Author's Name: Soo W
Disclaimer: These characters belong to WB/Joss/Fox etc etc, but certainly not to me. I'm only writing this for fun and therapy. And because there are NEVER, ever, enough flashbacks.
Pairing: Angelus/Darla
Spoilers: Based loosely on events in Becoming and The Prodigal
Short Summary: In pursuit of Anna... a letter is written. Darla decides not to dust Angelus at birth and he makes it through the first weeks of his unlife relatively unscathed. But Angelus is still obsessed with Anna. Darla helps him find her, but will there be a price for her assistance? Darla's POV.
Comments: Follows on from "Echoes (I) - Caught Red-Handed". Second in the "Echoes" series. The "Echoes" series is a sequel to Pen Pictures, and the whole lot starts from the premise that Liam was having an affair with Anna (the servant who appears in a flashback in AtS) before he was turned. [ There will be three more in this series shortly: "Chosen" from Anna's POV, "The Wheel's Kick" from Angelus' POV and "Kaleidoscopic" from everyone's POV. ]
My beautiful boy is sleeping. His face, this evening, has lost some of its gauntness and taken on a serene, almost satiated look. Long may it last.
As he slumbers, I take up my pen and begin to write.
"Dearest Anna..."
I couldn't believe it when he told me this servant girl could read. His Father insisted on her learning when she first came to live with the family, he said. Presumably so she could read the bible in her leisure hours. Ah! the value of educating the masses. Now the problem of how to get a message to her is resolved, in an instant.
"Dearest Anna..."
But I am tired, and my talent for invention has temporarily deserted me. Giving up for the moment, I gather my silk wrap around me and join him on the divan. I trace my fingers over the bite on his neck, and he wriggles under my touch, turning onto his back like a big cat. Stretching his limbs. Wanting to be stroked.
It is a great improvement. When we left his village I thought I might have to do with him what I have done with the others. His first morning was terrible. We barely made the farmhouse before sunrise, and while I dispatched its occupants by snapping their feeble necks (not even I could take more blood) he became violently ill.
This I expected, of course. It is unavoidable. As useless to tell a fledgling to reign in their gluttony, as to plead with the sun not to rise or ask an arrow to change its course after leaving the bolt.
But it was hard to see him suffer nevertheless. The blood came back, a blackened and congealing slurry. I knew he would continue to heave and retch until nothing of his first night's feeding remained, the shaking would take hours to subside, and the memory of it would prevent him feeding again until hunger forced the issue, or he starved. However, there is a purpose for everything, and it will serve him well in days to come. He must break with the past, as we all must at some time, and carrying the blood of his family around with him would delay and confuse the matter.
My previous children did not manage the transition successfully, and I was left with no choice but to relieve them of their torment. Well, true, Justine did the work for me by racing out to greet the sun, but she was quite mad by that time and if she hadn't, I would have probably tossed her into the light myself, sooner or later. Philippe was more difficult, arguably more sane, at least on the surface. It was not until he began collecting the heads of his victims that I decided he was beyond recall. I could not introduce such a failure to the head of the family and expect to retain my place in it. Such a wealth of trouble with heads... it seemed only fitting to remove his and have done with it.
The continued existence of the boy's lover does trouble me somewhat, although, now we have succeeded in our search for her, he seems more content. What lies behind that contentedness, there is the rub. If he merely desires her, it is an impulse easily satisfied and soon done, with her close at hand. If he wishes to reach an understanding with her, that is difficult and dangerous. If he plans to share his transformation with her, it will have to be stopped.
He is too young to share his blood with others, and anyway, I have no appetite for raising two at the same time. A pair of lovers as well! What could be worse?
We departed his village as soon as he recovered enough to travel. The boy, who, ever since he killed his sister, insists I call him Angelus, seemed happy enough to leave. Then, once we were safely enclosed in a carriage and four, he asked in his softly lilting way, if we could go and find Anna now, before we travelled to all those places I had promised.
Admittedly, I think it wise to let him have his way in this, but that didn't stop me using his request for my own advantage.
I feigned concern that he chased after another woman, and reminded him he had yet to prove himself to me in that way. Men are so tiresomely predictable, and there was still enough of the man in him to rise to this obvious baiting. He shyly approached me and I gave him sufficient encouragement, so that within a few minutes he was lifting me against the crimson cushions and making excellent use of his new-found strength.
Afterwards, he preened himself and seemed to invite me to compare him with other lovers. So I did (although not candidly - an honest appraisal would not have served my purpose) and that took the wind out of his sails somewhat. Even as I savoured the after-effects of our first furious union - a feverish glow ignited within me by his skill and touch - I pointed out as many fictional deficiencies as I could imagine, and remarked that there must be some great feeling between him and his Anna still, for that was the only explanation I could conceive for his lack of passion.
He was mortified, poor child, which was sufficient amusement for the journey. As the day unfolded outside, I allowed him to make it up to me, several times.
Oh, one day (and the day will not, I fear, be short in coming) he will lose this comical human gullibility, and then I will have more difficulty controlling him. For now, he prefers to rely on his human senses; he hears me deny that he is a good lover, and so believes. Soon, he will be able to sense me, and know that he has pleased me despite anything I say. Then only my superior physical strength will remain, and that for just a few years, as he takes souls and nourishment, and his power increases.
But, for now, he is a lock of hair that I may shape into any curl or kink that suits me and my purpose.
