Defying Gravity, 23/?, by ainsleyaisling
Title: Defying Gravity, 23/?
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Summary: Glinda and Elphaba - and Fiyero - working hand-in-hand, the way it was supposed to be . . . maybe . . .
This chapter: The plan gets a bit closer to completion.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: Sequel to "The Effects of Gravity," a link to all chapters of which, plus the posted chapters of this story, can be found here. The previous chapter of this story can be found here.
~~Elphaba~~
Following Fiyero's lead, Elphaba bent low as she crept across the field, wincing as the frozen grass crackled under her feet. Ahead of her he gestured for quiet, then led her off to the left, further from the hill that formed the cave for the underground river's emergence. She saw his plan right away; they were creeping toward the cover of the trees that partially surrounded the cave, rather than coming right up behind the cave and its complement of guards.
By a small pine tree he stopped and gestured for her to come closer. "From here it's dicey to get any closer," he whispered. "They'd hear us coming and there's nowhere left to hide. I think we should move downriver and look for a place there."
She nodded, and he reached out a hand to get her attention again.
"Could you hide us?" he asked curiously.
"You mean . . ." Despite the cold, she felt her face flushing with embarrassed heat. "Myself, yes, but not both of us. I haven't learned how yet."
He frowned. "I don't think you should get any closer without me," he whispered.
"No," she said, and he looked relieved - probably had expected her to argue. She gave a little shrug and whispered, "I can't see well enough in this dark to trust my eyes alone anyway."
"All right then." He gestured for her to follow. "This way."
Elphaba clenched her teeth as they walked, the crunch of each dead pine needle and twig under their feet sounding like an explosion to her ears. Matters were made worse by the fact that the usual concealing sounds she might have expected from a forest - owls and bats flying and swooping after food, night insects, squirrels and rabbits and things making their own noise in the underbrush - were conspicuously absent. She leaned close enough to Fiyero to whisper, "Nothing lives here?"
He shook his head, and whispered back over his shoulder, "Been cleared."
"Of ordinary animals too?"
"Couldn't risk them being infiltrated by disguised Animals."
Elphaba didn't ask how you managed to clear a patch of forest of even the insects and the bats. She didn't think she wanted to know. Now she also knew something else both useful and horrifying - if they should fail, or be interrupted, or get caught, there'd be no hope of sending the Animals running for the forest to try to blend in. With nothing else left alive there except for the trees and the grass and moss, they'd be caught within the hour.
Caught, certainly questioned, and probably badly punished for trying to escape. It was clear that once they got the Animals out of the laboratory - and the ordinary animals as well - there was no other option but to succeed in getting them over the river and smuggled to safety in the Vinkus.
Leaving the cover of the trees made her nervous, but once they were out of the forest's protective shadows they were far from the mouth of the cave and obviously around a bend - all she could see when she looked back was the vague glow, presumably of the guards' lamps, showing through the breaks in the trees. They were right up alongside the river now, its rushing and bubbling noises drowning out the sound of their steps. Fiyero led her further and further downstream until at last he stopped and said, "I think this is the farthest you could get without being in sight of the marina. You can't see it yet, but once the river clears that brush up there it turns a corner and then the marina isn't far."
The moonlight reflected too brightly off the water for her to tell the depth of the river at this point. She bent to a crouch again and reached a hand tentatively into the water. It was so frigid that her finger was immediately seized with pain, but she gritted her teeth and felt for the bottom. It was only a few inches down, deep enough to submerge most of her fingers but no more. She slid her hand along the silty bottom until she was up to her wrist, and then Fiyero was tapping her on the shoulder and handing her a stick.
"Thanks," she whispered, and pulled her hand from the water to dry it on her cloak. She wrapped it in a fold of the cloak and clenched her jaw tightly against the pain of returning feeling, using her other hand to prod the river bottom with the stick. A bit of experimental scraping, and she had established that the bottom got progressively deeper until it reached a level of about two feet, and then it dropped precipitously to a depth she couldn't measure.
"Good enough," she whispered over her shoulder to Fiyero, who had been watching attentively. "I think someone could get out here and wade the boat in."
"Could you find the spot again?"
She looked downstream, to a strip where the river frothed over the points of several rocks that protruded from its depths. "Right before those rocks. But in case there are other rocks further upriver - maybe we should mark it?"
"Wait here," he said, and started off toward the clump of brush he'd said hid the next bending of the river.
When he came back he was carrying, with some visible difficulty, a fairly large rock. "Lots of them up around the bend," he grunted as he dropped the rock carefully beside her. "Can you get some smaller ones off the bottom?"
Elphaba winced but put both hands back into the water, feeling around on the bottom until she had managed to dislodge a few smaller rocks and hand them to Fiyero. While she dried her hands and wrapped them in her cloak again, she watched him build a little cairn with the smaller rocks on top of his big one.
"Good?" he finally asked, setting the last rock in place.
Elphaba frowned at the little pile through her glasses. "Maybe that top one ought to be a bit messier, and we should scatter a few small ones around in the grass, so it looks less deliberate. We don't want anyone to realize it's marking something." She sighed as she realized this meant more rooting around in the water.
By the time they'd artfully arranged the rocks to her satisfaction, the moon was high in the sky. Fiyero pulled her to her feet by one elbow, and asked, "All right?"
She nodded. She couldn't feel any of her fingers, but mentioning that seemed unnecessary. "Tomorrow night I'll go out and look for a place downriver to get them across, and scout how easy it would be to move them from here to there."
Fiyero looked alarmed. "I'm on duty -"
"Alone." In response to his look of increased alarm, she added, "From the air. I'll have to try it sometime."
He didn't look terribly reassured, but he gave her a swift nod and turned to lead them back toward the Palace.
~~Glinda~~
She tried to distract herself for a while by reading all the histories of the Palace she could find, but there were only two in their suite and the thought of leaving it somehow terrified her - as though someone might be waiting outside to spirit her away and lock her up in Gillikin forever. It had been years since she'd felt that sudden rush of panic about being forced into that life - being with Elphaba had made her complacent, lazy, even, when she should have been figuring out a way out of this . . .
Deep breaths didn't make her feel any calmer, and she was too distracted to read anyway. She pushed aside her notes on the transportation spell, then, thinking again, closed the book and set it firmly aside. The action somehow brought on the edge of hysteria, and she sat very still biting the inside of her mouth, waiting for it to pass. When it didn't, the adrenaline built up in her veins and she had to clench every muscle to keep herself sitting on the sofa.
The only thought that made sense was Elphaba was right to be in a hurry. It wasn't just that the Animals were suffering, living in fear and pain and imprisonment for every extra day it took them to carry out their plan. It was also that Glinda was running out of time, she knew that now - she always had been running out of time, ticking every day closer to the moment when she would no longer be allowed to live this life. The fact that Elphaba's relative freedom was due to the fact that her family had given up on her was cold comfort; at that moment Glinda thought she would gladly accept being disowned.
But her father was probably dying, and the thought made her red with guilt. He loved her, and it wasn't his fault that his death would hand her over to an uncle who would probably think he was doing her a favor by getting her neatly settled as quickly as possible. What kind of selfish daughter would want to trade that lifetime of parental care for being set completely adrift, as Elphaba was?
The sight of Elphaba's spellbook in her peripheral vision finally made Glinda's face begin to crumple. It was the clearest reminder that no matter what she had thought, no matter how clever she managed to be or how many magical problems she could solve or how much help she'd thought she could be, she was, in the end, powerless. The power to send ants flying across the room wouldn't do a thing to make her less trapped and controlled.
Glinda fought hard to maintain the appearance of composure, but when the door opened on Elphaba she lost her battle and felt the first sting of tears in her eyes. Luckily, Elphaba had come back alone. She took one look at Glinda and her eyes widened, the hood of her cloak dropping from her head. "Glinda?" she asked. "What's wrong, did someone come up here?"
Glinda shook her head, one hand covering her eyes as she began to sniffle. With the other hand she pulled her mother's folded letter from her skirt pocket and held it out.
Elphaba's cloak rustled as she came closer to take the letter from Glinda's hand and sit beside her on the sofa. Her hands were oddly fumbling and clumsy, and after a moment Glinda reached over, mostly without looking, and helped her to unfold it. Then she dropped her head into her hands, elbows balanced on her knees, and waited.
"Oh, no," Elphaba said almost immediately. "Oh - oh, Glinda. I'm so -"
"Don't," Glinda said quickly, the tears choking her voice. "Don't - I just can't - what if -"
Elphaba tossed the letter onto the table and wrapped her arms around Glinda, and once her head was resting on Elphaba's shoulder Glinda gave free rein to her tears. They sat in silence for she had no idea how long, Elphaba's cloak cold against her burning cheek and Elphaba's wrists bent awkwardly against the back of her head. When Glinda shifted, Elphaba's fingers touched the back of her neck and she shrieked in reflex, her head jerking away from Elphaba.
"Sorry," Elphaba murmured. She pulled the sleeves of her cloak over her hands and guided Glinda close again with her fabric-covered fists.
"Your hands must have frozen out there," Glinda murmured, still sniffling, laying her head back down on Elphaba's shoulder.
"They were in the water. It was cold."
"In the water? In the middle of winter?"
"I had to see how deep it was." Elphaba turned her head gently, brushing her cheek against Glinda's hair. "We'll talk about it later."
Glinda sniffled again, remembering that she had other news. "I fixed the spell," she said softly.
"What?"
"The transportation spell. I did it, without killing anything." She pushed herself off of Elphaba and shifted to lean against her other shoulder instead, so that her face could be turned toward Elphaba's neck. "I can show you."
"Later," Elphaba said. One of her sleeve-covered hands reached for one of Glinda's and awkwardly held it in a fold of fabric. She was probably dying to hear the answer, but she only sat quietly and let Glinda lean against her. The thought of leaving her brought on a fresh rush of tears, and Glinda twisted to bury her wet eyes against Elphaba's cloak rather than her neck.
Elphaba's sleeve dabbed gently at the tears smeared across her face, and she asked softly, "What are you going to do?"
Glinda swallowed hard, her entire head feeling suddenly very wet, and said thickly, "Tomorrow I'll have to write back. I don't know. But we have to save the Animals fast, Elphie, in case -" She cleared her throat and tried, very belatedly, to sound calm about the prospect. "In case I have to leave, I should meet with the Resistance soon, we have to get everything in place . . ."
"Why would you have to leave?" Elphaba continued trying to dry her off a bit, though Glinda couldn't quite stop producing even more tears. "You mean to see your father?"
Glinda shook her head and got a bit of sleeve in her eye. She blinked furiously. "I mean forever. If I have to go back home -"
"You won't," Elphaba said firmly. "Even if - we'll think of something."
"What?"
"For one thing, you live here to serve the leader of all Oz. You don't think he could overrule a law like this if he wanted to? If you asked him? He'd only have to say, 'no, she doesn't have to go and get married, she's staying here.'"
Glinda sniffed thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought about that." She was almost afraid to entertain the idea, a ray of hope, that possibly the Wizard might intervene, to protect her - well, really, to protect his own interests, but still . . . On the other hand, the Wizard was a man. And men seemed inclined to think that other men knew best when it came to managing their own wives and daughters.
"We'll ask him if we have to, or - we'll do something. I promise. You won't have to leave." Elphaba's arms tightened. "It's going to be all right. We'll take care of this and we'll get the Animals out, and it will all be fine."
Her fingers clutched into a fold of Elphaba's cloak, Glinda decided to pretend she could believe her, for now.
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Summary: Glinda and Elphaba - and Fiyero - working hand-in-hand, the way it was supposed to be . . . maybe . . .
This chapter: The plan gets a bit closer to completion.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: Sequel to "The Effects of Gravity," a link to all chapters of which, plus the posted chapters of this story, can be found here. The previous chapter of this story can be found here.
~~Elphaba~~
Following Fiyero's lead, Elphaba bent low as she crept across the field, wincing as the frozen grass crackled under her feet. Ahead of her he gestured for quiet, then led her off to the left, further from the hill that formed the cave for the underground river's emergence. She saw his plan right away; they were creeping toward the cover of the trees that partially surrounded the cave, rather than coming right up behind the cave and its complement of guards.
By a small pine tree he stopped and gestured for her to come closer. "From here it's dicey to get any closer," he whispered. "They'd hear us coming and there's nowhere left to hide. I think we should move downriver and look for a place there."
She nodded, and he reached out a hand to get her attention again.
"Could you hide us?" he asked curiously.
"You mean . . ." Despite the cold, she felt her face flushing with embarrassed heat. "Myself, yes, but not both of us. I haven't learned how yet."
He frowned. "I don't think you should get any closer without me," he whispered.
"No," she said, and he looked relieved - probably had expected her to argue. She gave a little shrug and whispered, "I can't see well enough in this dark to trust my eyes alone anyway."
"All right then." He gestured for her to follow. "This way."
Elphaba clenched her teeth as they walked, the crunch of each dead pine needle and twig under their feet sounding like an explosion to her ears. Matters were made worse by the fact that the usual concealing sounds she might have expected from a forest - owls and bats flying and swooping after food, night insects, squirrels and rabbits and things making their own noise in the underbrush - were conspicuously absent. She leaned close enough to Fiyero to whisper, "Nothing lives here?"
He shook his head, and whispered back over his shoulder, "Been cleared."
"Of ordinary animals too?"
"Couldn't risk them being infiltrated by disguised Animals."
Elphaba didn't ask how you managed to clear a patch of forest of even the insects and the bats. She didn't think she wanted to know. Now she also knew something else both useful and horrifying - if they should fail, or be interrupted, or get caught, there'd be no hope of sending the Animals running for the forest to try to blend in. With nothing else left alive there except for the trees and the grass and moss, they'd be caught within the hour.
Caught, certainly questioned, and probably badly punished for trying to escape. It was clear that once they got the Animals out of the laboratory - and the ordinary animals as well - there was no other option but to succeed in getting them over the river and smuggled to safety in the Vinkus.
Leaving the cover of the trees made her nervous, but once they were out of the forest's protective shadows they were far from the mouth of the cave and obviously around a bend - all she could see when she looked back was the vague glow, presumably of the guards' lamps, showing through the breaks in the trees. They were right up alongside the river now, its rushing and bubbling noises drowning out the sound of their steps. Fiyero led her further and further downstream until at last he stopped and said, "I think this is the farthest you could get without being in sight of the marina. You can't see it yet, but once the river clears that brush up there it turns a corner and then the marina isn't far."
The moonlight reflected too brightly off the water for her to tell the depth of the river at this point. She bent to a crouch again and reached a hand tentatively into the water. It was so frigid that her finger was immediately seized with pain, but she gritted her teeth and felt for the bottom. It was only a few inches down, deep enough to submerge most of her fingers but no more. She slid her hand along the silty bottom until she was up to her wrist, and then Fiyero was tapping her on the shoulder and handing her a stick.
"Thanks," she whispered, and pulled her hand from the water to dry it on her cloak. She wrapped it in a fold of the cloak and clenched her jaw tightly against the pain of returning feeling, using her other hand to prod the river bottom with the stick. A bit of experimental scraping, and she had established that the bottom got progressively deeper until it reached a level of about two feet, and then it dropped precipitously to a depth she couldn't measure.
"Good enough," she whispered over her shoulder to Fiyero, who had been watching attentively. "I think someone could get out here and wade the boat in."
"Could you find the spot again?"
She looked downstream, to a strip where the river frothed over the points of several rocks that protruded from its depths. "Right before those rocks. But in case there are other rocks further upriver - maybe we should mark it?"
"Wait here," he said, and started off toward the clump of brush he'd said hid the next bending of the river.
When he came back he was carrying, with some visible difficulty, a fairly large rock. "Lots of them up around the bend," he grunted as he dropped the rock carefully beside her. "Can you get some smaller ones off the bottom?"
Elphaba winced but put both hands back into the water, feeling around on the bottom until she had managed to dislodge a few smaller rocks and hand them to Fiyero. While she dried her hands and wrapped them in her cloak again, she watched him build a little cairn with the smaller rocks on top of his big one.
"Good?" he finally asked, setting the last rock in place.
Elphaba frowned at the little pile through her glasses. "Maybe that top one ought to be a bit messier, and we should scatter a few small ones around in the grass, so it looks less deliberate. We don't want anyone to realize it's marking something." She sighed as she realized this meant more rooting around in the water.
By the time they'd artfully arranged the rocks to her satisfaction, the moon was high in the sky. Fiyero pulled her to her feet by one elbow, and asked, "All right?"
She nodded. She couldn't feel any of her fingers, but mentioning that seemed unnecessary. "Tomorrow night I'll go out and look for a place downriver to get them across, and scout how easy it would be to move them from here to there."
Fiyero looked alarmed. "I'm on duty -"
"Alone." In response to his look of increased alarm, she added, "From the air. I'll have to try it sometime."
He didn't look terribly reassured, but he gave her a swift nod and turned to lead them back toward the Palace.
~~Glinda~~
She tried to distract herself for a while by reading all the histories of the Palace she could find, but there were only two in their suite and the thought of leaving it somehow terrified her - as though someone might be waiting outside to spirit her away and lock her up in Gillikin forever. It had been years since she'd felt that sudden rush of panic about being forced into that life - being with Elphaba had made her complacent, lazy, even, when she should have been figuring out a way out of this . . .
Deep breaths didn't make her feel any calmer, and she was too distracted to read anyway. She pushed aside her notes on the transportation spell, then, thinking again, closed the book and set it firmly aside. The action somehow brought on the edge of hysteria, and she sat very still biting the inside of her mouth, waiting for it to pass. When it didn't, the adrenaline built up in her veins and she had to clench every muscle to keep herself sitting on the sofa.
The only thought that made sense was Elphaba was right to be in a hurry. It wasn't just that the Animals were suffering, living in fear and pain and imprisonment for every extra day it took them to carry out their plan. It was also that Glinda was running out of time, she knew that now - she always had been running out of time, ticking every day closer to the moment when she would no longer be allowed to live this life. The fact that Elphaba's relative freedom was due to the fact that her family had given up on her was cold comfort; at that moment Glinda thought she would gladly accept being disowned.
But her father was probably dying, and the thought made her red with guilt. He loved her, and it wasn't his fault that his death would hand her over to an uncle who would probably think he was doing her a favor by getting her neatly settled as quickly as possible. What kind of selfish daughter would want to trade that lifetime of parental care for being set completely adrift, as Elphaba was?
The sight of Elphaba's spellbook in her peripheral vision finally made Glinda's face begin to crumple. It was the clearest reminder that no matter what she had thought, no matter how clever she managed to be or how many magical problems she could solve or how much help she'd thought she could be, she was, in the end, powerless. The power to send ants flying across the room wouldn't do a thing to make her less trapped and controlled.
Glinda fought hard to maintain the appearance of composure, but when the door opened on Elphaba she lost her battle and felt the first sting of tears in her eyes. Luckily, Elphaba had come back alone. She took one look at Glinda and her eyes widened, the hood of her cloak dropping from her head. "Glinda?" she asked. "What's wrong, did someone come up here?"
Glinda shook her head, one hand covering her eyes as she began to sniffle. With the other hand she pulled her mother's folded letter from her skirt pocket and held it out.
Elphaba's cloak rustled as she came closer to take the letter from Glinda's hand and sit beside her on the sofa. Her hands were oddly fumbling and clumsy, and after a moment Glinda reached over, mostly without looking, and helped her to unfold it. Then she dropped her head into her hands, elbows balanced on her knees, and waited.
"Oh, no," Elphaba said almost immediately. "Oh - oh, Glinda. I'm so -"
"Don't," Glinda said quickly, the tears choking her voice. "Don't - I just can't - what if -"
Elphaba tossed the letter onto the table and wrapped her arms around Glinda, and once her head was resting on Elphaba's shoulder Glinda gave free rein to her tears. They sat in silence for she had no idea how long, Elphaba's cloak cold against her burning cheek and Elphaba's wrists bent awkwardly against the back of her head. When Glinda shifted, Elphaba's fingers touched the back of her neck and she shrieked in reflex, her head jerking away from Elphaba.
"Sorry," Elphaba murmured. She pulled the sleeves of her cloak over her hands and guided Glinda close again with her fabric-covered fists.
"Your hands must have frozen out there," Glinda murmured, still sniffling, laying her head back down on Elphaba's shoulder.
"They were in the water. It was cold."
"In the water? In the middle of winter?"
"I had to see how deep it was." Elphaba turned her head gently, brushing her cheek against Glinda's hair. "We'll talk about it later."
Glinda sniffled again, remembering that she had other news. "I fixed the spell," she said softly.
"What?"
"The transportation spell. I did it, without killing anything." She pushed herself off of Elphaba and shifted to lean against her other shoulder instead, so that her face could be turned toward Elphaba's neck. "I can show you."
"Later," Elphaba said. One of her sleeve-covered hands reached for one of Glinda's and awkwardly held it in a fold of fabric. She was probably dying to hear the answer, but she only sat quietly and let Glinda lean against her. The thought of leaving her brought on a fresh rush of tears, and Glinda twisted to bury her wet eyes against Elphaba's cloak rather than her neck.
Elphaba's sleeve dabbed gently at the tears smeared across her face, and she asked softly, "What are you going to do?"
Glinda swallowed hard, her entire head feeling suddenly very wet, and said thickly, "Tomorrow I'll have to write back. I don't know. But we have to save the Animals fast, Elphie, in case -" She cleared her throat and tried, very belatedly, to sound calm about the prospect. "In case I have to leave, I should meet with the Resistance soon, we have to get everything in place . . ."
"Why would you have to leave?" Elphaba continued trying to dry her off a bit, though Glinda couldn't quite stop producing even more tears. "You mean to see your father?"
Glinda shook her head and got a bit of sleeve in her eye. She blinked furiously. "I mean forever. If I have to go back home -"
"You won't," Elphaba said firmly. "Even if - we'll think of something."
"What?"
"For one thing, you live here to serve the leader of all Oz. You don't think he could overrule a law like this if he wanted to? If you asked him? He'd only have to say, 'no, she doesn't have to go and get married, she's staying here.'"
Glinda sniffed thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought about that." She was almost afraid to entertain the idea, a ray of hope, that possibly the Wizard might intervene, to protect her - well, really, to protect his own interests, but still . . . On the other hand, the Wizard was a man. And men seemed inclined to think that other men knew best when it came to managing their own wives and daughters.
"We'll ask him if we have to, or - we'll do something. I promise. You won't have to leave." Elphaba's arms tightened. "It's going to be all right. We'll take care of this and we'll get the Animals out, and it will all be fine."
Her fingers clutched into a fold of Elphaba's cloak, Glinda decided to pretend she could believe her, for now.