Title: Pinching at the Soul
Author: Angel Leviathan
Disclaimer: Wicked, the characters, concept, etc, aren't mine.
Rating: PG
Notes: Bookverse.
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The first day she wore the shoes, her feet were bleeding by evening. She made Nanny swear not to tell and hid her feet in thick, black socks to hide the bloody marks that stained her striped stockings. She still wore the shoes. She already knew they were worth it, beyond the sparkle and their unique charm.

Nessarose expected the pain to fade once she had worn the silver shoes in. It didn’t. Her feet ceased bleeding daily and, as the weeks went on, she no longer developed blisters, but the pain refused to leave her. She told herself that the pain had to be a positive thing, for one with no arms should be grateful to feel anything, even pain, and that it meant that at least her feet functioned correctly. She didn’t grimace, she held her head high, and she enjoyed the click of the tiny heels, even if they did mean Nanny or Elphaba or Glinda had to steady her a little more often now she wore such heels.

If Glinda found out, she would tell Elphaba, Nessa knew. She knew the blonde thought she was unnaturally attached to the footwear, even as a great appreciator of fashion herself. She suffered in silence. It was worth it.

It was worth it for the look in Elphaba’s eyes whenever her gaze fell upon the silver shoes. Nessa wondered if it was something similar to lust, something she had never truly experienced, desire, need and jealousy. The thing was, Elphaba hid those feelings. Almost. Nessarose loved the fact that the shoes made her sister weak. They made her unhappy and suddenly so much weaker than poor, crippled, always doted on, Nessa. Elphaba wasn’t so sharp and so smart when she saw the glittering shoes poking out from under her sister’s long skirts. Nessa had something Elphaba didn’t. More than footwear.

She lived with the pain. For years. Even when Elphaba was gone. The shoes were her one up, her ace, her win, her way of lording it over her independent sister. They were hers and Elphaba couldn’t have them.

Nessa developed scars on her heels and her toes that she found she was rather proud of.

When she was in her thirties, the shoes were coming apart. They were slack and loose and somehow they still managed to pinch at her and make her suffer.

Everything changed when Glinda worked her magic on them.

Nessa never expected Glinda to have known the agony the shoes caused her.

Good as new, with a blood red tint, her old friend fixed the shoes back on her feet. The Eminence of the East took a few experimental steps around and found she could balance perfectly.

There was no pain.

Nessarose didn’t miss the ever so brief glare that Glinda shot in her direction as she took her leave. She knew. She had known all along. Glinda had taken the pain, the agony and her total dependence on others, what she defined herself by, and ripped it from her.

And she had done it for Elphaba.

‘Take that, Nessie dearest.’

Fin