Disclaimer: I don't own anything that Joss Whedon does. 'Cause…well, I just don't. Hell, I don't even own an iPod.
What happens to Illyria after 'Not Fade Away'? Well, let's just say that she's having some personality issues…
Not All There
I am dead.
No, I live.
No, I am neither.
My name is Fred…
No it is Illyria…
No, it's something else…
No…No..No… I am myself once again.
I am Illyria, an Old One. I am powerful…or once was. I had power. Humans dared not even think my name. They bowed and knelt before me. I could hear the plants' song. But no longer.
Long ago, I was sent to a tomb. And I waited. And waited. And finally, I was awakened. I was given a shell. I cleared it of all that existed within it and then it was mine.
Or so I thought.
I did not know that with the shell came certain, as I saw them at that time, inconveniences. Two half-breeds, two humans, and an empathy demon. They were what humans call 'friends'. They missed their 'Fred' as she was called, and sought to destroy me.
They of course failed. And so I lived.
But then I became aware of something else: I was no longer respected, no longer worshipped. This was an outrage to me. My world was gone. The humans now reigned! How disgusting this was! And how was I to survive in such a world? How was I to live the life of my shell? Impossible!
I was forced to request help. From a human, and the shell's lover no less. He had love for my shell, an emotion I detested. And his grief suffocated me. Yet he was the only one I could truly trust.
My first thought was to turn him against the half-breeds, my only true threats (though I would never admit it), to make him my priest. But that plan was…interrupted.
Firstly, he stripped my powers. How dare he! I was furious! And yet…I went back to him. I could not understand this.
I formed…a connection with the human Wesley. I even became angered when it seemed that he had been deceived by one of the half-breeds, the leader.
Yes, I had been suspicious of him. I told the other, the one with the voice like Wesley's and white hair. He did not believe me.
But other things were happening within me as well. You see, I had destroyed this Fred's organs, her soul, everything except her outer skin and hair, and even that I manipulated to my liking. But something remained. Memories and thoughts… Her personality somehow still existed.
It was stronger when I was around Wesley, but I did not avoid him. I needed Wesley and there was something else…something that I could not name, yet I somehow knew that the Fred could.
And then her parents came. Wesley was fearful and sad and grieving and experiencing several other emotions about them. I knew that if this human, one not even of Fred's blood, grieved her so, than her birth-givers would give even more.
I would not have that. It annoyed me so much when one human grieved, I knew I could not take three.
So I turned into her. I manipulated the shell and used the memories and thoughts so that I could…
I'm running up to them and smiling. I'm hugging them, feeling their warm, familiar bodies for the first time in so long. I'm not blue anymore. I'm me. Just Fred.
"Mom! Dad!"
Oh, I miss them so much! I remember seeing them there. It felt so good to-
ENOUGH! I AM ILLYRIA! I AM ILLYRIA! FRED IS GONE! THIS SHELL IS ALL THAT EXISTS OF HER!
She will not leave me! I used to be able to control it, but now she can overcome me and talk and act and look like her, but she is not her, she is ME and…
There is…something wrong with me. I have become aware of it by now. Sometimes I am myself, sometimes I am her, and sometimes…sometimes I am someone new, someone that has never existed outside of me, of her, of…
Ha ha ha ha….Now I am the shell.
I know it doesn't fully make sense. But madness rarely does.
