Title: The Wedding of the Year

Author: Angel Leviathan

Disclaimer: Wicked, characters, concept, etc, aren’t mine.

Spoilers: Everything.

Notes: Bookverse. Written for the Wicked10 challenge.

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She normally loved writing invitations.

Seeing the piles of silver and gold embossed cards and envelopes mount up, piles that always got so high they toppled over and spilled out across the grand, polished, quoxwood table she sat at. She had always had a ridiculous amount of fun writing invitations as a young girl, just seeing the dozens of friends and companions she just had to invite, but now… The whole process just seemed empty. She knew very well most of the people on the list she was barely halfway through were only acquaintances and people she had to invite to be seen with. She was inviting few true friends, for, when it came down to it…she really didn’t have that many close friends to invite at all.

There was only one person she truly wanted to see at her wedding and that person she had no idea how to get in contact with. Or even if she was still alive.

Glinda Arduenna, soon to be Chuffrey, sank down in her chair and set down her pen, sighing. The ridiculous skirts of her dress would crease and indeed fell into ill-arranged patterns, but she just couldn’t bring herself to care. If anyone came into the room, she would, of course, instantly straighten up and shoot them an overly bright smile, maybe coyly adjust her hair, but, for now, she was alone and she wanted to wallow in whatever grief it was she believed herself to be feeling.

She could have had someone else write the invitations. There were plenty of people she could have told to do it, ordered to help her, but she had listened to the little girl inside her who always enjoyed the task and had let her win. She wished she hadn’t. There was no joy in the activity any longer. Meaningless names and moronic titles stared back at her from the flashy cards and envelopes.

She wondered if Elphaba was happy, wherever she was. Then again, Elphaba would never, ever admit to being truly happy at any given moment. She wasn’t born to be happy, or so she believed. Glinda felt like doing something stupid and writing an invite for her dear friend in the vain hope that it would somehow magically spirit itself away to her. As if Elphaba would actually turn up at the wedding. She would see it for what it was – a sham. Attending would mean she gave it her blessing, and that, Glinda was very much aware, was something she would not do. If her old friend thought she was being stupid, she showed it in two ways – reprimanding her on the spot or rewarding her with long, icy, silences. She had always preferred the scornful remarks, no matter how scathing.

Glinda reluctantly sat up straight and picked up her pen again. Even if there was no hope in whatever hell existed of Elphaba ever turning up at her wedding, she was duty bound to still invite Nessarose. In many ways, Glinda herself had taken the place of the girl’s lost sister during their remaining years at Shiz, and she knew, even if she did find it a little disturbing, that Nessa considered her family. She loved Nessa, she did, she just…couldn’t quite put her finger on what unnerved her about the soon to be Eminent Thropp so. Maybe it was the fact that she had seen the girl’s lust for power up-close…and realised it even surpassed her own desire for it.

Elphaba would have restrained them both by now. She would have told Glinda not to marry Chuffrey, perhaps under oath of never seeing her again if she went through with it, and would have, possibly quite literally, slapped some sense into Nessarose before nobody could save her. Glinda knew she was going to have to find a way to support and aid Nessa before she infuriated everyone around her with her airs and graces and wore out her welcome as Eminence. It wouldn’t be long before they realised if they left the poor girl in one place and refused to help her…there wasn’t much Nessa could do about it, Eminence or otherwise.

Glinda carefully finished the invitation in a script so elaborate she could barely read it herself. Nessa would come to her wedding. Nessa loved to be seen at such events. They would embrace and laugh and draw whatever silent comfort they could from each other whilst they were together for a few short hours, both wishing to see the one person they knew they wouldn’t.

Fin