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aparticularbandit · 6 days ago

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Gravity: Chapter One

Summary: In which Glinda goes to the Emerald City with Elphaba, but she does not go in to meet the Wizard with her.

Chapter Rating: T. Fic Rating: T until further notice.

AO3

You’ll be okay.

Elphaba stands alone in the Wizard’s chamber, and she hears Glinda’s words echoing in her head, and she stands her ground. A huge head with gears for eyes speaks in booming tones meant to make her quiver (and she does, she’s afraid, she jumps when the flames come blaring out all around her, like she’s standing in the middle of an inferno), but she doesn’t run.

Glinda waits on the other side of those double doors – insistent that this moment be Elphie’s alone. She’d stood on her tiptoes so she could just meet Elphaba’s eyes – even in heels, Glinda has always seemed so small, so inherently fragile, like a ballerina made of painted glass – and cupped her face with one hand so that she could angle it down to hold her gaze. You’ll be okay, she’d whispered, and she’d nodded slow until Elphaba nodded with her. He wants to see you. And you want to see him! She’d patted Elphaba’s chest, straightened the curves of her dress, brushed imperceptible bits of emerald dust from her – dust that no one but Glinda would be able to see in the first place.

She should be in here with her.

She should have insisted – she can outdo Glinda’s desires with her own stubbornness, when she wants.

(She’d been torn: two wolves inside of her – one who wanted to share this with her best friend, and one who wanted this moment to belong to her alone. Glinda made the argument two against one. Something tells her that was a mistake; something tells her the other option would be a mistake, too.)

You’ll be okay, Elphaba hears again, whispered against the shell of her ear even though Glinda wasn’t near tall enough even on her tiptoes to reach it, and she takes a deep breath, and she holds her ground, and she pushes forward.

Glinda paces.

She hates calling it that because pacing means she’s waiting on something, which isn’t so much a problem as the being impatient bit is, because much as she hates to admit it (and really, she hates to admit much of anything), she wants to be in there with Elphie. Sure, sure, it’s Elphie’s thing, and she’d said that, and she’d meant it, mostly, but she’d meant it in the way she means it when she pushes against Fiyero and says she’ll pay for dinner, knowing that he’ll eventually be the gentleman and take the check and pay for it all himself. It’s a game, a societal game, where she pushes and plays nice and then Elphie takes her in with her anyway!

Except Elphie didn’t take her in with her.

Brought her all the way here with her – all the way to the Emerald City! – and then just…decided that when Glinda said the Wizard only really asked to see Elphie and maybe it wouldn’t be nice for her to go see him with her and maybe that would upset the Wizard—

Well, maybe it would!

And maybe Elphie should have been okay with upsetting him!

Or maybe she just thought it wouldn’t take this long. Or Elphie would let him know that she had a very good friend – a best friend, even – waiting right outside who would also like to be in there with him, and then the Wizard would have let Glinda be part of everything, too. She doesn’t know why she thought that; Elphie could convince the Wizard to let anyone in with her; Elphie doesn’t have the natural ability to do that – Glinda doesn’t either, but she’s got more natural ability than Elphie does, and she’d practiced her entire life to make people like her, to be likeable, and to be likeable in a way that gets them to do what she asks, and she’s quite good at it now, except where Elphie’s concerned, because Elphie doesn’t play the game the way everyone else does—

Glinda paces.

She doesn’t ring her hands because that would give away her impatience and it would make her look like she’s anxious, and she’s not anxious, and…and even if she was, she wouldn’t want anyone to know it.

Elphie’s been in there an awfully long time.

Maybe she should…you know…go check on her.

That’s the nice, friendly thing to do, right? If she was in there a long time, Elphie would go check on her. Of course, if she was in there, Elphie would have waited out here. No, Elphie probably wouldn’t have even come. She would know how much Glinda wanted to meet with the Wizard, and she wouldn’t have hitched a ride, no matter how much Glinda asked, because that’s the sort of person Elphie is.

Glinda sighs – it’s more of a huff, really, but no one needs to know that – and then settles in to sit on the stairway and wait.

She waits for all of three seconds before she’s back up and pacing again.

And then.

Glinda hears the announcement overhead.

Or – she starts to hear the announcement and then hears the panicking of the Ozians of Emerald City and the clump-clump-clumping of military boots in step as they rush as one towards the doors where Elphie went in to meet the Wizard—

And then those officers push her out of the way – which no one ever does! – and Glinda tumbles adorably to the ground in a way that very clearly says that someone somewhere should pay attention to the fact that excuse you, you pushed her or at least excuse you, she FELL – but everyone’s panicking, and no one is paying attention, and she has to drag herself across the ground – ew, gross, ew, gross, this is not RIGHT – until she’s up against a building, out of the way, so that she doesn’t get trampled underfoot.

Which is just wrong.

Glinda leans against the building – she’s not even sure which one it is – with one arm wrapped around her stomach, breathing heavily for reasons she does not like. The announcement is still going, that warning, that blaring, as though on repeat, and maybe it is. Something about an intruder who stole the Grimmerie from the Wizard and is now at large, an intruder who could be easily seen due to the green color of her skin—

“Elphie,” Glinda whispers aloud, even though said Elphie is nowhere around to hear her, “what did you do?”

But Elphie isn’t there to answer her – and if that announcement is anything to be believed, there’s no way to know where Elphie even is. The guards will get her eventually, for stealing the Grimmerie, for stealing from the Wizard, and then…and then….

Glinda pushes herself up. There are no guards in front of the door, as though they’ve all pushed inside to try and find Elphie, and while everyone panicking is running away, she walks, one arm still about her stomach, forward. She’s dirty and her hair is messed up and her side aches and her arm—

The arm held tightly at her stomach looks like it might be broken, actually, but she’s not concerned about that.

(They pushed her down on the stairs. Something tells her she should be glad she’s upright.)

But she’s barely halfway back across before she hears the shrieking and sees the finger pointing and is rushed by the great crowd of people going away, away, away – and she stands her ground until she’s left alone in the street, alone except for—

“Glinda!”

Elphie is flying. Elphie is flying and holding onto a broomstick and flying on a broomstick, and maybe when those guards pushed her, she hit her head a little too hard because Elphie can’t fly—

“Glinda, take my hand!”

Glinda stares at Elphie’s hand held out in front of her and blinks twice. ��I…I can’t. My arm is broken. One of those awful guards pushed me and—” Her eyes narrow, and she tilts her head back as far as she can so that she can meet Elphie’s eyes. “What did you do?”

Elphie doesn’t wince the way most people would under the force of Glinda’s words – she winces when Glinda mentions her broken arm, and she lands just enough to hold the broomstick out so that Glinda can climb on, like riding a broomstick is the same as riding a horse – and she doesn’t hold Glinda’s gaze because she’s focused on other things. “The Wizard is lying,” she says, blunt and loud over the people around them. “The Wizard is lying, and he can’t do magic, and he’s been hurting the Animals, and—”

“Well, maybe he has a reason—”

“Glinda.” Elphie turns just enough to meet her gaze, to hold it. “There is no reason to be hurting the Animals.”

“I’m not sure about—”

“There was no reason to hurt Dr. Dillamond.”

Glinda shuts up then. She’s not sure that Dr. Dillamond was hurt, exactly, but— “You need to tell me everything.”

“Right now?” Elphie gestures to the crowd around them and then freezes, eyes large. “The guards are coming.”

“But I need to—”

“Glinda, the guards are coming, and I will explain everything to you after, but you have to come with me.” Elphie turns back to her, and Elphie looks panicked, and Elphie never looks panicked. She holds the broomstick in front of her. “Sit in front. I’ll keep you safe, okay, and then when we land, I can….” Her eyes grow dark, but not with anger or hatred or anything like that, with something else that Glinda can’t name. “I can fix your arm.”

Glinda shakes her head. “Elphie, you can’t do that—”

“Maybe I can.”

The guards are coming – that awful clump-clump-clumping, but faster, and if they’d pushed her down before, when she’d only been slightly in their way, there’s no telling what they will do to her now when she’s standing here with Elphie – or if Elphie were to leave her and—

Glinda looks warily at the broomstick, steps half over it, and pretends that it’s some sort of horse as she sits on it. She grips the stick with one hand the way that she sees Elphie do with both of hers, only Elphie is holding her tightly, too, one arm on either side of her to hold her in place. “Is this…is this right?”

“I’ve got you.”

Then Elphie jumps, and they’re off.

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