Title: Elphaba, Elphie, Fabala, Fae

Author: Angel Leviathan

Spoilers: The whole book.

Notes: None.

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She waited. She thought. She studied the Grimmerie. She mourned. Maybe she was Wicked. It didn't matter anymore. Everything had led to this. Good, evil, none of it mattered. Elphaba was just a woman. Trapped in circumstances beyond her control. So she thought. She couldn't break free. Maybe that stupid binding spell had been a step to fulfil a prophecy. Glinda had become the Witch of the North. Nessa had been labelled the Wicked Witch of the East. And she had become the Wicked Witch of the West by association. Only by association? Or by deed? The shoes. She obsessed about the shoes. They should have been hers. They couldn't be allowed to reach the Wizard. Glinda knew, Glinda should have known, why hadn't Glinda realised? Her closest friend and symbol of all that she had failed at. She was alone now, aside from damnable Liir and doddering Nanny. She waited for the girl in the chequered dress to come and kill her. Glinda had sent her on her way. Glinda…oh why hadn't she ever seen past the false nature of the world?

Glinda's betrayal still stung. It wasn't really a betrayal of any sorts, but whatever it was, it hurt. She had only done what was expected of her. Married high, become a true lady, become everything people needed to have faith in. Glinda the Good. They loved and respected her. What they would never know was that her soul was just as tarnished as Elphaba's. Glinda too had her own motives and her own reasons for what she did, for good or otherwise. She saw herself as the betrayed. Abandoned. It was she who had supported Nessa all those years. And it was she who had enchanted the shoes. Those damned shoes. Glinda had no idea what she had done. No idea what they meant. And she had given them to a simple child!

So maybe she was self absorbed. Just a little. She wanted those shoes for her own selfish reasons, not just to keep the power from the Wizard. Those shoes had always been for Nessa, never for her. Never anything for Elphaba. Her father had feared what she was. And loved her only as an aid to Nessarose. Her father had been stupid, and blind. But she had loved him all the same. It never seemed to matter what she did. All she ever did was cause herself pain. Any time she tried something. She had tried to do good and nothing but trouble had ever come of it. Doctor Dillamond, Glinda…Fiyero. Everything she ever did only meant more hurt. More pain, more despair, more misery. Nobody loved her. Everyone she had ever loved she had led to destruction. Good meant nothing. Good was a figment. Just something to say when everything turned out right and supposedly nobody got hurt. She had worked and worked and for what?

She was responsible for the Lion. Nessa was responsible for the Tin Man. Maybe Glinda was responsible for the Scarecrow. They were all responsible for Dorothy. Even the Wizard. Stupid, innocent, ignorant girl, wearing her sister's shoes! Nessa had believed in the soul. Elphaba believed in the shoes.

Elphaba, Elphie, Fabala, Fae. She could still hear Fiyero's words.But she was none of them now. Elphie had faded when she abandoned Shiz. Fabala died with her father. Fae destroyed herself.

And Elphaba simply became…The Witch.