Shades of Infinity
Author: Kantayra
Disclaimer: I don't own Illyria, Spike, or any of the other AtS characters.
Summary: On a ocean beach, a former god reflects on eternity, immortality, and what makes life bearable. Post-'Not Fade Away'. Illyria POV, Spike/Illyria. *COMPLETED, May 2004* PG13
Author's Note: This does take place after the events in Angel's finale, but it doesn't refer to anything specific in that episode or the end of the series. Just know that Spike and Illyria, at least, are still alive. Oh, and I was having way to much fun playing with POVs. ~_^

I gaze out over the ocean's vastness, and even I cannot help but be impressed with its endless waves. Once, I was infinite like that. Oh, even the infinite are finite, but to the gaze of a speck so insignificant as the shell I bear now, nearly limitless finity might just as well be infinite.

I watch the sun set over the endless horizon, watch prisms of colors - oranges and reds and golds - fracture and appear to these simple eyes as visions of incredible beauty. Mortals watch me, lingering on the crystalline sand, awed by the edge of forever upon which we all stand.

Do they consider their roots? I wonder. Clinging to some lingering ghost of a memory, do they still possess that long-buried instinct that this is their home? The primordial floods from which they first oozed into existence?

But the mortals merely laugh, caper at the rim of the massive entity before us. I can taste the lingering fear in the salty spray. Dimly, even these puny beings are aware of the great depths whose fury they tempt.

I wonder now if they saw me. When Illyria was all, and the world shook at my merest whim... Did these meager little mammals even recognize my might? Or was my power so immense they viewed it as they view the sea? Unimaginable, dangerous, wondrous, but - ultimately - peripheral to something so small. Do ants sense their doom instants before they are crushed?

And - more pressing - what do the gods do when reduced to ants?

I wonder if I'd see it now - the end - even though I was once the great destroyer. Am I, too, to be wiped from existence, an infinitesimal stain on the fabric of time and space?

I have watched other beings fall, ones whom once I would not even have noticed. And yet, I have mourned, not so much for their loss, but for the voids they have left within me. Strange that a fragile mortal being could subsume so much of a divinity's consciousness. But, trapped among these humans, I have little choice but to make them my life, make them a part of my being, and then ache when each brief flame is snuffed from existence. They hurt me, wound me, and suddenly I am left with the absolute imperative that I will not be left alone in this world.

Will I die?/Can I die?/Do I wish to die?

I knew death intimately once. I railed against it, steeped myself in prophecy and resurrection. Now - knowing what I do - would I have allowed myself endless peace instead? Perhaps. But it is moot. I believed myself infinite once, but the infinite cannot be constrained to such a finite form. I am the ocean, reduced to a drop. The galaxy trapped within a beam of light. A...

HONK!

"If you don't get your high'n'mighty blue behind back in the car right now, `ll bloody well hold you down for the legions of hell myself!"

How, I wonder not for the first time, did one such as myself ever come to develop such...colorful allies?

"Oh now, that's it!"

I watch with something somewhat akin to astonishment as my half-breed companion stalks from the vehicle, coat turned up over his head and skin already sizzling from the last gasp of daylight. His hand clamps about my wrist, and only the slightest of efforts would be required to resist him, yet I feel no such desire. This...touch is new to me, the way a mortal's flesh feels against my own, how such simple contact is comforting, reassuring, even...stimulating.

"But, no, `course ol' Spike gets stuck with the crazy bird who ups and decides to leap right out and go commune with the seagulls. Or maybe just confuse the beachcombers - not without `s perks - and scare a few years off their lives." He pulls one of the levers in the `bloody beat-up hotwire', and we move in our tin can with a high-pitched shriek. "What is it with me an' road-trips with chits off their rocker, anyway? Never used to..."

"Do you never cease to talk?"

"Do you never cease to sound like a bossy, snob-nosed li'l goddess? Always orderin' people around..."

"You excel at disobeying." Another lifetime and this being with whom I share forever would've been the first crushed beneath my heel. Now, however... "You wish to die?"

His brow mars with thought. And I, who once thought myself infinite, have no notion of how he'll respond. Such a being should not be able to surprise me, to rise beyond even the simplest comprehension, yet this one does. Hidden levels of infinity swirl within his eyes, and I sense they are mirrors into my own being. Perhaps this is where the endless depths of majesty I remember have disappeared. Not in power, but in thought and mind...

Forever, trapped in a glance. Perhaps I am not so finite after all.

"Why would you say that?"

He sounds troubled by the notion, and the urge to soothe him is great. The desire to plunge deeper into the abyss of his consciousness is greater...

"You venture into the sun." Was it, perhaps, the moment of fear for his safety that compelled me to comply with his insistent shoves, caused me to permit him to strap me back into this bulk of metal and sparks?

"Oh, that." He rolls his eyes in a gesture now quite familiar to me. "Wasn't gonna get anywhere just shoutin' at your holiness `til the tide came in. `sides, no good fussin' about a bit of a burn, right? Although I'm flattered you care, pet, really."

I ignore the last. This half-breed uses to two verbal techniques primarily - the insightful and the `sarcastic' - and only the former interest me at the moment. "You are as immortal a demon as this world will ever know. Yet, you are fragile. A substance so ephemeral as light, and you crumble to dust."

"Immortality'd get right dull without the thrills. Li'l extra spice of danger makes it worth goin' on, `d wager."

"True immortality is triumph." Even as this vessel's mouth utters the words, I am uncertain of their verity. I had thought once that I was happy in my ultimate power. So why does the merest brush of a cold hand make me think differently?

"We all die sooner or later. Even you, Blue."

And, for the moment, this satisfies me. "This shell wearies once more. It is weak." I settle down somewhat uncomfortably, stretched out as best I can across the front seat of the vehicle. The feel of a hard thigh beneath my cheek is surprisingly relaxing. When I'd first been stripped of my powers, this sudden need for sleep terrified me. Now, I surprise myself in finding it oddly pleasant...

"Got your back, luv."

His voice soothes me. "Perhaps we shall ultimately die together," I suggest as the endless depths of unconsciousness sweep over me.

"Can't think of a way `d rather go."

I can hear his smile, feel the tentative movements of his digits through my hair, and I drift off, the infinity road of mortality stretching before us...

Weird. Random. Short. Spillyria. ~_^