Well, as school goes, I have in the recent weeks both been awarded a pretty nice scholarship and have gotten through AP’s and most finals, and so I have decided to expand a piece of a scrapped story into a oneshot so I can gloat that while I’m almost done, Glinda still has a year to go.

Important: This is from a fic in which both Elphaba and Fiyero went to the Emerald City (thousands of words were written before Tiggy’s story ever appeared; we simply have bizarrely similar minds sometimes); bear that in mind.

Disclaimer: Wicked and all its accompanying everythings are the creation and property of Gregory Maguire.

For the last time, Glinda drew up a schedule, bought textbooks and clothes, and prayed to make it through the year. Her packages were heavy, so she took a shortcut through the parlor. Shifting a hatbox, she managed to twist the knob and edge her way inside. What she’d forgotten, though, was that the new crop was coming today. She stopped dead, flashing back two years to the day she’d walked into this lobby as a timid fresher.

Glinda looked around at the girls, huddled in nervous clusters as the Amas took tea in the next room. She couldn’t have looked that young when she first came. She’d been sophisticated, knowledgeable! Or had she? She remembered naïve impulses and ideals. The terror at the idea of being sent to a dormitory, the disappointment of being saddled with her green roomie.

But she’d grown. She didn’t hang on an Ama. She looked past the outside when she made friends. She’d experienced terrible things; now she was knowledgeable in the ways of the world, now, when she’d finally stopped trying, she was sophisticated. With a start, she realized that the girls in the room were looking at her with awe and intimidation: She was a third-year girl now! The oldest in the school; about to graduate! Why, this time next year she could be getting married. The thought frightened her, but she remembered what she’d really felt like that first day: terrified.

So she forced a smile onto her face, and introduced herself. “And you’ve done well in coming here,” she said. “I’ve learned more these last two years than I’ve learned the rest of my life.” Elphie… “Just don’t be afraid, stand up for yourselves and what you believe, don’t let yourselves be influenced by talk of grandeur— be who you are.” She looked squarely at Madame Morrible, just entering the room. That great Carp! The Head stared back at her, but Glinda was no longer afraid. She looked back at the students. “And don’t get taken in by first impressions—the one you despise the most can end up being the one that changes you for good.”

Morrible’s mouth compressed into a straight line.

Glinda smiled, shrugged, and walked onward.

THE END