Chapter Text
It was finally over.
The Wizard had left Oz, Madame Morrible had been taken away. The Wicked Witch had been defeated, the traitorous Captain of the Guard barely an afterthought in people’s minds.
All that was left was Glinda, to lead the people of Oz to a better tomorrow in these trying times. To be their beacon of hope.
Glinda the Good... What a joke. It was her fault they were gone. She had been the one to give Madame Morrible the idea of using Nessa to get to Elphaba. She had no idea Morrible would actually hurt the sister—hadn’t thought it through at all, truth be told. It had been a suggestion offered in the spur of the moment, freshly distraught from her fiancé leaving her at the altar to run away with her best friend.
She hadn’t known what would happen, but that didn’t absolve her of blame. Glinda was done making excuses for herself, rationalizing away any harm caused by her actions.
If she hadn’t said it, Elphie wouldn’t have been there to mourn her sister. If Glinda hadn’t given in to her pettier urges, lashing out at Elphie for Fiyero choosing her, they would not have spent so much time fighting each other until the Guard arrived to capture her friend. If Elphie hadn’t gotten caught, Fiyero wouldn’t have had to step in to give her an escape. He wouldn’t have been captured in her stead, taken away to be tortured and... made example of.
It was Glinda’s fault that he was dead.
That Elphie was gone.
She still wasn’t sure if Elphie was actually dead or not. Despite what some might’ve thought of her, she wasn’t so simple minded to believe the rumor of water being able to kill her friend. What she did know, however, was that Elphaba was tired of running, of being villainized, of being alone. If she’d wanted the pain to stop, she was more than powerful enough to make it happen. She was also quite capable of faking her death and disappearing for good. It was Elphie, she could do anything.
Glinda hoped it was the second option, dear Oz she did, although that didn’t make the situation much better. Elphie would still be gone, forced to leave behind the only home she had ever known after losing everyone close to her heart.
Partly because of Glinda.
She’d never wanted this. If only she could do it again, do it all again, she would have...
A flurry of movement, accompanied by a bright glow, caught her attention.
The Grimmerie, the last thing Elphie had given her, had opened, the pages rapidly unfurling the way she’d seen it happen when Elphaba approached it... before finally settling on a page and resting still. What the...
Cautiously she approached, her despair momentarily replaced by sheer wonder at the sight in front of her. When she was close enough to make out the contents, she gasped. The words...
They actually made sense to her. Somehow, impossibly, she had a sudden feeling that she knew how to read them, should she choose to. This was everything she’d ever wanted, a childhood dream finally come true—yet all she could focus on was the large, shining diagram of a clock on top of the page, golden like the rest of it. She had seen the book respond to intention, offering a spell the caster might need to achieve their goal. And she had just been thinking...
Could it be?
And more importantly, was she brave enough to try?
Despite her best efforts, Galinda Upland had never managed to cast a single spell in her life (fortunately timed rainbow at her childhood birthday party notwithstanding). She had never succeeded in doing anything even remotely magical before. Was she really about to attempt to mess with the flow of time itself for her first spell from the Grimmerie? Madame Morrible, for all her faults, had probably been right about the spells from it being irreversible. If Glinda screwed this up, she could put everything in jeopardy. She could make things so much worse.
Even as she was thinking this, she was already tracing the strange script with her fingers, sounding the words out in her head.
She could ruin everything, yes. But she could also get the people she loves back. She could make a difference. She could make things right.
She could do something good.
Glinda closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. And started reading.