borrowmoonlight

// The Dark, I Know Well

borrowmoonlight — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:05:14 GMT

Title: The Dark, I Know Well
Rating: PG
Pairing: Implied Elphaba/Fiyero.
Warning: Spoilers for the end of the musical.
Summary: An Animal, unaware of the troubles in Oz, invites two strangers into her home, and soon discovers that nothing will ever be the same again. Post-musical.

I.

You once lived in Oz; a long time ago.

It’s hard to remember much about it, other than the odd shadow in your daydreams. All you know now is where you are; here, in this quiet forest, in your quiet home with the shoddily-made shelves, crumbling books hidden under the bed, clothes that never seem clean enough. It is your entire world -- and yet, your dreams drag along familiar voices, grasping buildings, and the images linger long after they should.

It was the right choice. Your uncle always knew best, after all, and he was the one who placed the suitcase in your frightened grip, the dawn but a newborn in your clouded windowsills - just in case. He was the one who sat on the edge of your bed with weary eyes, telling you dreadful stories of what was happening to the Animals, of a corrupted Oz; stories that later seeped into your nightmares, vibrant, deafening.

He was the one who stayed behind.

You catch yourself against the wall; utter a prayer that doesn’t even seem to leave your mouth, hot with hopes of safety, of innocent mistakes. It couldn’t be. Those hastily scribbled words - they’re coming to take me away tomorrow. His tales of lost voices, of prison cells and quiet secrets; they would never come true.

Not there.

You shouldn’t really be thinking about that, though.

With a simple flick, the dust scampers away from your broom into the early evening, and for a moment, you stand in the humid air, watching the clouds gather above you - shiver, even though it isn’t cold.

Just another day in the Bad Lands.

II.

The rain is heavy, horrible, like the cries of a defeated soul. Threads drip down through the holes in your roof, forming gaping puddles; your bed little more than a pond now. You’re tired, eyelids drooping, body trembling, and for the thousandth time, you think of your little home in Oz, abandoned, alone, and wonder why, why, why. Why did you believe so many unbelievable tales? Why did that letter tremble against your hooves, so raw, so real that for a fleeting moment, the words almost seemed to leap from the page and wrap themselves around your throat? Why did you leave such comfort to cower in a crumbling shack and pray?

Somewhere within your faded thoughts, a cackle of thunder sounds - and a scream follows it.

You’re upright in a moment, unsure if you really heard it, unsure if you’re merely losing your mind. It’s been so long since you’ve seen another living being that all you can do is imagine they still exist somewhere; far from you.

The scream rattles in your bones, and you throw open the door just in time to be blinded like an brilliant flash of white; watch as a giant of a tree collapses amidst all the shadows, slams against the ground with an anguished howl.

A frightened voice pierces the steady rhythm of the rain, calling someone’s name, and then you’re running, hooves sinking in the mud, clothes fit to slip off your matted hair - more exhilarated than you’ve ever been before. Someone is out there. Someone is out there.

You’re running so fast that you nearly slam into the fallen trunk; its jagged outline vibrant in each gasp of lightning. It’s enormous, so large you’re unable to tell where it begins and ends. You think of calling out, but you’re afraid that no will answer; that you’ll be proven insane, and that will be the end of it. Instead, you try to feel your way along it, traveling an untouched path; unsure of what you might find (someone is out there, you tell yourself, determined, hopeless).

And then it’s real.

At first, it’s just a woman’s sharp voice. Then, the shadow of a figure before you, invisible until lightning pours over, revealing the outline of a black cloak; hands tinted an otherworldly color, which must be a trick of the night, a hallucination of your frenzied mind. She’s frantically shoving at the stoic trunk, and you find yourself frozen, confused, exhilarated; merely watching as though you’re on the outside, looking in. You don’t move until a thread of lightning traces the shadows beneath the bark; colors something dull yellow, and with a jolt of horror, you realize it’s a person, trapped under the trunk, and then you’re shoving too.

The woman seems to notice you, then, shouts something that a sudden roar of wind swallows whole, and you don’t know what to say, so you say nothing. For a frightening moment, you believe that she is about to shove you away, but she merely makes a wild gesture, urges her body against the trunk harder still.

A man’s voice, soft, pricks at your ears; says something about his hands, and it takes you a bewildered moment to realize it’s coming from the figure trapped beneath the tree. How he’s even still alive; much less speaking in a perfectly calm, stable voice, is something you can’t understand, can’t even begin to. All you know is that now, the woman has clasped one of his hands and is pulling, and you mechanically follow, clutching your hooves against the other.

For a brief, despairing moment, you think the situation hopeless; but then something gives, suddenly, swiftly, and you’re dragging the man through the windswept grass, wonderfully free. You release him, your hoof coated in something you don’t recognize at first; straw, you finally realize, and are all the more perplexed.

The rain keeps beating down, unrelenting, unfeeling to your plight, and all you can do is gesture at the two trembling figures, clutching to one another; shout for them to follow you before turning and running. Their footsteps crunch against branches, slip through mud behind you, and despite the rain and the cold and the wind, you’re not alone any longer, and it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world.

The sensation proves to be fleeting.

A few weak candles are still clinging to gasps of fire when you stumble in, looking like you just emerged from a lake, and when you turn back, eager to urge them in, your body stiffens; your blood trembles beneath dripping hair.

The man isn’t human at all, you realize, and your hooves unconsciously move to your shreds of clothing, wiping away the straw that is solidly matted to them; that came from him, from his body, you realize, horrified. The flames catch his every shade of gold, and against rationality, against logic, you realize he’s one of those rag dolls that you used to see hanging in cornfields; undoubtedly alive.

What’s even worse is that one of his legs is gone, ripped clean off, and you realize it must still be trapped under that monster of a tree. He isn’t bothered by it, either, not in the least; merely bewildered, it looks like. He clings to the other figure; a shadow of a cloak, so deeply covered that you wouldn’t even be able to tell it were a woman if you hadn’t already heard her voice.

For the longest of moments, you simply stare at them; startled, disbelieving. There’s nothing to offer them, no excess help you can really give. You’re not even sure what they are.

And then the woman steps forward, black cloth swirling in the puddles along the floor, curtly asking if you have a bed, a chair, anything, and you manage to gesture dumbly to the back room.

With surprising speed, she helps the straw man through the doorway, and you’re left standing below a slow drip of rainwater, wondering just who you’ve blindly invited into your home.

III.

You know you shouldn’t be listening, that’s it rude to eavesdrop on conversations that have nothing whatsoever to do with you; by the sound of their voices, there’s obviously a very serious subject worthy of discussion between them, and you have no business within it.

This, of course, does not keep you from lingering near the doorway.

They speak in careful, hushed tones; still, you manage to catch snippets of sentences amidst the dull roar of the storm.

“It‘s my fault --”

“-- I told you, I can’t feel anything! I’m fine - “

“Fiyero, your leg is gone --”

“You worry too much --”

“ -- or have you already forgotten the spell?”

“I don’t like seeing you like this --”

“ -- it wasn’t as though the lightning was your fault --”

“Just let me try --”

And then the woman brushes the folds of her cloak away, uncovers elegant hands (and her skin, why is her skin not quite the right color? It must be an hallucination, you decide; you‘re beginning to see things) and her tongue wraps its way around sharp, soothing gibberish; a foreign language, you fleetingly decide, but then something’s happening, something impossible, and suddenly, his leg has reappeared.

You can’t understand it, staring unabashedly into the darkened room. One moment, his leg was gone, and the next, it was there, perfectly whole, flawless in every way. He wraps careful hands around it, smiles, and you’re beginning to feel lightheaded.

It’s the most spectacular thing you’ve ever seen, and with your lanky limbs trembling, a gasp stuck to the roof of your mouth, you slip against the wall, and you can think is magic, magic, magic.

IV.

Finally, when the hours have quietly slipped by, when you’ve resigned yourself to a damp wooden chair, when the rain has finally calmed itself, the woman emerges from the room; awkwardly stands before you, little more than a shadow in your home.

Unsure of what else you can do, you gesture to the chair across from yours, and to your faint surprise, she takes it.

“Thank you,” she finally says after a pocket of awkward silence, and it’s easy to tell that gratitude isn’t an emotion she expresses often. “For your help.”

You do your best to nod in response, unable to keep your gaze from wondering to the darkened doorway over her shoulder.

“He’s sleeping,” she says, noticing your eyes; shoulders stiffening under the folds of her cloak, neck craning so as to avoid the light catching within the depths of her hood. You try to smile, nod once more, but she makes you nervous, so very nervous, and in all your fidgeting, you accidentally knock over one of the candles with your clunky hoof.

And before you can even react, try to reach for it; her hand shoots forward, wraps long fingers around the wax just before the flame touches the table.

You might have been amazed at her speed if you weren’t already preoccupied with her hand, glowing dull emerald in the light.

She pulls it back within folds of cloth, as though she has been stung; as though the flame has burnt her.

After a long moment, she sighs, defeated, and throws her hood back, revealing long, tangled raven hair; undoubtedly green skin.

“Say what you will,” she snarls as you stare, unmoving, from across the table. “Everyone seems to have an opinion of me; let’s hear yours.”

You struggle to find words.

“Who are you?”

It’s all you can manage to say, awkward, trembling, but you have faced entirely too many surprises tonight; you deserve at least one concrete answer.

It’s her turn to look bewildered.

“Do you mean to say,” she starts, deliberately, disbelieving, “that you don’t know who I am?”

“No,” you answer, and it’s the truth. “Should I?”

She doesn’t provide a response; merely falls back against her chair, the shadow of a smile emerging amidst the sharp curves of her face. She waves away your further persistance, merely saying that she is no one, no one at all, and somehow, you get the impression that she revels in the fact that you don’t know who she is; that her identity is so well-known that to find someone who has never heard her name is everything but an impossibility.

You don’t know whether to feel sympathetic or frightened.

V.

It’s ages before she takes a good, long look at you, and when she blinks, leans forward in surprise, softly says, “you’re a Goat,” as though it’s some sort of grand revelation, you nearly laugh.

“Not familiar with Animals?” You can’t help but comment, snidely.

“Not for a long time, no,” she snaps in response, and her expression is so grave that the smirk is wiped clean from your face. “Have you been living under a rock for the past few years, or are you just oblivious to your own race?”

The whisper of a chill runs along your back (lost voices, prison cells, quiet secrets), but you do your best to ignore it.

“The last time I spoke to an Animal was --,” her sentence awkwardly hangs in the air, and an expression tinged with pain lingers along her face; her lips stiffening into an unforgiving sneer; “an Animal that could understand me, could respond of its own will,” -- her eyes close; her nails press into the damp wood, “was months ago, at the least.”

“Where are you from,” you ask, scarcely able to hide your panic, boiling beneath your skin.

“Oz,” she says, and it’s a nightmare, coming true.

VI.

“I once lived in Oz. I was told -- there were rumors of something happening, something bad, but I never - I never thought much of them. When I left, I was sure it --someone would come for me, would bring me back when it was all proved false.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Years. I think. It‘s difficult to keep track of time here.”

“It must have been, if you never heard of the wi -- if you never knew ”

“Was it really so horrible? I can’t - I don’t understand --”

“If horrible to you means corruption of the highest level; unsupported, foolish hysteria; Animals, losing their voices, being carted off to Oz-Knows-Where -- then yes, I wouldn’t hesitate to call it that. Would you?”

“I - I can’t --”

“Be grateful for your good fortune; that you escaped before the storm.”

Her eyes fill with the glint of something otherworldly, each dip and curve in her skin growing hollow, and in the shadows, her face looks utterly evil; utterly wicked.

“It’s all you can hope to have at this point.”

VII.

You wish to know more; more of Oz, more of her, more of the reason why a woman of strange skin and a man made of straw are traipsing around in the Bad Lands. She waves away each question with a tired hand, a warning gaze; but still, your curiosity presses on.

She speaks in vague, gentle tones; few tidbits of information that don’t tell you much at all. They lived in Oz all their lives. Unfortunate circumstances were numerous. They are running away; escaping. They can never go back.

(Who is chasing you? No one. Who wishes you harm? Everyone.)

“Isn’t it sad, though? To remember your time there?”

She laughs, then; a hoarse cackle that sends unvited chills through you.

“Remember?” She says, like it’s the most amusing word she’s ever heard. “I long to forget.”

She will say nothing else on the matter, and you wonder if it's for the best.

VIII.

Your eyes meander over to the doorway; perfectly dark, empty.

“Will he be all right,” you suddenly ask, remembering the bile in your throat at the sight of his single leg.

“He’s fine,” she says with a voice that has suddenly obtained a slight slur; she’s growing tired, arms lifeless along the worn grooves of the table. “He -- he didn’t even feel it.”

“His leg was ripped off!”

“He doesn’t feel pain,” she says, as though it’s the simplest thing in the world to accept. “Not anymore.”

“That’s impossible --” you start, disbelieving, but she holds her hand up so suddenly, so sternly, that the words leak back down your throat, lost.

“Don’t act as though you know what’s possible and what’s not,” she hisses, long nails reflecting the faint flames of the dying candles. “You don’t.”

You can accept that, you suppose.

She suddenly tips her head, pulling at the thick material of her dress; clutches between her fingers a few pieces of straw, brilliant gold in the light. She smiles wearily at them; what seems like a strange mixture of sadness and happiness enveloped in her face, and glances over her shoulder to the doorway.

“He didn’t have to; but he did.”

She delicately wraps her fingers around them; clutches her soft fist to her chest; lost in something you could never begin to understand.

“I love him,” she says, almost desperately.

You’re not sure what to say to that.

IX.

Somewhere in the fringes of your soft sleep; when you and her have slipped once and once again, only to be awakened by melting wax, faint light, the blurry gaze of the other, wide as though looking upon a stranger, you remember something; scribbled lines in a crumpled letter; carefully folded under the thin folds of your bed.

My days teaching here have not been by any stretch ideal; but there have been small instances of happiness. There is one student, a very bright young woman, who has shown me great kindness.

Startled from lucid shadows of dreams, you glance to her crumpled form, perfectly still, still trapped in an prolonged interlude; hands twitching with what you can only expect are restless dreams.

I think you would like Miss Elphaba; she is wise beyond her years. I only wish her skin - for you see, she is green in color; a very odd rarity - were normal, for then she may make friends with greater ease.

For a moment, you rest in the hole of your wrapped arms, watching her.

“Elphaba,” you whisper, without thinking.

She jerks, nearly stirs but does not wake, and she must be the girl mentioned in your uncle’s letter; it seems impossible (you can’t imagine this shadow, this utterly frightening enigma of a woman calmly sitting in a classroom, taking notes like any other good student), but it must be.

“Elphaba,” you say once more, a little louder; nudging her thin fingers.

A grimace follows the sharp pattern of her face, and she brushes you away, mumbles something; not now, Nessa; it’s too early to go outside; buries her face in her shoulder.

You barely have a moment to breathe before she sits upright, startled from sleep; looks to you with wild eyes.

“What did you call me?”

X.

“My Uncle, he’s a professor; he used to send me letters all the time. About his classes and his students -- he once wrote me a letter speaking of someone named Elphaba, who was green. That -- I mean, is it you?”

“Yes.”

“He spoke so fondly of you.”

“I thought fondly of him. Doctor Dillamond was my favorite professor, by far.”

“I’m glad he wasn’t completely unhappy. You gave him some comfort, it seemed; some hope for the world.”

“Hope.”

She says it as though it’s a filthy word.

You don’t want to know, you don’t; so many dreams you managed to cling to have been effortlessly shattered in a matter of hours, and you don’t know if you can withstand any more of this. You want to believe in goodness, however fake it may prove to be in the end. It’s all you have left.

You are a fool in the end, and cannot help but ask.

“Do you know what happened - what became of my Uncle?”

Elphaba averts her gaze, focuses sad eyes on the whisper of a flame, and the room is quiet and quiet and quiet; filled with nothing but the truth, and it’s the most horrible feeling you’ve ever known.

XI.

There is nothing left in Oz, for you or me. Perhaps -- one day, things may be different, but it will take time.

Quite a bit of time.

XII.

The rest of the night is spent in restless fits of sleep; your body caught in countless awkward positions that leave you stiff with each startling time you wake. You dream of being struck by falling trees; of sitting in a classrooms with green shadows; of being unable to speak, no matter how hard you try. Each one leaves you cold to the touch, waking to melted wax on your hooves, a glimmer of emerald across the table.

If your sleep merely consists of restless dreams, than hers is filled with nightmares; horrible, terrifying nightmares that startle you awake you over and over again, that cause her body to jerk, her frenzied words to sharply echo through your home. With a hoarse voice, she calls out to those who must be far from her; Father, Nessa, Glinda; and they must slip into the scraps of sleep you cling to, because unfamiliar shadows linger in every quiet corner, and all you can do is watch them, try to touch their fleeting figures.

There is one moment; and you may have imagined it, you may have dreamed it up entirely amidst your fits of sleep; that she slams her body against the table so hard that you feel it against your bones, and when you rise to see what’s wrong, she begins to chant, foreign, broken words that mean nothing. She screams, louder than all the times before; Fiyero, Fiyero!: and before you even know what’s happening, there’s a faint shuffling in the other room and a dark shadow stumbles out; the straw man.

He hurries to her, takes her thin body in his arms. I’m here, Elphaba, I’m right here, you hear him whisper; and still, it seems like ages until she finally wakes, trembling, gasping. Her hands, a faint stroke of color, emerge from all the black, clutch to him, and in the last little flame; for one candle is endlessly stubborn, and clings to its light; you can almost see the ghosts of tear stains along her face.

Over his shoulder, she looks to you, looks straight into your eyes, half-closed across the table.

You blow out the flame.

That look; the look of someone who has weathered enough hardship to last ten lifetimes; who has known pain unlike anything you could even begin to imagine; who has nothing more to say than this is what the world has made of me; has never left you.

XIII.

You wake to silence.

Every limb seems to ache, your body curled through thin puddles on the floor. It takes you a moment of blurry, haphazard vision, of groping for something solid in all the haze, to realize that a blanket has been thrown over you. Except that you don’t remember ever going to get a blanket. You fling it away, disoriented.

Finally, you rise to unsteady hooves, and it is only then, with a glance around the small room, pockmarked with dim sunlight; it is morning, and you are alone.

At first, you’re sorely tempted to believe it all to have been merely a dream. You were lonely, you were frustrated, you were losing your mind; you simply invented fanciful strangers; imaginary friends, or something like that; to keep you company in the endless night. It’s an easy solution, one that could be simply swallowed without another thought.

You can’t ignore the straw strewn across your damp bed sheets; the table, where all the melted wax has been cleared away and inexplicably replaced with three whole candles, so neatly placed that it must have been intentional.

And there is the fallen tree, you realize, traipsing out into the faint light of morning; an enormous shadow amidst the speckled green, the blotted brown. You gently place a hoof against it, begin to walk beside it; almost as though you expect it to lead you somewhere else entirely, somewhere far, far away, where all of this will fail to be real any longer, and you will find something that is worth finding.

You reach the end, and when the quiet forest comes forth to greet you, it and nothing else, all you can do is wonder what is supposed to happen next.

XIV.

You go on, as though it meant nothing at all.

You still take long walks in the morning, weaving through the thin shadows of trees, losing yourself in the foliage and quietly hoping that you may never find your way back. You still leaf through tired books when the sun hangs high in the sky, read the stories you’ve read a thousand times and struggle to believe every hollow word. You still spend your nights bathed in candlelight; learning to be lonely.

There’s still hope, there must still be hope, but your dreams of home have become nightmares; horrible, unexplainable visions of having your tongue ripped out, of drowning in a mere pail of water, of emerald shadows being ripped to shreds, and when you wake with a gasp --think of your poor uncle, who is gone, gone, gone --

All you can believe is that something bad has happened in Oz, and there's no turning back now.

XV.

And when it storms, you stand in your crude doorway, stare into the shadowed night, and wait.

You never see them again.

~

// Here

borrowmoonlight — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:24:54 GMT

Title: Here
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Glinda/Fiyero, Elphaba/Fiyero
Warning: Mentioned and implied sex.
Summary: Glinda's love is loud; worn on the fringes of her elegant dresses for the entire world to gaze upon. Elphaba's love is quiet; so quiet it might not even be there at all. A study of Glinda/Fiyero and Elphaba/Fiyero though the prince's eyes.

Fiyero never knows what to think of Glinda, whose love is loud; worn on the fringes of her elegant dresses for the entire world to gaze upon. Glinda, who cheers with the empty headed crowds, raising her glass in triumph to a sighting of the Witch. Glinda, who clutches his hand once they’ve left, a few tears sliding along the curve of her neck; ghosts in the faint moon. Glinda, who loses herself so often that it’s a wonder she’s ever able to find her way back.

He tries to be happy here with her, in this place where the lights are blinding and the buildings are vast and the men and women dance until the dawn chases them away. After all, Glinda is sweet and kind and beautiful; beautiful in a way that most men only dream of. There are many moments where he finds himself utterly dazzled, completely filled up with nothing but her, her graceful twirls, her startling smile, her soft hands, and for the longest of moments, he can’t even begin to fathom anything else. He isn’t the only one, either; he can’t pretend he doesn’t see the careful way his soldiers glance at her when she sweeps past to take his arm; the way the woman flutter around her, close enough to glimpse the glow of her ringlets in every gasp of light. He is lucky, to have found this woman who loves him. This is his life now, and if, somewhere deep within him, he ever wanted anything else - well, it doesn’t really matter any longer.

He just - perhaps what bothers him the most is that he doesn’t understand how she can live both of these lives so fully; as though she is two separate beliefs cocooned into a single body. How she open her arms to a feeble-minded crowd and fulfills their every fearful thought; how she sits alone on the edge of the bed, buries her face in her hands as though she’s never said a negative word in her life, and for a brief moment, watching from the doorway, he’s ashamed of her, of all these lies that linger on her shoulders, suffocating them both. He’s just like her, though; maybe this is what hurts most of all; he’s just like her, pretending and hiding and following, and there’s no way to escape it.

She looks to him through the darkness, says, I should have gone with her, Fiyero; I shouldn’t have let her do this alone, and as he takes her trembling hand in his, gently kisses every faint line in her palm, something within him melts, and he’s never loved her more.

This must be what he wants, it must be, but his dreams are filled with pointed hats, with trembling fingertips along his face and a splash of green in his hand, and when he wakes, he forgets where he is and can only remember where he isn’t. Glinda stirs, then, her curls tumbling over, tickling his face, and when she smiles in that horribly beautiful way she does, he hates himself, hates himself so much that it nearly destroys him.

He’s engaged now; there’s no more room for quiet, straying thoughts; for reaching out to a woman who is nothing but a name now, who has been gone for so long that’s she merely a hallucination now, a vision that falters at his fingertips. Glinda is here; Glinda is real.

And still, he wonders.

It must sound so, well, strange, but when they’ve stumbled back from the latest party, warm in each other‘s arms, and he carefully, cautiously makes love to her (she reminds him of a doll, easily damaged by the most brief of mistakes), there are these moments where he can’t tell where she ends and begins, where her name is burning the roof of his mouth, and she giggles; the same sudden, brash sound she makes when someone tells a joke, when she humors a clumsy admirer, and for the briefest of moments, he’s jarred out of something he never quite knew he was in. Clarity, so crystal and absolute, overwhelms him, and all he can think, all he can feel is wrong wrong wrong wrong ---

And then he’s back in her arms, back from wherever it is he goes, and all that’s left is a whisper of something more.

- - -

Fiyero isn’t sure what to think of Elphaba, whose love is quiet, so quiet it may not even be there at all. Elphaba, who is here without even being here; who he feels beside him but she never is, she never is. Elphaba, who has flitted in and out of his dreams since his days at Shiz, terrifying and beautiful all at the same time. Elphaba, who suddenly appears without warning, the first time he’s seen her in years, and he almost runs to her before remembering the gun in his hands.

The next few minutes that pass are mere blurs, moments that he can never hope to recollect, where decisions were made and choices tumbled down before him, begging to be selected. He remembers Elphaba’s smile as she realizes he isn’t one of them how she could ever think that how could she ever believe even for a moment and how much he wants to go to her at that moment, take her hands in his and never let them go; the glimmer of Glinda’s gown in the faint light; the words, so hot and sudden and perfect; Glinda’s face, crumbling into a million pieces, and he wants to apologize, for this moment, for all the wasted years, for leaving her here all alone, but he needs this, he needs Elphaba, more than he’s ever needed anything before in his entire life, and, and ----

And then they’re running, through hollow corridors, down winding staircases, across vast gardens and he feels so exhilarated, so shaken that when she holds out her broom, shouts for him to get on, he doesn’t think, merely does what he’s told, and then they’re flying, flying, and his breath is stolen from him so easily that he nearly chokes. Oz is racing by beneath his dangling feet, miles, eternities away; his shoe brushes against the tip of a tree, causes him to waver, clutch his arms around Elphaba’s waist, and when she laughs, sets her own hand on his trembling one, he feels free; he is finally free.

They land, and all he can do is stare as she sets aside her broom, her hat; as lights filters in through the crowded trees, forming pockets of warmth along her skin. It’s been so long, so many hollow days, that he can’t bring himself to believe she’s close enough to touch. Ever since the beginning, she had been like this; this unimaginable presence in his life, who shouted and believed and saw everything; saw right through him in a way no one else ever could. She was so raw, so exposed; so unbelievably mesmerizing in a way that Glinda never was ---- and yet, the name Glinda conjures up images of a broken woman, a woman crying in an empty bed, and he has to push it away before it envelops him. He didn’t mean to hurt anyone. He didn’t mean it, he tells himself, and almost believes it.

“I found you,” he finally says to a waiting Elphaba, who watches him with the slight twitch of a smile on her lips. It sounds so awkward, but it’s all he can come up with; all that lingers in his thoughts. He’s found her. She’s here. She’s real, and he’s never known a more beautiful word.

“So you have,” she says; he can’t remember ever seeing her so content, so pleased with herself. “I suppose that leaves only one question, then.” She moves fluidly; her nails slide along his palms, frightening him for the briefest of moments. “Now that you’ve found me, Captain; what do you intend to do?”

He tries to control himself, he really does; it’s been years, it’s too soon, it’s too new, it’s too everything, all at once; but then she takes his fingers, presses them to her cold face; closes her eyes, as though she can’t believe it either, as though she needs to know he’s really there, and any hesitation is ripped away. He seizes her in his arms, kisses her; for so long that he imagines the world comes crashing down.

Words fumble in his mouth, quick, gasping; I just - I never knew if you; and she shushes each one, hands wound around his neck. His hands are wriggling under the thick fabric of her sleeves, roaming over the clammy skin of her arms, and his shirt has been lost somewhere, buried under all the dirt, but he couldn’t care less, for she falls over him like a winged figure, like the most solid of shadows - I’m yours, Fiyero - and it begins to all happen at once, one moment on top of another; her dress, pooling around his arms, green hands pulling at his trousers, and it feels like his lips are melting but still he pulls her closer, overwhelmed, euphoric; any thought wiped blank. I’ve always been yours, she hisses into his mouth, and he can’t help but wonder if he’s always been hers, as well; as if he’s been waiting for this his entire life.

Yes, he realizes, her legs unbearably warm against his; her eyes above him, bearing straight through whatever shreds of facade he still struggled to maintain, and the answer is there, so strong, so easy to reach out and touch, and just before he gives in, just before he loses himself in the world of her, he finds it.

He may have loved Glinda once --- but it’s Elphaba who consumes him, and he never believes in anything more.

~

// How To Fall

borrowmoonlight — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:04:44 GMT

Title: How To Fall
Rating:: PG-13
Warning: Attempted suicide.
Summary: It's a faint curiosity at first, the smallest of thoughts in the corner of her head; What would it feel like, to melt? Set directly after No Good Deed.

The spell has failed, and if she has ever known anything, she knows this -- if only by the throbbing in her bones, the way her hands have grown cold in the dark air. Her desperate words are gone, having fallen away to a place where no one will ever hear them, and it is painful, to think of the body that crumpled against a house, the shoes on a stranger’s feet, the warmth of his hands in hers, but still, she does, and it is the most unforgiving moment to ever befall her.

She has held the Grimmerie in her trembling arms; thrown it against the wall time and time again, if only to hear it cry out as it connects with stone, if only to find herself numb to its nonexistent pain for the quickest of moments. She has run through the halls of this lonely castle, screaming until her voice withers away, cursing the day she was born, the day she chose to believe in good. She has sat in the middle of an empty room and imagined it filled with people; reaching, grasping for something that was never quite there at all; her mind slipping away as easily as a whisper.

And suddenly, she is here; the pond gently rippling beneath her.

her soul is so unclean, pure water will melt her!

She had heard it said; when she was still clinging to something long forgotten now (what, she wonders. Hope, someone answers in return, and she hates herself all the more). It had been but a silly rumor then; useless words that she remembered for a few blurred moments before lost to the wind. The idea was absurd. The danger, imagined.

And yet -- now she thinks of it again, allows it to roam beneath her skin, endless, exposed, and it is suddenly, above all else, real. She can’t remember if she has ever been bathed as a child, or has stood uncovered in the pouring rain, or has ever even washed her hands. All she knows is that she has no notion of what water feels like, and it is frightening.

And then it’s not.

It’s a faint curiosity at first, the smallest of thoughts in the corner of her head - what would it feel like, to melt? - but then it’s something more, something urgent, something absolute, and suddenly, she’s standing there, bare toes curling around the stone, the shadow of her reflection staring up at her, and it’s happening.

She never once considers it’s because she wants to die. The thought is too wild, too far from comfort, and so she shoves it away. It’s there, though, breathing, gasping -- somewhere far from her. She wants to die. She wants to not be alive any longer.

There is nothing left in this world for her.

The dress slides off her body, silently pooling at her ankles; effortlessly fading into the night. Her form is nothing but a off-color glimmer in the gentle light, and she imagines she’s become invisible; that she has fled through all their grasping hands, and is free, is free...

Her body slams against the water, and it’s like someone has finally lifted the cage.

It’s cold; rushing against her legs, sliding through long tendrils of hair, covering every inch of her. She wonders if this is what it feels like, death, but no, this isn’t death, not yet, because she’s still here, hands and hair and eyes and feet, and it’s all wrong.

She waits.

Please.

She remembers the dark bedroom, filled with a child’s playthings; the chair, drenched in comforting shadow. Her sister’s whisper of a voice, tracing a crack through all the silence. Her hand, so small and warm. I’m afraid, she would mutter, sheets pulled up to her nose, knuckles powdered white. I’m with you, she would say, and stay until the early hours of the dawn snuck through the glass.

She wonders what her final moments were like; the raging wind of the twister, the growing shadow - the sudden, horrible end, where everything went black and pain swallowed her whole and oh, Nessa, forgive me, please forgive me, I never knew...

She clutches her sides, weightless, endless. It will come soon, the moment where she will disappear, like a child’s magic trick, only it will be real, so real, and she realizes that she can hardly wait; that perhaps she has been waiting for this moment a long time. She can almost feel the tips of her fingers dissolving away; her nails, mingling with the waves.

It won’t be long now.

She remembers the beating of the cub’s heart; how it slipped into step with the chaotic pattern of her own. His hand, fitting against hers, and it was so sudden, so exposed, this warmth that filled her up inside; as if a careless hand had pulled away the curtain. In that fleeting moment, he was all she had ever wanted -- and it had frightened her like a voice in the night frightens; quiet, dreamlike - but perhaps all too real.

His hands fit so well in hers; her name, on his lips. The quiet way he touched her, fingertips like whispers of a forgotten song on her neck. That feeling, that sudden vibrance the world took on whenever he smiled, whenever she reached for him, whenever they kissed in the careful shadows of the forest -- that everything would be all right in the end.

She remembers he’s dead - the faded words of a spell dancing along her lips - and the thought tears through her as though she was a scrap of paper.

Water is pouring in, cold and quiet; soothing in a way she‘s never known before. She can’t feel her hair against her back any longer. She’s disappearing, as easily as the wax of a candle - as quickly as the sun’s dip below the horizon.

Even her. She has lost her as well, she realizes, and any scrap of warmth left inside her is numbed by this thought. Those days spent in school seem so far away now; where she had spent her time disliking her, loathing her - envying her. And then suddenly, they were friends; her and this girl with blonde curls, with an enormous smile, with a crowd at her expensive heels, and it had felt so surreal.

She had never known what it was like. To have someone fuss over your hair as if it’s their own; suggest clothes for you to wear. To share quiet secrets along the softness of your sheets, knowing that the giggling girl across the room won’t tell a soul. To actually have someone who wishes to spend time with you and not run in the opposite direction. She was the only friend she had ever had.

A hand, unforgiving against her face, had convinced her of the end. She tries to tell herself that it never mattered, that such a empty-headed, superficial puppet wasn’t worth another moment’s thought -- but the thought of dying without her sadness, with only her hate, is painful, and she can’t bring herself to understand why.

She is consumed, so consumed that she can’t believe there was ever land to begin with. Her arms thrash without her consent and her legs kick into the black endlessness and her lungs are burning, burning and in the smallest gasp of clarity, she imagines reaching out to something, trying to touch something that she knows isn’t there. It’s ending, isn’t it? It’s over, and she will never again hear their cries of wicked or care about the lives of strangers; and she will never feel again, and it is wonderful. She is dissolving amidst all the blue, and they will never know what became of her; she is melting, out of this, out if it all, away ----

Her head pierces the surface.

Gasping, choking, breathing - she doesn’t understand. She is dead, she must be; perhaps this is how death begins, like waking after the longest of sleeps, and it’s something to adjust to. But then her hands sink in black mud, and her trembling body - hands and feet and hair and eyes, all still solid; all still so real - emerges from the dream.

It doesn’t register. Not until a thread of wind awakens a chill along her spine - her hands rest cold fingertips along the dip of her neck - she realizes air is what is filling up her lungs, harsh, sour air.

She is alive.

She wraps dripping arms around her chest; turns her empty gaze to the sky, dotted with the smallest of glimmers.

She hasn’t melted.

For a moment, it feels as though time hesitates to pass. She places careful hands along her face, through her matted hair, against the sharp curve of her back. She laughs, so loudly that all of Oz must hear it in the fringes of their dreams.

What a foolish rumor, she thinks, brokenly. The laughter gently slips into tears, hands rising to catch each drop in the lines of her palms -- and then, her sobs are drowning the empty night and she is crying, crying for all the times she could never bring herself to before. Sadness had always been a part of her, a raw, unwelcome part that seeped into every distant memory, every glance of fear and loss of hope. She had learned to accept it, though; however heavy it grew. It pours out of her now, though, as easily as liquid from a bucket, and it is draining, to rid herself of so much weight, but she needs this, she needs this, and it is the only truth she knows now. She cries for the lonely child who could only read books by threads of moonlight; who watched from the doorway as the girl with the beautiful skin basked in warmth. She cries for the frightened girl who doesn’t mean to break vases or rip paintings from the wall; who crumbles more and more with every seething word on her father’s lips. She cries for the eager woman whose classmates cower from her, run the opposite way to escape her; who dreams of love but never finds it, hidden along the smiles of those who are too foolish to realize it. She cries for the Witch who has lost everything and everyone; who will die alone.

With every drop, a scrap of her soul splatters against the ground; lost forever.

- - -

She doesn’t know how much time has passed. Maybe days. Maybe hours. Maybe even moments, endless moments that crawl along the edges of her body, unwilling to pass. She stares out in the world and sees nothing but the cold dirt that clings to her skin, the fading night sky. Perhaps that’s all there ever was.

At first, she thinks she imagines the blanket that falls across her chest; the sound of rustling wings.

Tired hands come to rest against the wool, if only to prove that it will fade away like everything else. When it doesn’t, she doesn’t panic or question its appearance, but merely pulls it closer. The rustling grows louder, and her only thought is of faint annoyance as she rises to meet it. Emotion can no longer find its way to her.

A crouched form sways in her gaze, and before any true thought or question, she is reaching for it, like a curious infant that grasps for the closest glimmering object.

Her hand meets soft fur, and this time, it’s real.

“Chistery,” she says without thinking; her own voice startles her, coarse and raw.

He nods, wings fluttering in the wind.

“El - Elpha -- ba.”

The simplest of sounds fumble along his tongue, and it stings her, reminds her of the sound a goat makes, nestled somewhere along the distant road of her past; buried forever, she tells herself.

He turns, gestures a hand to behind him, and it is only then that the sound of a thousand flapping wings fills her to the brim; the sight of fur and paws and tails creates haphazard patterns along a dark sky. They have found her, she realizes, thinks of the Grimmerie, battered, crumpled against a stone wall. They have come, and she is here.

She digs long nails into the dirt beneath her; pulls herself upright. She clings to the blanket, wrapped around her, but it is no good. The water has left her cold to the touch.

“You want to please me,” she calls out, her voice unlike anything she has ever heard before.

Somewhere in her tangled webs of thought and memory, one image has rushed to the top, so vibrant she imagines it could be crushed in the palm of her hand. She would not have traveled the length of the yellow road, searching, seeking the remnants of a twister; he would not have followed, determined to save her. Her sister would never have known how it felt to die; how it felt to have the glittering shoes stolen from her crumpled feet.

So much pain would never have to come to thrive if it hadn’t been for that horrible house.

“You can please me,” she screams, a frenzied howl caught in the gathering storm, the gusts of wind, “by bringing me the girl!”

At once, the night is alive with the shrieks of animals; the frantic beating of wings. They are gone as quickly as they came, elegant dips of wings and tails fading away into the clouds. She is left alone, the blanket carelessly abandoned at her side.

She moves without hesitation, without regret - face unbearably dry. Her dress, a pool of fabric on the rock, is returned to her body, slipping over her with ease. She places the hat on her head; her broom into the grip of her hand; the Grimmerie in its spot on the pedestal, and as she falls into it, into the frightening image Oz has concocted of her, she realizes that she no longer cares; that she will never care again.

She is the Wicked Witch of the West, and she has a wretched girl to prove it to.

~

// When You Slip

borrowmoonlight — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:02:22 GMT

Title: When You Slip
Rating: PG
Pairing: Elphaba/Fiyero
Warning: None.
Summary: She's been alone for so long, and maybe he has too. Act II, during and immediately after Fiyero's escape with Elphaba.

She had changed.

He still remembered - he couldn’t forget it, couldn’t even attempt to; the way her hair glowed against the white of her blouse, a faded suitcase gripped unsteadily in her fingers. How she had turned when she saw him coming, the faintest of smiles betraying her stern face. The way the flowers looked, trembling in her grip, stems laced against her long nails. She had been so awkward then; so confused and careful.

No longer.

Gone was the odd schoolgirl who would often cross his path at school. Now, she stood before him with a face of stone, a stance of undeniable dignity; the thick air of a woman who knew what she was doing. He knew, watching the elegant (beautiful, he thought, but pushed the word away) way she walked, that she had found something in those years of hiding, of being all alone - something that filled her with purpose.

It was intimidating, to say the least; something entirely different, to say the most.

Maybe he had known, then. The abrupt path his life would tumble down. The moment where he would grab her hand and know that, above all else, it was what he wanted.

Except that he hadn’t known it. Or if he had, he had buried it somewhere within him, too afraid of the wild, the impossible.

He hadn’t known it until he had said it, Glinda’s silver gown, her confused expression fading away into the background - the music, the lights, the people all meshing together into an entity that seemed so horrible, so unreal that he couldn’t bear to believe in it any longer --and then all he could see was her, her eyes, her form, her hand, outstretched, waiting, waiting...

I’m going with her.

He couldn’t remember much after that; only the stinging sensation of her nails in his palm, the chaotic rattling of his chest. They were running, but it didn’t feel like he was running, not at all. It felt like he was waking up. It felt like he was dancing.

He could hear the shouts of guards echoing down the staircases; the rush of heavy footsteps. A small corridor suddenly appeared, as if by miracle, as if by magic, and without another thought, he pulled her inside, if only to hide for a moment.

And there they stayed, listening, waiting for the footsteps to fade away.

He wanted to say a million things, then, crouched in that tiny space; her eyes on him, their gasps of breath filling any scrap of free room -- Where have you been? I’ve been looking, I’ve been searching forever, and now you’re here - I know it’s not true, none of it is, they’re all fools and I’m the only sane one left - you’ve been alone for so long, and maybe I have too ----

All he could manage was a weak smile, a whisper of “they’ll be gone soon,” that sounded so horribly awkward once it reached the air.

A spasm of pain shot through his arm; in all their panic, he had never let go of her hand, and now her long nails were digging into him.

“Ouch,” he muttered, and she immediately released him, as though frightened.

“Sorry,” she said, and it was the first word she had spoken since their abrupt departure. Even her voice was different; deeper. “Sorry.”

The footsteps suddenly increased in volume, shouts of “this way!” drowning the corridor so vigorously that for a lingering moment, it felt as though the soldiers were already there, poised for arrest. He heard her breath catch -- felt the way her body stilled against the stone of the wall. It wasn’t a careless reaction; she moved fluidly, without hesitation. She obviously knew how to hide. She had probably been forced to do a lot of it lately, he thought, with a twinge of sympathy. What she had been through - he couldn’t even fathom it --

“They could see us from here,” he said without thinking, noticing the telling slant of light against the far wall; the glimpse of winding staircase. “We need to move father down.”

It grew darker as they moved further away; she stumbled, grabbed his shoulder in prompt response -- allowed it to stay there long after she had regained her balance; something he was all too aware of (was the corridor getting smaller, or were they just growing closer?)

It was just too quiet. Yes, they were supposed to be hiding, and you can’t hide if you’re not quiet, but he had never been one for long, awkward silences; he had to say something.

“Listen,” he started, turning to her; she was merely a faint line of mingling green and black now. “I can get us out of here. There’s a door - the stairs, they’re right down this hall - and if we can get there, there’s only a few hallways to go through until -”

“Fiyero...why?”

Even in the dark, he could see a glint of light reflected in her eyes.

“Well, it’s the fastest way out of here. Otherwise, we’d have to-”

“Not that. I mean...”

Her words fumbled in the gasp of air between them, and for a moment, he almost thought he could hear something slip away from her.

“Why did you...”

What could he say? How could he ever explain to her how - what had happened - what had changed --

“I don’t know,” he finally said; a faint whisper in his mouth. “It just...it felt like the right thing to do.”

He said it before he thought it, but he realized, strongly, undeniably, that it was true. It had felt right. No seconds thoughts; no moment of worry, of reluctance. He had felt it, somewhere within him, and he had gone with that feeling, and - well, here he was.

The footsteps had died away; the shouting dissolved into the faintest of echoes.

“Let’s go,” he said, turning towards towards the light, suddenly eager to escape, to get out -- only to feel a hand wrap itself around his arm, gently pulling him back. In a moment, her hands were clasped around his neck, urging him closer; breath harsh against his face.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, so quietly that he thought he might have imagined it. The feeling came again, the feeling that something was slipping away, slipping away as easily as a dress, a scarf from a neck - the deepness of her voice, the dignity of her stance, the change; for a fleeting moment, it disappeared.

“Please,” her voice cracked, and there she was, the awkward girl with a flower in her hair; her trembling hand on his face, wiping the blood away.

He could do nothing but comply; but feel the gentle way she slid against him as he met her lips, suddenly, strongly, and it was all he had ever wanted, more than enough, more than he could have ever thought possible. It was a million things that had no real name, even though he tried. Oh Oz, he had never realized --

He could be in love with someone like her, he decided, black hair thick around his fingers, her hands warm against his chest. Perhaps he already was; perhaps it really was that simple.

Escape could wait a moment longer. After all - even in the darkness, he could see her smile.

~

// Of The East

borrowmoonlight — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:53:17 GMT

Title: Of The East
Rating: PG
Warning: None.
Summary: And in that moment, she had never felt so utterly wicked. Nessarose and Boq, before Act II.

She didn’t know what his death would make of her.

Not at first.

She sat at his bedside day after day, listening to his tired words, soothing him as he cursed the day his first daughter was born. It was horrible, to not forgive - but news came again and again of the Witch’s magic, and her feet still sat beneath her, useless.

She taught herself how to hate.

It was only when the body was disposed of, when the bed sat empty and she sat still. It was only when Boq entered, suitcase in his hands, a terrible smile across his face.

“You will come back,” she said, as strong as she could be.

He heaved a sigh, and something within her rumbled.

“I need your help. You’ve always helped me,” her voice cracked.

“I’m sorry,” he said, turned away. If only she could run after him; if only she could stand in her glittering shoes and destroy every shred of pity left hanging between them -- I hate her, I hate her for what she never did -- “I’ll come back once I’ve confessed my feelings.”

“And what good will that do? She doesn’t love you; she never has! She never will!”

Her voice reeked of something horrible, and she brought her hands up; first to place fingertips against her stinging lips, then to cover her eyes, which had begun to leak, tears creating the softest of gasps along her lap.

Another sigh.

“Can’t you understand love?”

Love.

Love?

She had breathed the word ever since the day he had approached her in the courtyard; his invitation kept warm in her heart.

How dare he -

“I’ll - I’ll try to return soon,” he said, and it was so horribly unconvincing, so obviously a lie; he would never return, he would abandon her here, all alone in this awful land -- all alone -- no, no, no--

She loved him.

This awful land that he...that she...

Why couldn’t it be enough? Why couldn’t she ever be enough --

She could make it be enough now.

The thought struck her wildly, hands trembling in her lap, footsteps fading into the silence. Yes; yes, the answer was there, already with her, waiting. She could -- she could do anything now...

“You won’t leave.”

He had his hand around the doorknob.

“What?”

She wheeled towards him, filled with a eagerness she had never known before.

“You won’t leave me.”

“You can’t --,“ he began, voice tinged with the slightest drop of panic. Somehow, she knew he had always known; had just prayed that she would not discover it until he was out of it all, out of it, away...

Too late, she thought; couldn’t help but smile.

“I need help,” she said, simply, plainly. “The Governor needs someone to help her -- don’t you think so, Boq?”

He said nothing; looked down to the floor.

“The Governor needs help,” the words came again -- and in that moment, her glittering moment of triumph and defeat, she had never felt so utterly wicked, “you wouldn’t disobey the Governor of your beloved land, would you?”

No. You wouldn’t.

He could only stand there.

His suitcase hit the ground with a deafening thump, and with a soft sigh, a beckoning of her hand, she decided to throw the horrid thing away.

He wouldn’t be needing it any longer.

Yes, she thought, watching the careful way his hands moved as he arranged items on her desk, feeling a whisper of warmth along her arm as he moved to his place at her side; he would understand soon enough.

After all, they deserved each other.

~

// The Day Before Tomorrow

borrowmoonlight — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 07:32:12 GMT

Title: The Day Before Tomorrow
Rating: PG
Warning: Implied death.
Summary: In Oz, there is a place no one has ever seen. Glinda, post-musical.

In Oz, there is a place no one has ever seen.

She has made sure of that.

Footsteps hardly tread there; sunlight can only stretch a few desperate tendrils upon it. Even silence, so absolute, seems to catch its breath. When she is there, shoes creating the faintest of imprints in untouched dirt, she is all that is left of life, and the thought hurts.

She still remembers how hot laughter fled her lips in the midst of so many parties; how the glass slid against her fingers as she toasted to the downfall of the Witch. How she sat alone in the quiet dawn, skirt pooling around her trembling ankles. How suddenly, death found her, and it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair. How the dirt crumbled in her hands as she tore it from the ground, tears mixing with morning dew.

It is the third year, she realizes - stems thick in her grip.

She has danced through all the parties. She has made the speeches about how lucky and grateful and blessed they are; made them so many times that the words have begun to stick to the roof of her head, burning, burning.

Fellow Ozzians, we have gathered here today to be reminded of a time when good triumphed over evil...

She wants to laugh every time.

The leaves almost seem to bend back as she approaches; her knees find the ground without her consent. No tears, she begs of herself, already knowing it is no use.

Three empty graves sit before her, waiting, like old souls in the candlelight.

Over the first, she murmurs quiet prayers, remembering the girl with the beautiful smile, the glittering shoes. She had been the one to clean away the office; been the one to dispose of the chair, abandoned in the shadows. She had thought to save it as a keepsake - only to realize that there was no left to keep it, to remember. She had sat still in the dark after the thought, almost able to hear the music of the dance again; watch how the girl rose her arms to the sky and for a lingering moment, was free.

Over the second, she clutches her hands to her chest, hears his words in her head, the last words he had ever said to her; I’m so sorry. A tired smile cracks along her face - yes, she could still glimpse those dreams, those fantasies, utterly destroyed in a single, breathless moment. Had it mattered in those last fragile seconds? She remembers his body, dangling, blinding in the sunlight; how his face felt against her hand, the truth filling her up inside. I forgive you, she cries out, as if he will hear her. I forgive you.

And the third ---

She straightens herself over it; brushes away the cracked remains of the year before.

In its place, she places a single lily.

Below it, her finger pauses in the dirt, begins to trace the softest of words - flooded with memories of pointed hats and flying brooms and beautiful dreams, dreams that never came true, that sat unused, forgotten and how could this have happened, I'll never understand, I'll never forgive it, never...

When she is done, she rises to her feet; allows her eyes to find what she has written there.

i’ve been changed for the better

The tears come, and she is lost.

In Oz, there is a place no one has ever seen - and she prays that there will never be another place like it again.

She prays that she will be Good enough to make it so.

~