Drusilla is whimpering softly in the next room, a kitten seeking its mother. It is far better than the screaming. Three days of screaming, and weeping, and tearing out fistfuls of hair.

((``Blacksnakes, Grandmother!``))

Then Darla called Lindsay, and he came with little bottles of little pills. Held them to Drusilla `s lips, told her they were the sweetest candy to make the pain stop. That failed to do the trick, so Darla held Drusilla down and forced a handful into her mouth. That was eight hours ago. Now there is only the whimpering.

Lindsay is gone, Drusilla is unconscious, and Darla is alone. Alone with the night, the soft mewls, and the pain. Lindsay told her she could take some of the pills as well, to ease the sharpness of it. Rest awhile, let the fog overtake the searing heat of her ruined skin, the stench of her charred flesh, and the knowledge that she is no longer whole.

But she does not take the pills. Because she will heal, because the scars will not last. Because she is immortal.

Immortal means your clothes can melt into your body and your hair can fall out in clumps, your skin can peel away from your bones like the finest of paper, and your muscles can be raw and weeping, but you will still walk. Immortal means that you can be reduced to nothing but gore and sinew, but still remain conscious. Immortal means you will eternally possess awareness.

Darla doesn`t take the pills, because Darla doesn`t mind the pain. Because the pain is clear. The pain means she is here. The pain means she *exists.*

She existed before, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and then she almost did not. She was almost snuffed out in the most undignified manner, all bruised flesh and ugly sores. But He came to her, and she did not die. She lived and she lived.

She lived for centuries, clothed in silk and fangs. �Then one day, there was Angel, a cheerleader and a sharp piece of wood. Then she was no longer alive. Then, there was nothing.

She simply...ceased. And this gap, this *hole* where her life used to be is what plagues her even now.

More than the petty agony in her limbs and her tissue. More than the fact that it was her favoured Childe who did this to her, who reduced her once more to Less. More than the fact that she was brought back from the Nothing by humans. On a whim, as a toy. These are inconsequential nuisances compared to that..space.

The fact that she simply was Not.

Now that she Is, there will be no pills, no drink, nothing to make her lose awareness. Instead, she peels away the long strips of charred flesh on her thigh, grits her teeth, and *knows* she is here. Finds the clarity in the pain.

In the silence, and in the darkness, the memories are tinted gold with the pain.

(((``Ohh...kill me....kill me...why won`t you just kill me?`` the dark haired girl was screaming now, clawing at her own face and howling in distress. �Baring a level of horror and madness even Darla herself had never quite been able to arouse in a victim. But he had done it, and at less than a century old...

Darla stood, straightened her skirts, extended a hand to the half-nude Angelus, laying atop the girl. ``Yes, darling. Let us just kill her. The game is done.``

But he would not. He would Turn her, despite the fact that she was insane, despite the fact that she would need constant care, despite the fact that this was just *not done*. �He would do it, because this way, he said, `the pain will last forever`.

The girl had prayed while they rutted like dogs in front of her, had cried and screamed while Angelus raped her, had begged for death while he marked her with his blade, and his teeth.

But when he buried his fangs into the side of her neck, and slowly, solemnly drank his fill of her, she simply murmured one thing, over and over...``Snakes in the woodshed...Snakes in the woodshed...``)))

Snakes in the woodshed and mice in the teakettle. Essence of Drusilla: Fairytales and ruined archetypes. Power belied by lunacy. Certainly Darla will listen to her more carefully the next time she speaks of `dancing flames and beautiful pain`. Strange that she forgot to mention it would be *their* pain.

And now they are bound by it. Drusilla, who for centuries raised little more in Darla than ire and claws, lays helpless and moaning on the bed. No longer calling for her Knights, no longer scratching at her blisters til the blood soaks into the bedsheets. She sleeps, she tosses and she turns, and the raw agony pouring off of her in waves makes Darla...love her.

How ironic that Angel`s warning shot created rather than severed this bond. Has he been gone so long, lived among *them* so long that he has forgotten the nature of their beast? Nothing quite so attractive as pain.

And if he did remember, would it matter? No, not likely. Angel, Angelus, Liam...they are all the same in that regard. They choose their path and they walk it blindly, damning the consequences and any fool who dares to cross before them.

Arrogance, sheer and pure; it was what Darla saw in him that night in the tavern that sealed her choice, and his fate. Certainly one could argue that it was she who chose his path *for* him, that night, and many others. She seduced him when he was drunk, she Turned him. She led him to that Gypsy girl, and the curse which recreated him. The biblical Serpent and Temptress, she had damned him once and once again.

But the truth is, he is a man. He is weak. And it is warmth he seeks even when he is undeserving of it, it is passion and chase he desires. And he will take it in the arms of a stranger in an alley, he will take it in the arms of a child who should have been his mortal enemy, and he will take it, and he will take it....whether it is given willingly, or not at all.

She chose him for his weaknesses as much as his strengths, chose him because she foolishly assumed they would make him easier to control. And for a while, it was so. He was ruled by his need and his hunger, by the flesh between his legs rather than between his ears, and in the name of sating that fierce desire, he was quite malleable.

What she did not count on was the intensity of his arrogance, his absurd male pride. His insatiable need to be the best. The worst. *The*.

Ever trying to prove himself to some withered, long-slaughtered ghost; the yearning and the drive created Drusilla, incapable of anything but approval, and adoration. And he was satisfied for a time. Before the realization that true regard and respect requires the capacity for some sort of linear thought.

She in turn created William, and Angelus immediately found in him an unacceptable mirror of all he fought to escape. Such arrogance, such insatiable need to be ...needed. His every weakness a reflection of his own. His refusal to surrender, to submit, infuriating.

And it never failed to make Darla laugh.

(((Had Angelus forgotten that he had to be physically restrained before he would submit to her Sire? Had he forgotten the taunts and the violence that preluded it? Had he forgotten that he refused to kneel before the backs of his knees were cut? And afterward, not one word of gratitude for sparing his life. Not one word of apology for endangering Darla`s existence by forcing her choice. His bruised face curved up into a grin, and he spit at the Master`s feet as they left. And Darla, carried along by the wave of his stunning arrogance did not once look back. )))

She watched Angelus take the riding crop to William`s soft hide nightly, and the levels of amusement had no end. She thinks he accomplished the impossible eventually. Thinks that Spike craved Angelus` affection and approval, although he has never once admitted such aloud. But she watched them, sometimes, engaged in more pleasured pursuits, and Spike`s eyes were always open. Watching the man who was for all intents and purposes his Sire, searching the handsome face for signs of pleasure, and fulfillment. For a flicker of love.

And afterward, while William lay sleeping, Angelus would stroke the white slash of cheekbone, run his hands through the long, dirty blond hair. So, perhaps William never knew, but Darla did. Angelus could not have feigned such tender regard. Angelus would not have bothered to try.

Oh yes, he got back everything he had ever dished out, and in spades with that one. William who ensured the curse could never be undone when he slaughtered the family of the Gypsy elder who had cast it. William who betrayed Angelus to the Slayer, and in so doing sent him to Hell. William who reportedly tortured Angel mercilessly in recent years over some silly Gem which was never found, and probably never existed.

She wonders if Spike actually used his own hands against Angel, actually sliced open that fine, fine skin, carved symbols in the flesh, burned him with irons or that ever present cigarette. And somehow, she cannot imagine this. Cannot imagine Spike doing anything so careful and thought-filled. Oh, he is graceful in his violent outbursts; he fights like a cat and it was age and size and not much else that favored Angelus in their near nightly battles. But the thought of him slowly and methodically torturing Angelus, even souled, she simply finds impossible to conjure.

So, Angelus had done it, finally. He had made them all fall in love. With every weakness and every glory. With every kiss and every kiss withheld. Would she be here now, were it not for love? Would any of them?

And yes, she has raised palm and fist and demon against him. She once left him for dead in the vineyards of France, with the Hunters breathing down their necks. Her final words, ``If you survive I shall see you in Venice, my boy.`` She did what she must, and she would make similar choices again.

For Survival. To ensure that she will Be.

The fittest live, they alone awaken the next night, snap open their eyes to the world and greet the next meal. The Sire survives. Childer, even beloved such, are property and therefore expendable, but the Sire will live. You don`t raise hand to them, you ask permission and you offer your own Childe`s body in recompense before you leave them for another, and for godssake you don`t stake them over a teenager in a miniskirt. It is tradition, not justice, it is vampire, not human.

And it all used to make so much more sense. Before her own Childe raised hand and wood to her. Before she was Dead, then Alive. Before her own Sire was a whimpering lunatic. Before she was burned to crisp and ash and left to the care of humans. And she is immortal, she will heal, she will be beautiful and whole once more. But he will suffer for this transgression, this arrogance. For choosing half assed sanctity over ties of blood and centuries. For looking at her and seeing only what he wants to see. Whore. Mother. Demon.

(((When she was human, and dying, the nuns brought a statue to her deathbed. The Virgin Mary, robed in white and the palest blue, expression of peace and contentment. Sandaled foot peeking out from beneath her skirts, stomping mercilessly on the outline of a Serpent. The Mother who saves the world from sin, from temptation, from lies.

In fever she dreamed that night. Of the serpent moving to coil sensuously around Mary`s ankle. Of the creature slithering slowly, languidly up her dress. Of the union of Virgin and Sin to create something wholly new. )))

And she doesn`t believe much in symbols, in the divine. She had no patience for such when she lived, and certainly now, after all she has seen and done, she has much less. Because she believes that the world is ruled by Tradition, not by Justice. Because the Law is: the strongest survive. Because men are weak, and temptation and the Devil are merely excuses used to justify behavior they steadfastly refuse to claim as their own.

Lindsay has a soul, yet nightly he brings her half dead streetwhores to feed from. Angel has a soul, but he sealed the fate of dozens when he locked them in a room with his Sire and his Childe. He has a soul but with a swift economy of movement and with no regard for love or mercy, he set them both on fire in some half-hearted attempt at atonement.

Darla has no soul any longer. But she sees more clearly than she has in any incarnation.

The creatures of Earth, be they human, vampire, or souled halflings have no real need of apple flavored kisses. No. Man, in any century, in any form, has never really *needed* the Serpent to fall.

~Finis