She made the journey to Colwen Grounds with a feeling of dread weighing heavily deep within her heart. She had seen Nessarose only a handful of times since graduation, despite the frequent exchange of letters filled with pleasantries and empty assurances of continuing affection. Whilst the younger of the Thropp girls had been being taught how to rule over a sleepy nation, Glinda had been learning how to live with having everything she had ever wanted; learning to live with eternal, ever-thriving disappointment.

Nessa in power. Nessa as the Eminence.

The idea alone made her shiver. Glinda tried to assure herself that whatever she could dream up – whatever dreadful things she feared – would always be worse than what could actually occur. She had learned the hard way never to underestimate Nessa. She knew the girl – woman – looked harmless enough, almost defenceless if a person barely knew her...but Nessa was dangerous. She had spent too long with only her religious leanings for company and too many years bitter that Elphaba had absconded and not even dreamed of taking her with her.

Well. Glinda was still a touch bitter on that score herself.

She was a little frightened about facing Nessa alone. Chuffrey was attending to business and planned only to be a presence at the official ceremony, not staying for any great duration at Colwen Grounds. She had made some grand joke about girl-talk and ‘old friends’ and made all the right reassuring noises and gestures. After the disaster that had not only taken the life of her child, but left her incapable of having children, she and Chuffrey had hardly spent any time together as ‘husband and wife’ and with distance came...theatrics. Many more false smiles and a glassy look in her eyes that suited any occasion and response.

Chuffrey would have been no good at her side anyway. What would he and Nessa have spoken about? Stock portfolios? Politics? Glinda had a head for neither and was rather sure that Nessa herself had little to no interest either. Nessa’s interest in politics had only ever reached as far as it needed to keep her settled in her position of heiress and confident enough to bluff her way through conversation, just as Glinda’s interest in wine only went so far as to have a well-stocked cellar that she hadn’t ordered herself, but pretended to appreciate at social gatherings.

Nessa had been a quiet, yet not biddable girl. Glinda knew that she would no longer be quiet...and feared what an outspoken nature would produce, coupled with the temper constantly simmering under the surface.

-

“Glinda, dear!”

Nessarose seemed genuinely pleased to see her, when Glinda was likely one of the few people at the impending event capable of stealing her limelight. Clad in an elegant black dress that clung in all the right places, accentuating a figure that most women would have killed for, Nessa almost looked beautiful. She was certainly stunning, that was for sure. If it weren’t for the intense darkness in her eyes, the delicately arched eyebrow and calculating expression, she would have been beautiful. Armless and all; she appeared deadly, like a dagger aiming to strike.

“Nessie,” Glinda breathed, so only her old friend could hear, a little afraid that old-nicknames might be inappropriate for company. She wrapped her arms gently about the slender woman, holding her to her for the briefest of moments.

“How was the journey?”

She grimaced and followed it with a smile. “As comfortable as a coach journey of such duration can be.”

“Well, you shall have an hour or so to recuperate and then we really must catch up,” Nessa insisted, stepping back against the ever-present support of old Nanny, as if she expected her to be there with absolute certainty. “Would you prefer tea or cold beverages?” she questioned.

“I... Tea will be fine, thank you.”

“Good. Well, I’ll have your luggage brought up and have you shown to your room.”

As she turned to guide Nessa away, Nanny winked and reached to set a gentle hand on Glinda’s shoulder. “Nanny has missed her blonde dearling, she has,” she said with small smile and fewer teeth than the last time Glinda had set eyes on her.

Glinda halted just before she crossed through the gates to Colwen Grounds. She paused to look up at the old building looming over her, ominous and foreboding. Nessa and Nanny in black, continuing on ahead and the staff in their black and navy livery. It seemed as if a constant funeral was in motion. Nanny and Nessa widows of their positions, trapped within the threatening residence of the Thropp ancestors.

With the Eminent Thropp in his grave days ago and even with Nessa acting the competent lady of the house before she had even taken up her deferred birthright...all was not well at the central command of the deteriorating seat of power that was the Eminence of the East.

-

“Your husband will be joining us for the ceremony?” Nessa enquired. “How is married life?”

Glinda’s reply of, “Tolerable,” was droll enough to be considered a joke. “And yes, he intends to be here. He shan’t be staying, though. He has business to take care of.”

“No little ones to attend to?” Nanny asked.

“No,” came out quickly and harshly, in a hard voice that Glinda didn’t know she possessed. Did she really care that much? She supposed she must. “Well,” she tried to tease, “they would just make sticky marks all over the furnishings, wouldn’t they?” She knew Nanny could see right through her, maybe as a fellow woman who had no children of her own, maybe because she had known the child Glinda too well. Nessa, however, hadn’t seemed to have noticed the pain in her eyes, or laced between her words.

“Children are a lot of mess and effort and then they abandon you when they’ve had enough of you,” Nanny tried to reassure her. “Best off out of it.”

A false smile and a sip of tea was all that Glinda could manage to answer with.

“Now, Glinda, you must be at the front with Shell and Nanny during the ceremony. You’re practically family, you know,” Nessa continued on, oblivious.

“Shell? He’ll be here?” Glinda had briefly met the infamous ‘Father’ Nessa had spoken of, but had yet to run into the brother.

“If he can drag himself away from whatever project he’s got into his head this time.”

“If he can get home in one piece...” Nanny muttered. “Always coming home battered and bruised...if he only knew what his mother went through to bring him into this world, he’d think twice about risking his skin.”

“He knows very well that Mother perished,” Nessa shot back, in staunch defence. “Perhaps he feels he must punish himself. Who am I to question my brother? He has not taken the Unnamed God’s words to heart and he will not listen to Father or I. We must not begrudge him his little adventures.”

If Glinda was surprised by such words, she didn’t show it, but for a stiffening of her muscles and a straightening of her back. Why was this boy permitted his adventures, but Elphaba was not?

As Nessa prattled on, with the occasional comment from Nanny, Glinda retreated into her own little world of polite society, as if she were with any other society girl. She sipped at her tea, nibbled on a biscuit or two, and just...smiled.

-

Nessa had insisted that she would make the journey to the old, grand wooden seat herself, without any support. It was only to be crossing a room, she had argued, though she knew that she had rarely crossed any sort of room in her life without knowing there was someone there to catch her if she fell. It was simple, she had declared, mere steps, all the while aware that what almost every person she knew took for granted was the one thing she had never been able to accomplish to what she deemed an ‘acceptable’ standard; walking alone and unsupported.

She would never accomplish it, Glinda thought. For all her distrust of Nessa, she had no desire to watch her make a fool of herself. Not at a moment when it was imperative that shedidn’t. If she so much as lay sprawled on the floor for even a second, it would be as if she had sent an invitation to be assassinated. All but incapable of defending herself behind closed doors; Nessa did not need to demonstrate this in the public eye. She needed to prove she was strong. Glinda knew that, no matter how mentally capable Nessarose might be, that physical appearance would be considered first. If she showed that she couldn’t even cross a room, she was only setting herself up as a target.

It wasn’t until the ceremony itself and Glinda, standing between Chuffrey and Shell, the brother she had heard so little about, observed the slow journey and shuffling, stumbling steps of Nessa as she made her way to the head of the room, that she knew what she had to do. Seating herself in the giant chair of her ancestors – making her look impossibly doll-like – Nessa crossed her legs at the ankles, pushing forward and displaying the silver shoes set impossibly snugly on her feet.

Glinda’s gaze fell to the shoes and she knew...

For all her faults, Nessa did not deserve to be made an easy target, simply for being born into an old aristocratic family. Because Elphaba had left her to it. Because politics demanded it.

Nessa believed there was a magical quality to those shoes. She was never without them. She believed they symbolised something; granted her some hidden strength.

Glinda would make sure that they did.

-

She could not pretend that she was a talented sorceress. She did not have the best class of degree and hadn’t practiced spells and magic to any great extent since Shiz. She had dabbled, of course, when some book or another had caught her eye and she had believed a small incantation or two might be useful. Saving Nessa from herself would involve more than dabbling.

It should have been Elphaba, Glinda seethed. She was alive, she was sure of that, despite having not laid eyes on her for over five years. True, that all she had ‘seen’ of her had been a green nose and a devoted Fiyero, but then, who else had such green skin and what lower-class woman would are chastise a prince? Only somebody he knew would have had the boldness to speak in such a way to him in such a way. Only Elphaba. Or...what was it he had called her? Fae. It suited her, somehow. Glinda wondered if she was trying to be ironic, naming herself that. Fae for Fairy, Elves and other creatures. What she had been mocked as. Or maybe Fiyero had given her the name, an affectionate joke. How was she to know?

Even as Eminence, Elphaba would have fawned over Nessa. Protected and taken care of her. Glinda couldn’t help but suspect that Elphaba would have been her little sister’s pawn, even in such a position of power. So, perhaps it was better that Nessa was made to stand alone, with nobody to manipulate.

Except her.

Nessa couldn’t touch her now, she reasoned. Any help she offered was of her own free will. Helping the young Eminence would ease her conscience...and ensure that she was never indebted – by means of being the only other subject of Elphaba’s adoration - to her again.

It was a sorry, twisted mix. Pity, fear, loathing...love. She did love Nessa on some level. The transferral of affection hadn’t been one way. But, whereas Nessa had little idea of who Glinda really was...Glinda knew exactly who Nessa was and what she was about. She had something to prove, some great show of defiance to make. A challenge had been thrown down. Survive without her. Live without her. Make a damned good go of things or perish trying. And most of all, do it because you had never hated – and loved – someone so much in your entire life.

Nessa needed to be able to take care of herself. As it was, she couldn’t even get up off the floor without help. She needed to be able to escape if threatened. To run. Even to simply finish an argument, turn and leave abruptly, without waiting for assistance.

Glinda knew a spell to reinforce buildings. One she had learned on the off-chance that one of her favourite architectural features might face devastation and she could be the one to save it. She could suspend things mid-air, if she concentrated. She knew an incantation to make a feather and a brick balance perfectly against each other on the scales. Balance. That was it. She couldn’t conjure Nessa any arms...but she could give her the balance to move under her own power. Perhaps.

-

“I need your shoes.”

Nessa’s eyes narrowed, but her voice was even as she replied, “Why-ever do you need my shoes?”

“So I can help you, Nessie.”

“You’re not taking them from me.”

Already exasperated from the brief exchange, Glinda shook her head and grit her teeth. “I have no intention of taking them from you. I have closets and closets full of my own shoes – better shoes, might I add – in my own homes. I can help you; let me try.”

“Help me?” Nessa scoffed, the schoolgirl back now that they were utterly alone in her chamber. “If that magic of yours can help me, bring back my great-grandfather. Force my damnable sister here to take my place.”

“You’re the Eminence now, you’ve been groomed for this, you know what you’re doing. What claim does she,” she didn’t dare utter her name, “have to this? This is yours now. She always wanted what you had and now you’ve something that was hers! Use it. Enough, Nessa.”

“I am stuck here, whilst she’s off gallivanting somewhere, and I don’t know what to do for these people who look to me. The Unnamed God will not protect them if they do not embrace him and I cannot aid heathens who don’t wish for my help! They think me to be crazy, Glinda. They think I am a delusional child. I’m not stupid.”

“Wherever she is, I’m sure she’s probably having just about as much fun as you and I are right now,” Glinda answered, voice low. “You need to listen to your people – ignore them for all I care – but if you’re seen to listen to them, then you must hope they will listen to you. You need to be able to look them in the eye without Nanny or some servant supporting you...and that I can help you with.”

Hope lit in dark eyes. “...You...you’re going to stay with me?”

Glinda wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. She had to extinguish that tiny flame. “No,” she stated, forcing all guilt and regret from her voice. “But if you’ll lend your shoes to me for an hour or so...I think I can make you walk without someone constantly hovering behind you. You can go into meetings alone, without a nursemaid. You can be the Eminence, not little Nessarose all your life.”

“My shoes...” Nessa breathed. “You...can’t touch them with magic. You can’t, I won’t permit it.”

She was not, and had never been, as skilled as Nanny or Elphaba at gently manipulating Nessa to back down ever so slightly. “I’m leaving in the morning,” Glinda stated. “You can trust me – believe that the Unnamed God desires this for you – or you can watch me leave from an upstairs window with Nanny at your back, Nessie dearest.” Not graceful, not eloquent...yet the truth.

A haunted look from a terrifyingly alone Nessa and an afternoon of prayer later, she got her hour with the shoes.

-

She wondered, in the weeks and years that followed, whether or not she had done the right thing. Or even if she had had a choice in the matter, really. She had tried to elude Nessa’s company for much of her adult life, save for their letters, afraid that whatever Morrible had done to them that day might trigger and cause her to do something she shouldn’t.

Perhaps it had. There was a difference between dabbling in household magic and casting a life-altering spell. Wherever Elphaba was, Glinda could only hope that she had escaped the fate of the binding spell. She could, maybe, make her peace with never seeing her again, if she knew she had ultimately gained her freedom.

So, she went back to her houses and her delightful summers and playing the proper little wife. She kicked the servants into touch when she had to, slept with her husband if she got that desperate for companionship, and tried to exhaust the funds that kept accumulating in her lap. She spent some time with a despairing Crope, who blamed himself for Tibbett’s decline and eventual death. She tried to be good. She tried to help people, when it suited her.

But, as she had learned from Nessa; once she had helped someone, they didn’t need her anymore.

Then the house fell and changed everything. Her ‘quiet’ life suddenly wasn’t so quiet anymore, and she was all at once a sorceress...a witch, they called her...not merely ‘Lady Glinda’ any longer. That damn spell. The shoes. She should never have touched the shoes. Were it not for that spell... Were it not for Morrible! Elphaba! Poor, demon-Nessa, gone to join her beloved Unnamed God. Yet would he have a witch in his heaven? Had Nessa’s devotion been all for nothing...? He had not saved her...had Glinda herself transformed Nessa into a witch with her demonstration of power? Had she made it...appealing? Had she spoiled her chance at heaven? Oh, Nessie...poor, wicked Nessarose...

But now...now that she was gone...

Nessa had done, perhaps, one good thing in her life. She had forced paths to entwine.

Glinda chose her outfit carefully. She knew, of course she knew, what looked good and what didn’t. She knew the dress she chose was appalling, but wasn’t that the point? To prove what her absence had done? To show what she had left her to become? She couldn’t show her ‘Lady Glinda’, not the real Lady Glinda. She would show her hints of Galinda and of ‘Glinda the Good’, as they were starting to dub her. She would take one look at that dress...and she would know...exactly what she had been through since being abandoned in that carriage all those years ago...

Colwen Grounds, again, in so many years. She hadn’t thought she would see it again so soon.

There she was, still all long limbs and severe features. Still in black.

“Miss Glinda of the Arduennas...”

Nerves made her silly. “Oh, you came, I knew you would.”

There she was. She who had destroyed and rebuilt her so many times. Best friend, worst enemy; quite possibly the love of her life.

“Miss Elphaba, the last true Eminent Thropp, no matter what they say!”

Fin