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DISCLAIMER: No.
DISTRIBUTION: Tell me first.
TIMELINE: S3-S4-S5-S6-S7... a little from each.
SUMMARY: It's like Alice falling through the hole, only the White Rabbit pushed her
into it and then laughed as she fell and fell...
RATING: PG.
WORDCOUNT: 2224
NOTES: Written for the fourth round of the Lyric
Wheel. Thanks to Dana E. for the lyrics.
BRAVE NEW WORLD
by Leni
You were young and pretty, and so sure you'd have a happily-ever-after that you could
almost touch it. So when you saw him kissing that little piece of nobody you could only
whisper, "I never thought this could happen to me." before you run away,
cradling the broken pieces of your heart against your chest.
You screamed and ranted, and you still hope you hurt him when you threw that chair in his
face. Right in the middle of his big, fat nose... You can still smirk when you think about
it, even after all this time.
But then, when rage and tears were spent and the only thing he'd left you with was a
wedding dress and a big, hollow hole right in the middle of your soul, you could only
think "Vengeance.". From then on you saw everything in black and bright
red, the sky covered everything in grey and the sun refused to shine.
So you prayed, begged and pleaded with the fire and the spirits and the unknown. Didn't
Olaf always say you were different? Well, you would show him how different you could be.
Magic and hurt blended into your words and as the spell reached its fiery end you felt it
running through your body. Power.
Oh, how you laughed. You laughed as the fire opened a window into your beau's bedroom. You
laughed as your wish was slowly - you made it slow so you could fully enjoy it - being
done. And you laughed as his skin turned green and grew fangs and pretty scales where
green, fangs and scales had never been. When you only saw guilt and fear in his eyes, you
stepped through the meaningless realm of space and smiled patronisingly, kissed his rough
cheek and left him alone. "I never thought this could feel so right," you told
him as you went back to your secret hideout, where the herbs still smelled like vengeance
and magic dribbled down the stone walls.
The next day you were still laughing as Olaf run, asking for help to the same people which
were hunting him. You were sure that, had anyone noticed the glint in your eyes and the
bounce in your step, they would have never doubted the now troll's words. But you were
only the strange Aud, who talked her own mind and was annoying, and so nobody paid any
attention to your better mood.
You were wrong, of course. And you soon discovered it when your new boss appeared at your
side in a flash. Big, bad and intimidating, with a curious look in his eyes every time he
glanced at you. You knew you'd be his newest experiment, and he'd treat you like a child
treats an ant between his fingers; but you didn't care. He wielded power, he spoke power
and in the end he left you being power with a new jewel around your neck.
Years passed, and you were content with your job. Bitter women cried bitter tears as a
welcome to your presence. Hysteric words were spoken, fumbling wildly against each
other... Only one almighty word from your lips made them stop.
You revelled in the new roads your only word paved, in the screams of pain and darkness
from the thousands under your pretty thumb. You laughed at every reality you could peek at
from your supreme perch. And you knew. You knew it with such a certainty that it left you
smiling for many decades to come. "I do not have power. I am Power." Your
big bad boss only smiled benignly when you told him that, and the first word of true pride
was spoken to you. "Daughter," he called you, "The favourite among
mine."
How could you not love it? Vengeance was truly your only love.
Centuries passed. Mode, history and the entire man-world rewrote itself. You watched it
from afar; amused that all these changes hadn't brought even a minimal essential one. Wars
were fought with sticks, swords, guns and finally with words, but they were still fought.
Cities were built with straw, rocks, cement and glass, but they were still built. Women
summoned you with fury, tears, madness and hollow souls, and you were always
called. And every time - every single time with absolutely no exception - you smiled as
you said "Done."
You had never loved anything more than being Vengeance.
***
But then Fate happened.
You went do your work like any other good demon and suddenly you were stuck in a body that
had not been yours for centuries, in a town that reeked of the nastier members of society
and with your precious little pendant smashed beyond repair. NO! You couldn't
think, you couldn't talk, you couldn't even scream for help. You felt so helpless and
lonely as a little unwanted kitten left to die in some rocky cliff... and it wasn't fair.
It really wasn't.
So you tried to go back to your old ways, you wanted and needed to. How could you possibly
be condemned to be mortal? How to be human and have human thoughts when you had already
been Power for so long? But it was impossible, nothing did work. So you spent a crazy
night drowning in your tears, and you swore and prayed and pleaded again. But this time no
big guy appeared to offer you eternity; and when you realised that he'd never come again,
you only thought: "Betrayed again." with a finality that scared what little was
not already scared inside you.
But you woke up with determination glowing in your eyes. If you were condemned then, damn
it, you would make the best out of it. So you went out to the streets, and then run back
to hide under your bed. This was not the world you had left millennia ago. Everything
looked different, felt different and sounded different too. It was so easy when you were
above all of this! You only had to look around with disdain and with a disgusted huff you
had always left this disgusting realm. But you couldn't wish yourself away now, could you?
Well, you could, but it wouldn't serve anything. You bit your lips, hard and harder until
you tasted the forgotten taste of your own blood and you went out again... "Brave new
world, there I go," you murmured encouragingly to yourself as you faced your new
life.
Deciding you needed to re-learn to be normal; you went to the only ones who could
understand why you needed the lessons. It was a mistake; you know it now, for they
couldn't possibly know what 'normal' meant. But you went to them anyway, even took one of
their group for yourself and as you danced in his arms for the first time, you thought:
"He is the cause I'm here, so he better be the solution too."
Of course, there was an Apocalypse running on the heels of this realisation. You left the
town and the guy and you wished they'd still be there if you ever decided to go back. You
were sitting in a comfy bed of a distant hotel when the news reached you. Big fires and
demolished schools echoed in your mind as you ran further away, still not sure if you
wanted that crazy town or if maybe a new life, free of reminders of your two-millennia
long past, would work for you. "I never thought I'd escape from anything
anymore," you thought sarcastically as the irony of someone who had been pure power
fleeing from an intangible threat hit you.
And you tried; you tried hard for weeks that became months. You knew a nice guy in Kansas;
someone who laughed at your quirks and harsh truths and danced better than the dance you
had in those other arms. He was blonde with brown eyes, and sometimes you saw something
akin to love dancing between you. You smiled at it, thinking "I did it!" and
when he took you to his bed you were nervous and a little scared. Two millennia! But he
was so sweet and nice and careful that you cuddled into him just to hear his heart beat.
You didn't even miss being Power that night, and you even thought: "Maybe this isn't
so bad."
But then you committed your greatest mistake, and told him the truth of his own world. He
stared at you with big brown eyes, and with a hurt in your soul you realised that you'd
seen the same look ages ago, in a man whom you hated even as you laughed at his curse. But
you weren't cursing this one, but he still looked as if pain and darkness were your last
names. And you hadn't even added the final touch, that you had really been pain and
darkness for more generations than you cared to count.
You never did do it, anyway. You were too busy, crying yourself out as you drove back to
Sunnydale, to bother about telling anyone about the whole truth of your past. "I
never thought I could be such a fool," you reprimanded yourself as you run back to
the people who knew of you, even if they didn't really know you. And you wished to
be your old self with all your might, just to crush that mortal who had seen you at your
lowest, just to curse the moment you thought 'normal' was part of this life.
***
The rest, as people say, is history. You came back to the reason of this crusade and told
him in indisputable terms that you were there to stay. Little by little, and without any
of you noticing it, you insinuated yourself into his life. Day after day during the next
years you made mad love, shadow love, random love and abandoned love. Until one day real
love sneaked up on you. You woke up without having really slept and noticed you were just
hearing his heart beat. "Maybe this time it'll work," you thought before kissing
him a big, loving good-morning kiss. You were finally happy being just another girl.
And you smiled.
You smiled even wider when he told you he loved you back, and that he really
wantedneededdesired you in his life. And when his mouth finally spelled the words
"Marry me." you nearly jumped in your happiness, even with the threat of another
End of Days knocking on the Hellmouth doors. You couldn't run this time, not without him.
And even when you really wanted to go back to Kansas to show off your engagement ring and
your fiancé, who was completely aware of your millennia of vengeance and still wanted
you, you stayed. Because your place was with him and you wantedneededdesired him too.
The Apocalypse came and went again, and you consoled your man every night for the next
months, even as you wanted to cry yourself because, well, you liked Buffy too.
But then the dead Slayer came back to life, and everything went back to the abnormal
crises that were your normal norm. You made reservations, bought a dress and hired
everything needed with a grin which you hadn't wore for your first near-wedding. Finally
the big day came... and your heart broke all over again. "I never thought I'd ever be
so lonely," you confided to the photos you burned, trying not to look at your own
smile disappearing into the fire.
You prayed and plead and cried, and D'Hoffryn's eyes were alight with curiosity as he
granted the prodigal daughter her power again. It felt so good, to leave the mortal body
and become more. But you couldn't smile as you said your magical word, and women
seemed more foolish and crazy than ever before. Why couldn't you laugh anymore? And as you
saw yourself in the mirror, changing from your new body to the mortal one and back again,
you wished... You wished...
What you wished didn't matter because there's no way it could come true.
"It will be alright," you insisted, "It will come back to me." But you
felt a strange tug in your supposedly neglected soul as your friends ignored and sent you
away. You couldn't even make your own eyes obey every time they went looking for him.
"It doesn't matter," you told yourself, and tried to believe that his punishment
was not coming because you couldn't wish for yourself.
***
"It will be alright." became your motto. Even as days, weeks and months passed
you thought everything would come together. Because that was the only constant in this
little group, wasn't it? No matter the deaths, the darkness and the betrayals everything always
came together. Of course, just as you believed that happily ever after would finally be
within your hands, there was a sword falling swiftly through your body...
"This is the end.".
...there was only one last wish to wish.
"I wish everything were different."
In that moment your big bad boss broke his own rules for his favourite daughter. For you.
And then there was only light.
"Welcome to a brave new world, part two," you murmured as you felt the sunlight
over your skin. And without being sure of where or what you were, you got up and smiled.
The End
19/09/03
Feedback
would be nice.
'Accidentally like a Martyr' by Warren Zevon:
The phone don't ring
And the sun refused to shine
Never thought I'd have to pay so dearly
For what was already mine
For such a long, long time
We made mad love
Shadow love
Random love
And abandoned love
Accidentally like a martyr
The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder
The days slide by
Should have done, should have done, we all sigh
Never thought I'd ever be so lonely
After such a long, long time
Time out of mind
We made mad love
Shadow love
Random love
And abandoned love
Accidentally like a martyr
The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder
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