—

“A spell from the Grimmerie can never be reversed.”

A wave of black guilt had crashed over Elphaba, so strong she was sure she would drown in it. Every inhale filled her lungs with tar, the air sticky with the scent of blood and tears. Glinda stood from the floor, feathers cascading down her back, and she’d never looked more beautiful. 

And she’d never looked more broken. 

At least– not until the next time Elphaba saw her. 

She’d fled the city by choice, hoping, naively, that in doing so she was making the right decision. That if she removed herself from the equation, things would be better, calmer. Less painful. All Elphaba does is hurt people. 

But the fight with Morrible. Her angered words. The accusations she’d leveled at the Wizard. They weren’t going to let those stand. By the time Elphaba figured out how to land the broom, news had already spread. A Wicked Witch! they called her. An enemy of Oz! 

She’d spent that first night curled up in the woods, bleeding, aching, and alone. 

She spends the next almost five years trying to live with the regret.

She gives in to their fears. They want a Wicked Witch? Fine. It takes her days to work up the courage, weeks to find the right contact, and months to prove her loyalty. But the Animals understand what it’s like to be seen as less than human, as not worth anyone’s time or attention or care, as a living rot that must be expunged.

Elphaba becomes a ghost in the West. She changes her name, sheds the last vestiges of girlhood, and learns to walk through shadows and speak in riddles and rumor. She teaches herself to survive in the forests and mountains and swamps of Oz. She had been rich once. Entitled. Oblivious.

All the things she’d accused Glinda of, once upon a time. Now she shares stolen bread with fugitive Animals and realizes how lucky she’d been all along.

Over time, Elphaba helps the Animals build a network: former scholars, refugees, rebellious youth. Mostly Animals, of course. But the occasional human, too. The occasional Ozian citizen who sees old friends getting dragged away and knows that this is wrong.

Elphaba is oddly proud of it—this rebellion she’s helped grow—even if she won’t let it show. Their struggles often feel much heavier than their successes, but she knows she’s doing something right. Something needed. Something good .

There are some Animals she works with almost every day. Close confidants and strategists and peers. People she can trust with secrets and plans. People she would protect without question. But they are not friend. Never friends.

Elphaba only has one friend.

The Animals are a saving grace, however, especially in those early days when Elphaba is as clueless and lost as an orphaned lamb. They help her find shelter and food and a place that, if pressed, she can almost call home. Never mind that whenever she thinks of the word, her thoughts tumble around memories of a pink-lit dorm and golden curls.

She doesn’t deserve to think such things anymore. Not after what she’s done.

Elphaba doesn’t see Glinda again for many months. Longer than it takes her to start helping the rebellion, sneaking into encampments to free Animal prisoners, raiding supply trains on their way to feed Gale Force troops, spreading messages about the Wizard’s secret and lies.

She almost thinks she has a chance– of getting the Ozian people to believe her. But then they meet an Angel.

Glinda looks radiant in her first public appearance. People have heard, of course. There have been rumors about the winged goddess who fell from the sky to assist Oz in their endeavor against the Wicked Witch. People say she’s a blessing. Or perhaps she was summoned by the Wizard.

Only Elphaba knows the truth. It festers within her, churning in her gut as she sneaks close enough to the city to see Glinda in person. She hides in the shadows of a rooftop, far out of sight, and uses her magic to hone in on the glittering, golden figure.

She…she really does look divine. Perfectly styled curls flow down her back, longer than Elphaba has ever seen her hair before. Her lips are curled into a perfect smile, glossy and pink. Her wings are held behind her, the primaries fluttering in the breeze, white as a swan and gorgeous as a star.

The Ozians nearly fall over in their immediate devotion and adoration. Glinda has the people’s hearts within seconds of her first words. But no one sees what Elphaba does.

Morrible, lingering in the shadows nearby, a wretched smirk carved into her face. The speech, peppered with propaganda and so scripted it almost hurts to hear. And Glinda, her collarbones sticking out starkly under paper-white skin, her eyes, far from the lively, boisterous teen Elphaba remembers, utterly flat and dead.

She looks like a doll. Dressed up, paraded around, and as lifeless as plastic.

It’s the only time Elphaba sees her in person. It’s the only time she can bear it.

Elphaba still wakes in a sweat some nights, a scream on the tip of her tongue. She remembers those white wings, the way they’d burst violently from Glinda’s back. She remembers the look in Glinda’s eyes as Elphaba cast the second spell, as she backed away, as she fled like a coward.

And now, she wakes from new nightmares, haunted by the dullness of what was once spirited brown.

By the time they do meet again, face to face, high in the air above the Emerald Palace, that dullness has faded even further. Not just in defeat, but in resignation. The shattered stare of someone who has forgotten the warmth of hope, and who is ready to accept their fate.

Except—

Elphaba won’t let her. Not even when she begs.

Limp wings. Pleading eyes. Magic and desperation and sheer force of will. Elphaba hauls Glinda from the sky and slams them both into a rooftop, bleeding and shaking. Her breaths come lightning fast as she trembles with fear and adrenaline.

And Glinda– Glinda looks up at her and asks, Why won’t you let me die?

Those words will haunt Elphaba for the rest of her life. Because she knows Glinda had meant them.

And she knows it’s all Elphaba’s fault.

***

Elphaba runs.

It’s the coward’s move again– and she tells herself that it’s strategy but knows she is lying. Their plan is half-baked and doomed to fail, and almost all of it hinges on Glinda. Once again, Elphaba is taking the easy way out and leaving Glinda to deal with the mess.

“Promise me,” Elphaba begs. “That you’ll wait.” That you’ll stay strong, for me.

It’s selfish to ask this of Glinda; Elphaba knows that. But she can’t help her desire. She can’t help but have enough hope for the both of them, that they will get through this, that they will find a way to fix everything.

She will find a way to fix everything. Because it’s her fault it happened at all.

Things…change. Slowly. Elphaba stays out of most of it, never straying closer than the fringes of society, relying on her network to bring her news from the palace. Glinda the Good, the Angel of Oz, has really, truly done it. She has usurped the throne, and no one even cares! They believe her when she says the Wizard is a fraud. They believe her when she tells them of Morrible’s crimes.

They believe in their angel, their goddess, their golden girl. Their Queen– though she doesn’t like to be called that.

Ruling appears to come naturally to Glinda. Every report from the Emerald City is a positive one. A changing Oz, growing stronger and brighter under Glinda’s careful reign. Elphaba feels so proud of her.

Elphaba feels so guilty.

This shouldn’t be on Glinda’s shoulders. Her thin, bony little shoulders, corded with new muscle as they hold the weight of her wings, and now the weight of all of Oz. Elphaba hates hates hates that this is what it has become. A single spell gone wrong, five years of running from her regrets, and the shattered shell of the girl she left behind.

Why didn’t she return sooner? Why didn’t she see what was going on? The scars Glinda wears extend far beyond just what Elphaba gave her. How did she turn a blind eye all those years while her best friend suffered?

Maybe Morrible was right. Maybe Elphaba truly is Wicked.

In the weeks that follow, Elphaba thinks of Glinda constantly.

She thinks about Glinda’s voice. Her smile. Her ridiculous way of pronouncing words. And she thinks about the moment Glinda had asked her to let go.

Elphaba had never been more terrified in her life.

As Glinda busies herself with righting Oz, Elphaba stays in hiding– watching from a distance and studying the changes with cautious awe. She sees the new Animal laws. The pardons. The restored funding. The rehabilitation movements. The public apologies.

She sees hope, blooming slowly in weary Animal eyes all around Oz.

And she sees Glinda.

Draped in soft colors, still radiant, still golden– but tired. Too thin. Moving with a careful grace that makes Elphaba’s stomach twist. Each day passes too slowly, the wait a painful sort of torture.

She went five years without contact, and now she can’t even give Glinda a few weeks? Elphaba feels the shame bubbling in her gut, her anger sparking into small flames in patches of dry leaves around her house.

Just under two months have passed when she finally feels like it’s time. She flies to the Emerald City under the cover of night, her cloak billowing around her. When her feet touch down on the balcony, she has to take several deep breaths to steady herself, willing her hand not to shake as she knocks gently on the glass door.

Seeing Glinda again is like feeling sharp claws tear into her chest, squeezing at her heart and ripping at her lungs. “I’m sorry,” Elphaba gasps out, her throat too swollen to let any of the other million words escape.

Glinda doesn’t say ‘I forgive you.’ Elphaba knows she doesn’t deserve it.

They don’t really say anything that first night. Glinda seems too overwhelmed and exhausted to speak, so Elphaba fills the silence for her. She was never the one for rambled nothingness– that was always Glinda, back at Shiz. But she has plenty of new stories from over the years, and she doesn’t mind letting her tongue dry up as Glinda slowly relaxes at her side.

“You can go to sleep, Glinda,” Elphaba eventually says. She can see the other girl fighting the weight of her eyelids, her chin dipping and jerking. “I’ll watch over you.”

I won’t leave you again.

But Glinda’s breath catches, her shoulders stiffen, and her wings—the clearest sign of her emotions—tremble behind her. Something panicked fills her chocolate eyes, and Elphaba feels her stomach drop. This reaction, it’s– it feels wrong.

Later, when Glinda has relaxed again and Elphaba knows it’s time for her to leave so the younger girl can sleep, she lets Glinda follow her to the balcony doors before turning, reaching for those pale, wringing hands. Her own palms still fit perfectly in their grasp.

“I’ll be back,” Elphaba promises. “I’ll see you soon.”

Glinda nods, eyes shining, and Elphaba wishes she could hug her, but she has no idea where to put her arms with the wings in the way. And she can tell, without having to ask, that Glinda doesn’t want her to touch them.

So she settles for running her hands down Glinda’s upper arms, pulling her in to press a gentle kiss to her forehead. She breathes in the scent of Glinda’s shampoo, brushes soft fingers across Glinda’s cheeks, and makes her way outside.

She’ll never stop hating the feeling of flying away.

***

Their next few visits go similarly. Elphaba shows up late at night, when no one will see her sneaking into the palace. She sits with Glinda on her bed, white wings draped behind them, and talks about everything and nothing at all.

Random rumors. Ozian celebrations. Animal news. Glinda opens up a little, getting more comfortable talking about what she’s doing in the palace, how it’s going ruling Oz. She starts to sound more like her old self, the way she used to go on tangents in their dorm about all the gossip her friends would tell her.

In the daytime, when Elphaba can’t be with her, she’s still the number one thing on her mind. It starts with a simple curiosity. The way Glinda would flinch when Elphaba turned a lamp on so they could see as they sat in her room. Often, it was nearly pitch black when she arrived.

“Sorry,” Elphaba had murmured. “Does it hurt?”

“No, just– I guess my eyes are more sensitive now.”

More sensitive. It’s not the only change Elphaba notices. The wings draw so much attention that it’s easy to miss the little things, but by only the second visit, Elphaba starts to pay attention. Glinda doesn’t blink very often. And when she does, she sometimes uses a strange, third eyelid, like that of a bird.

She often hops in an awkward gait before she seems to remind herself to walk normally. Her wings shift and shuffle constantly, moving like they have a mind of their own. She picks up Elphaba’s approach long before she knocks on the glass, and she will sometimes pause in the middle of talking, listening to something beyond the walls and out of Elphaba’s hearing.

It makes Elphaba wonder. What all has changed? Because the longer she spends with Glinda, the more she knows that it’s far from just the wings.

She starts, as she normally does, with books. Such things are hard to get her hands on these days, but her network didn’t collapse just because the Wizard fell. She still has contacts she can reach out to to help her find what she’s looking for.

“Bird anatomy?” one such contact questions. “Why don’t you just ask one of your friends?”

Not my friends.

“I will. But I want to read about it first.”

Her options for research are relatively slim. She doesn’t have access to the kinds of libraries she used to. Sometimes, cracking open the spine on an old birdwatcher’s guide, she longs for the grand, moving bookshelves of Shiz. These old tomes barely have more information than Elphaba is able to pick up just from talking to Birds in real life.

So eventually, she goes right to the source. A Raven colleague of hers, one of the messengers she’d worked with often in her years as a rebel. Teros regarded her with unreadable, dark eyes, head tilted slightly to one side.

Glinda does that, too.

“Why do you want to know?” he asks.

“You know me,” Elphaba tries. “Always thirsty for knowledge. I was just curious.”

But Teros is far too smart to fall for that. He hums, clacking his beak softly. “And I’m sure this has nothing to do with your nighttime rendezvous with a certain winged wonder, does it?”

Elphaba, knowing she’s caught, feels her cheeks flush, hot and telling. “Please, Teros,” she asks softly. “I just…It’s my fault she’s like that. I–I’ve never told anyone that before. But it was my spell that gave her wings. It’s only right that I try and learn as much as I can.”

Teros blinks calmly. If he’s startled by that news or wary of Elphaba’s magic, he doesn’t show it. “She is not a Bird,” he says gently. “And whatever her wings are, they are not a Raven’s.”

Elphaba swallows hard. “I know,” she says. “But any help is appreciated. Please. I just– I need to know more.”

So Teros tells her. Elphaba fills a notebook with all the things he explains, hanging on his every word as he spreads his own inky black wings and points to the bones and joints and feathers. They’re much neater than Glinda’s. Carefully arranged and laid.

“Because I preen them regularly,” Teros says. “My wife helps me, and I do hers as well.”

“Preening. That’s– that’s like grooming them, right? Like, um, like how humans brush their hair?”

Teros doesn’t seem thrilled about that analogy, but he nods lightly. “It’s vital for proper wing health,” he explains. “Feathers have to be well-maintained for optimal flight, insulation, and weatherproofing.”

Elphaba feels a frown pull at her lips as she jots that down. From far away, Glinda’s wings looked pristine, but close up, they were dusty and ruffled, not nearly as smooth and shiny as Teros’ pair. Maybe Glinda can’t preen them on her own? Most humans struggled to reach behind them, after all.  

“Does it hurt?” Elphaba asks. “To move them around?”

Teros almost laughs at that. “No, no, the opposite. Preening feels wonderful.” He shuffles, seemingly weighing a thought before sighing. “It’s a Bird, thing,” he says. “I’m not sure what the Human equivalent would be.”

Elphaba stews on that for a while after Teros leaves. She’s seen him preen himself before, usually when he’s just come back from flying. She’s seen other Birds do it, too– stretching their necks around to nibble and pull at their feathers.

But she’s never seen Glinda do it. When Glinda touches her wings, it’s usually to push them behind her or to fiddle with a long primary, tugging at them not unlike how she tugs at her fingers when she’s anxious. Elphaba thought it was cute, just as she had when Glinda used to play with Elphaba’s hand during class.

Now, she’s curious why Glinda doesn’t take the long, relaxing hours they spend together to work on her wings. She’s always so exhausted by the end of Elphaba’s visit. Is– Is it a privacy thing? Does she not feel comfortable doing it with Elphaba in the room? Or is it as Elphaba first suspected– and she can’t do it alone?

Does she have someone assisting her? Elphaba doesn’t know why that thought sends such a sharp sting radiating through her, a pang of feeling she refuses to acknowledge for what it is. Jealousy, her mind whispers, before she shuts that thought firmly away.

Elphaba isn’t jealous. Elphaba doesn’t deserve to feel jealous.

But on her next visit, her fifth so far, she does try to test the waters. Her hand reaches past Glinda’s arm on her goodbye, brushing gently down the soft edge of her right wing. It jerks at her touch, feathers puffing up slightly as Glinda swallows a gasp, her eyes widening as she tucks her wings tight to her back.

“Glinda?” Elphaba asks. She feels that familiar tangle of guilt pull at her, watching Glinda shrink into herself. “Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?” More than usual, that is.

“I’m sorry,” Elphaba breathes out, pushing herself away as the guilt tightens its grip. “It’s– I’m sorry. I won’t touch them, if you don’t want me to.”

Even though she still doesn’t understand why.

“It…hurts,” Glinda tentatively explains. “Usually. When other people touch them.”

Elphaba feels like utter shit. She did cause Glinda pain. It seems all she’s good for is causing Glinda pain. She hates it hates it hates herself. How can she convince Glinda that she just wants to help?

“If I promise to be careful…will you let me try?” she asks.

Glinda reels back, blinking. “Why?” she asks. And Elphaba tries to explain, tries to remember what it was Teros said preening was for, but she can see it isn’t getting through to Glinda.

“I’m not a Bird.” Glinda nearly spits the word out, like it’s a curse. “I–I’m not sure what I am, really, I mean– I don’t– Morrible used to say I was a freak–”

“I don’t give a shit what Morrible said,” Elphaba interrupts, anger bursting through her veins. If it wouldn’t just make things worse, she’d march into Southstairs and rip Morrible apart right now for what she’s said and done.

“I don’t know…” Glinda whispers, and Elphaba feels her heart lurch and shudder, gripped by a painful vice at the sound of such hesitant, broken words.

She reaches out, sliding her hand into Glinda’s and giving it a squeeze. “Whenever you’re ready,” she says gently. And she hopes Glinda can feel how much she means it.

***

Despite Glinda’s initial hesitance, Elphaba continues to research, and she continues to observe. Five years would change anyone, especially after what Glinda has gone through– most of which Elphaba still isn’t sure about, piecing things together based on rumor and reaction.

But Glinda’s differences far exceed just that of a friend you haven’t seen in a while. She’s not a Bird…but she’s not really human either. A freak, she hears Glinda repeat in her mind. Morrible used to say.

Elphaba moves her hideout closer to the Emerald City, so she has less sky to travel through to get to her balcony at night. She moves her visits from just once or twice a week to nearly every night, blowing past the risk of getting caught in her desperation to not be separated from Glinda for too long.

She can tell the younger girl appreciates it, even if she never says. She worries about Elphaba, eyes darting around the balcony every time the witch touches down, hands wringing and wings shuffling. Elphaba has gotten used to watching Glinda’s wings just as much as she watches her face.  

They’re quite expressive. They move and shift in time with Glinda’s body, but also her emotions. When Glinda’s nervous, they tremble at the edges. When she’s guarded, they stiffen, curling up over her shoulders. When she’s relaxed, they hand loose, feathers catching the faint breeze coming in through the door.

They’re quite large. Big enough to drag on the ground when Glinda stands upright. Elphaba wonders if it gets tiring, constantly having to hold them aloft. Glinda often keeps them draped over a bed or couch when she’s with Elphaba, letting the furniture lighten her load. Each sign of discomfort, each flinch when a feather catches, makes the knot in Elphaba’s stomach grow larger.

How could such a simple spell have done so much damage?

It feels a bit wrong to be studying Glinda like this, treating her like nothing more than a research subject. But Elphaba’s curiosity can’t be dimmed. Her insatiable need to understand is itching at her with every interaction. She starts keeping a journal, logging her visits with Glinda and cataloguing things that she believes are residual effects of her spell, comparing them to her notes on bird behavior and anatomy.

It might be wrong, but it’s necessary. This was Elphaba’s spell. Elphaba’s magic. She’s learning as much about her own self, her limits, her abilities, as she is about Glinda. At least– that’s what she tells herself to make the rising shame fall away.

By the eighth visit, Elphaba knows the layout of Glinda’s chambers by heart.

She knows where the moonlight hits at midnight, which corner Glinda stores her paperwork in (stacked far too neatly for how tired she always looks), and how many steps it takes to reach the balcony from the velvet chaise. She knows the curve of Glinda’s smile, her dimple poking through, when she’s genuinely pleased to see Elphaba arrive.

They don’t talk about the wings. Glinda talks about her day, about her work, about all the reasons Elphaba can see exhaustion pulling at her thin frame. Ruling Oz is clearly taking its toll on the girl. She’s far too skinny, too pale, too tired. Elphaba worries and fusses, coaxing her to eat or take a nap.

Glinda always refuses both.

Her wings wrap around her shoulders when she does, curling into her like a shield. Elphaba tries not to take the rejection personally– but she’s scared. The bags under Glinda’s eyes are becoming too dark to hide with makeup, and her smile gets smaller and smaller as the days drag on. She’s fading before Elphaba’s eyes, and she’s not letting the green girl help her.

These things go in the journal, too. Small notes about how Glinda looked like she had to blink spots from her vision when she stood today and the way her wings flared out to help her balance. How Glinda didn’t want to eat anything when Elphaba prodded, but she accepted a warm mug of tea to wrap her hands around.

She seems to always be a little cold, shivering lightly when the breeze hits, goosebumps popping up along her bare arms. She rarely wears sleeves, her outfits usually comprised of a halter top that leaves her arms bare and her back open. Elphaba notes this, too.

Everything goes in that little journal. She sketches, too. Diagrams. Wing silhouettes. The sharp curve of a jaw or the round dip of an eye. It isn’t her intention to make it seem so clinical. She’s not trying to reduce Glinda to a set of traits or a particular label. She just…she wants to understand.

Because it doesn’t seem like anyone else ever tried.

***

It’s unusually warm tonight, the room dim as always when Elphaba touches down and taps lightly on the glass. She can see the faint glow of candlelight near Glinda’s desk, and when she doesn’t get a response for several moments, she opens the unlocked door and lets herself inside.

A few papers lie scattered on the floor. The bed is still made and untouched. Glinda, as Elphaba suspected, is slumped at her desk, head pillowed on her arms, breathing slow and even.

Asleep.

It stops Elphaba in her tracks. Warmth bursts behind her chest, her heart swelling with fondness and nostalgia. How many times had she witnessed such a scene back at Shiz? During their first—and only—Finals season, Glinda had been relentless in her studying, her previous lackadaisical attitude thrown out the window in exchange for pulling all-nighters.

There’s something disarming about it– this sudden evidence of peace. It is only now that Elphaba realizes how much of a mask Glinda still wears, even when she seemingly relaxes. Elphaba watches her for a long moment, afraid to wake her but aching to touch. To be closer.

Eventually, she steps forward. She reaches out, brushing her fingers lightly through Glinda’s golden hair. Just once. Her sleeve slips forward. A shadow falls across Glinda’s eyes. And that’s all it takes.

The reaction is instant. A sharp inhale. A shudder. And then—

Glinda jerks upright with a strangled cry, wings flaring out in a wide, defensive arc. One slams into Elphaba’s shoulder, the blow enough to knock her backward onto the floor. She hears Glinda scramble away, furniture shifting. Papers flying. Feathers falling like leaves.

When Elphaba sits up, she sees her, Glinda, crouched in the farthest corner of the room, her back to the wall, wings wrapped tight around her like armor. She’s shaking. Hyperventilating. Her eyes wild and unfocused.

“Glinda,” Elphaba says, heart thudding. “I–It’s me. It’s Elphaba. You’re safe.”

No response.

Just shallow, panicked breaths. Glinda’s fingers claw at her own arms, hugging herself as her nails dig into her biceps. Her wings won’t stop trembling, fluffed up to twice their normal size.

Elphaba tries to move closer. “Hey— You– You’re okay. I didn’t mean to—”

Glinda flinches, hard, the second Elphaba gets near, freezing the older girl in her tracks. She sucks in a harsh breath, her mind spinning and pulse racing as she tries to calm herself down enough to help Glinda. The blonde is scrabbling against the stone floor, trying to shove herself even farther away.

It’s heartbreaking to watch. Elphaba has seen Glinda panic before. She’s seen her be overwhelmed by anxiety at school. But this? She’s never seen anything like this. Glinda is shaking so hard, it’s a miracle she’s still upright. Her breaths come in choked gasps, neck muscles straining around the effort to take in air.

Her eyes are wide and unseeing, trapped in a vision that Elphaba isn’t privy to. Tiny, broken whimpers escape her lips before she clamps them shut, the lingering cries scratching at Elphaba’s ears, digging into her head and gnawing like hungry guilt.

The supreme leader of Oz, the golden girl, the winged wonder, the Angel of Oz, Glinda the Good, has been reduced to nothing more than a shivering, panicking mess.

And it’s all Elphaba’s fault. Again.

All I do is hurt people.

Elphaba slowly backs away. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, cracked and raw. “I’m so sorry, Glinda. I–I’m leaving, I won’t— You’ll be safe.” With me gone.

Glinda doesn’t move. But her breathing falters. Hitching. A ragged inhale. Her pupils narrow into pinpricks, then dilate into dinner plates. She looks up, golden hair framing her pale face, and her lips open around a crumbling whisper.

“D-don’t go,” she pleads. “E–El-phie.”

Elphaba’s heart splinters. She nods, settling back down across the room, her back against the far wall, just feet from the open balcony door.

“Okay,” she says softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I won’t leave you again.

She stays where she is, hands pressed flat to the floor, taking deep breaths in a forced but steady rhythm. “It’s just me. No one else. You’re in your room. You’re safe.”

Still no reply. So Elphaba starts to hum. A low, steady tune. Familiar– one she used to sing absentmindedly while puttering about their dorm at Shiz. She’s not even sure if Glinda remembers it.

But she remembers how calming music used to be when Glinda would get worked up or over-anxious. She remembers the way Glinda would relax, her hand over Elphaba’s chest as the older girl walked her through breathing exercises, grounding her in the moment.

She can’t get close enough to take Glinda’s hand this time. But she can hum, a lilting, gentle tune, her breath slow and even, and hope that Glinda will find her rhythm again.

It takes a long time. But eventually, the wings begin to lower. The shaking slows. Glinda slumps against the wall and lets her eyes close. Her hands release their deadly grip, and her throat moves not in strained wheezes but in gentle vibrations. Humming along to the song.

The whole time, Elphaba watches from across the room, helpless and aching.

I did this, she thinks. I gave her wings. I gave her panic. I gave her pain. And then I left. I caused this. This is my fault.

When Glinda finally looks up again, mustering a tiny smile, the knot in Elphaba’s stomach burns. Her shaky smile back has never felt so brittle.    

Chapter Text

Of all the changes that the spell makes, Glinda thinks she hates the enhanced senses the most. Everything is elevated– sight, hearing, touch. Maybe not taste, but her taste buds are definitely different, making normally delicious foods curl her nose.  

It’s the first three that hurt the most, though. Her wings are so sensitive to touch. Her ears are so sensitive to sound. Her eyes are so sensitive to light. As much as Morrible hates it, Glinda can’t handle it at first. She has to be given artificial help– special headphones and goggles for her hearing and sight.

There’s nothing they can really do about the sensitivity to touch. Perhaps that’s why that one hurts the most.

But the others are still overwhelming. An invisible disability that the ignorant might call a gift. Everyone can see the wings, but at first glance, Glinda still has the same wide chocolate eyes she’s always had. They can’t tell that she can see colors that previously didn’t exist. That she can spot crumbs on the floor from two rooms away. 

They don’t understand that her mind was never made to process such information. She’ll hone in on the smallest of movements, her sight constantly picking up the slightest changes in color and light. She can see the individual pulses of light in each fluorescent bulb, flickering in constant, headache-inducing cycles.

Glinda can see the very stars traveling across the night sky.

And that…can be too much sometimes. Too painful. Too overstimulating. The goggles help, ugly as they are, but it’s Morrible who decides to take it a step further. She calls it training. Glinda calls it torture.

What it really is– a simple hood. Leather. Custom made. Innocent looking.

“This is to help you,” Morrible explains, like this is all very reasonable. Like she hasn’t just made Glinda blind. “Your kind startle too easily.”

Your kind.

Glinda tries to speak, but no one listens. Her voice is warbled, her throat raw. There’s a sound somewhere deep in her chest that she doesn’t recognize– half sob, half screech. She doesn’t mean to make it. Doesn’t know how to stop.

Her ears sharpen in the dark. She hears every footstep, every shift of cloth, every heartbeat that isn’t her own. The world is too loud. She twists, muscles trembling, wings brushing the floor in a panic she can’t name. They flare out, desperate and wild.

Then—

Hands on her wings. Digging. Twisting. Yanking at the sensitive feathers that Glinda has only just now begun to process.  

Glinda screams.

It shreds her throat like paper, inhuman and desperate and painful in a way nobody else in Oz could ever understand. She scrambles against the floor, sobs cracking through her chest. The whole time, the only person with the power to stop this simply stands by and smiles, satisfied and smug. 

All the fight abruptly flees Glinda’s body. She can’t fathom anything but pain. This is her first session with the hood. Morrible thought it would make her more compliant. That it would help her learn control, if only she’d be good. 

Glinda passes out with the taste of copper on her tongue and knows, as she falls, that she has failed.  

The hood is still on when she wakes up. It’s still on as she cries out, begging to be released. It’s still on when Glinda manages to get to her feet, stumbling in an awkward circle as she searches around the room.

She knows she’s not alone. Her hearing can pick up the breathing of another person, the subtle shifts of a body. It grates against her ears, straining for any input she can get with her main sense lost. Far from feeling calmer, the hood is driving her insane.

Later, when they finally take it off, Glinda’s sweating and shaking and silent. She kneels in the center of the room, wings draped across the floor, nails digging into her upper arms. Morrible clicks her tongue and calls it progress.

But Glinda lies awake that night staring at the shadows on her ceiling, and every time she closes her eyes, it’s still there. The darkness. The pressure. The helplessness.

The next day, when Morrible reaches for the hood again, Glinda flinches so hard she nearly knocks over a table.

Morrible just smiles. “Ah. You remember.”

And so it goes. A routine punishment, cited as training, painful as torture. Glinda comes to dread the very thought of being blinded. Of having her sight taken in any manner. A shirt gets stuck going over her head and she screams. Her blanket fall over her face and she panics. 

And with every failure, every loss of control, comes an even longer session, Morrible’s nails digging into her chin as she tightens the straps and tells her to behave. 

Slowly, Glinda learns the rules. To be quiet. To be still. To be good. At one session, she bites the inside of her cheek until it bleeds, suppressing the animalistic screech trying to climb up her throat. 

She can control herself. She can, she can, she can.

The hood is already fastened, snug against her face, the leather damp with her own sweat. She can’t see. She can barely breathe. Her wings are bound this time, folded tight and cramped by cruel straps, and gloves have been cuffed over her hands so she can’t hurt herself. Again. 

“Shh,” Morrible whispers from behind, and Glinda hates her, hates her, hates her . “This is for your own good, pet.”

Glinda shakes her head. Or– she tries to. But the motion just heightens her awareness of the hood, and everything inside her flares with static– her hearing, her sense of balance, her new instincts that claw at her mind. 

She feels wrong. Too loud in her own skin. Her other senses are on overdrive with her sight gone, and Glinda swears she can hear every beat and pulse and blink like a hammer to her skull. It never gets easier.

It makes her want to tear into her own skin, ripping at the organs and bones until there’s nothing left of her to make noise. The hood isn’t calming; it’s torment. 

Eventually, Morrible exits, and Glinda is left to wait. In the dark. Alone. Bound like this, they don’t need her to be supervised. They can just leave her here. Unable to eat or sleep or even cry without the sting of salt on her cheeks, making her want to scream. 

Minutes pass. Or maybe hours.

Her feathers twitch at every phantom breeze. Her thoughts spiral. She imagines the hood shrinking, squeezing tighter and tighter until it’s fused to her face. What if Morrible never takes it off? What if Glinda has to spend the rest of her life as nothing but a caged thing– a pretty pet in a gilded cage who smiles on cue and flies on command.

Warbles and cries crowd the back of her tongue, her saliva thick as tar as she swallows hard, forcing them down. 

She can’t scream. She won’t.

Instead, she trembles. Quiet and contained. Like a good bird. Like she’s been trained. 

At some point, long enough that Glinda has lost feeling in enough of her limbs to forget she has six now, the door creaks open. Footsteps approach.

“Better,” Morrible hums, undoing the strap beneath her chin. “See how peaceful you are when you’re blind?”

The hood slips away.

Light floods Glinda’s vision– painful and burning. She recoils sharply, but there’s no one to help her, no one who cares. Just a hand on her wing, tugging her upright when her legs try to collapse underneath her. 

“Come on,” Morrible says, shoving her weak body out the door and dragging her down the hall. “If you’re good, I won’t put the hood on tomorrow.”

And Glinda hates her, hates her, hates her, but she is powerless against the flood of relief, of hope, that fills her at those words, making her vision swim as she takes in her first full breath in hours. 

Later, she’ll be hosed down with freezing water until the audience can’t see the grime and dust. Itchy, awful powder will be thrown over her wings to make them gleam a brighter white. Fancy fabrics will be carefully draped to hide the bald patches and bruises. 

Later, Glinda the Good will stand above a crowd, backlit by the setting sun and appearing every inch the angel the citizens claim her to be. She will smile. She will wave. She will be a good bird. 

And they will never see how hard she’s trembling.

Or the blood that soaks her tongue.

Chapter Text

Elphaba had nearly forgotten what it felt like to feel completely, totally powerless. Not just helpless, a bit overwhelmed, but really, truly powerless. The last time she really felt like there was absolutely nothing that she could do, it had been…

Well, it had been when she’d given Glinda wings. That moment of complete and utter despair, being told that a spell from the Grimmerie could never be reversed. Knowing she’d just subjected her best friend to something no person should ever have to go through, and there was no way to change it or take it back or make it better. 

In that moment, Elphaba had felt like the smallest of bugs, the most despicable, awful, useless creature in Oz. To be honest, how horrible she felt, how wicked her actions had been, was likely even an insult to bugs. 

Over the years, there had been more than a few moments politically that, sure, she’d felt pretty helpless. Felt like she was doing more harm than good. That everything the rest of Oz was saying about her had to be true. But even then, she had her magic. She had the ability to keep going, to keep trying, to keep making plans. Even when it seemed like the mission had gone as far off the rails as it possibly could, there was something she could do. Some action she could take to try and get it back on track. 

But that moment in Glinda’s bedroom, watching her curl into a shaking, panicking ball of terror? That had left her feeling truly powerless. Utterly human in the worst way— left stumbling through the ruins of a moment she cannot undo. She doesn’t remember exactly what happened. She remembers the sharp flare of pain in her shoulder where Glinda’s wing had struck her, the way her head rang against the floor, the sudden, brutal awareness of breath in her lungs as she scrambled away from the panic. But what exactly was the cause was a blur. 

All Elphaba had truly known was that, whatever it was, she was without a doubt the cause. So she’d gotten up. She’d been prepared to leave, to take her wicked self far, far away, to somewhere she could finally stop hurting the people she loved. Until— Glinda’s voice, wrecked and shaking: D-don’t go.

So Elphaba hadn’t. Not right away. She had stayed, sitting on the floor in silence until Glinda's breathing softened enough that she could pretend not to notice how her entire body still trembled with each inhale. Elphaba had, of course, left eventually. Had known that eventually the softness after the panic would turn stiff with awkwardness. 

Glinda was exhausted, and there was no worse time for Elphaba to spend her first night over in the castle. So she’d pulled herself to her feet, only a little sore, and had quietly collected her broom and slipped out the balcony door. Glinda still hadn’t said a word, but she’d watched Elphaba go, eyes huge and dark and lingering in Elphaba’s mind long after the wind had torn all other thoughts away. 

It never got any easier– leaving Glinda. 

***

Elphaba can’t sleep that night. Or the next. Her shoulder throbs, not from the impact but from the memory of it. She finds herself tracing the bruise without thinking, fingers drifting to where Glinda’s wing hit, though the pain she feels most sharply isn’t physical at all.

It’s the realization that, even after everything, she still doesn't understand what Glinda has been through. She had thought she did. She’d read the reports. She’d observed the behaviors. She’d watched the forced smiles and cataloged the tics, the stiffness, the tension in the base of her wings.

Elphaba knows that Glinda went through something horrible in that palace. Knows that it was, in some part, connected to the wings. Connected to Elphaba. 

Her fault. 

But none of that had prepared her for the sheer terror she’d seen on Glinda’s face last night. Was it because Elphaba had entered the room without her knowing? Was it because Elphaba had woken her up? Was it because Elphaba had…had touched her? 

Just tell her what she’d done. 

The not knowing is tearing Elphaba to pieces. She hates this. Ever since she was a child, Elphaba had always had a strong desire to understand everything she could about the world. Curious, inquisitive, and with an endless hunger for knowledge. She had sought out every book she could on every topic that had even remotely interested her. 

She finds that same push inside her now. That same drive, that same thirst. That same need to pick something apart until she knows everything there is to know about it. Until all her questions are answered and her desire is satiated. It burns within her, buzzing under her skin all night long until she finally gives up and shoves herself out of bed. 

She goes to her desk, flicking on a lamp and staring down at the papers stacked neatly on the side. The books she has already collected, the research she’s already started. She had just wanted to gain a better understanding of what her spell had done. That was her initial quest. 

But now, now it’s not just the spell, it’s not just the wings, it’s not just the bird of it all that Elphaba needs to know about. It’s Glinda. 

At one point, Elphaba had been pretty confident that she had known Glinda better than anyone else in Oz. Even her own parents. Or— perhaps, especially her parents. She had known her habits and quirks and secrets and shames. She had known exactly how to pull out the sweetest smiles and brightest laughs. 

She had known that Glinda, her Galinda, had no fear of being woken up by Elphaba. Would instead smile softly and stretch, languid like a cat, her eyes still closed, before a pale hand would reach for Elphaba, whining until Elphaba gave in and slid under the covers with her. Until Elphaba let Glinda turn and snuggle into her for an extra few minutes, Elphaba sliding gentle fingers through her hair even as she reminded her that they couldn’t be late. 

Those were the kind of memories that Elphaba had clung to all those years apart. Those were the memories that had slipped into her dreams, making her wake with the heavy ache of longing pressing upon her chest, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. The weight of missing Glinda had been one of the hardest things for Elphaba to bear. It hurt worse than hunger pangs or wind burns or bruises. 

But tonight, tonight Elphaba sees something entirely different behind her lids when she dares to close her eyes. The memories of the previous evening haunt her, the way Glinda had looked right through her, like Elphaba was a threat, or worse— a stranger. 

Not someone she knew. Certainly not someone she trusted. 

Elphaba has no memory of ever being looked at like that by Glinda before. And she knows now, she never wants to be again. So with a sharp inhale followed by a determined exhale, Elphaba shakes the clamoring swirl of thoughts from her head and focuses on what she can do. 

With shaky fingers, Elphaba opens the book. 

***

She doesn’t go back to the palace right away.

The place she’s been staying is cold and small and the electricity doesn’t always work, but it’s still miles above the glorified den she’d managed to build in the woods. This place, at least, was made for human inhabitants. It’s just beyond the edge of the city, an attic above an abandoned horse stable that was likely once the groom’s quarters. 

It’s drafty, the roof leaks along the slanted ceilings, and the narrow bed is barely long enough to stretch out on. Still. It’s much closer to Glinda than she’d been before, and it makes the flight to the Emerald Palace easy and discreet, a short enough distance that she feels confident no one will spot her. 

The room smells like rain and ash and old books, but it’s private. Hidden. Safe. And for the few days following the incident, it is the only four walls that Elphaba lets herself see. She has a stash of food and water to keep her going and a brain that refuses to unlatch from the focus she’d set it on. 

The sun rises and sets beyond the grimy window more than once before Elphaba finally sets her notebook down and just— stares at it. For a moment. Her hand aches. Her back screams as she stretches out. The previously blank pages are absolutely covered in scribbles and notes.  

Entry 19 – Panic episode. Glinda awoke disoriented and reacted violently to physical contact. Direct blow with left wing. Possible trigger: sudden waking, unexpected touch, proximity while unconscious? Trauma response likely.

Observation: Appeared distant. Flashback? No vocal acknowledgment of fear. Avoided eye contact. Approximately twenty-minute episode. Hypervigilance sustained for nearly ten minutes after breathing slowed. Responded well to humming. 

Requested that I not leave. Fear of being left? Fear of being alone? More data needed. 

Elphaba pauses. Then adds another line.

She was scared of me.

She scratches it out almost immediately, too personal by far. She sighs. Drops her head to her hands and groans, long and low. It’s…late afternoon, by the look of things outside. Elphaba isn’t entirely sure what day it is. She’s used to this, to letting herself get sucked into work and escaping away for a few days. 

She’s gone much longer without seeing anyone. Talking to anyone. 

The book she’d gotten on birds is full of annotations and notes, a separate notebook covered in things she’d jotted down that might be important, might be worth exploring further. She still wants to understand the spell. What exactly did she do to Glinda? Elphaba isn’t an idiot. She knows that the wings are the common denominator here. 

The reason for all of Glinda’s pain is Elphaba. That much has always been clear. 

She’s pulled out some of her old books on magic, things she’d stolen or collected over the years. She peruses her notes on transformations, searching for any new theories or suggestions that might point her in the right direction. But she doesn’t find anything helpful. 

It…doesn’t appear that something like what she’d done had ever happened before. Elphaba isn’t even sure how it did. She hadn’t meant for it to. She hadn’t asked for this! 

Sometimes, when she’s at her most frustrated, her eyes wander to the closet, to the closed wooden door that blocks her view of the one book she hasn’t turned to yet. 

It won’t help, Elphaba reminds herself. After all— she’d tried more than once over the years to understand the Grimmerie. She’d spent nearly the whole first year on the run attempting to decode the strange language and make sense of all the symbols and syllables. She’d asked, begged, pleaded with the Grimmerie to give her answers. 

And it never did. It…almost seemed like it didn’t want to. 

When the spellbooks yield nothing, Elphaba pivots. She starts rereading her fieldwork journals from her time with the Animal Rebellion. She revisits her notes on avian physiology and bird behavior. But there are gaps. Things she knows she’s missing. So when she finally looks up after a few days of intense study, she has a page titled ‘Research Topics’ that she needs to explore next.

A shopping list, so to speak. 

“Now if I can just figure out where the hell to get them,” Elphaba mutters to herself. She sighs, running a hand through her tangled braids, frustrated and tired. A nap would go a long way right now. And- come to think of it, some lunch would as well. She’s not entirely sure when the last time she ate was, though there are fresh wrappers in the trash can. 

“Alright,” Elphaba narrates. “Time to make a plan.”

Keeping herself in such a scholarly, scientific mood is helping, she thinks. Helping to keep the guilt, the hurt, the pain that sits molten and heavy in her gut, from burning her alive. Wallowing won’t help anyone, she continues to tell herself. Eventually, though, Elphaba knows she’s going to have to sleep. Properly. Deeply. 

Eventually, she is going to have to subject herself to the nightmares that she knows are waiting, full of Glinda’s terrified face and ragged, panicked cries. 

No. Focus. Shoving those thoughts away, again, Elphaba spins on her heel and gets busy. She washes her face, untangles her hair, changes into fresh clothes. Makes herself look mildly more presentable, enough that hopefully no one else realizes that she just spent the last few days binge researching like a crazy person. 

This is far from the first time Elphaba has fallen down a rabbit hole of isolation and focus. It had just been her for so many years after all, even with the occasional Animal ally to talk to. She’d gotten used to speaking aloud to no one, just so her vocal cords could get a small workout. She’d gotten used to forcing herself to go for a walk, just so she could get some fresh air. 

Between raids and scouting missions and travel and hiding, she’d done her best just to stay sane. She isn’t entirely sure how much she succeeded, if she’s being honest. Sometimes, she’d emerge from her hideout, blinking in the sunlight, and hear from an Animal that she’d been missing in action for weeks, to the point that the Wizard’s forces were worrying about where she’d pop up next. 

The years had taken a toll on her, on her mind and body alike. Elphaba knows that. Deep down, she knows that she has her own scars, her own issues that she needs to work through. Yet— never, in all those times, not after the worst of raids or the most unsuccessful missions, did Elphaba ever fall into the same level of terrified panic that she’d witnessed in Glinda. 

Pushing open the stable door, Elphaba squints into the bright sunlight as she tucks her cloak closer around herself and swings one leg over her broom. She will find a way to help Glinda. It’s the least she can do after being the one to put Glinda in this situation to begin with. Once more shoving her guilt aside, Elphaba digs deep beneath her lingering fatigue to find that well of magic within herself. 

She can do this. She can help Glinda. She has to. Because otherwise…otherwise Elphaba will have to spend the rest of her life knowing that she had ruined that of her best friend.

Chapter Text

The Angel of Oz. That’s what they call her. This girl, with her halo of golden curls and her brilliant white wings, must surely be something magical, something divine, something to be praised and celebrated.

If only they knew how much Glinda hates the very things they revere. It takes her months to truly become accustomed to her wings. To the weight of them on her back, pulling at her shoulders and messing up her balance. It takes her months to find a comfortable position to fall asleep in. Months to figure out how to keep them from dragging the ground. Months to stop jumping at their shadow over her shoulder.

It’s weird— the way her brain just…accepts another set of limbs. They shift naturally, twitching on their own in reaction to her movements and emotions. She often finds herself grabbing onto them when she’s nervous, tugging at the feathers the way she used to twist and tug at her fingers. They are incredibly sensitive, but it is soothing in a way, like picking at one’s fingernails.

When Glinda sleeps, the wings drape over her like a blanket. When she walks, they guard her back. And when she’s overwhelmed, they cling to her frame, wrapped around her body and puffed up like an angry cat. Her every thought and feeling can be seen in how the ridiculous things react. Anxiety burns in her chest, and her fingers dig into the fluffy down, pulling in unconscious movements. The prickle of pain keeps her grounded; the itchy tug against her skin clears her mind.

It’s inevitable that, at times, the feathers will fall out. Either by being knocked out, pulled out, or broken through her own actions or someone else’s, Glinda has gotten used to the way they look when they’re floating through the air, swirling like goose down after a pillow fight.

She burns every single one, if she can. Something about the idea of Morrible or anyone else getting their hands on a feather, on a part of her, makes bile churn in Glinda’s gut. So she gathers them up from wherever they’ve fallen, and she tosses them all in the fire.

Sometimes, Glinda wonders what it would be like if she stuck a whole wing in there instead.

It’s months after the transformation, months after Elphaba fled by broom and Glinda was left grounded in the palace, that It first begins. The molting. She has no idea what it is, at first. No idea that it’s natural, something to do with the change of the seasons outside her window.

All Glinda knows is that she wakes up one morning to a single, soft feather on her pillow. Delicate. Pale. Innocent. Glinda just stares at it for a long time, her brow crinkled in sleepy confusion, before she picks it up, twirling it between her fingers. It isn’t until she pushes herself upward, her blanket falling off her lap, that she realizes it’s much, much more than just one. Her eyes widen. Her stomach flips. Glinda drops the feather like it burns.

Her bed is nearly coated with white.

“No,” Glinda whispers, barely audible. “No, no, nononono.”

She jerks upright, flailing for balance as she scrambles to her feet. Her joints are sore and aching, flapping awkwardly as her vision swims and she tilts and stumbles, her wings knocking into the walls and nightstand hard enough to make her scream.

She bites her lower lip hard, chest heaving for breath. Her bed looks like someone killed ten swans, covered in feathers that are meant to be on her wings. Her skin feels like it’s crawling, a fiery itch spreading over her as she shakes her wings out and feels another slough of feathers fall to the floor.

“What is happening?” Glinda breathes, running taloned fingers through her hair and digging the sharp points into her head as she tries to think. Think, Glinda, think.

She’s falling apart.

She’s falling apart and she doesn’t know why.

Is it her fault? Did she cause this? Her head whips around, taking in the carnage lying on her bed. Is…Could Morrible have done this?

Panic rises in her throat, choking Glinda with its weight as she feels an animalistic keen swell in her chest, constricting her lungs and making it impossible to breathe. Her head is spinning, her heart pounding as she clamps her eyes shut and grits her teeth and digs her nails in even deeper.

What is wrong with her?!

Harsh sobs exit Glinda’s lips as she tries to fight against her panic. She’s wheezing, gasping for air as her senses narrow to the rush of blood past her ears and the constricting bands around her lungs. Her fingers fall from her head to her wings, digging into the feathers and yanking.

OW.

The pain forces her eyes open again, her spiraling thoughts finally locking onto a single sensation. She focuses on it, grabbing another handful of feathers and pulling until she has a collection of broken, bloodied shafts in her hand.

Then she does it again. And again. And again.

Slowly, her breathing starts to ease. Her panic starts to dissipate. Her fingers tighten around the feathers in her hand, and her eyes find the fireplace. With a shaky inhale, Glinda makes a plan.

She gathers as many of the feathers into her arms as she can, feeling them shift and jab at her as she sweeps them up in her hold. She makes her way across the room on frantic, fumbling feet, falling to her knees at the hearth and shoving whole armfuls of feathers into the fireplace.

Her fingers fumble with the match, trembling violently, and then it’s burning— the room filling with the acrid smell of smoke and singed keratin. Her lungs protest, but Glinda doesn’t care. She can’t let anyone see. They can’t have them. They’re hers.

She rips another feather free.

The bright sting of sensation should be a warning, but Glinda heeds it no mind. She just keeps going, yanking feathers loose with increasing desperation, her blood staining them pink as the shafts break and tear at her skin.

She’s shaking. Sweating. Her head spins. Her hands are streaked with red as she clutches the pink and white prizes in her grasp. She doesn’t even know how long it goes on, only that when she finally stands to throw in another load of feathers, her wings lurch behind her, lighter than ever, and the imbalance is too great.

Glinda stumbles. She slips. And when she crashes to the floor, a second armful of feathers goes spilling out across the stone, her body falling not far behind as she slams to her hands and knees. For a moment, she just lies there, stunned and staring.

That, of course, is when the door clicks open.

Fear shivers down Glinda’s spine as she recognizes the sharp staccato of heels making their way across the room. “Glinda,” Morrible greets, smooth voice slicing through the haze surrounding Glinda’s mind.

She slowly lifts her head up, taking in the raised eyebrow and pinched lips and crossed arms. Morrible glares down at her prone form first before her gaze roams the mess that surrounds her.

“What in Oz have you done?” Pure revulsion coats her voice as she kicks at a few of the nearby feathers, turning her nose up at the way they dance in response. Shame flares in Glinda’s gut, and she quickly forces herself into proper position, legs tucked under her, wings folded down, hands atop her thighs.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, eyes glued to the floor.

Morrible doesn’t answer for several beats, letting the weight of the moment hang over Glinda’s bowed head, her heart thundering in her chest and her lungs absolutely aching for air. 

“I suppose you can’t help it,” Morrible finally says. She sighs, clicking her tongue in a way that makes Glinda feel two inches tall. “Ugly. Undisciplined. Just what I expect from you, really.”

Glinda flinches, her wings dragging painfully across the floor. It’s not like she meant for this to happen. 

Morrible sniffs delicately and clicks her tongue again. “You can’t be seen like this, obviously. I’ll tell the staff not to bother coming by. And our lessons are over until you can clean up this mess and look presentable again.”

“I– I didn’t mean—”

“It doesn’t matter what you did or did not mean, you stupid bird,” Morrible snaps. “Only animals show such disgusticifying behavior.”

Glinda hadn’t thought it was possible to feel any worse, shame curdling in her stomach as she sinks even lower to the floor. It’s nothing she hasn’t heard from Morrible before, but it still hurts just as much every time. The citizens see her as an angel. Morrible sees her as an animal.

Neither one sees her as a person. Neither one sees Glinda.

The door slamming shut pulls Glinda out of her thoughts. Distantly, she hears the lock turn over, trapping her inside. She doesn’t move. She stays there, kneeling, surrounded by the broken pieces of herself. The room stinks of blood and burnt feathers. Her wings throb and itch. If she had anything in her stomach at all, Glinda is sure she’d throw up.

Eventually, she pulls herself to her feet, more feathers shedding as she goes. She picks them all up one by one, slowly making her way around the room. The flash of her own reflection on the wall makes her freeze, breath catching as she takes in the sight.

Glinda’s wings are practically naked now— bald and shrunken, patchy and raw. In the mirror, they look grotesque. Like a scraggly corpse of something that was once beautiful.

In that moment, she has never hated them more. Pressing the heel of her palms to her eyes, Glinda sinks to the floor and sobs. She’s never felt so hideous. So inhuman. She longs desperately for someone—anyone—to come and tell her it’s okay. That it’ll get better. That she’ll be alright. She wants her parents. She wants Fiyero. She wants Elphaba.

By Oz, does she want Elphaba.

But Elphaba had been the one to give her these hideous appendages, her own body staying pure and intact as she’d flown away on her broom. Leaving Glinda behind. Leaving Glinda alone. She knows that no one is coming.

Tears still falling, Glinda lets herself slide to the ground and curl into a tight ball. Her wings twitch behind her, feeble and useless. She presses her knees to her chest to try to conserve heat. Without her feathers, the chill of the stone floor sinks into her bones, and she hugs herself tighter as shivers start wracking her thin frame. She breathes in shaky, shallow gasps. She tries to stop trembling. Tries to stop crying.

Fails.

Glinda is not strong. She is not graceful. She is not divine.

The Ozians call her an angel, but Glinda feels as far from that as one can be. She’s just a girl, a person, alone in the dark, wrapped in the wreckage of a broken promise.