i've dealt with enough pain over the years.
⋆˙ ⟡ for a heartbeat, glinda almost laughs, it's not a joke, but she laughs because the sound of it breaks something inside her that’s been cracking for years. pain. as if the word could ever fit inside a sentence so small. the good witch breathes in, and the world tastes like dust and perfume; the air still carries the ghost of emerald smoke and rain. her hand hovers, not quite reaching him. [ she remembers a boy made of sunlight, careless and golden, who once threw his crown to the wind just to make her smile. ] that boy is gone now, somehow buried beneath guilt, and graves, and all the things they never said. still, she looks at him and sees the shimmer of what was. that is the curse of love, she thinks: it refuses to rot when it should.
❝ you speak of pain like it’s something you’ve outgrown, ❞ she murmurs, voice soft, almost reverent. ❝ but i’ve seen the way it clings to you, it's like ivy, curling around your ribs, winding through your veins until you can’t tell where it ends and you begin. ❞ i know this because i feel the same. her lips tremble into something that isn’t quite a smile. ❝ you wear it well, you know. you always did. you made grief look like a crown. ❞ i know you miss them too. [ there’s a pause, long enough for memory to slip its hand into the space between them, a flash of green, a laugh like lightning, the sound of a heart breaking under the weight of righteousness. ] she turns her face away, because looking at fiyero too long hurts.
❝ i’ve dealt with enough pain, too, ❞ she admits, the words delicate, dangerous. her voice is a whisper, almost silent. ❝ but i never learned how to stop loving the things that caused it. ❞ or at least i lie well. glinda exhales, a small, shattering sound that feels like surrender. ❝ maybe that’s the difference between us, fiyero. you survived your pain somehow. i kept polishing mine until it shone. ❞ and when she looks back at him, the light catches in her eyes, not forgiveness, not even hope, just the hollow beauty of someone who has learned to live inside her own ruin. she turns from the mirror, her reflection lingering like a ghost behind her, a perfect bride, hollowed of truth. her hands tremble only once, smoothing invisible wrinkles over her gown. ❝ she won’t come, ❞ glinda whispers to no one. ❝ she’s smarter than we ever were. ❞ yet, when the trumpets sound, she still looks to the horizon. just in case the wind remembers to carry the scent of rain. just in case somewhere, in all that green, elphaba is looking back.
