[ Memoria Alias ]
Title: Memoria Alias
Author: Lindsay Ince [chicago_heat@hotmail.com]
Disclaimer: As Kirsty put it so well - Not mine. Therefore, I disclaim.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: N/A
Summary: Set in London in the 19th century, Drusilla, Spike, Angelus and Darla return to London and the source of some family recollections for Drusilla.
Authors Notes: In response to Improv #5: sepia, memory, wish, revenge. This story might totally balls up the cannon, but this is how I see Drusilla's early life, and as for the whole sire question, it is what it is here, I'm making no attempt to decide it one way or another.
Feedback: Would be nice...
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Snow lay thickly over the grey of the paved streets. The atmosphere was cold, and people pulled scarves and gloves closer to them as they walked the streets. Little gusts of cold breath escaped from the mouths of the population as they hurried along the bustling streets on their way home. Four among them stood out, not dressed as warmly as the rest, seemingly unaware of the cold London night. They strode along the path, not budging for anyone to get past them, and almost snarled at anyone that got in their way. Children playing on a nearby street ran to their parents crying out that no cold breath was visible coming from their lips. They declared them ghosts, until their parents clipped their ears and sent them scurrying indoors. Still the four deadly looking figures walked the streets, led by the smallest and most delicate. When Londoners caught her eye they looked away again, whispering she looked 'touched by madness.' They walked down the path by the Thames till they found a suitable bridge to cross to bring them to South London. Still they walked, tirelessly, crossing street after street, dodging carriages, people and children that threw themselves around in the excitement of the first thick winter snow fall. The tallest of the group looked disdainfully on the small raggedy creatures circling around him, and actually grabbed one by the scruff of the neck and lifted him to eye level. His blonde companion whose arm he was linked with put a hand to his to stop him.
'Angelus,' she said in a warning voice.
The dark haired one dropped the small creature which fell to its knees in the white blanket below him, then immediately jumped up and scampered off.
'I hate snow,' he grumbled. 'It cushions the fall, their kneecaps don't break so easily.'
Darla laughed at the look of irritation on his face.
'And where the hell are we going to? I'm not exactly in the mood for one of Drusilla's psychotic episodes.'
The two vampires in front of them turned. On Drusilla's face was a look of pain as the tears welled up in her eyes. Spike's face was the picture of pure, unadulterated anger as he responded to the crass remark of his sire.
'We will go wherever the bloody hell Dru wants to go, and if you don't like it, then you can fuck off to whatever part of Bronze Age Ireland you came from.'
Angelus only smirked at the ease of getting a reaction from his childe. Darla smiled too at the rashness of youth. A few hundred years might well work the benefits of patience in to him, she thought. On the other hand...
Ahead of them, Drusilla broke into a run as she spotted the source of their quest. Whipping round, Spike noticed her breaking away from the other three and rushed to catch up with her. Darla and Angelus exchanged knowing glances, each of them slightly disdainful of the obvious love existing between the two young vampires. Darla had often wound Angelus up by citing their emotion to be his fault. He had created them, he had obviously effused them with the love they were capable of. To her claim that somewhere inside him must be the capability for the same emotion, she received many bruises from an angry Angelus.
* * * * *
On the other side of the river, a different scene greeted them. Gone were the crowded, down trodden houses and streets, crowded with people and traders attempting to sell their wares. This area was more upmarket, full of tall terraced houses, ostentatiously designed and decorated to display the wealth and grandeur of the Victorian well to do. They continued to pace steadfastly, trailing after Drusilla's wandering figure, determined to fulfil her quest whilst unintentionally irritating the patience of her companions. She led them down one road and then another, until the snow made each look the same, and Spike gave up hope of her ever being able to find what she was looking for.
Suddenly, she stopped dead in the middle of the road and when the others caught up to her she was still looking up in awe at a house that appeared like every other on the road. This one was different, they could all feel it. The power of the evil that surrounded it was intense, delightful to the demons that inhabited their forms. They opened the gate and strode up the path, determined to let nothing and no one disrupt their visit to this place of power. Angelus and Darla took the lead, Angelus rapping on the door with his cane, arm in arm with Darla as Spike and Drusilla hung back, out of sight behind a bush that had been in the garden when Drusilla had lived there. As the young housemaid opened the door, Angelus made pleasant conversation with her in order to let them in. Lies had always come easily to him, and a mixture of flattery, askance and pleading usually managed to the do the trick. they had learned just what accidents would enable them to get entry into a house easily, and without question, until it was too late. This attempt passed off without incident, and after disposing of all those living in the house they took it over, congregating in the dining room, with the smell of blood still pleasuring their nostrils.
'Nice place,' Spike commented, 'Apart from the flowerly wallpaper.'
Darla laughed at Spike's expression at the decor. He sniffed up his nostrils and ended with a glower in her direction.
'Well, I like it, let's move in.' Darla said resoultely in Angelus' direction.
'I suppose it'll do,' Angelus answered, not sounding very convinced. 'It's handy for bringing home supper.'
'And the cellar,' Darla replied eagerly, 'A wonderful place for torturing the unsuspecting souls of London.'
'Yes, there is that,' Angelus answered thoughtfully. 'We may as well stay for now, it'll be light soon.'
His complaint over the lateness of the hour because of their escapade escaped Drusilla's attention, but not Spike's who gave the finger to Angelus' back. He turned to see Drusilla had disappeared from the room.
'Oh bloody hell, where has she gone?' he exclaimed.
'Don't know, don't care,' replied Angelus, who lifted his legs to rest them on the dining room table and then leaned back in his chair to relax. Darla lowered herself onto his knee and rested her head against his shoulder, giving her aching feet a rest as he had done.
Spike looked at them angrily for a moment. when they continued to ignore him he realised they weren't going to help him find her, and stomped off to look around the rest of the house for her.
* * * * *
Drusilla sat at the window seat, looking out over the Thames and the snow that covered the water and the streets and gave the impression of a giant glacier, moving slowly through the streets of London. She stared down at the sepia coloured photograph in her hands of a model looking family. The father and mother were seated demurely on seats covered with bold and bright coloured cloth that reached beyond the confines of technology by giving the air of elegance and colour even through the rich brown tones of the photograph. Two children were ranged about them. The boy was standing, older than his years at his mothers elbow, starched and stiff in his collar and cuffs, a tie almost draining the blood from his head. And the girl, a few years older, seated on a white shawl on the floor, clutching a small doll, the embodiment of youth and innocence.
Her memory of the day was of a spectator, almost as though she was the audience to the scene, looking upon her family and herself at a distance. She saw the photographer holding his black horizontal stick that flashed a bright light every now and then, pausing to usher them to another position or wave his hands in front of their faces to get them all to look at the camera at the same time. The solemn looks on their faces contrasted with the excitement of the young boy, who had been smiling and laughing all the way to the grand looking studio. Being two whole years older, Drusilla had been contemptuous of his excitement with such a minor adventure. She was much more concerned with the world around her. The leaves lying on the pavement in front of her caught her attention as they walked. Reds, browns, yellows and oranges filled in and covered the dull grey that usually accosted her eyes on a trip through the city. A gust of wind swept down the path next to the river and she pulled her shawl closer and hugged her prized doll to her chest. Her fathers hand patting her head turned her gaze to warm, safe brown eyes.
'Watch where you tread, Drusilla my darling, you might fall, and we wouldn't want Miss Edith to get dirty would we?' he said gently.
Drusilla's eyes widened with alarm at the thought of her precious doll coming to any harm and she held her tighter still, her other hand reaching out to grasp the big, guiding hand of her father. She walked the rest of the way slowly with him, the leaves that had seemed so beautiful a few moments ago now seemed dangerous and to be avoided. Walking between her father and mother she felt safe, safe from the bad images that haunted her dreams at night, images that became real in the dark and danced seductively before her eyes. At times they seemed more than images, she also felt a sense of foreboding, that one day all she dreamed might well come to pass. She shivered, and at the questioning gaze of her mother, who had angrily told her to deny the images, she pushed them from her mind and smiled meekly back.
Later, as the nanny tucked her securely into bed, her usual pattern of the day was broken when her father came into the room and shooed the nanny away, taking Drusilla on his knee as he sat in the window seat, and began to point out the position of all the stars to her. She smiled in delight, it was rare for her father to spend any time with her, it was not the way of things in that time. She listened intently, her neck straining to look up at him with intent and serious eyes. He had taught her a rhyme once, many years ago, a childish nursery rhyme, that she repeated over and over in her head as soon as he told it so that she could chant it back to him on request. That night, so clear the stars looked like pin pricks in black velvet, they recited it together, as was their custom, a small ritual they shared every so often that allowed father and daughter to cross the divides of gender and age, so immovable at that time.
Star Light, Star Bright,
First star I see tonight
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight.'
Drusilla shut her eyes tightly and wished and wished. Desparately she wished, it was the same wish every time. A wish that had never yet been fulfilled but her faith kept her hope alive. Her trust in her father meant she never doubted his claims that any wish she made at the end of the rhyme would come true, if she only wished it hard enough with a true and honest heart. Meanwhile, her father smiled at the trust children placed in simple rhymes and asked in a whisper what her wish had been.
'If I tell you it won't come true,' she replied logically, until her father's playful insistence broke her resolve.
'I want the people to go away,' she said quietly.
'What people?'
'The bad people. They are with me all the time, dancing, laughing, and tempting me. I don't want to give in to them Daddy, but they whisper, they whisper terrible things to me, they tell me what's to come. Terrible, terrible things, until I can't breathe and can't sleep.'
Her shaking was stilled by her fathers arms around her hugging her tightly, telling her to forget the bad things, that they weren't real, that they were simply a figment of her imagination. But she knew they were real, that their calls were genuine. She felt it was only a matter of time until they permeated through her dreams into real life and caught her, trapping her in the clouds of evil that surrounded her, engulfing her and pulling her underneath, so that she could never return. When she was in bed and her mother and father stood in the corner, whispering quietly over the words her father had been disturbed to hear, she finally recollected where she had seen the scene before. The images that haunted her she had always believed to be real, that they had come for her at last, that they would take her and destroy her family, in revenge for her denial of their existence for so long. She screamed piercingly, again and again. Her screams were the alarm, they must warn everyone, so she screamed and screamed and screamed until her voice had no power left to articulate words. She screamed until she passed out and then they gathered, worried parents, concerned doctors, giving advice on a subject they knew nothing about. Every unpronouncable disease they remarked on set Drusilla's parents in another panic. In the end, their advice was meaningless, and it was left to the housekeeper's old wives tales to give them any sense of direction. The child was possessed by evil forces, she pronounced gravely. Nought could be done to stop them, but her denial of them would keep them at bay, and she must be encouraged to seek solace in the Lord's arms.
Twisting restlessly in her sleep, Drusilla looked tiny in the giant bed around her. She dreamt of evil, mystical things, shapeless creatures that circled her bed and whispered for her to join them. She resisted with all her strength until they let her alone, then she saw another image. A young woman in a monastery, whom she instantly recognised to be an older version of herself. She felt the emotions of this woman. the confusion, the bewilderment and the mind numbing fear. A figure approaching her was swathed in darkness, not by any earthly means, but by the blackness of his intent and his lack of a soul. He was handsome, he had the face of an angel, and the young child watched as he went to hug the older version of herself. They were almost connected, as he touched her, the young child felt it, even though she watched from the other side of the room. She felt the pain and the panic as her alter ego did when he hurt her, the pain was intense, until it was replaced by relaxed feelings, the knowledge that her destiny had been fulfilled, and that their would be no more recriminations, she could embrace the evil as it embraced her, without the guilt that lay upon her soul. It had all been taken away and she could do whatever she wished.
* * * * *
Drusilla was still sat at the window when Spike found her, and looked as though in a dream. He gently placed a hand on her shoulder and she serenely turned her head to smile at him. He was inwardly concerned, signs of calmness in Drusilla almost always marked disaster in some form or another.
'What are you doing up here on your own pet?' he asked.
'I was remembering when I was born,' she giggled, childlike, something that always brought out gentleness in Spike.
'I'm surprised you remember that pet, but there you go, you learn something new every day. Did you used to sit her with your Mum or something?'
Drusilla giggled again, losing her mask of sanity with every passing second.
'No, I wasn't remembering that. I was remembering being born. In the monastery.'
Spike's smile froze as the inevitable mention of Angelus came out of the blue into the conversation. They could hardly have any sort of conversation now without mention of him. Their sire formed the centre of her world, and, is he cared to admit it, though he didn't often, was probably the centre of his. His presence attracted them as much as the bonds of blood they shared. He rubbed her shoulder gently, and bent to kiss her cool lips.
'Come on pet, Angelus and Darla have brought in food, let's have dinner.'
'Alright,' she said distractedly, her mind never concentrating on food until it was placed before her.
He led her quietly towards the door and down to the ornate dining room. Drusilla followed blindly, her eyes fixed on the window seat until the last minute it was possible to see it. She never told Spike, as they walked away, the shadow of the young girl with raven hair that sat in her place, smiling with evil intent, at the life the future had in store for her.
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