Chapter Text
The forest had grown wild around her, its canopy thick with blackened branches that clawed at the sky. Twilight had given way to storm, and the first shiver of thunder rolled through the air like the growl of something vast and unseen. Glinda’s slippers—dainty, satin, absurd in such a place—were soaked through with mud, each step dragging her deeper into exhaustion. She clutched her skirts high, heart pounding, curls plastered damp against her temples.
She had not meant to wander this far. She had only wished for a shortcut, a harmless wander off the path. But the storm had swept in with unkind haste, the wind shrieking, the rain turning the forest floor to treachery. The trees loomed tall and endless, and every flicker of lightning revealed another wall of shadow.
Her breath caught, ragged. She stumbled over roots that seemed to writhe beneath her feet, as though the forest itself conspired to hold her captive. Then—inevitably—her ankle twisted, and she tumbled forward, crashing through wet ferns and into the muck of the earth. Pain flared sharp at her knee, sharper still at her temple as her head struck something half-buried.
Dazed, she staggered upright—and found herself facing a clearing she had not seen before.
At its heart stood a house. Or rather, what remained of one. The roof sagged, pierced by the thrust of ivy, its stones dark with moss. The windows were jagged mouths gaping hollow, and the door hung crooked on rusted hinges. Rain streaked its surface like tears, and yet the storm seemed quieter here, hushed, as though the very air held its breath.
Shivering, Glinda pushed her way inside.
The air was thick with the perfume of rot and mildew, the floorboards groaning beneath her weight. Cobwebs festooned the corners like ghostly draperies, and dust clung to every surface, stirred only by her intrusion. Her eyes darted over the relics of abandonment: a shattered teacup, a chair splintered with age, fragments of a life long fled. But even in her fear, even through the dimness, her gaze was pulled—irresistibly—to the far wall.
There, veiled in a moth-eaten cloth, loomed a frame as tall as she was. It seemed to watch her even through its shroud. Something about it throbbed with presence, with a gravity that made her pulse quicken. Almost without meaning to, she reached for the cloth, fingers trembling, and tore it back.
The portrait revealed itself with a hush, as though the storm beyond had bowed to silence.
It was the likeness of a woman. Not fair, not painted in courtly finery, but strange—arresting. Her skin was emerald-dark, her eyes burning with an intensity that seemed alive even through the centuries of dust. She wore no crown, no jewels, yet her bearing was regal, defiant, as though she had refused the stillness the painter demanded. Her lips were pressed closed, but her gaze… her gaze pleaded. Commanded.
Glinda swallowed, the hairs along her neck rising. She took a step back, but her slipper slid upon the warped floorboards. She flung her hand out to catch herself—and the jagged corner of the gilded frame cut clean across her palm.
She cried out, clutching at the wound, but too late: her blood had already fallen. One drop, then another, bright red against the tarnished gold. It ran to the canvas, staining the painted emerald skin.
The portrait shuddered.
Glinda froze, horror choking her throat. The painted surface rippled as though it were no longer canvas but water, disturbed by her touch. A crack of lightning illuminated the room, and in its white glare she thought—impossible though it was—that the painted woman moved. Her head tilted. Her eyes flared.
“No…” Glinda whispered, voice broken by terror, by desperation. She had not meant to do this, she had not meant anything but survival, and yet in the pit of her heart she felt the cry rising: “ please, someone help me.”
The house trembled. A fissure of light ripped across the canvas, bright as lightning but born from within. The storm outside answered in kind, thunder shattering the silence. The woman’s painted chest heaved, her lips parting in a voiceless gasp, and then the canvas tore open from crown to base.
The figure stepped free.
She was tall, unearthly, her skin a deep verdant hue, her hair tumbling black about her shoulders. For a moment she staggered, as though the weight of the earth was foreign after so long in stillness, and then she breathed—a sound like a gasp dragged up from centuries of silence. The air around her thickened with the press of magic, heavy and electric, rattling the ruined timbers.
Her eyes, burning green fire, fell upon the trembling girl who had freed her. Glinda had sunk against the wall, clutching her bleeding hand, curls spilling over her face. She looked so fragile, so breakable, and yet it was her blood, her whispered plea, that had torn open the prison of the painting.
The green woman stooped. She should have felt rage, vengeance, the hunger to wield the freedom stolen from her for so long. But instead her hands, pale and calloused, reached gently, cradling Glinda’s slight form against her chest.
Outside, the storm raged, tearing at the forest, howling through the trees. Inside the ruin, however, there was warmth—fierce, sudden, startling. Two lives bound by accident, by blood, by desperation.
For the first time in centuries, Elphaba was free. And her first act of freedom was to protect the girl who had set her loose.
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Consciousness returned slowly, like a tide pulling her from the depths. At first Glinda felt only warmth—unexpected in that ruin of a house, in that storm-lashed forest. A warmth that cradled her, steady and alive, and the faintest brush of something against her hair. She stirred, a soft sound escaping her lips.
Her eyes fluttered open.
The world was dim, lit only by the erratic flicker of lightning that cut through the ruined windows. And there, bending over her, was a face she could not have dreamed if she tried.
Emerald. Emerald, alive and strange and beautiful in a way that unsettled her bones. Eyes like twin flames regarded her with unreadable intensity; lips, firm and unyielding, parted as though to speak but holding silence. Glinda froze, every breath caught in her throat. For an instant she thought she was still trapped in some fevered nightmare—that the painting had swallowed her whole and now its subject leaned close to claim her.
Her pulse hammered. “Wh-who—” The word shattered against her tongue. She tried again, weaker, “What… what are you?”
The woman’s gaze softened—only slightly, but enough to shake Glinda more than any harshness would have. Her arms, strong yet startlingly gentle, adjusted their hold, drawing Glinda higher against her chest. The storm groaned beyond, rain lashing the forest, but here, in this circle of warmth, Glinda felt oddly shielded.
“I…” The voice was low, rough with disuse, like stone crumbling after centuries in silence. “…am no longer a shadow.” She paused, eyes searching Glinda’s pale face. “And you—you freed me.”
Glinda blinked, trying to rise, but her legs refused her. Pain pulsed at her temple, and her palm still stung from the cut. She swallowed, lips trembling. “Freed you? I—I didn’t mean to—”
“I know.” The woman’s expression twisted—something between gratitude and anguish. “You bled, you begged, and the spell broke.” Her gaze flickered to the still-seeping wound on Glinda’s hand. Her long fingers brushed it, almost without thought, and warmth seeped into the gash, knitting it closed with faint traces of green light.
Glinda gasped. “Magic.”
The woman drew back, as though ashamed of her own power, and yet did not release her. Her voice, when it came again, was softer, reluctant. “Call me Elphaba.”
Glinda could only stare, her heart still racing, though not solely from fear. There was awe there too, threaded dangerously with wonder. She did not understand this creature, this woman pulled from painted eternity—but she could not deny the strange, impossible truth: Elphaba was holding her, protecting her, as though she belonged nowhere else.
Glinda shifted, testing her weight against Elphaba’s arms. The instinct to flee throbbed in her veins, as insistent as the storm hammering at the windows. She did not know this woman—this creature—and though her touch was strangely gentle, every story Glinda had ever heard of witches and forest-phantoms screamed at her to run.
“I should—I should go,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she tried to twist free. Her hands pressed against Elphaba’s shoulders, but her strength faltered; her limbs felt heavy, her head still swam from the fall. She pushed anyway, desperation lacing her movements.
Elphaba did not let her go.
The emerald arms only tightened, not in violence but in certainty, as though she knew exactly what Glinda needed better than Glinda herself. “No,” she murmured, the word low, steady, inexorable as stone. “Not yet.”
Glinda’s breath caught, panic bright in her chest. “Let me—”
“I won’t harm you.” The words cut through the thunder, firm, almost sharp. Then, softer, her tone easing like a cloak falling over the sharp edges: “This hold—it mends. Your body is knitting itself faster because of it.”
Glinda stilled, confusion warring with terror. “What do you mean?”
“Your blood freed me,” Elphaba said, her gaze flickering down to the now-closed wound on Glinda’s palm. “My touch gives some of it back. A balance. If you run from me now, you’ll bleed within, where I cannot reach.”
Something in her voice—an odd mixture of command and plea—bound Glinda to stillness. Her pulse still raced, her every nerve screamed for escape, and yet… the ache in her temple had dulled, the throbbing in her ankle eased. Even the chill of the storm seemed to retreat where Elphaba’s arms enclosed her.
Slowly, reluctantly, Glinda let her weight sink against that strange, solid frame. Her breath trembled out of her. She whispered, half to herself, “This is madness.”
Elphaba’s lips curved—not in amusement, but in something darker, softer. “Perhaps. But it is also survival.”
And outside, the storm battered the world to ruin, while inside the ruin Glinda remained caught, unwilling and yet unable to leave the arms that healed her.
After some long hours, the storm began to loosen its grip on the forest. The thunder no longer cracked with fury but rumbled low, retreating into the distance. Rain thinned from a furious torrent to a weary drizzle, its rhythm tapping more gently at the broken windows. The air still carried the scent of wet earth and lightning, but the violence had passed, leaving a hush that felt almost reverent.
Glinda lifted her head, listening. The storm had not vanished, but it was no longer a threat. Relief shuddered through her, fragile and unsteady. She looked to the doorway, its frame sagging beneath creeping ivy, and thought of flight—of stumbling back through the dripping woods, of finding her way home, of forgetting this night entirely.
Her body betrayed her. Her limbs remained weak, though stronger than they had any right to be so soon after her fall. And Elphaba’s arms, still firm about her, made no move to release.
“You can let me go now,” Glinda said, her voice steadier than she felt. “The storm is ending.”
Elphaba’s gaze shifted to the doorway as well, watching the dimming light. Her jaw tightened, then relaxed. At last she said, quietly, “Yes. But you are not ready yet.”
“I’m well enough,” Glinda insisted, bristling. “I don’t need—”
“You do.” The words were calm, yet resolute, the weight of them impossible to argue with. Elphaba looked back at her then, eyes lit with something unreadable—something that unsettled Glinda more than thunder had. “The storm may ease, but it has not left. And neither has what lies within these woods. You think you can walk alone, golden one? You would falter before the hour is done.”
Glinda flushed, torn between indignation and the unnerving sense that Elphaba was right. Her ankle no longer throbbed, her temple no longer ached—but that was because of her . Because of the witch whose arms bound her even now.
She turned her face away, curls brushing against Elphaba’s shoulder. “I should go,” she whispered again, though the words rang hollow.
Elphaba did not answer immediately. Instead, she adjusted her hold, her touch unyielding yet not cruel. “You may,” she said at last. “When you can truly stand. Until then…” Her voice softened, almost unwillingly. “…rest.”
And so Glinda remained, unwilling yet unable to rise, while outside the storm sighed itself into silence. The forest dripped with rain, the wind grew gentle, and within the ruin of the house the only storm left was the one caught between emerald and gold.