Title: Dig Ophelia
Author: Scynneh
E-mail: scynneh@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Don’t own ‘em. Wish I did- Dru could help me find some velvet shoes in my size.
Improv 9: plush, broken, bewilder, moonlight.
Pairing: Dru, and the Terrible Threesome.
Rating: R; angst and general thoughts of dismemberment from the queen herself. If thee be of faint heart, run now. (And what are you doing here?)
Dedications: To my keyboard, who has put up with hours of cat fur and me pounding away at it without any sort of compensation. Also, to the writers who’ve been keeping the ‘Joss factor’ at bay of late. Thanks muchly all.
Distribution: Sure, just let me know.
Feedback: Yes, I really do love knowing who reads this stuff. Makes my day worthwhile. 
Spoilers: For ‘Reunion’ and ‘Redefinition’, aren’t they all?
Author’s notes: Angel is wavering on the border of being straight out nuts and being just plain ol’ avenger material. Can anyone guess which way I’m voting? <EG> The title comes from a ‘Rasputina’ song. Oh, and I got really angry on Dru’s behalf. I don’t know if it came through too strongly…
February 2001

 *
Many people creep around the pool of life as if it were a pool of acid; some are more daring than others, and dip a toe in to see what it feels like.  But most stay well away from the edge.  The ones that are remembered however, dive right it, with no thought has to the consequences; fighting to keep their heads above the surface, out of the fingers of the jealous currents, and sometimes even manage to stay afloat.

  My Angel is like that; battling to remain stable while all his parts fight and claw at each other like great jungle cats.  There was much to taste in him when last I saw him; but none of it was familiar.  No bitter ashes cutting into my tongue with shards of mocking memory, and no voluptuous darkness wrapping me in its arms.  There was a swirl of shadows about him, a gleam of something in his normally expressive eyes, but what it was, I do not think it was kind.  No Daddy would do that to his Children, unless they were very, very bad.  Since I have not done anything that I think has been too naughty, I reel with the wind; head full of silences that cannot explain, only bewilder a dutiful Daughter.  But something has got him by the short hairs, as my dear lovely prince would say; under the smile of a benevolent lune whilst our Father was off cutting the meek out of the aristocratic flock.  A virulent unpleasantness that has warped him into the Slayer’s soul; even though he would have ripped out her treacherous tongue in days when I was the Adored One. 

  No longer, he has become another creation, a nasty creature birthed of fear and decades crawling in and out of worlds, not truly being a part of either, no matter how much he might desire to fit in.  This sickness in his chest has spread to hold him still, not live, nor dead, not even both like me, and I feel that soon he shall be something awful and good.

  And Grandmother promised me that nothing would stand between us and Father, not event the ‘Forces of Good’.  She swore that we would find the ones that rent our lives apart so horribly all those years ago, and that we would drink their essence from golden bathtubs and spread their flesh on the cushions of plush, sumptuous velvet settees, painting pretty pictures for Daddy’s enjoyment. 

  ‘Art’, she called such projects; I just giggled ‘cause whenever she started using such words, Daddy would roll his eyes and make faces at her turned back.  His word for redecoration of furniture was ‘foreplay’, and I liked that one much more.  It was always our secret, Grandmother’s little oddities were to be borne if I was to get any treats at all.  Yet, now things of muted silver moonlight and gauzy clouds have taken my Sire, and thrown him down into the lion pit.  And in my sleeps, I reach for his crimson-stained hand, but They always pull be back; leaving me with nothing but a slickened palm, and the tang of spices and leather with raspberries on my tongue.

  Yes, I think that those creatures are all that are keeping my Daddy from me, from his mother, who sits beside me, stroking my hair.  We aren’t whole anymore, our limbs are withering away, and I don’t know if we can stand for long without another piece.  So, it is my task to find our lacking bits and slide them back into their places, removing the parts which have harmed Father.  Including his former lover, whose cruelly smug declarations wounded him more than her whoring ever could. Then we shall be as we were, the way that the Fates intended: a Family.

  Still, I See him in his mental prison, and my dolls lie around me on the floor, their beautiful gowns soiled, and faces broken beneath the vindictive heels of Gods who must never have known love, and who shall be made to understand what it is I have lost.

-Fin