Willow was reluctant to wake fully, because she was entirely content to lie where she was. She hadn't yet opened her eyes, but there were strong, masculine arms wrapped around her waist, and she knew Sunnydale was far away. All those months of pining for Angel, and now here she was, entangled with him in the old, familiar way.
Well, not exactly familiar. The body pressed against her back was not precisely how she remembered Angel feeling, but it had been some time, decades, even, since she had known his young body intimately. She realized that she had to make allowances for her less than infallible memory. His smell was not what she had known for so long, but there were innumerable reasons why that could have changed.
She tried to ignore her growing concern as she slowly opened her eyes.
She froze.
She was not in the palace.
She had no idea where she was, actually, but it was certainly not the royal bedchamber she had been missing for so long. The walls were a smooth, almost luminescent pearl grey, from what she could see in the semidarkness. And there was something else there- set in the unnaturally uniform wall-
A computer console.
It was with an almost crippling dread that she slowly looked down at the arms still holding her close-
The arms covered in blond hair.
She groaned.
"Hey, Tiger- you awake?"
She turned over, and with her eyes almost completely adjusted to the darkness, she looked into the eyes of a man she had never seen before in her life- either of them.
****
She couldn't shield the horror in her eyes quickly enough for him to avoid noticing it, but he just laughed.
"Don't tell me you're still opposed to that nickname. I could call you Willow, I suppose- but it seems so formal."
"Formal?"
"You know- that's your name when you do business. I feel like you need a different sort of name for when we do...different business."
One of his hands trailed down her back as he leered at her, and she had to prevent herself from shuddering.
"So, if you had to guess, what would you say your husband is doing right now?"
Willow almost started crying. She was an adulteress?
Her day was deteriorating quickly.
"I have no idea," she said, all too honestly.
He grinned, showing a mouth full of straight, white teeth. "What, the almighty Angel doesn't share his daily itinerary with his wife?"
Yes, quite a bad day.
She was cheating on Angel?!
She shook her head weakly, whether to the idea or the question, she wouldn't have been able to say.
"I should go." She sat up with the sheet pulled tightly around her. She did have clothes, right?
He sighed. "Well, if you must. I can call you a cab."
"Where are my clothes?" she asked, hoping it was a question with an answer.
"I believe we abandoned them right next to the front door- in our hurry, you could say. Sit tight, I'll get them for you."
She averted her eyes from his nudity as he left the room. As he crossed the threshold, he muttered, "Lights," and Willow could suddenly see the room in an oddly uniform illumination.
"Oh, wow," she whispered.
She was immediately reminded of the time Buffy had defeated Moloch- the building where Willow had been dragged by the demon had been filled with every sort of computer she could imagine. This- man's room looked much the same. The computer console she had seen before was one of several, and an enormous screen of some sort covered most of one wall. Buttons glowed, digits ran across one of the smaller screens, and Willow wondered where, exactly, she was.
****
Waiting for her...ahem...companion to return with her clothes, Willow wondered if she was going to be wearing some sort of futuristic jumpsuit- an idea that would only seem to be more logical when a small robot came in with her clothing. She didn't know if she would have preferred it or not, when she finally put on the clothing that was 'hers'. The long, tight dress was made of some sort of material she had never felt before- some sort of green fabric that hugged her not only like a second skin, but like it was trying to displace her first skin.
Considering her surroundings, she had fully expected her taxi to be some sort of Jetson's-esque hovercraft- so she blinked a few times when a horse drawn carriage pulled up in front of her blond 'friend's' building. She reflected with a very small amount of amusement that it was certainly odd that she had lain in his bed completely naked, but she had no idea what his name was- nor any idea how to ask him.
He helped her up into the carriage, thankfully giving the cabbie directions for her.
"Will I be seeing you soon?" he asked with a smile.
"That remains to be seen," she remarked.
He laughed. "See you, Tiger."
She nodded, and the carriage pulled away into the street.
"Does your horse have a name?" she asked the cabbie.
He gave her an odd look.
"It's an SE730 model, ma'am."
Well, of course.
****
As the carriage moved through the strange and flawless street, Willow could feel her eyes growing wider and wider. The buildings were all made of the same shiny gray material that she couldn't identify. Even odder, the few people they passed on the street bowed to her. The first time it happened, she thought it was strange, the second time, she thought it was slightly alarming. The third time she was wondering, even more than ever, who she was.
The buildings grew larger and larger as they drove along. She had to make a mental effort to close her mouth when the cabbie stopped in front of a building so extensive, she couldn't see where it ended.
"G'night, ma'am," the cabbie said with a smile as he helped her down. She realized she had no money, but as she turned to explain, he pulled away into the street.
"Okay, no paying of cabbies." With a small shrug, she turned towards the entrance of the building she could only describe as a mansion. She was wondering if there was some sort of key she would need to get inside when the door was opened by a dark haired woman.
"Good evening, ma'am."
With a gloved hand, she gestured inside. Willow looked at her in amazement, but followed her direction. She looked around discreetly, noticing the vastness of the entryway- along with it's total lack of ornamentation. It was as gray as the rest of her new world.
"Did you wish to dine, ma'am, or are you ready to retire?"
"No, I'm not hungry. I'd like to rest. But- please- before I do, what time is it?"
"I believe it is about 39, ma'am."
Willow nodded slowly. "Of course."
"Is there anything else I can get for you?"
Willow really didn't want anything other than an explanation, but she had to figure out some way to get the woman to show her the location of her room.
"Actually, I would like- um- a glass of wine?" she asked, an edge of desperation in her voice.
The woman gestured to a nearby servant, and that servant dashed out of the room. "It will be brought up to you presently, ma'am."
Willow shook her head. "No, I'll wait for him to bring it."
The woman looked slightly surprised. "Of course, as you wish, ma'am."
The young man with a glass of wine on a tray returned in record time. When he saw Willow still standing there, he hesitated, confusion on his young face.
"I'll follow you up," Willow said in a voice that she hoped sounded slightly superior and extremely bored.
He glanced at the housekeeper, who gave him a fierce nod.
"Yes, ma'am," he murmured, before smoothly turning towards a blank wall. Willow did her best not to jump when the wall opened up to reveal an elevator, and stepped in behind him.
****
She had dismissed the servant upon reaching the door to her room, and he had disappeared into the grey surroundings as quickly as possible. Clutching a glass of wine that she did not want, she stepped into her bedroom.
What struck her first was that here, finally, was someplace with color other than gray..
In fact, everything was green. Not many shades of green- everything was precisely the same green, the dark, smooth green of her dress. Setting the wine down on a green table, she examined the room. Everything was beautiful and clean- it looked as if no one had ever entered the room before her. She glanced at the green settee, the green velvet drapes covering the windows, the green sculptures. There were, however, a few things that were not green. One was the huge screen covering one wall. The other was a full length mirror.
Willow walked toward it warily. She blushed at her appearance in the dress, and was alarmed to see how short her hair was. As a princess, her hair had been past her waist- in Sunnydale it had been much shorter, but still about chin length. Now, her hair, still the bright red she was used to, was cropped close to her head, laying in smooth lines around her face. Her eyes were lined in dark makeup, still slightly smudged from her recent sleep.
And her face, though still lovely, had the faintest of lines. Cruel lines, lines of a face that had not been happy or even kind any time recently.
She turned away quickly, not wanting to see herself looking that way. Her eyes landed on the screen, and she decided to see what, exactly she could find out.
"Computer?" she asked, wondering if it would work.
The screen glowed as it came to life, and she sat down on the sofa as a voice spoke.
"What can I do for you, Willow?"
****
A few hours later, Willow was much more educated, and infinitely more depressed. Because knowing who she was turned out to be a lot worse than having no clue.
Known in public circles only as 'Willow' and occasionally, 'The Willow', she was a figure of great prominence on the planet she inhabited, a planet known as Gevaltiel, named for the man who discovered it. The planet had no atmosphere, no water, and no native organisms of any kind. What Gevaltiel did have was Gevaltium, an element discovered by the same intrepid explorer of years gone by. Gevaltium's uses were many, but it was most valued as a substance for building. Its shiny gray surface, once treated with the proper chemicals, was impervious to anything humans had yet been able to create, and it was incredibly versatile. Offplanet, only the most obscenely rich citizens could afford to build with Gevaltium. Onplanet, even the slums were built with the stuff- but only the owners of the mines made any money from its sales.
Gevaltiel was an affront to democracy and human decency with regards to its rigid class system, but the demand for Gevaltium was too great to stop mining it, so the planet's leaders and the mine owners- in essence, robber barons of a new era- were allowed to continue their shameful practices of what was basically slavery. There were the miners, and there were the mine owners.
Of course, being rich and powerful isn't quite as much fun if you can't flaunt it constantly, and despite the thousands of dependable robots and androids all over the planet, no self-respecting mine owner would ever keep electronic servants. Certain members of the detested 'miner' class were elevated, however slightly, to act as slaves in domestic capacities for the small group of people who ruled the planet.
The rulers of the planet were not, however, a group of nouveau riche entrepreneurs. They were a complicated aristocracy, descended from the very first inhabitants of the planet. Their money, their power, and their incredible superiority rivalled any that had ever existed on The First Planet, a place Willow would have called Earth. Yet their way of life did not depend on codes of royalty, because they were first and foremost men and women of business. An old name could do nothing to salvage a crumbling organization. There were no loyalties and no promises were ever kept. Adultery was a political weapon, and being attractive could be as useful as belonging to the right family. The system was cutthroat, it was difficult to understand, and it was almost impossible to break into from the outside.
Willow had, of course, done just that.
The commonly accepted theory was that she had been born offplanet, but no one knew for certain. What was known was that she had appeared on the scene at a tender sixteen, buying a small, defunct mine from a crushed man leaving the planet. The mine, deemed worthless by professional prospectors, had been considered a waste of time. Willow, however, disagreed, and within two weeks of her purchase, her mine was suddenly found to be generating as much Gevaltium as it had when it was first discovered fifty years earlier. She became richer every day- but money was not what she had been seeking on the planet. She had sought out power, and she had found it using the one weapon she valued as highly as her intelligence-
Her body.
Some called her a prostitute, but she crushed them in short order. She was young, she was beautiful, and sex was one of the few weaknesses of most men of business. She clouded their normally shrewd business acumen, she took their money and their mines, and she did it without a blush for four years.
She was twenty years old when she met Angel for the first time.
Rivals would be too weak a word to describe their relationship. They had detested each other from the first time they laid eyes on one another. He was a descendant of Leon Gevaltiel himself, and she was nothing more than 'an intergalactic hussy'- or so he claimed in one of his well-publicized press conferences. For the next two years, they did their best to wipe each other out. She seduced and destroyed his friends, he sabotaged her mining operations, and it had been apparent to the entire planet that they had reached a stalemate.
Which is when they got married.
The planet watched in shock as they combined their forces, their money, and their living arrangements, and together, they ruled the highest strata of business on the planet- some even said in the universe. They hated each other and admitted it in public with a sickening regularity, but they had succeeded in essentially owning the richest commerce ever seen in history.
Willow watched the vidscreen with horror as she was introduced to herself. She watched herself pursue man after man, without any scrap of shame- because, of course, it was all on public record. She saw her marriage, the mocking hate in Angel's eyes, the bored sensuality in hers, as she flirted with every man except her husband.
Berating herself for the past few months of regrets, she fell asleep on the couch, wondering why she had allowed herself to be so ungrateful for her life in Sunnydale. She hadn't been a queen, but-
At least she hadn't been a glorified whore.
****