“Oh, thanks,” Glinda had replied casually, “Madame Morrible suggested this move for practical purposes to him anyway. He has ambitions to be in the guard and- well, I will be an important public figure...," she related to Elphaba - but she couldn't have missed the kettle-drop that drowned all further ranting. The clatter of disproportionate volume actually made the floor tremble a bit - or was that Elphaba retreating quickly to avoid the water? And there Elphaba had told<em>her</em>to be quiet!<br/><br/>Well, it was fortunate the green witch's reaction was so fast, who knew what would have happened had that splash hit her...? Yeah... what exactly would happen? Glinda had always wondered about that - for she knew, living so closely to Elphaba in Shiz, how vehemently her friend avoided water, while other people at Shiz had regarded this as yet another silly oddity, if they had even bothered to look enough to take note of it. Which was good - if it was dangerous to Elphaba to contact water, people who had no other purpose in life than to not stand her should better not know.<br/><br/>Glinda got up with her wand and took the kettle from Elphaba. There was ash in the air like a little storm cloud, attacking Glinda's lungs (which were not very used to dust and smoke and other pollutive things in the air) and causing her to halt in a half-suppressed cough. As she took the kettle, half-distracted by controlling the noise of her own coughing, her hand was minutely touching Elphaba's - which was warmer than her own, and soft on the back. She quickly withdrew.<br/><br/>With her wand, she managed a miniature spark that could at least pre-light the mess in the stove, though it would need lots of fanning. Well, better not dwell on either Elphaba's clumsy, noisy mishap or Glinda's meager magic skills... "And - will you tell me anything about you or am I going to call you 'Elphie the secretive' from now on- oh wait, that's not a new name, is it?" Glinda suddenly wished she had a book on her... or something that belonged to Dr. Dillamond.... Something that would remind Elphaba of how she once had had a promising life before going all frantic about the Wizard of Oz.<br/><br/>Meanwhile, the fire was not even crackling... it was embarrassingly faint and would die at any moment. So Glinda blew into the flame heartily without taking even a clock tick to think about it beforehand. The result was that she ended up stumbling back, coughing and spitting, and all earlier attempts to stifle the noise seemed ridiculous in comparison. She ended up covering both herself and Elphaba in snow-flakes of gray ash.