Irhaboggle Pride (2022) Gaylor Swift's Version

Mine

Elphaba was at Shiz University working part-time waiting tables at one of the cafes on campus. She was a smalltown girl, literally and metaphorically. First, there was Munchkin Land in the east, then there was Quadling Country in the south. As soon as she was able to, though, she left all of it behind for Shiz University up north and never looked back.

A few tables over, someone watched her from behind a menu. Galinda was a flight risk with a fear of falling, always in hysterical retreat from things that were too big for her. She hated that which she could not control or understand. That was why she felt such disgust and disdain, such loathing, for her green-skinned roommate. Elphaba was weird and wild, uncontrollable, unknowable, and untamable. Galinda didn't like that at all.

But as opposite as they were, something tied them together. They both wondered why the bothered with love if it never lasted. For Elphaba, she'd spent her whole life trying to find love, forgiveness, and acceptance. So far, she'd found none. Not from her family, not from her peers, and she didn't have friends, although they probably wouldn't have supported her even if she did.

For Galinda, she'd spent her whole life trying to impress big, important people and live up to impossibly high standards. She might've had friends and family in abundance, but did any of them love her for her? Or did they only want her big reputation? That commonality was enough to override their other differences.

One day, they found themselves lying on the couch in their dorm's student lounge.

"Can you believe it?" Galinda asked. She certainly hadn't expected to one day call her horrid green roomie her girlfriend, and yet here they were.

"No, I honestly can't," Elphaba chuckled, shaking her head as she rubbed Galinda's arm. Just like the prissy, pretty, pink princess, she considered their relationship just as much of a surprise and a plot twister. And yet, look how far they'd come in only a couple short months. The proof wasn't just in their relationship, but also in the fact that they were comfortable enough to be out in public together. For Elphaba, this was especially big. Not only was she sitting out in the open with her green skin visible for all to see, but she was being... affectionate!

"You made a rebel of a faithless man's faithful daughter," Elphaba told her enemy-turned-lover. Even though her father and mother had both engaged in their fair share of illicit affairs, Elphaba never gave up on her high standards and ideals for love. Even if she was faithless in the sense that she believed in love for herself just as much as she believed in the Unnamed God, she was faithful to the spirit of love. Now, after meeting Galinda, Elphaba found that faith in love growing stronger every day. Elphaba was always a rebel, but more out of stubborn, negative defiance than a cause she believed in. Now, thanks to Galinda, Elphaba finally had that cause. She finally had something worth fighting for, worth living for.

ooo

Flash forward and they were taking on the world together. There was a drawer's worth of Galinda's things in Elphaba's space, on her side of the dorm room. That was another testament to how physically close they were becoming. In the past, they kept their room very strictly divided. Now, though, Galinda spent half her time on Elphaba's half of the room, and it showed.

But half of the stuff Elphaba had from Galinda was little odds and ends, gifts and trinkets. For the first time, Elphaba didn't half mind Galinda's overindulgence in materialism. Sure, it made her half of the room very cluttered, but Elphaba was a hoarder, and she kept every single little treasure Galinda gave to her, no matter how superfluous or silly. They were never superfluous or silly to Elphaba.

But even though Elphaba, herself, wasn't very materialistic, she gave things to Galinda as well: secrets, truths, and pasts. On that very first night, she'd come clean about her parents and sister, the story of the little green bottle hiding under her pillow.