Defying Gravity, 32/?, by ainsleyaisling
Title: Defying Gravity, 32/?
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: An Elphaba chapter, to keep things balanced.
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~~
The cat was extremely entertained by the process going on before him. Elphaba could not agree. She managed to hold still for one more hairpin before bursting out with, "I'm going to pull a hood over it and go out in a snowstorm; it isn't going to be perfect!"
Glinda put a firm hand on Elphaba's shoulder and held her unmoving in her chair. "Unless you want everyone at the party to notice that you were just out in a snowstorm, I need to anchor this as tight as possible. There's only so much magic I can do when you get back."
"That's an interesting question," Elphaba said, pressing her hands against her knees to prevent herself from jumping up from the chair. "Why haven't you ever learned magic for that?"
"I don't know." Glinda stepped back, frowned, and pulled another hairpin from her pocket. "I suppose because I used to set things on fire with most of my spells."
"Good point." Elphaba reached a hand up to feel the top of her hair, but Glinda pushed it away.
"Though," Glinda said as the pin slid delicately along Elphaba's scalp, "I'm sure Morrible would be thrilled to teach me something that completely useless. I should ask her."
"Might distract her from anything else we might be up to."
"Yes, by convincing her that I'm as vapid as she thinks." Glinda patted Elphaba's head a bit more firmly than was probably necessary. "There, now you can go out in a snowstorm."
"Thanks." Elphaba patted her own head with both hands, somewhat more cautiously. "I won't look completely overdone for a pub?"
"Not if you keep your hood up. It's not that elaborate anyway, look." Glinda grabbed two hand mirrors from the sofa and handed one to Elphaba, holding the other behind Elphaba's head. "Most of it's in the back. No one should notice anything."
"As if I could avoid drawing attention anyway." Elphaba sighed. "That's really what we need to be practicing."
"You mean like better glamours? I agree." Still fixing a scrutinizing look on Elphaba, Glinda crossed her arms and took another few steps back. "In the meantime - your dress is ready for you to change into when you come back. Fiyero will tell me when you're down at the party, and I'll meet you behind the first column on the south side."
"And make sure I'm presentable." Elphaba stood and shook out the skirt of the decidedly more practical dress she was wearing for her expedition to the pub.
"Yes. And you will be careful?"
Elphaba wrapped her cloak around her shoulders as she answered, "It's just Rikk. I don't think he's going to ambush me in the pub."
"All the same." Glinda's fingers worried at the belt of the wrap she was wearing over her petticoats. "We know there's something not natural about this storm, and who knows what Morrible thinks she's up to -"
"I know, and of course I'll be careful." An extra scarf wound around the lower part of her face, and Elphaba was ready. She offered Glinda a strained smile. "Wish me luck. We know I'm not much good at intrigue."
"If Rikk's bothering to meet you it must mean something," Glinda replied. "He could have said 'no' in a message."
"True," Elphaba said, the word muffled by the wool partially covering her mouth.
"And we know you have something he wants. Remember that."
If the Guards outside their door thought there was anything strange about Elphaba leaving their suite fully wrapped for the winter weather, none of them showed it. The fall of her boots on the stairs seemed painfully loud because she didn't want to be noticed, but in truth the noise of the palace preparing for the Midwinter party echoed all through the halls. Servants scuttled out of her way (Elphaba rather suspected they preferred not to notice her), and somewhere a band warmed up loudly and off-key. The cold could not have been beneficial to their instruments.
With her hood pulled lower over her face and her scarf wrapped tighter, Elphaba blended into the scores of people in the lower halls who were clearly being sent on various errands - they were wrapped as warmly as she was, and some of them had apparently just come in from outside, with bright red cheeks and noses and snow melting on their heads and in the folds of their clothing. Melted snow made the floors wet and slick, and Elphaba had to be careful not to slip as she wound her way through the others and out into the Guards' courtyard.
Only the Guards' bright green hats and the fires they were tending - in what appeared to be large planters now and not on the ground - made the courtyard even slightly recognizable. The snow piled higher than Elphaba's knees, and the only way across was to step into the knee-deep footprints left by the Guards' boots as they exchanged stations. She thought a few might have looked up curiously as she struggled past, but she wasn't worried about being seen out here. The snow still blew so hard and so thick that she could see only the glow of the fires, the shadows of the planters that held them, and one or two faces at each, illuminated by orange light but blurred by whipping snowflakes and ice. Even with her glasses (which she had left behind, assuming they would only get wet), she didn't think she would have been able to identify any of the men.
Keeping as close to the shadows as she could without leaving the line of the Guards' tracks, she finally made it to the gate. It had been left open just wide enough for a man to squeeze through, in deference, she supposed, to the fact that it would no longer have been possible to push it either open or closed further with all the snow piled around its base. She forced her way through, now having to break her own path and to go knee-deep into the wet snow with every step. Several times she overbalanced and fell sideways, her hand sinking into the snow up to her shoulder or else falling completely on her side and creating a small cave in the snowfall. Only the lamplights weakly holding their own on the city streets told her where to go through the blinding storm, and even then it was difficult to be certain whether she was on the correct street or simply stumbling in a random direction.
She didn't know how long it had taken her to reach the pub, but Fiyero was right about one thing - once she had managed to travel a few blocks from the palace, the storm lightened considerably. It was still snowing, but now the snow drifted almost peacefully downward and she could at least see ahead of her. On the ground the snow piled not much deeper than her ankles, and many of the merchants along the streets had cleared a path for customers - not that there were many - to walk. She followed one of them with weak legs and aching ankles and ended up nearly falling through the door of the pub Fiyero had described.
Inside it was warm and more than one fireplace flickered brightly. She saw Rikk immediately; he was sitting at a dark corner table far from the firelight, looking away from her at the snow swirling outside a high window. The sound of her approach, or just the sense of someone weaving through the tables toward him, got his attention, however, and he set his mug on the table and stood up as she arrived.
He didn't say anything, which she understood - wrapped nearly to her eyebrows, covered with snow that had not yet begun to melt on her clothes, and probably blistered raw by the wind anyway, at first glance she wouldn't have trusted that she was the one he expected, either. His face expressed some relief when she peeled off one glove and he got a glimpse of a green hand, but he didn't really relax until she had unwound her scarf and pushed her hood back a fraction from her forehead.
"Elphaba," he finally said under his breath as she sat down, her back to the rest of the pub. She didn't like having the door and all those strangers at her back, but it would be a great deal easier to avoid having her distinctive face noticed this way.
"Thank you for contacting us," she said somewhat stiffly, hands resting uncomfortably on the table in front of her. "How did you manage to get here? Glinda heard the roads were frozen."
"It's not easy, and goods certainly aren't getting through," he said. "I had some help."
"How is Munchkinland surviving the weather?"
He gave her a speculative look. "Not well," he said after a moment. "The livestock in general aren't used to having to be sheltered for this long in small spaces, and without any access to grazing lands even in the south, farmers are complaining that they're running out of feed. Not to mention everyone's running out of food; one look in most of the shops would tell you that. The frost came early enough and hard enough that a lot of the harvest was lost - what wasn't already lost because of labor shortage, anyway - and with so much loss already, no one's willing to start eating the livestock they do have left. And then there's the fact that most houses just aren't built for the weather. A lot of people were struggling to stay warm enough as it was in drafty cottages, and once the snow came -"
"So it's snowing there, too?"
"Not nearly like it is here," he replied. "But enough to shock the south a little. There's been roof damage, trees down - though a lot of that is due more to the wind, I think."
"Wind?" Elphaba asked.
Rikk nodded, looking grim. "Like no one can remember ever seeing before. You wake up in the morning and old trees are uprooted - strong ones, big enough that the roots are taller than a man when the tree lies flat. Anyone who had poorly built outbuildings - shacks for the chickens, you know the thing - those were lost weeks ago and no one's bothered rebuilding them. They'd just blow down again."
"And no one's wondering why this is happening?"
"Oh, they're wondering." He narrowed his eyes at her. "You don't know why, do you?"
It wasn't a question; more an astounded statement of fact. She realized that until that moment, he had believed that she would know the source of Munchkinland's strange weather. Which, she supposed, she probably did, but not with nearly the degree of certainty he'd probably expected. And she certainly didn't know why it was happening.
"I don't," she said slowly. "Glinda and I have our suspicions, but we don't know anything for sure. If it's coming from the Emerald City it's a secret."
"So you think it is coming from the Emerald City?"
Elphaba paused for a moment, looking out the near window at the snow. "Have you seen the palace? Today, I mean?"
He shook his head. "Barman told me not to try to get close, so I didn't. Fiyero said it was pretty bad, too."
"As hard as it's snowing here, it's ten times worse right over the palace. Just over the palace." She shook her head. "It's not natural and it's not coincidence, but I haven't figured it out."
"You haven't thought that . . ."
She frowned. "What?"
Rikk lifted his mug so that it partially hid his lips. "Someone's guessed what your plans are?"
"Guessed?"
He took a swallow, then set the mug down and leaned across the table to whisper. "Be awfully hard to sneak anybody out of the palace in something like this - not to mention you'd leave footprints everywhere you went."
Elphaba took a long breath to give herself time to think. "If it stayed as bad as it is now around the palace, actually I don't think anyone would see us leave - I couldn't see past the end of my nose out there. But I agree it would be dangerous." She stopped, her frown deepening. "But how could anyone possibly guess what we were planning?"
"You haven't talked to anyone?"
"Fiyero, but -"
"No, I agree." Rikk pushed his mug around the table in distraction. "No one else?"
"No one." A thought occurred to her, and she caught her bottom lip in her teeth as she worried at it. "We did do some - exploring around the palace, to figure out ways to get the Animals out -"
"Were you followed?"
"We didn't think so," Elphaba said honestly. "But is it impossible . . ."
"So," Rikk said. "That raises the stakes somewhat."
"Then . . . your people, they want to help?"
"They're interested," he said quietly. "They have some thoughts, about what might happen in Munchkinland in the near future . . ."
"All right," Elphaba said cautiously.
"For one thing - is there any chance, if your sympathies ended up being more closely aligned with his than your sister's are, that your father might -"
"No," Elphaba said. "Definitely not. Whatever he decides to do about the succession, he's happy enough pretending he never knew me."
"I had to ask," Rikk said. "In that case - you know, I don't know whether to believe half of what Fiyero tells me you can do."
"I don't know what he's been telling you," Elphaba said. "So skepticism is probably warranted."
"I don't know how to -" Rikk stopped, stared for a moment at his hands spread on the table, and then started over. "There are people in the camp who think you can come sweeping back into Munchkinland and take over -"
"They want me to stage a coup?" Elphaba almost laughed. "I thought my father was sympathetic . . ."
"He is, but he's not radical enough. There are people who think you are."
Elphaba was for a moment struck speechless. "These are probably the same people who were scared witless of me when we were children. They really think they want me in charge?"
He shrugged. "It's war now. People are starving; suspected Resistance leaders are being rounded up and arrested in bigger and bigger numbers. There are Guards everywhere - living off Munchkinland farms, too, what little there is. People want someone they're afraid of, because they're hoping the Wizard is, too."
"Believe me, he's not." Elphaba turned her gaze to the window again, gathering her thoughts. "So in exchange for helping us evacuate the animals, they want me to fly in and try to take over Munchkinland from my father? And then, what, start a war with the Emerald City and force the Guards out?"
"There are a few who probably do want that," Rikk said. "Wait - fly? You can't really."
"It was a figure of speech," Elphaba said, feeling her heart skip a beat. "So what do they want?"
"They want to start making braver attacks on the Emerald City, and they want your help," Rikk explained softly. "Totally undercover. No public flying or warring at all."
"What kind of attacks?"
It seemed to her that for a moment he hesitated, but then he said, "Intercepting supply shipments for the Guards."
"I thought you said nothing could -"
"Mostly nothing. Anyway, things like that. Releasing Resistance members from jails. Attacking Guard outposts."
Elphaba thought about that for a while before she was ready to speak again. "I never intended to war," she said.
"Glinda suggested -" Rikk stopped and took a drink of his ale; she suspected he also needed a moment to think. "I know you planned to help the Animals. But that's not the only abuse of power in Oz, and once they were helped - things can't just go on as they are. You didn't really envision helping all the Animals in Oz get to a refugee camp and then leaving them there forever, did you?"
"No," Elphaba admitted. She did not also admit that she hadn't thought much past this immediate plan. "Who would know?"
"That you were involved?" He began to count on his fingers. "Me. The Head. The people who run the other biggest cells in Munchkinland - maybe four. No one else."
"You're sure? If even a rumor got to the Wizard - it's not just my safety, mine and Glinda's, but our ability to stay on the inside -"
"We understand that. We're willing to keep it to the leaders and not let anyone else know you're involved."
"What about all those 'people' who expect me to sweep in and save Munchkinland?" she countered.
"We'll let them go on being hopeful and slightly disappointed," he said. "You're not worried about your popularity?"
"Of course not." She bit the end of one finger in thought. "And in return they'll give us as many people as we need to escort the Animals to the camp? And help collect any that are still hiding in the City?"
"As many as you need - though how will you keep them from knowing you're involved?"
"Let me worry about that." Elphaba thought for another moment, then held out her hand, but before he could take it, she pulled it back. "If any word gets out - or if Glinda's safety is threatened in any way - it's off."
"I understand that." He held out his hand. "For now - we have a deal?"
She pressed her lips tightly together and shook his hand.
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: An Elphaba chapter, to keep things balanced.
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~~
The cat was extremely entertained by the process going on before him. Elphaba could not agree. She managed to hold still for one more hairpin before bursting out with, "I'm going to pull a hood over it and go out in a snowstorm; it isn't going to be perfect!"
Glinda put a firm hand on Elphaba's shoulder and held her unmoving in her chair. "Unless you want everyone at the party to notice that you were just out in a snowstorm, I need to anchor this as tight as possible. There's only so much magic I can do when you get back."
"That's an interesting question," Elphaba said, pressing her hands against her knees to prevent herself from jumping up from the chair. "Why haven't you ever learned magic for that?"
"I don't know." Glinda stepped back, frowned, and pulled another hairpin from her pocket. "I suppose because I used to set things on fire with most of my spells."
"Good point." Elphaba reached a hand up to feel the top of her hair, but Glinda pushed it away.
"Though," Glinda said as the pin slid delicately along Elphaba's scalp, "I'm sure Morrible would be thrilled to teach me something that completely useless. I should ask her."
"Might distract her from anything else we might be up to."
"Yes, by convincing her that I'm as vapid as she thinks." Glinda patted Elphaba's head a bit more firmly than was probably necessary. "There, now you can go out in a snowstorm."
"Thanks." Elphaba patted her own head with both hands, somewhat more cautiously. "I won't look completely overdone for a pub?"
"Not if you keep your hood up. It's not that elaborate anyway, look." Glinda grabbed two hand mirrors from the sofa and handed one to Elphaba, holding the other behind Elphaba's head. "Most of it's in the back. No one should notice anything."
"As if I could avoid drawing attention anyway." Elphaba sighed. "That's really what we need to be practicing."
"You mean like better glamours? I agree." Still fixing a scrutinizing look on Elphaba, Glinda crossed her arms and took another few steps back. "In the meantime - your dress is ready for you to change into when you come back. Fiyero will tell me when you're down at the party, and I'll meet you behind the first column on the south side."
"And make sure I'm presentable." Elphaba stood and shook out the skirt of the decidedly more practical dress she was wearing for her expedition to the pub.
"Yes. And you will be careful?"
Elphaba wrapped her cloak around her shoulders as she answered, "It's just Rikk. I don't think he's going to ambush me in the pub."
"All the same." Glinda's fingers worried at the belt of the wrap she was wearing over her petticoats. "We know there's something not natural about this storm, and who knows what Morrible thinks she's up to -"
"I know, and of course I'll be careful." An extra scarf wound around the lower part of her face, and Elphaba was ready. She offered Glinda a strained smile. "Wish me luck. We know I'm not much good at intrigue."
"If Rikk's bothering to meet you it must mean something," Glinda replied. "He could have said 'no' in a message."
"True," Elphaba said, the word muffled by the wool partially covering her mouth.
"And we know you have something he wants. Remember that."
If the Guards outside their door thought there was anything strange about Elphaba leaving their suite fully wrapped for the winter weather, none of them showed it. The fall of her boots on the stairs seemed painfully loud because she didn't want to be noticed, but in truth the noise of the palace preparing for the Midwinter party echoed all through the halls. Servants scuttled out of her way (Elphaba rather suspected they preferred not to notice her), and somewhere a band warmed up loudly and off-key. The cold could not have been beneficial to their instruments.
With her hood pulled lower over her face and her scarf wrapped tighter, Elphaba blended into the scores of people in the lower halls who were clearly being sent on various errands - they were wrapped as warmly as she was, and some of them had apparently just come in from outside, with bright red cheeks and noses and snow melting on their heads and in the folds of their clothing. Melted snow made the floors wet and slick, and Elphaba had to be careful not to slip as she wound her way through the others and out into the Guards' courtyard.
Only the Guards' bright green hats and the fires they were tending - in what appeared to be large planters now and not on the ground - made the courtyard even slightly recognizable. The snow piled higher than Elphaba's knees, and the only way across was to step into the knee-deep footprints left by the Guards' boots as they exchanged stations. She thought a few might have looked up curiously as she struggled past, but she wasn't worried about being seen out here. The snow still blew so hard and so thick that she could see only the glow of the fires, the shadows of the planters that held them, and one or two faces at each, illuminated by orange light but blurred by whipping snowflakes and ice. Even with her glasses (which she had left behind, assuming they would only get wet), she didn't think she would have been able to identify any of the men.
Keeping as close to the shadows as she could without leaving the line of the Guards' tracks, she finally made it to the gate. It had been left open just wide enough for a man to squeeze through, in deference, she supposed, to the fact that it would no longer have been possible to push it either open or closed further with all the snow piled around its base. She forced her way through, now having to break her own path and to go knee-deep into the wet snow with every step. Several times she overbalanced and fell sideways, her hand sinking into the snow up to her shoulder or else falling completely on her side and creating a small cave in the snowfall. Only the lamplights weakly holding their own on the city streets told her where to go through the blinding storm, and even then it was difficult to be certain whether she was on the correct street or simply stumbling in a random direction.
She didn't know how long it had taken her to reach the pub, but Fiyero was right about one thing - once she had managed to travel a few blocks from the palace, the storm lightened considerably. It was still snowing, but now the snow drifted almost peacefully downward and she could at least see ahead of her. On the ground the snow piled not much deeper than her ankles, and many of the merchants along the streets had cleared a path for customers - not that there were many - to walk. She followed one of them with weak legs and aching ankles and ended up nearly falling through the door of the pub Fiyero had described.
Inside it was warm and more than one fireplace flickered brightly. She saw Rikk immediately; he was sitting at a dark corner table far from the firelight, looking away from her at the snow swirling outside a high window. The sound of her approach, or just the sense of someone weaving through the tables toward him, got his attention, however, and he set his mug on the table and stood up as she arrived.
He didn't say anything, which she understood - wrapped nearly to her eyebrows, covered with snow that had not yet begun to melt on her clothes, and probably blistered raw by the wind anyway, at first glance she wouldn't have trusted that she was the one he expected, either. His face expressed some relief when she peeled off one glove and he got a glimpse of a green hand, but he didn't really relax until she had unwound her scarf and pushed her hood back a fraction from her forehead.
"Elphaba," he finally said under his breath as she sat down, her back to the rest of the pub. She didn't like having the door and all those strangers at her back, but it would be a great deal easier to avoid having her distinctive face noticed this way.
"Thank you for contacting us," she said somewhat stiffly, hands resting uncomfortably on the table in front of her. "How did you manage to get here? Glinda heard the roads were frozen."
"It's not easy, and goods certainly aren't getting through," he said. "I had some help."
"How is Munchkinland surviving the weather?"
He gave her a speculative look. "Not well," he said after a moment. "The livestock in general aren't used to having to be sheltered for this long in small spaces, and without any access to grazing lands even in the south, farmers are complaining that they're running out of feed. Not to mention everyone's running out of food; one look in most of the shops would tell you that. The frost came early enough and hard enough that a lot of the harvest was lost - what wasn't already lost because of labor shortage, anyway - and with so much loss already, no one's willing to start eating the livestock they do have left. And then there's the fact that most houses just aren't built for the weather. A lot of people were struggling to stay warm enough as it was in drafty cottages, and once the snow came -"
"So it's snowing there, too?"
"Not nearly like it is here," he replied. "But enough to shock the south a little. There's been roof damage, trees down - though a lot of that is due more to the wind, I think."
"Wind?" Elphaba asked.
Rikk nodded, looking grim. "Like no one can remember ever seeing before. You wake up in the morning and old trees are uprooted - strong ones, big enough that the roots are taller than a man when the tree lies flat. Anyone who had poorly built outbuildings - shacks for the chickens, you know the thing - those were lost weeks ago and no one's bothered rebuilding them. They'd just blow down again."
"And no one's wondering why this is happening?"
"Oh, they're wondering." He narrowed his eyes at her. "You don't know why, do you?"
It wasn't a question; more an astounded statement of fact. She realized that until that moment, he had believed that she would know the source of Munchkinland's strange weather. Which, she supposed, she probably did, but not with nearly the degree of certainty he'd probably expected. And she certainly didn't know why it was happening.
"I don't," she said slowly. "Glinda and I have our suspicions, but we don't know anything for sure. If it's coming from the Emerald City it's a secret."
"So you think it is coming from the Emerald City?"
Elphaba paused for a moment, looking out the near window at the snow. "Have you seen the palace? Today, I mean?"
He shook his head. "Barman told me not to try to get close, so I didn't. Fiyero said it was pretty bad, too."
"As hard as it's snowing here, it's ten times worse right over the palace. Just over the palace." She shook her head. "It's not natural and it's not coincidence, but I haven't figured it out."
"You haven't thought that . . ."
She frowned. "What?"
Rikk lifted his mug so that it partially hid his lips. "Someone's guessed what your plans are?"
"Guessed?"
He took a swallow, then set the mug down and leaned across the table to whisper. "Be awfully hard to sneak anybody out of the palace in something like this - not to mention you'd leave footprints everywhere you went."
Elphaba took a long breath to give herself time to think. "If it stayed as bad as it is now around the palace, actually I don't think anyone would see us leave - I couldn't see past the end of my nose out there. But I agree it would be dangerous." She stopped, her frown deepening. "But how could anyone possibly guess what we were planning?"
"You haven't talked to anyone?"
"Fiyero, but -"
"No, I agree." Rikk pushed his mug around the table in distraction. "No one else?"
"No one." A thought occurred to her, and she caught her bottom lip in her teeth as she worried at it. "We did do some - exploring around the palace, to figure out ways to get the Animals out -"
"Were you followed?"
"We didn't think so," Elphaba said honestly. "But is it impossible . . ."
"So," Rikk said. "That raises the stakes somewhat."
"Then . . . your people, they want to help?"
"They're interested," he said quietly. "They have some thoughts, about what might happen in Munchkinland in the near future . . ."
"All right," Elphaba said cautiously.
"For one thing - is there any chance, if your sympathies ended up being more closely aligned with his than your sister's are, that your father might -"
"No," Elphaba said. "Definitely not. Whatever he decides to do about the succession, he's happy enough pretending he never knew me."
"I had to ask," Rikk said. "In that case - you know, I don't know whether to believe half of what Fiyero tells me you can do."
"I don't know what he's been telling you," Elphaba said. "So skepticism is probably warranted."
"I don't know how to -" Rikk stopped, stared for a moment at his hands spread on the table, and then started over. "There are people in the camp who think you can come sweeping back into Munchkinland and take over -"
"They want me to stage a coup?" Elphaba almost laughed. "I thought my father was sympathetic . . ."
"He is, but he's not radical enough. There are people who think you are."
Elphaba was for a moment struck speechless. "These are probably the same people who were scared witless of me when we were children. They really think they want me in charge?"
He shrugged. "It's war now. People are starving; suspected Resistance leaders are being rounded up and arrested in bigger and bigger numbers. There are Guards everywhere - living off Munchkinland farms, too, what little there is. People want someone they're afraid of, because they're hoping the Wizard is, too."
"Believe me, he's not." Elphaba turned her gaze to the window again, gathering her thoughts. "So in exchange for helping us evacuate the animals, they want me to fly in and try to take over Munchkinland from my father? And then, what, start a war with the Emerald City and force the Guards out?"
"There are a few who probably do want that," Rikk said. "Wait - fly? You can't really."
"It was a figure of speech," Elphaba said, feeling her heart skip a beat. "So what do they want?"
"They want to start making braver attacks on the Emerald City, and they want your help," Rikk explained softly. "Totally undercover. No public flying or warring at all."
"What kind of attacks?"
It seemed to her that for a moment he hesitated, but then he said, "Intercepting supply shipments for the Guards."
"I thought you said nothing could -"
"Mostly nothing. Anyway, things like that. Releasing Resistance members from jails. Attacking Guard outposts."
Elphaba thought about that for a while before she was ready to speak again. "I never intended to war," she said.
"Glinda suggested -" Rikk stopped and took a drink of his ale; she suspected he also needed a moment to think. "I know you planned to help the Animals. But that's not the only abuse of power in Oz, and once they were helped - things can't just go on as they are. You didn't really envision helping all the Animals in Oz get to a refugee camp and then leaving them there forever, did you?"
"No," Elphaba admitted. She did not also admit that she hadn't thought much past this immediate plan. "Who would know?"
"That you were involved?" He began to count on his fingers. "Me. The Head. The people who run the other biggest cells in Munchkinland - maybe four. No one else."
"You're sure? If even a rumor got to the Wizard - it's not just my safety, mine and Glinda's, but our ability to stay on the inside -"
"We understand that. We're willing to keep it to the leaders and not let anyone else know you're involved."
"What about all those 'people' who expect me to sweep in and save Munchkinland?" she countered.
"We'll let them go on being hopeful and slightly disappointed," he said. "You're not worried about your popularity?"
"Of course not." She bit the end of one finger in thought. "And in return they'll give us as many people as we need to escort the Animals to the camp? And help collect any that are still hiding in the City?"
"As many as you need - though how will you keep them from knowing you're involved?"
"Let me worry about that." Elphaba thought for another moment, then held out her hand, but before he could take it, she pulled it back. "If any word gets out - or if Glinda's safety is threatened in any way - it's off."
"I understand that." He held out his hand. "For now - we have a deal?"
She pressed her lips tightly together and shook his hand.