Title: Follow 1/2
Author: Scynneh
E-mail: scynneh@yahoo.com
Pairing: Spike/Dru, maybe more, if you look closely.
Disclaimer: If they were mine, I would make sure there was lots of swimming. In strange waters.
Rating: R, for some things which are not for anyone not of the age.
Improv 25: lazy, complex, candy, immense
Author's Notes: It seemed right.
Spoilers: The Gift.
September 2001
*
She liked the quiet, not that it was easy to find nowadays, cars and their
larger equivalents roar by gullies and crush the ground so that it bows
underneath their pressure. Much like the lone activist being shoved by all
parties until, sadly they gave way. Better not to have majorities,
she muttered, factions constantly vying for control were messy, and ultimately,
not of enough entertainment for her liking.
She once went to a ‘mall with her darling; she had seen the pictures of people on television and they held out gleaming bottles of scent supposed to entice a mate. She had imagined that the vials were stopped off with warded corks keeping in and contained, spells of olfactory submission, signals of smell would overwhelm the unfaithful and bring them back, crawling weeping and ready to be punished for their absence. Thoughtless butchers of love, all. She stood still and could Hear them, scorned women, their powers muted by the ideals of this time, where machismo counted for more than integrity. Hateful years, Dru hissed at the sun mocking her from her castle below the soil and longed to tear the hurtful orb from its throne.
When one can Hear a Mate's pain, that devotion transcends the flesh and becomes a bond of the spirit. Agony is shared, increased exponentially in the exchange. So when a Mother Heard her OtherHalf, Childe, and all else, screaming in her veins, she doubled over, clawing at her arms and face, wailing with reaction.
It
did not make a difference the cause of such a deep heartwound; nasty Slayers
would come again, but the plea for succor was unique- wrongs admitted and the
belly grovel of submission said ‘anything to go back to what was.’
And she knew what he dealt with; the choosing had been made with soft,
lazy brains curdled by sparkling machinery of the mortals.
He had realized what the emotions led to; the humans would leave and all
others, unless he placed the familial needs above his personal fleeting adorations. No more heartbeat flushed arms, bends where pulse said
‘nourishment,’ but gave decay of the self.
That kind of affection was intolerable, especially when he had a
youngling of his own to coddle.
When she had first seen the girl, huddled in a sarcophagus, her aura flaring blindingly, trying to melt herself into the stone, to disappear, in spite of the immense bubbling of energy around her, wailing out the belief that Sister’s death was her fault, Mother could not help but be intrigued. Already awakened to the loss of romantic notions in the world, she could envision how bitterly this one would rebel against the establishment of rules, how even now, she ran wild as los lobos in the hills. That was how Mother thought of them, she the wisdom, her Children slowly inching out of a trap smelted from longing, and the last, still bearing the fur of youth, but being filled out by tragedy. And now she was the strongest of them all, ready to welcome them back to her Hearth.
****
The woman stepped up the gate of the cemetery; dressed in a long coat, the hood obscuring her features form the curious woodland. She could Hear the trees, whispering to one another, speculating as to her identify and destination. She hummed soundlessly within her body swaying to and fro, soothing the worried boughs over her head.
*Nothing to fear Mummy’s home*, she chanted and the leaves ceased twitching, now moving to sweep her hair as she walked below them. She would take care of things, make them right again; the stars giggled, and then said conspiratorially. ‘Mother is going to make the bad ones pay and in ever so beautiful blood.’
“Shush, don’t tell secrets,” she chided, but a smile winked in her dark eyes, giving credence to the overhead gossips’ words.
The
air was fat with pain and she walked father-light to the newest source of it.
This town had always been in chronic distress, but the freshest was the
most clear. Slippers halted at the headstone, almost hidden by piles of flowers
ripped from their beds unwillingly. Focusing
on the words, Dru smiled. Terrible
Bringer of Heartache and Death was dead. And she could smell the body in the
soil, the happy choir of eating beasts already working to break down flesh, such
small animals, but their melodies flooded Dru’s ears as easily as if they were
directly beside her. Granted, dear
Spike would be miserable about this death, he’d not been doing his duty to the
Blood, but she would remind him of their connection, their sometimes confining
umbilical tethers.
It was in her blood, her need for him, the humanity that despite
self-flagellation of all kinds would not be cast off. There had been
trials to bear to wean her off the most harmful vices, but the ones that she
wanted, the kinds that would not kill her had not been permitted.
She had
wanted to smoke so very badly, but that was something that ladies were not
supposed to do. Once Daddy had
found her with one of the cigars that he favored, and he’d flayed the skin
from her back, for two days. And when Spike had cut her down, he’d lectured about what a
nasty habit that was for chits, and she had smiled demurely, inwardly sharpening
her nails against his words. She
was not a lady, she was the monster, and if the silly men were so done up in
thoughts of her being a princess, then she would be quite happy to put them in
the high tower, see how they liked it.
Now Spike was in the rubble of his castle, and he had only her and a babe.
He sensed her, and when he turned to look at
her, with all of that wounding in every fiber of his lean frame, she bared her
teeth back, the sharp greeting of mates, the challenge of hunters, and welcome
home to a bond which the humans had interfered with. Powers of Higher Orders
were not something of their world; theirs was the pain of the innocent,
enjoyment and fun. All of that had
gone away for too long. Still, the
feeling was the same as when she had first seen him, wanted that soul to fly out
and refill the pocket of emptiness with all of the potential that steamed out
with his every mortal breath.
She had missed this; not even known how much so, his hesitation inches from her face, and then the confidence that he was hers and she was his princess and that he had the right as no one else did to coddle her and watch over her and protect her, and that even though she was the elder, she would allow it for a time, because he had the Ambition as she had the Spirituality to carry it all through. And the yards and years of distance and hurt did not matter; she cleared them all of complexities on swells of willing air and was upon him, the girl observing without fear, only Spike mattered, sweet, precious, darling lover that he had always been, especially when naughty. A dangerous sugariness on her palate, an almost meringue death that she would see untamed, and covered in black denim.
Her legs went over his hips in the fashion that they had always done so well,
and their physical proximity encouraged mouths to reacquaint with one another.
Tongue on her lips, tentative as he had not been since first Turned, and she
found it so endearingly tragic, he wanted to be good, but was bad, so very much
so, to the root of his being, an intelligent evil, and now he was smart enough
to know how badly he had mucked things up.
There are some who never know pain; live in perfection their entire lives. And there are those with whom pain is not a companion, but a devoted lover. And as Dru stared at the girl-child observing without speaking, the experienced madame invited the tarnished infant into the ranks of her family.
Fin
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