Chapter Text
Good stories transcend borders, one after another, or so the pompous minstrels of every city like to say, to whom the malicious whispers about Elphaba have touched. One after another, they have had to be silenced by a smiling Glinda, flushed with a springtime glow on her cheeks, which few, or rather almost no one, knows she drowns in flower milk at night, when the weight of her actions dulls the shine of the one in her heart she has called her emerald. After all, Elphaba, her Elphie, was the true emerald in the whole world. For Glinda, neither the thousands of tulips nor the aromatic flowers from pole to pole in the world can rival the scent or the murmur of Elphaba’s loud laughter, and now all she has to remember her by are dreams, dreams, and more dreams, flooded with beautiful scenes, of Elphaba running through the wheat, smiling like a child, or talking nonstop about everything she would do.
Some nights, she will dream that Elphie lies next to her and tells her the childhood stories she loved hearing from her governess’s mouth on winter days. When she is very lucky, she will imagine Elphaba crying in her arms, not from sadness or the deaf rejection of those university days, but from immense joy because she loves her. She will kiss her forehead, wipe the tears from her eyes, and after what would seem like a century of shared, knowing glances, they would give themselves to each other. Elphie would always be the shyest and deny herself an overwhelming pleasure when Glinda ran her fingers along her curves, eventually hiding her flushed face in greener shades with a bright pink pillow, and finally, Glinda would force her to look at her, to tell her to let it go, that she has her, that she will always have her, that this time she will not be afraid and will choose her above all things. But when she is about to speak, it’s always the same: the voice of her loud assistants calling her at the door with the tinkle of crystal bells and the sepulchral glow of that false sun of the diamond city by which she has lost Elphaba. A lie she tells herself every day awakens her. At that moment, she will cry and cry, having to lie about a speck of dust entering the room.
Glinda's favorite activity since Elphaba died... is crying. Everything reminds her of her: every breeze kissing her face, the clattering of lacquered shoes, the prodigious braids in black hair, the black suits with silver details, the loud and strong teenage smile that most would say is annoying, or the hats sold as a mockery of Elphaba. That will tear her insides apart. Then she will literally lock herself in her bubble and cry until she tells herself that she did the right thing.
Until nightfall…
They say she hates the color green, but the truth is that green seems to be the only thing that calms her crushed heart. Sometimes, she will allow herself to write letter after letter full of everything she couldn't tell Elphaba. Some are filled with anger and rage, asking why it had to be this way. If only she had kept her mouth shut, but she immediately throws them into the fire. After all, Elphie is dead and she still breathes. And in those moments, Glinda’s sparkling tears wash the paper. She has been given glory and oh, her Elphie has been condemned to oblivion, to pain, and to walking in darkness. She could have accompanied her and been her light in the darkest days. Elphaba liked to watch the rain, and since her death, every day is rain in Glinda's heart. It rains without stopping, like an eternal flood that nothing, not even the sparkle of the entire emerald city, can calm.
"Nobody knows, but when she looks in the mirror, where once she had found a deafening beauty staring back, now all she can see is ugliness... Where pink had brought her joy, now she only feels pain. But no one will know. After all, they don't even know that the color she loves with all her heart is green."