Another Nessa fic
Title: Crash End
Character/Pairing, etc.: Nessarose (bookverse)
Theme: 8. Goodbye
Word Count: 553
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Wicked is all Gregory Maguire's. He writes much better than I can.
Author's Note: This drivel was written after reading about the Egyptian afterlife (the scales, the feather, Anbuis and all that) in American Gods. The story has nothing to do with that but reading it got my juices flowing so to speak. This is after Nessarose is dead. I obviously have no clear view of the afterlife.
The end is blackness. There is not even blackness. There is nothing. Less than nothing. Nessarose wonders where the Unnamed God is, where his ministering angels are, where anything is. As the nothing-blackness (fading into grey) lingers in her mind and all around her, she desperately wants something. Lurline, the Time Clock Dragon, or even some Tiktok comparison because anything is better than this loneliness. And Nessarose realizes she has never been alone, not in all her life. She ponders this. How odd, I’ve never been by myself, singular. There was always something to define myself against. Her religion, her Nanny, her sister, her affliction; these are who she is but without them what is she? Because there is nothing but nothing, Nanny is still alive (oddly enough), Elphaba is Heaven knows where (and she couldn’t care less-that ungrateful bitch leaving her like that), and it hardly matters if she has arms or not, having no body. So, the question is, who is she? She is Nessarose, Eminent Thropp of Munchkinland, and the Witch of the East. But the Unnamed God frowns upon self-flattery, so perhaps just Nessarose will do.
And what is that? A scared, tired little girl who only wants to rest after trudging through swampy marshes? A stuck-up, closed off teenager full of her own self-worth and religious fervor? A self-seasoned ruler full of her own independence and power? This is hardly the way to appear before the Unnamed God. Nessarose finds it strange, almost funny if such things can be funny, that she still clings to her beliefs when there is no comforting evidence. But then again, her religious zeal never depended on tangibles, things you could touch. She trusted her instincts.
So she is left without much of an answer to her identity. But she realizes she might not have been the nicest person ever. Certainly she wasn’t the meanest but she wasn’t the nicest. She held her faith to her like a shield, never having to run the risk of living. Perhaps she was too afraid; perhaps she was too damaged from her father. But it doesn’t matter because there is nothing. Nothing. Except her.
Nessarose thinks it’s nice to be alone. She begins to understand Elphaba sneaking away on those rare occasions to read some unionist ministry pamphlets or whatever. Perhaps there is solace is aloneness. It’s not so bad. She somewhat likes it. Now if only she could have finished presenting those medals to those children…
There is, not a light, but an absence of nothing. Something is shining through, onto the armless woman who isn’t quite armless but not quite armful, either. How pretty, she thinks, this something. It fills her. She feels warm and content. She enjoys her own company and she is never alone. She never loved another living thing completely (the Unnamed God doesn’t count) and she was, inexplicably, loved. Despite her faults, high-headed, pig-headed, she was loved. Her father, her mother, her sister, her brother, Nanny and even her Shiz companions, grudgingly, in their own way, for a time. But now the something is filling the space around her and she sees something, a physical person shape, start to take form before her eyes.
And Nessarose sees a man with ruddy skin smiling at her, holding out his hand.
Character/Pairing, etc.: Nessarose (bookverse)
Theme: 8. Goodbye
Word Count: 553
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Wicked is all Gregory Maguire's. He writes much better than I can.
Author's Note: This drivel was written after reading about the Egyptian afterlife (the scales, the feather, Anbuis and all that) in American Gods. The story has nothing to do with that but reading it got my juices flowing so to speak. This is after Nessarose is dead. I obviously have no clear view of the afterlife.
The end is blackness. There is not even blackness. There is nothing. Less than nothing. Nessarose wonders where the Unnamed God is, where his ministering angels are, where anything is. As the nothing-blackness (fading into grey) lingers in her mind and all around her, she desperately wants something. Lurline, the Time Clock Dragon, or even some Tiktok comparison because anything is better than this loneliness. And Nessarose realizes she has never been alone, not in all her life. She ponders this. How odd, I’ve never been by myself, singular. There was always something to define myself against. Her religion, her Nanny, her sister, her affliction; these are who she is but without them what is she? Because there is nothing but nothing, Nanny is still alive (oddly enough), Elphaba is Heaven knows where (and she couldn’t care less-that ungrateful bitch leaving her like that), and it hardly matters if she has arms or not, having no body. So, the question is, who is she? She is Nessarose, Eminent Thropp of Munchkinland, and the Witch of the East. But the Unnamed God frowns upon self-flattery, so perhaps just Nessarose will do.
And what is that? A scared, tired little girl who only wants to rest after trudging through swampy marshes? A stuck-up, closed off teenager full of her own self-worth and religious fervor? A self-seasoned ruler full of her own independence and power? This is hardly the way to appear before the Unnamed God. Nessarose finds it strange, almost funny if such things can be funny, that she still clings to her beliefs when there is no comforting evidence. But then again, her religious zeal never depended on tangibles, things you could touch. She trusted her instincts.
So she is left without much of an answer to her identity. But she realizes she might not have been the nicest person ever. Certainly she wasn’t the meanest but she wasn’t the nicest. She held her faith to her like a shield, never having to run the risk of living. Perhaps she was too afraid; perhaps she was too damaged from her father. But it doesn’t matter because there is nothing. Nothing. Except her.
Nessarose thinks it’s nice to be alone. She begins to understand Elphaba sneaking away on those rare occasions to read some unionist ministry pamphlets or whatever. Perhaps there is solace is aloneness. It’s not so bad. She somewhat likes it. Now if only she could have finished presenting those medals to those children…
There is, not a light, but an absence of nothing. Something is shining through, onto the armless woman who isn’t quite armless but not quite armful, either. How pretty, she thinks, this something. It fills her. She feels warm and content. She enjoys her own company and she is never alone. She never loved another living thing completely (the Unnamed God doesn’t count) and she was, inexplicably, loved. Despite her faults, high-headed, pig-headed, she was loved. Her father, her mother, her sister, her brother, Nanny and even her Shiz companions, grudgingly, in their own way, for a time. But now the something is filling the space around her and she sees something, a physical person shape, start to take form before her eyes.
And Nessarose sees a man with ruddy skin smiling at her, holding out his hand.