Chapter Text
Glinda’s time as a political figurehead was heavily regimented. Every tick of the clock—whether she had any real power—was scheduled by her team of executive advisors, who dictated where she should be and when, and never a moment left unaccounted for.
So when she had witnessed the assassination of her best friend just hours ago, there had been no time for tears. The good witch put on a brave face for her fellow Ozians, celebrating the witch’s death and the new era of Ozian greatness it would usher in.
It had been mere moments since the Wizard had departed—rather unceremoniously—in a hot air balloon, and then…that was that. She was left in charge, standing on the balcony of the Emerald Palace, with tens of thousands of adoring citizens below, hanging on her every word.
She had never felt more alone surrounded by so many people.
The new ruler of Oz: Glinda Upland of the Upper Uplands, first and only daughter of Highmuster Arduenna and Larena Upland, never had any true political aspirations of her own—only social ones. A dream for a wand, a comfortable life, and a handsome beau on her arm. Who was she to care for all these desperate people? And yet here she was: Oz’s greatest. The cream of the crop, as the Wizard would put it.
Another noble speech to the crowd, and the heavy emerald doors slammed shut. Glinda bid farewell to the sunlight and the cheerful revelry consuming the streets. The sudden silence was deafening.
The massive palace seemed emptier than it had been since she had stepped in all those years ago, hand in hand with her best friend, eager for their lives to begin. The echoing catacombs of vaulted ceilings and endless hallways invited her to rest in her own private horror show: the water splash; the scream; the hiss of melting flesh—all replaying in her mind like a macabre kinetoscope. Then she remembered the team of advisors behind her, waiting on bated breath for her next command.
Correction — she was waiting for them. For their next command of time.
“Your Goodness?”
Pfannee, her ever-so-chic executive assistant stepped forward in a sickly sharp pale green suit. Her angular features were accented by expertly applied makeup—red lips and emerald eyeshadow—and her black baubles of hair wobbled with each step in impossibly high heels, making her tower over Glinda.
Pfannee’s greatest accessory was tucked under her arm: a clipboard, wielded with authority, covered in scribbles and crossed-out lines.
“Your next appointment is in the western wing, south tower. If we leave now, you won’t be late.”
As she made her way through the halls, Glinda focused on the clack of her heels on the marble floor, and the strange leather tome she had clutched to her chest for the last few hours: the Grimmerie, alien in the hands of its undeserving new owner.
With each step, Glinda's body protested, threatening to collapse into an exhausted heap. She silenced it with a sharp inhale, forcing herself forward.
One foot in front of the other, her brain told her. Keep going.
"What's this appointment regarding, Pfannee?"
Pfannee glanced at her clipboard.
“There is a delegation requesting an audience.”
Glinda nodded, barely listening.
Pfannee continued. "The girl-hero, Dorothy, and her three friends who defeated the Wicked Witch—"
“The Wizard's already seen to them, Pfannee.”
“He has, Your Goodness, but he left on his balloon before he could grant all their wishes. The girl is still wishing to go home.”
“Girl? What girl?"
"Dorothy."
"She left on that air balloon with the Wizard.”
“About that…he left without her.”
Glinda stopped in her tracks.
“What!”
She spun on the girl.
"Did you say he left without her?" Glinda’s tone sharpened, the veil of niceness slipping momentarily.
"…Yes?" Pfannee gulped, clutching her clipboard to her chest.
“So what am I supposed to do about it?” Glinda snapped.
“Well, you could magic her back home with your powers,” Pfannee offered, glancing at the Grimmerie.
The veil returned.
“Yes, of course,” Glinda said, masking the faint crack in her voice with a practiced smile.
She squeezed the great spell book tightly.
Pfannee exhaled and resumed their stroll. “The other three just wish to meet you, Your Goodness. They are in awe of you and would like a private audience with the great Glinda the Good—a good old-fashioned face-to-face. I don’t think that’s much to ask, given what they’ve just done for their country.”
Glinda's smile widened. Not like she had anything better to do than entertain the three murderous accomplices with her presence.
The private receiving room was quaint compared to the rest of the palace—barely three hundred square feet, carpeted in deep emerald green, with green pinstripe wallpaper and gilded crown molding trimming the tall domed ceiling.
Artificial light from a great chandelier accented the centre where a sunroof should have been. Orchids in soft pink, her signature colour, adorned a stand nearby. Already, the palace was starting to adapt to her.
A velvety chaise lounge stood in the corner. Glinda stared at it longingly. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept. She started toward it, entranced by the thought of flopping into its soft cushion.
“Miss Glinda?” Pfannee’s voice pulled her back.
“Ah yes, I was just—”
Glinda awkwardly dumped the Grimmerie onto the chaise.
“It’s just heavy,” she muttered.
She eyed the book with envy as it sunk into the chaise. Then blinked. For a moment, she thought the pages had shifted—but it was a trick of the light, or her own imagination. Had to be.
“She’s ready to see you,” Pfannee said.
“Send her in.”
A private audience with the girl who had killed her best friend. The girl Glinda had sent down the Yellow Brick Road…wearing those awful shoes…right into the Wizard's clutches.
Glinda fiddled with a small green vial in her pocket as Dorothy Gale from Kansas shyly stepped into the receiving room. The brave little hero — a timid finch trapped in a cage with a hawk.
With one infirm hand, Dorothy lifted the witches broomstick as if it were a sceptre or perhaps a severed head — Glinda couldn't tell. The waif laid the broom on the floor in front of Glinda, displaying her bounty, before stepping back, head bent low in some form of bizarre bow.
The Wizard hadn't accepted the broomstick?
Glinda received it with a tight smile, stepping unceremoniously over the ugly old stick.
"Thank you, child."
She had never liked children. Their tiny stature reminded her of Munchkins—always whining, always needing placation, always expecting smiles in return.
The girl dared to look up, fear and desperation in those giant blue orbs. The Wizard had promised her a way home in a hot air balloon in exchange for the broom but — shucks — he left before she could hitch a ride. So it was someone’s job to hold up his end of the bargain.
"How do I go home?"
The girl looked at Glinda as if she held all the answers, full of expectation that this great magical witch would solve her every problem. Not like Glinda had her own—and a whole nation’s—to contend with.
Glinda kept her smile glued in place, while eyeing the "situation" up and down.
Her eyes caught the blinding glimmer of the girl’s silver shoes, a dazzling reminder of Glinda’s betrayal—shoes meant to carry people from one place to the next.
“Your shoes,” she lied, “tap your heels three times and—"
what the fuck, Glinda—
“say there’s no place like home.”
Dorothy looked at her, bewildered. Could it really be that simple? Glinda repeated the instructions as if saying it twice would make it true. The girl naively, thankfully, believed her.
Dorothy closed her eyes. Glinda did too.
“There’s no place like home.”
Click.
Glinda kept her eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable look of disappointment when she reopened them. The first of many, no doubt.
“There’s no place like home.”
Click.
Closing her eyes had been a mistake—the dreaded peep show replayed behind her eyelids. The water. The scream. The hiss.
“There’s no place like—”
A hot tear escaped.
Not now, Glinda, stop, she thought. Yet Elphie appeared again. This time not in Kiamo Ko. They were back in Shiz. A quiet moment together in an open field just outside campus. They were watching the sunset. And she wasn't alone. Fiyero was there and Nessa and Boq.
She shook her head, trying to shake the vision, but it wouldn't go away. More tears escaped.
Glinda inhaled.
Her eyes fluttering rapidly, trying to blink away her tears. The watery bastards blurred her vision, casting little rainbows in front of her eyes as the artificial light refracted in the tear film.
She closed her eyes tight, shutting out the last little rainbow.
She exhaled.
Her mind went quiet. Elphaba was gone.
“Home.”
Click.
Silence.
She waited a breath or two…then opened her eyes. The girl wasn't there anymore.
“Dorothy?”
She stuck her head out into the hallway—no one but a palace guard.
"Have you seen Dorothy?"
He shook his head. "I thought she was in there with you, Your Goodness."
Glinda looked back into the room, closing and reopening her eyes, expecting the girl to magically reappear. But the space was empty.
It was as if the girl had been erased from existence.
Out of the corner of her eye, Glinda saw the Grimmerie, pages open…and glowing.
Glinda's stomach dropped.
What had she just done?
She stumbled towards the book. Kneeling, she read the contents—but it was all gibberish, impossible to decipher.
Pfannee popped her head in.
“How’s it going in here? Just checking the schedule—oh…oh? She’s gone? Where did she go?”
Glinda stared at her, speechless.
Pfannee’s eyes flicked to the open Grimmerie. “You granted her wish, Your Goodness. Thank goodness! She was getting a bit tiresome, always whinging about going home. I hope she’s happy wherever she is.”
“Me too,” said Glinda, eyes fixed on the book. She slammed it shut and flung it at Pfannee.
“Please,” she said, voice sharp, “take this to my room—and be very, very careful."
She adjusted her tiara and stood back up.
"So…who’s next?”
The next visitor was the Scarecrow. Glinda had heard rumours, but seeing him with her own eyes was beyond comprehension.
The thing was human-sized, dressed in a green Emerald Guard uniform worn by the elements—a captain’s insignia stitched crudely onto his shoulder. Jagged sutures zigzagged across his burlap body, threatening to loosen at any moment. His limbs moved without a puppeteer, nor with any skeletal or muscular support, lanky and uncoordinated; even a slight breeze might knock him over.
He wore a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed most of his face, which was probably for the best. Glinda had already seen far too much today.
He stopped about ten feet away and bowed low. The shift in his centre of gravity nearly toppled him forward. A few strands of straw slipped from his stitching and flitted to the floor near her feet.
Glinda looked down to examine a strand. That was straw. Real straw.
It took him a moment to right himself back up to standing.
The shy fellow kept his gaze down, refusing to meet her eyes. Glinda often had that effect on men—or men-like creatures—but she had no idea what to make of a walking, talking scarecrow.
A man made of bovine fodder, declared a hero of Oz. Her imagination betrayed her, conjuring an image of him flailing helplessly in a cow’s mouth.
She pursed her lips, stifling a giggle.
No — compose yourself.
She needed to act appropriately, but truly—what was “appropriate” for a living scarecrow? There was no rulebook, no etiquette, nothing to follow in a circumstance like this.
Such strange things had once been common in Oz, but magic was dying, and along with it, the world’s acceptance of the unusual.
Glinda stiffened her shoulders and managed to deliver her signature charm.
“Congratulations on your magnificent triumph over the Wicked Witch of the West.”
He said nothing.
“For your service to Oz, we are awarding you the highest honour: the Medal of Merlin.”
She moved to a stand displaying three medals, took the first, and closed the distance between them. She pinned it above his heart, accidentally piercing the straw beneath the cloth. A brief panic seized her. Did she wound him?
She started to apologize, but the Scarecrow didn’t seem to notice the puncture.
She stepped back.
“Thank you. All of Oz thanks you,” she sang in her melodious tone.
He bowed again, and Glinda feared he might topple over, but he managed to straighten and shuffled toward the door.
Before the gangly hero exited, his hand lingered on the handle. A soft, almost inaudible, “I’m sorry,” escaped him.
Before she could process what he said, he was gone.
Next, she was to receive the Tin Man—another bizarre creature who had appeared in Oz around the same time as the living scarecrow, the flying house, and the mysterious girl from who-knows-where-sas.
Unlike the Scarecrow, Glinda had seen him before, but only from afar. Her first glimpse came during the night of the mob, watching from the palace balcony as the citizens of Oz, bloodthirsty and roaring, clamoured for the witch’s death.
It hadn’t been that long ago, had it? Events blurred together, but she remembered him clearly: vengeful, heartless, cruel, rallying the witch hunters with cries for her death.
And in the next breath it was gazing up at her from the streets, and they had caught eyes for the briefest of moments.
She remembered that stare. The unbridled rage behind it.
Glinda shuddered at the thought of receiving that thing in person. He, of all three friends, was the one she was least looking forward to. She turned her back to the door, steadying herself on the arm of the chaise, calming her mind buzzing with images of torches and buckets of water.
The door opened and closed. She could hear the groan and moan of joints and the heavy clunk of accompanying footsteps drawing closer. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.
Calm down, Glinda. Come on.
She turned. It took all her willpower to stay in place.
His body was an abomination of tin plates wrought together to form the semblance of a person. In places, he simply wasn’t complete—gaps at his joints opening onto nothing at all.
It took her a moment to realize that his body parts were fashioned from recycled objects—a teapot here, some silverware there, a water vase.
His composition, though imperfect, was strangely beautiful—elegant tinwork, intricate lithography, a rushed but delicate assemblage. Glinda couldn't help but appreciate the craftsmanship. The creator had clearly taken care in its design.
He trudged toward her, each painstaking step a squeal of joints that made her cringe at the impossible, mechanical motion. He paused for a moment, seemingly self-conscious of the noise, adjusting his gait without much effect as another agonizing squeal betrayed him. It was the epitome of pitiful.
Glinda momentarily forgot her fear, wondering what cruel fate had created this being. Oh, right…Elphaba.
What had Elphie done to this thing?
And then he looked at her.
Those eyes—once burning into hers—now reflected an empty, inhuman stare.
He stopped mere inches from her, hollow eyes boring into hers. Tin sheets formed cheekbones, temples, and a jaw—sharp, inflexible edges riveted together. A curved metal spout served as a nose; mechanical eyes clicked when they blinked. Tiny delicate hinges allowed expression.
It was so…human.
Something about his face tugged at her. Not the metal. The shape of it. The proportions.
His features, though distorted, were uncanny—transporting her back to another place and time. She saw flashes of a green girl with pink flowers in her hair, Dillamond’s classroom, dull books, duller students, lunch trays in the cafeteria, and a terribly annoying munchkin boy with flaming red hair.
No—that wasn’t possible.
The thing in front of her didn’t have hair, but it did have the same jaw, cheeks, forehead, nose, eyes—
“Boq?”
The eyes softened at her sudden recognition, a faint glimmer of life—unsure and self-conscious, fearful even.
Without thinking, she touched his cheek—his sweet, boyish feature grotesquely set in metal—half-expecting to feel warm flesh.
Instead, she was met with a cold shock.
She recoiled—but before she could pull away, he seized her wrist in a steely grip.
Her heart lurched.
For a moment, she froze, breath caught somewhere high in her chest. The pressure was firm—unyielding—but not tightening. Not hurting. He wasn’t crushing her. He was holding her there.
She looked up at him.
He was waiting.
For what, she didn’t know.
Slowly—carefully—she stilled in his grasp. Then, with tentative curiosity, she ran her thumb over the grooves of his knuckles, tracing the ridges of metal, the seams, the joints.
His grip on her wrist loosened—just slightly.
With deliberate care, she turned his palm in hers.
Five spindly digits clicked and wiggled. Glinda tried to hide the flinch as best she could, but she didn’t pull her hand back.
He let her hold his hand in hers, inviting the inspection, watching her as she did.
She traced the heart line of his palm, etched into the tin.
His thumb twitched beneath hers—a small, awkward motion that felt achingly familiar.
She steadied it.
She looked up at him again. Their eyes met. For a split second, she swore she saw something she had seen years ago in a Shiz classroom.
Without thinking, she lifted her hand—drawn by that fleeting familiarity—and reached for his cheek again, to correct her mistake.
He jerked back.
The movement was sudden, violent—metal shrieking as he tore himself out of her reach.
Glinda froze.
The sweet boy from her memory was gone.
His eyes, no longer hollow, now burned with something she couldn’t name. Hatred? Disdain?
Worse.
Loathing.
He held her gaze a moment before the whetted glint in his eyes dulled to a vacant stare.
Muscle memory took over:
“Congratulations on your magnificent triumph over the Wicked Witch of the West. For your duty to Oz.”
She grabbed a Merlin medal with a magnetic fastener, stepping forward to pin it over where his heart should be. A low clang echoed within his drum-like chest. He was…empty.
A wet tear ran down her cheek as the cold realization hit: just like Nessa, Elphie, and Fiyero, Boq—the Boq she knew—was gone.
She plastered her most brilliant smile on her face.
“Thank you, all of Oz thanks you.”
A knock at the door startled her. Pfannee poked her head inside.
“Sorry to interrupt, Your Goodness, you have one more visitor waiting.”
The Tin Man bowed and walked back briskly, making an effort to exit as quickly as possible with undignified squeaks and squawks.
Pfannee instinctively covered her ears. Glinda quickly looked down and wiped away the errant tear that had escaped her. When she looked up again, he was lingering near the doorway watching her, his expression unreadable.
Glinda took a breath to say something. She didn't know what.
He turned and marched out.
“Madam, are you alright?” Pfannee asked.
“Just give me a moment please,” Glinda brushed past her to follow him.
“Boq?”
She scanned the waiting room. He couldn’t have gone far, even at a brisk pace.
“Your Goodness?”
She turned to the guard outside the door.
“Have you seen Boq?”
“Who?”
"Bo…"
The name felt foolish suddenly. Foreign.
“Your Goodness?” Pfannee peeked out again. “We’re running behind schedule. Are you sure you’re alright?”
Glinda smoothed her skirts.
“Yes, I’m alright. The heroism of these three fellows is… admirable. It brings one to tears, really, in the face of such wickedness.”
Pfannee nodded sympathetically, but Glinda noticed the sharp tap of her shoes on the floor.
“So who’s next?”
The Cowardly Lion was last. Glinda smiled widely as he regaled her with tales of his bravery—how he had conquered the evil witch, replaying her final moments before her defeat at the paws of the triumphant four. Despite the hatred she felt toward the lion for the death of her friend, his boastful yet amiable nature was hard not to like.
“Miss Glinda?” he said. He was in the middle of describing how he had frightened a horde of Winkie guards protecting the witch, after Glinda had already awarded him his medal. She realized she had been drifting.
She blinked hard, straightening.
“I’ve just—” she sniffled, “I’m terribly sorry. I’ve had a long day.”
“Would you like a hug?” he asked, holding his paws out.
The gesture, though well-meaning, was highly inappropriate and entirely against protocol. Yet in that moment it seemed like the most wonderful idea in the world.
She hesitated only a second before nodding.
He wrapped her in a warm, furry embrace. It was solid and real and uncomplicated. She hadn’t realized how cold she’d felt until then.
When they finally parted, he smiled down at her with warm eyes and a toothy grin.
“Thank Oz we have someone as good as you to lead us.”
Glinda kept her smile in place.