The Effects of Gravity 22/?, by ainsleyaisling
Title: The Effects of Gravity 22/?
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG-13
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Pairings for Story Overall: Glinda/Fiyero, Elphaba/Fiyero, Glinda/Elphaba
Summary: Politics comes to Shiz again. Another short inter-section; all-Glinda, all the time.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: Previous section can be found here.
Also, in light of what's been happening in the real world, there's a bit of this that might be a little intense. Just, be a bit cautioned.
~~Glinda~~
One thing at least seemed very clear - Glinda's previous plan to preserve Elphaba's reputation among their fellow students at Shiz was right out. For one thing, it was too important to make Elphaba liked, to make her part of the community; Glinda could no longer take the easy way out of pretending that she and Elphaba had no particular friendship. The rumors about their relationship might flare up again, but Glinda was just going to have to try harder to make sure they made the right impression.
The other thing was, well - putting some public distance between herself and Elphaba had seemed a lot easier before their trip to the City. A week ago Elphaba had been distance itself: mysterious, enigmatic, and mostly absent. She'd spent most of her time alone, had told Glinda little about where she went or what she did, and it had seemed that her trust in Glinda was maybe not as complete as it had once been.
But all of that had changed. Since Glinda's experiences with Madame Morrible, and since her mostly-complete confession to Elphaba of what Morrible suspected (Glinda still couldn't bring herself to tell the entire truth), Elphaba seemed to have decided that Glinda should be included in all of her plans. She still spent a great deal of time in the library alone, but now she painstakingly explained every night what she had read, what she was looking for, even when she expected to return to their room. Glinda was beginning to feel a bit like a jealous wife, actually, but she appreciated the care anyway.
On the morning that four of their classmates were arrested, Glinda woke to Elphaba sitting very quietly on the end of her bed watching her. She jumped at the sight of those dark eyes, so probing even from across the room, fixated so intently on her.
"What are you doing?" she asked, struggling to sit up despite the remnants of sleep still on her. Her racing heart was doing a great deal to combat any remaining weariness. "Is something wrong?"
"No," Elphaba replied. "I was just waiting for you to wake up. I wanted to ask you something."
"You could have just woken me." The shock was beginning to make Glinda cranky. "It would have startled me less. Instead of just staring."
"Sorry. If it makes you feel any better, you're nice to stare at."
"That's just creepy, Elphie." Glinda kicked the rumpled bedclothes off her legs and swung her feet down onto the cool wooden floor. "What did you want to ask me?"
"If I could borrow the notes you took on that magic-merging spell. I want to catch up on what you've figured out so far."
"Oh." Both the slowly spreading feeling of awake-and-alertness and the pleasant sensation of Elphaba treating her as knowledgeable combined to dispel some of her grumpiness. "Of course you can. Haven't you had any luck in the library?"
Elphaba shook her head. Glinda noticed that she was already dressed for the day with her shoes on and her hair neatly braided, despite the fact that the sun had barely risen. She must be planning to fit in some research before breakfast. "I think I've been looking in the wrong sections," Elphaba said. "You took some notes on ancient magic, what you remembered from researching your essay?"
"Yes." Glinda rubbed her eyes and tried to smooth her hair. "They're sort of all scattered through the margins of my other notes, though. You'd better take the whole mess - sorry."
"It's all right, I'll read it at breakfast." Elphaba got to her feet and, as an obvious afterthought, came to wrap Glinda in an awkward sideways embrace. "Sorry for waking you. I'll see you in class."
"All right," Glinda said, but Elphaba was already halfway out the door, swinging her satchel over her shoulders as she went. Elphaba might be making more of an effort lately not to exclude Glinda from her plans and her schemes, but that didn't keep Glinda from feeling as if she were always struggling to catch up.
When she arrived in history class Pfannee and Shenshen waved to her, but she only waved back - with a bright, perky smile - and went to sit in her usual place beside Elphaba. Pfannee raised an eyebrow, but Glinda ignored her and, after a moment, let herself reach up and briefly grasp Elphaba's shoulder in greeting. Elphaba gave her a hurried, distracted smile, seemingly unaware that Glinda's simple gesture was as much a political decision as a spontaneous caress.
Which was just as well, of course. The last thing she needed was for Elphaba to start believing that Glinda's behavior toward her was for the benefit of others, and not prompted by actual emotion. Somehow, seeing as it was Elphaba, Glinda wasn't certain how successful she would be in explaining that the political bit was allowing her real affection to show rather than hiding it. And then of course they'd inevitably get to why Glinda would have needed to hide her fondness for Elphaba in the first place, and Glinda might have to explain that it wasn't out of fear that her reputation would suffer from being seen with her green roommate, but rather - better not put herself in a position to be explaining that. She had been humiliated enough by having to explain her sexually-prompted near-coma. Explaining this might kill her.
Their lecturer, whose ideas about history still tended to make Elphaba's hand clench on her pen until her knuckles turned white, hadn't progressed very far into his lecture when he was interrupted by a loud bang that seemed to be coming from outside the building. The professor frowned and held up his hand. "Stay in your seats, students," he said, and ran out into the hallway. He returned a moment later and said, "It seems the disturbance is not taking place on the campus. We will resume our discussion of the agricultural techniques of the early Munchkin farmers and their methods for taming wild cattle . . ."
Elphaba's knuckles turned a little whiter. On the bench in front of them Glinda saw Fiyero's roommate, Rikk, cover a laugh with a cough and turn to the student next to him to mouth, "Wild cattle?"
"Rampaging Cows," the other boy managed to whisper before he lost control of himself and began to laugh.
"And marauding Chickens, no doubt," Rikk hissed back. Glinda had to cover a smile herself; sure that Elphaba wouldn't appreciate the levity quite as much as she did.
A knock on the door interrupted the lecture again, and the professor ducked out into the hall. When he reentered the room, he looked . . . sly? It didn't make much sense, but he looked almost as if he were hiding a smile. "Class," he said, "we are being dismissed for the afternoon. There has been an . . . incident, in town. I'm sure you'll hear all about it on the grapevine, but suffice to say, the guards are already on the trail of the perpetrators and justice will be done swiftly."
Glinda looked quickly to Elphaba, confused as to what could be making their professor so very pleased. "Elphie," she whispered.
"I don't know," Elphaba replied as the other students began to gather their things together. "We'll find out."
Glinda slipped her hand into Elphaba's, careless of who might see. There was something about this that was making her extremely nervous.
When they left the building, knots of students were out on the lawn, talking. Glinda spotted Boq thick in discussion with a group of other Munchkin students, and after a moment she saw Fiyero and Rikk go to join them. Fiyero quickly moved off toward the dormitories, but Rikk stayed to talk with his fellow Munchkinlanders. When he looked up, his eyes found her and Elphaba and he gave a little wave and came over to them.
"Hello, Elphaba," he said when he was close enough. His eyes slid over to Glinda second, and she found that she didn't actually mind at all, for once. "Hello, Glinda. Well, have you heard?"
"We haven't heard anything," Elphaba said. "What have you found out?" Glinda had almost forgotten they were holding hands, until she felt Elphaba's fingers tighten comfortingly on hers.
Rikk looked at Glinda, then around him, then stepped closer to Elphaba and went so far as to rest a hand on her hip. Shockingly, Elphaba didn't seem to react. "There were three bombings downtown," he said.
"Of Animal businesses?" Elphaba asked in a hushed voice. She stepped even closer to Rikk, but she tugged Glinda closer to her, as well. "Like before?"
"No." Rikk glanced around nervously again. "Berek told me - it was government offices. Like the guard station, and the courthouse. They don't know if anyone was hurt, but they think it was, you know, them."
"Them?" Glinda was glad that Elphaba sounded as confused as she felt.
Rikk's chin dropped and he looked at Elphaba through his lowered eyelashes. "Seriously? Are you a Munchkinlander or not?"
"Don't you think there are some things the governor's daughter might not know about?" Elphaba whispered back.
Rikk's eyes flickered toward Glinda again. She was beginning to feel offended. Elphaba pulled their joined hands to rest near her waist and said purposefully to Rikk, "She's all right. What is it?"
"I didn't mean any offense," Rikk said quickly, looking down somewhere around Glinda's feet. "It's just - you being an Uplander . . ."
"What is it?" Elphaba asked impatiently.
"Well. Them." Rikk's voice dropped to the smallest whisper, and Glinda had to step closer to hear him. "The Resistance."
Elphaba seemed surprised; she took a tiny step backward and lifted her head to look Rikk in the eye. "Really? Against . . . the Wizard?"
Suddenly Rikk's face went pale, and Glinda realized why at about the same time Elphaba must have. One green hand clamped down on Rikk's arm, preventing him from backing away. "It's all right," Elphaba hissed quietly. "I know we're supposed to be in his pocket, but - it's all right. We're not trouble for anyone, I swear. I swear."
Rikk eyed her for a long moment, again nearly ignoring Glinda. "Fiyero trusts you," he said finally.
Elphaba arched an eyebrow. "And you're going to trust his opinion?"
"Shouldn't I?"
Elphaba shrugged. "Well, we are trustworthy, so, I suppose. Please."
Rikk's head dropped again so that he was whispering practically into Elphaba's ear. His tone was just loud enough for Glinda to hear as well. "It started in Munchkinland last year, because there was the first place the Animal restrictions started coming in. The Governor had no choice; he didn't even know about most of it until the Wizard's decrees came out. Small things really, at first - Animals had to register; well, humans have birth certificates already anyway, so that didn't seem so strange. Then Animal businesses had to register. Then farms were regulated so strictly that no Animals could run one, basically."
"How?" Glinda was glad that Elphaba had asked, because she didn't understand either.
"Rules about growing any kind of food crop if you have hooves. Rules about cleanliness that implied anyone with fur couldn't grow crops. That kind of thing. Little but deadly over time, until no Animal farmers could stay afloat. Most of them left. That's when the Resistance was formed."
"I didn't know," Elphaba whispered, looking aghast. "I thought, when I got here - I didn't know it started at home."
"Doesn't everything?" Rikk asked sardonically. "Anyway - word is, the Resistance attacked those buildings downtown today, in retribution for the Animal businesses that were blown up in the fall."
"Then why are we out of class?" Glinda asked. "If it was only downtown."
Rikk turned bright eyes on her suddenly and she almost took a step back. "I don't know," he said. "But if I had to guess, I'd say we're in for trouble."
That night, just after dinner, guards came and dragged four senior students - two boys and two girls - from the campus, with bayonets drawn, howling for blood like a pack of wolves. From where Glinda stood on the darkening lawn, with the absurd smell of cherry blossoms drifting on the night air, she could see Rikk casting meaningful looks in her direction. Trouble, he mouthed, before fading away into the crowd of students who had gathered to watch the spectacle.
Glinda mostly felt sick. Watching those students being dragged away meant, to her, only one thing - that could have been Elphaba, that was Elphaba, whatever's going to happen to them almost happened to her. She remembered the wrenching fear she had felt, the sobs that had choked her throat, the marks from the tips of the bayonets visible on Elphaba's body once everything was over and done with. She gripped Elphaba's hand like a lifeline and finally had to turn away, pressing her face into Elphaba's shoulder.
"I'm sorry," Elphaba whispered, her fingers in Glinda's hair, although Glinda could tell from her detached tone and the tilt of her head that she was still watching herself, watching the guards leading the suspected Resistance members from their campus. "You shouldn't be seeing this. You're too innocent for this."
Glinda wondered, really, whether she was very innocent at all anymore. But she slid her arm around Elphaba's waist and said, desperately wishing for it to be true, "We're all too innocent for this."
"That's true," Elphaba said without inflection.
Glinda tightened the grip of her arm and asked, "Can we go home, please?"
"Of course we can." Elphaba turned in Glinda's embrace so that Glinda didn't have to face the sordid scene again, and wrapped her own arm around Glinda's waist. "Let's go. I've seen enough."
As they passed Rikk, he nodded to Elphaba meaningfully, and she nodded back.
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG-13
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Pairings for Story Overall: Glinda/Fiyero, Elphaba/Fiyero, Glinda/Elphaba
Summary: Politics comes to Shiz again. Another short inter-section; all-Glinda, all the time.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: Previous section can be found here.
Also, in light of what's been happening in the real world, there's a bit of this that might be a little intense. Just, be a bit cautioned.
~~Glinda~~
One thing at least seemed very clear - Glinda's previous plan to preserve Elphaba's reputation among their fellow students at Shiz was right out. For one thing, it was too important to make Elphaba liked, to make her part of the community; Glinda could no longer take the easy way out of pretending that she and Elphaba had no particular friendship. The rumors about their relationship might flare up again, but Glinda was just going to have to try harder to make sure they made the right impression.
The other thing was, well - putting some public distance between herself and Elphaba had seemed a lot easier before their trip to the City. A week ago Elphaba had been distance itself: mysterious, enigmatic, and mostly absent. She'd spent most of her time alone, had told Glinda little about where she went or what she did, and it had seemed that her trust in Glinda was maybe not as complete as it had once been.
But all of that had changed. Since Glinda's experiences with Madame Morrible, and since her mostly-complete confession to Elphaba of what Morrible suspected (Glinda still couldn't bring herself to tell the entire truth), Elphaba seemed to have decided that Glinda should be included in all of her plans. She still spent a great deal of time in the library alone, but now she painstakingly explained every night what she had read, what she was looking for, even when she expected to return to their room. Glinda was beginning to feel a bit like a jealous wife, actually, but she appreciated the care anyway.
On the morning that four of their classmates were arrested, Glinda woke to Elphaba sitting very quietly on the end of her bed watching her. She jumped at the sight of those dark eyes, so probing even from across the room, fixated so intently on her.
"What are you doing?" she asked, struggling to sit up despite the remnants of sleep still on her. Her racing heart was doing a great deal to combat any remaining weariness. "Is something wrong?"
"No," Elphaba replied. "I was just waiting for you to wake up. I wanted to ask you something."
"You could have just woken me." The shock was beginning to make Glinda cranky. "It would have startled me less. Instead of just staring."
"Sorry. If it makes you feel any better, you're nice to stare at."
"That's just creepy, Elphie." Glinda kicked the rumpled bedclothes off her legs and swung her feet down onto the cool wooden floor. "What did you want to ask me?"
"If I could borrow the notes you took on that magic-merging spell. I want to catch up on what you've figured out so far."
"Oh." Both the slowly spreading feeling of awake-and-alertness and the pleasant sensation of Elphaba treating her as knowledgeable combined to dispel some of her grumpiness. "Of course you can. Haven't you had any luck in the library?"
Elphaba shook her head. Glinda noticed that she was already dressed for the day with her shoes on and her hair neatly braided, despite the fact that the sun had barely risen. She must be planning to fit in some research before breakfast. "I think I've been looking in the wrong sections," Elphaba said. "You took some notes on ancient magic, what you remembered from researching your essay?"
"Yes." Glinda rubbed her eyes and tried to smooth her hair. "They're sort of all scattered through the margins of my other notes, though. You'd better take the whole mess - sorry."
"It's all right, I'll read it at breakfast." Elphaba got to her feet and, as an obvious afterthought, came to wrap Glinda in an awkward sideways embrace. "Sorry for waking you. I'll see you in class."
"All right," Glinda said, but Elphaba was already halfway out the door, swinging her satchel over her shoulders as she went. Elphaba might be making more of an effort lately not to exclude Glinda from her plans and her schemes, but that didn't keep Glinda from feeling as if she were always struggling to catch up.
When she arrived in history class Pfannee and Shenshen waved to her, but she only waved back - with a bright, perky smile - and went to sit in her usual place beside Elphaba. Pfannee raised an eyebrow, but Glinda ignored her and, after a moment, let herself reach up and briefly grasp Elphaba's shoulder in greeting. Elphaba gave her a hurried, distracted smile, seemingly unaware that Glinda's simple gesture was as much a political decision as a spontaneous caress.
Which was just as well, of course. The last thing she needed was for Elphaba to start believing that Glinda's behavior toward her was for the benefit of others, and not prompted by actual emotion. Somehow, seeing as it was Elphaba, Glinda wasn't certain how successful she would be in explaining that the political bit was allowing her real affection to show rather than hiding it. And then of course they'd inevitably get to why Glinda would have needed to hide her fondness for Elphaba in the first place, and Glinda might have to explain that it wasn't out of fear that her reputation would suffer from being seen with her green roommate, but rather - better not put herself in a position to be explaining that. She had been humiliated enough by having to explain her sexually-prompted near-coma. Explaining this might kill her.
Their lecturer, whose ideas about history still tended to make Elphaba's hand clench on her pen until her knuckles turned white, hadn't progressed very far into his lecture when he was interrupted by a loud bang that seemed to be coming from outside the building. The professor frowned and held up his hand. "Stay in your seats, students," he said, and ran out into the hallway. He returned a moment later and said, "It seems the disturbance is not taking place on the campus. We will resume our discussion of the agricultural techniques of the early Munchkin farmers and their methods for taming wild cattle . . ."
Elphaba's knuckles turned a little whiter. On the bench in front of them Glinda saw Fiyero's roommate, Rikk, cover a laugh with a cough and turn to the student next to him to mouth, "Wild cattle?"
"Rampaging Cows," the other boy managed to whisper before he lost control of himself and began to laugh.
"And marauding Chickens, no doubt," Rikk hissed back. Glinda had to cover a smile herself; sure that Elphaba wouldn't appreciate the levity quite as much as she did.
A knock on the door interrupted the lecture again, and the professor ducked out into the hall. When he reentered the room, he looked . . . sly? It didn't make much sense, but he looked almost as if he were hiding a smile. "Class," he said, "we are being dismissed for the afternoon. There has been an . . . incident, in town. I'm sure you'll hear all about it on the grapevine, but suffice to say, the guards are already on the trail of the perpetrators and justice will be done swiftly."
Glinda looked quickly to Elphaba, confused as to what could be making their professor so very pleased. "Elphie," she whispered.
"I don't know," Elphaba replied as the other students began to gather their things together. "We'll find out."
Glinda slipped her hand into Elphaba's, careless of who might see. There was something about this that was making her extremely nervous.
When they left the building, knots of students were out on the lawn, talking. Glinda spotted Boq thick in discussion with a group of other Munchkin students, and after a moment she saw Fiyero and Rikk go to join them. Fiyero quickly moved off toward the dormitories, but Rikk stayed to talk with his fellow Munchkinlanders. When he looked up, his eyes found her and Elphaba and he gave a little wave and came over to them.
"Hello, Elphaba," he said when he was close enough. His eyes slid over to Glinda second, and she found that she didn't actually mind at all, for once. "Hello, Glinda. Well, have you heard?"
"We haven't heard anything," Elphaba said. "What have you found out?" Glinda had almost forgotten they were holding hands, until she felt Elphaba's fingers tighten comfortingly on hers.
Rikk looked at Glinda, then around him, then stepped closer to Elphaba and went so far as to rest a hand on her hip. Shockingly, Elphaba didn't seem to react. "There were three bombings downtown," he said.
"Of Animal businesses?" Elphaba asked in a hushed voice. She stepped even closer to Rikk, but she tugged Glinda closer to her, as well. "Like before?"
"No." Rikk glanced around nervously again. "Berek told me - it was government offices. Like the guard station, and the courthouse. They don't know if anyone was hurt, but they think it was, you know, them."
"Them?" Glinda was glad that Elphaba sounded as confused as she felt.
Rikk's chin dropped and he looked at Elphaba through his lowered eyelashes. "Seriously? Are you a Munchkinlander or not?"
"Don't you think there are some things the governor's daughter might not know about?" Elphaba whispered back.
Rikk's eyes flickered toward Glinda again. She was beginning to feel offended. Elphaba pulled their joined hands to rest near her waist and said purposefully to Rikk, "She's all right. What is it?"
"I didn't mean any offense," Rikk said quickly, looking down somewhere around Glinda's feet. "It's just - you being an Uplander . . ."
"What is it?" Elphaba asked impatiently.
"Well. Them." Rikk's voice dropped to the smallest whisper, and Glinda had to step closer to hear him. "The Resistance."
Elphaba seemed surprised; she took a tiny step backward and lifted her head to look Rikk in the eye. "Really? Against . . . the Wizard?"
Suddenly Rikk's face went pale, and Glinda realized why at about the same time Elphaba must have. One green hand clamped down on Rikk's arm, preventing him from backing away. "It's all right," Elphaba hissed quietly. "I know we're supposed to be in his pocket, but - it's all right. We're not trouble for anyone, I swear. I swear."
Rikk eyed her for a long moment, again nearly ignoring Glinda. "Fiyero trusts you," he said finally.
Elphaba arched an eyebrow. "And you're going to trust his opinion?"
"Shouldn't I?"
Elphaba shrugged. "Well, we are trustworthy, so, I suppose. Please."
Rikk's head dropped again so that he was whispering practically into Elphaba's ear. His tone was just loud enough for Glinda to hear as well. "It started in Munchkinland last year, because there was the first place the Animal restrictions started coming in. The Governor had no choice; he didn't even know about most of it until the Wizard's decrees came out. Small things really, at first - Animals had to register; well, humans have birth certificates already anyway, so that didn't seem so strange. Then Animal businesses had to register. Then farms were regulated so strictly that no Animals could run one, basically."
"How?" Glinda was glad that Elphaba had asked, because she didn't understand either.
"Rules about growing any kind of food crop if you have hooves. Rules about cleanliness that implied anyone with fur couldn't grow crops. That kind of thing. Little but deadly over time, until no Animal farmers could stay afloat. Most of them left. That's when the Resistance was formed."
"I didn't know," Elphaba whispered, looking aghast. "I thought, when I got here - I didn't know it started at home."
"Doesn't everything?" Rikk asked sardonically. "Anyway - word is, the Resistance attacked those buildings downtown today, in retribution for the Animal businesses that were blown up in the fall."
"Then why are we out of class?" Glinda asked. "If it was only downtown."
Rikk turned bright eyes on her suddenly and she almost took a step back. "I don't know," he said. "But if I had to guess, I'd say we're in for trouble."
That night, just after dinner, guards came and dragged four senior students - two boys and two girls - from the campus, with bayonets drawn, howling for blood like a pack of wolves. From where Glinda stood on the darkening lawn, with the absurd smell of cherry blossoms drifting on the night air, she could see Rikk casting meaningful looks in her direction. Trouble, he mouthed, before fading away into the crowd of students who had gathered to watch the spectacle.
Glinda mostly felt sick. Watching those students being dragged away meant, to her, only one thing - that could have been Elphaba, that was Elphaba, whatever's going to happen to them almost happened to her. She remembered the wrenching fear she had felt, the sobs that had choked her throat, the marks from the tips of the bayonets visible on Elphaba's body once everything was over and done with. She gripped Elphaba's hand like a lifeline and finally had to turn away, pressing her face into Elphaba's shoulder.
"I'm sorry," Elphaba whispered, her fingers in Glinda's hair, although Glinda could tell from her detached tone and the tilt of her head that she was still watching herself, watching the guards leading the suspected Resistance members from their campus. "You shouldn't be seeing this. You're too innocent for this."
Glinda wondered, really, whether she was very innocent at all anymore. But she slid her arm around Elphaba's waist and said, desperately wishing for it to be true, "We're all too innocent for this."
"That's true," Elphaba said without inflection.
Glinda tightened the grip of her arm and asked, "Can we go home, please?"
"Of course we can." Elphaba turned in Glinda's embrace so that Glinda didn't have to face the sordid scene again, and wrapped her own arm around Glinda's waist. "Let's go. I've seen enough."
As they passed Rikk, he nodded to Elphaba meaningfully, and she nodded back.