Chapter Text
The classroom buzzed with chatter and the scratch of quills against paper. Dr Dillamond stood at the front, directing everybody’s attention to an image on the board of multiple Ozian historical figures that the majority of the class were only pretending to have any idea of their significance.
Almost everybody apart from Elphaba. She sat in the front row, her hands smudged with ink, working her way through her notes with ease. She kept her head down and her quill on paper. She always did, and it showed in her grades every single time.
It was a stark contrast from the visual assault of pink frills and blonde curls sat at the back of the room, chattering away about something completely off topic with her somehow even more annoying loyal subjects. She clearly hadn’t written a word. She never really did, and that too would often show in her grades.
Elphaba rolled her eyes at the high pitched voice cutting through the room and returned to her notes.
Dr Dillamond gave a swish of his ear to the disruption perched at the back of the room, but tried not to let it bother him too much -- there were always students who didn’t care, after all.
“As I’m sure you’re all aware-” He announced, making extra effort to make sure his announcement reached the less focussed individuals of the class “Part of your midterm assessment this semester will be a research project on the emergence of the countries in Oz.” he continued, now pacing around the front of the room slightly. “I understand I have received some backlash about this being such a lengthy project from my other classes, and with that in mind, I have decided that this project may now become pair work. You do not have to partner up, but I understand that doing so will decrease workload.”
Elphaba sat up at the announcement. She expected to be working alone, she would have preferred it, even.
“You have until the end of the week to inform me of who you will be partnering with, and your presentations are due in four weeks. I’ll finish with that today, very well done to most of you for your compliance.” He finished, stepping aside from the board and beginning to prepare his own things to leave.
The class erupted back into chatter as the sound of scraping chairs and rustling notebooks filled the air and people began to file out of the room. Elphaba gave a soft sigh and stood to pack her things back into her bag, neatly folding her notes.
It didn’t take long to feel a looming presence behind her. She turned on her heel, and was a little taken aback to see the aforementioned pink visual assault standing right there, her posture straight and her gaze almost expecting.
“Galinda?” Elphaba questioned, not understanding why she was being stared down like that by the girl that had never cared for her, and if anything, made her life more difficult with the relentless teasing.
The pink girl took a deep breath and swished a blonde curl over her shoulder before responding.
“I want to partner with you for midterms.” She announced simply, her hand planted firmly on her hip.
Elphaba couldn’t even help but scoff. Galinda Upland wants to partner with me? She thought. I don’t owe her the time of day.
“ You want to partner with me? Am I hearing that right?” Elphaba chuckled, placing her bag onto her shoulders like she was trying desperately to escape.
“Yes, now will you?” Galinda questioned with her arm still firmly planted on her hip as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
“Galinda, you don’t even like me. Besides, I think I work better-” Elphaba started as she tried to turn and walk away.
“Hush, let me explain.” Galinda snapped, moving to block Elphaba’s path. “You’re good at Ozian history, and I need my grades to go way up in this class.”
Elphaba let out another laugh.
“So you want to bring my grade down to boost yours when you don’t even like me?” She questioned.
“Please, Elphaba, I really need this.” Galinda spoke again. This time there was almost a sense of desperation in her voice. It sounded less expectant and more panicked than anything.
Elphaba hadn’t expected herself to feel empathy for Galinda, and she wasn’t entirely sure if she genuinely did feel bad, or if she was just letting her curiosity get the best of her as to why her classmate’s tone had suddenly shifted.
She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck briefly with her hand, considering whether to give in or not.
It wasn’t like Galinda didn’t care about her classes, Elphaba knew that -- it was one of the many things she had involuntarily noticed after being forcefully roomed with her at the start of semester. Galinda simply struggled. She could never focus or fully understand the content, but she was capable of writing a good essay when she really tried, she just always had to try harder than Elphaba.
“What’s in this for me?” Elphaba finally asked, her shoulders slumping defeatedly.
Galinda beamed at her own success, but still wasn’t entirely sure what to say. She hadn’t exactly planned for there to be a tradeoff.
“Uhh…” She pondered, staring off into space, “How about, if you partner with me for this project and boost my grade, I’ll get my friends to leave you alone, and I’ll leave you alone too.”
Elphaba knew this wasn’t truly a fair deal. She was essentially being asked to sacrifice part of her grade just for the teasing and bullying to stop. If it were any other person, she would have laughed in their face, but this was Galinda Upland. A girl who seemed so composed and confident in her ways, now practically begging at Elphaba’s feet for help. And that intrigued her way too much to turn down.
She heaved a final sigh before parting her lips to speak.
“Fine. I’ll work with you if it means I won’t have to hear your pathetic little jokes about me being green anymore.” She quickly said, making sure she didn’t make eye contact with the girl standing opposite her. “But I’m not doing everything for you. Meet me at the library at the end of the day.”
Galinda hummed in agreement and forced a smile. She quickly turned on her heel and left the room before Elphaba could have any second thoughts about what she had agreed to.
Shit. Elphaba thought to herself. What in Oz’s name was she getting herself into here?
The rest of the day passed by at a quicker pace than Elphaba had expected. Her classes had seemed to blur together, though she had tried her hardest to keep her notes up to their usual standard. She also avoided looking Galinda’s direction for the entirety of the next class, but it was still hard to escape her presence when all she ever seemed to do was chatter or tap her quill against the desk in a way that grated at Elphaba’s nerves minute by minute.
She hadn’t said no to Galinda’s little offer. That was the problem. She could have, she should have, even. The exchange objectively was not fair. But she had agreed, and now that was something she was going to have to deal with for the next month.
And that was exactly why she had paced to the library the second her day had finished, and perched herself at a table surrounded by history textbooks. The quicker she got started on this project, the quicker it would be over -- the quicker she could get rid of Galinda, who waltzed in late, of course. Except her lack of timeliness didn’t seem to directly be a jab at Elphaba, and she was surprisingly quite apologetic. At least, as apologetic as she actually knew how to be, exchanging a quick sorry before quickly brushing past it.
“Oz damn it, Elphaba, you started without me?” She called out as she rushed over to the table, haphazardly tossing her belongings down onto the floor beside her as she settled into her chair. This wasn’t the poised Galinda that Elphaba knew.
Elphaba glanced up from the textbook to meet the eyes of the girl now sat opposite her.
“Well, you were late. We don’t exactly have time to waste here.” Elphaba replied. She knew it wasn’t exactly true. They had four weeks to waste. She just didn’t want to spend four weeks cooped up in the library with Galinda. They already had to share a dorm, and that was more than enough time spent together already.
“Okay, well where are we starting?” Galinda questioned. She didn’t sound enthusiastic.
“I was drafting up a plan for how we’re going to lay this thing out. I was thinking we should have a section each for how each country emerged. We’ll start with Gillikin, then we’ll do Munchkinland, then Winkie country, and we’ll finish with Quadling country.” Elphaba explained, pointing to the sheet of paper she had been working on.
The words seemed to move too quickly for Galinda, all blurring into a mess inside her head.
“Wait, what?” She snapped, her voice a little more frustrated than she had originally intended. “I don’t get this.”
“We’ve been studying it for months, Galinda. Besides, I haven’t even got started with the content yet. That’s just the layout.” Elphaba responded, allowing herself to lean back into her seat. She anticipated this was going to be a long evening.
“I did tell you I’m bad at this class.” Galinda warned, folding her arms tightly over her front.
Elphaba simply rolled her eyes and placed her quill down onto the table. Even if getting started with the actual project wasn’t working right now, she knew they had to begin somewhere. The library felt daunting around them both right now, and it was far from the usual comfort it seemed to bring her.
“Well, I want to see what I’m working with here. Do you have an old essay in your bag that I can read?” She sighed, accepting that this project was not going to pass by as quickly as she had hoped.
Galinda seemed to hesitate before she reached for her bag, and again after she pulled out a small folded up piece of paper, almost as if she was ashamed.
“Here.” She sighed, extending her arm to hand the essay to her new study partner.
Elphaba unfolded the paper to reveal Galinda’s attempt at writing an essay. It appeared to be from the start of semester.
Ozian History
~by~
Galinda Arduenna Upland
Although myself descends from royal nobility of the Arduennas and of the Uplands, most recently, and perhaps always of Gillikin, the historification of our great land of Oz began before me.
Oz was a wonderful land surrounded by a large body of water, which would, um, water the fields. In these fields, dirty old farmers would grow our food. We needed this food even though it was planted by unfashionable dusty horses, and rusty plows.
This was before the Great Drought, where many Ozians found that a glass of water-
Oh my Oz. Elphaba’s face scrunched as she read through the essay again. She felt her patience begin to slip away faster than she could hold onto it.
“Galinda, you seriously turned this in?” she questioned, a little stunned.
Galinda sank in her seat, her eyes gazing up to Elphaba like a child who had just been told off.
“I was having a bad day that day!” She tried to defend, and it didn’t escape Elphaba’s notice that her eyes almost looked a little glassy.
It clearly upset her that she wasn’t exactly skilled when it came to history, but Elphaba knew not to question it. They were here to work, not to unpack Galinda’s bad day from months ago.
Elphaba neatly folded the essay back up and handed it back, where it was quickly tucked away into Galinda’s bag.
“I just don’t understand why you wrote that when I know that you know this content.” She questioned, placing her head into her hands as it continued to sink in how difficult these four weeks were truly about to become.
“How would you know if I know it or not?” Galinda snapped, her voice a little too loud for a library. Elphaba glanced around briefly, a little embarrassed.
“Because you wouldn’t be in this class if you couldn’t do it. There’s no way Dillamond would’ve kept you if everything you wrote was like that.” Elphaba responded, her voice a little quieter than Galinda’s had been.
“Whatever, Elphaba. Just let me know where you get up to. I’m going back to the dorm.” Galinda scoffed, quickly standing and grabbing her things before Elphaba had the chance to respond, and she was gone from the library in seconds.
Yeah. This was going to be a lot harder than Elphaba had initially thought.