She has almost four months of peace and moderate freedom before it goes to hell. The first week, Anya takes her shopping for clothes for the first time in Tyr's life. Tyr can tell that Anya doesn't like the clothes she picks out, baggy cargo pants and loose tank tops instead of the more girly clothes the former demon gravitates towards. Tyr refuses to have anything to do with shoes, a point that gets her in trouble with various shopkeepers. On nights Spike doesn't take her with him and the Slayer on patrol, Dawn and Tara curl up with her on the Slayer's couch and they watch movies that Tyr doesn't really understand but finds amusing anyway. Spike is one of the best Wishers she's ever been bound to, kind behind all the anger and hurt he carries around like a suit of armor and even when he's hurting from the latest disparaging remark from the Slayer who toys with his heart Spike still doesn't turn his hurt or anger on Tyr.
Since that first round of questions about her past, he hasn't asked any more about her sisters or the geis. She calls him Wisher as often as he'll allow, reminding herself that she's nothing but a tool to him but that wall is flimsy at best, getting weaker each time he curls around her as they sleep or each time he does something for her. He doesn't even complain that she's constantly touching him, invading his personal space once he tells her it's okay for her to do.
After ages of contact meaning nothing but pain, the pleasure of curling around him during the day or cuddling with Dawn while they watch movies is like touching the Christian's Heaven, bringing back memories of the easy, ever-present contact that she'd shared with her sisters. It isn't until Spike drapes himself across her shoulders to read from the book she's holding that she realizes maybe he needs the contact as much as she does. It isn't until she unthinkingly bares her throat for him one evening, instead of offering him her arm, that she realizes she's falling in love with him. When she wakes up in his arms, with his fingers tracing her face and combing through her hair, she knows the way her heart has a hard time finding it's rhythm has nothing to do with the fact that her vascular system is still recovering.
Out of all the potential hazards that come with each Wisher, she has never before seen the danger of falling in love with one.
It's the fucking Velli demon that brings it all crashing down around her, destroying the fragile trust that the do-gooders have in her. The skinless demon takes one look at her, recognition flashing in its black eyes, and drops to its knees, blubbering for her forgiveness. The thin knife Spike had given her earlier that evening tears through the demon's skull like it's made of tissue paper, but she's not fast enough to stop the Slayer and her Wisher from seeing the whole thing. Spike orders her down even as Buffy breaks her neck.
When she revives, she's tied to a chair in Giles' house, thick ropes biting into her skin. She struggles hard enough that the ropes cut into her skin, blood oozing down her hands and between her fingers as she snarls at her impassive watchers.
"What are you?" It's Giles who asks, imperious and far too confident. Tyr laughs in his face, the noise cracking through the air like ice breaking.
"The Bird of Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame," she says, mocking the humans. She watches the skin around Giles' eyes tighten in anger, mouth drawing down in a severe frown. She doesn't blame the man; she'd probably do the same in his place. Anyone a Velli demon bares its neck to should be treated with caution. It still stings though.
"Spike, you're the one she answers to. You ask her," Buffy says, and Tyr bares her teeth and bites back the flood of curses that she wants to scream at the bitch who has just condemned her. The seething dislike Tyr has been trying to hide boils up, leaving an acidic taste in the back of her throat. Even if Tyr hadn't been falling in love with Spike, she thinks that she'd still dislike the holier-than-thou Slayer.
"Don't." It's the closest she'll allow herself to come to begging. Something flickers in Spike's eyes and there's a brief flash of hope that he's going to side with her.
"What are you?"
And just like that, Tyr goes numb, clenching her teeth and glaring at him. Just another Wisher she thinks bitterly before fire ignites in her veins, punishment for resisting. She fights it as long as she can, using her anger against the pain. Her skin blackens over veins and arteries, making lacework patterns of her vascular system until she screams and tears roll down her face, burning through her shirt when they fall.
"That's enough!" Spike's voice cuts through the overwhelming heat, cutting it short. There's an unsettled look on his face as he watches her gasp for breath, half sobbing with relief. Each breath fills her lungs with fire, each exhale turning into a puff of smoke.
"No, it's not. You saw how that demon treated her, like it worshipped her," Buffy snaps. "If she's resisting telling us what she really is, there must be a reason."
Tyr has had enough of the Slayer and her insecurities, her cruelties, her self-righteousness. She lunges at the Slayer, ears flat against her skull, snapping her teeth when the ropes prevent her from getting far.
"Let's drop a geis on you, leave you in the hands of sadistic bastards for a century, and then see how you like being forced to give anything away, you sanctimonious bitch!" She barely recognizes the low snarl filled with rage and pain as her own voice.
"Tell us what you are." She'd forgotten not to insult the Slayer in front of the Wisher. The geis collar tightens at his snapped command and she manages to choke out, "Once we were three; dancing death, havoc, and agony." It's enough of an answer that the geis loosens slightly, enough that she can breathe freely. She looks at Spike, praying that he won't force her to keep going.
"That's not an answer," Spike says, voice and eyes cold. Pain looms and anguish is bright in her chest. She'd known it was stupid to allow the growing warmth towards him. He's a Wisher, just like the rest, regardless of how kindly he has treated her she's still just a tool to him at the end of the day. Fine then. She crushes that pathetic little ember glowing in her chest and tells herself that it barely stings as she pulls her walls around her, sitting back in the chair. She looks directly at Spike, not giving any of the other fuckers in the room the slightest illusion she'd be speaking if not for the geis burning around her throat.
/`/`/`/`/`/`/`
Spike can see the exact moment that Tyr shuts down and kicks himself for letting his temper get the best of him. He knows what it's like to be forced into something that you hate. The tattoo around her neck shimmers, rainbow reflections like petrol spilled on wet pavement. Just another Wisher she'd told him. She stares at him, those silvery-grey eyes as dead as they'd been the first day he's found her.
"Once upon a time, I was the Morrigan." The tattoo shimmers again, briefly. Her brow furrows, a flicker of expression before it smoothes back to doll-like blankness. "My sisters and I were the Morrigan. We were worshipped and loved and feared." Her fingers beat a quick rhythm on the arms of the chair before falling still. "Have I sufficiently answered your question, Wisher?" Her voice is flat and Spike has to stop himself from saying yes just so he can try and assure her that he isn't just another master. He looks at Buffy, who's staring at Tyr like she's expecting hellfire any second now, before turning to Giles and ignoring the pain in his chest.
"Can I untie her now?"
"Ask her if she means to harm us."
"I have said multiple fucking times that I have no free will!" Tyr snaps, her usual fire breaking through. Blood oozes down her hands from where she's tried to hard to free herself, smoking a little when it meets the armrest of the chair. The lattice of burns has already started to fade. "As long as the Wisher doesn't order it, I am unable to…"
The look of surprise on Tyr's face is almost comical as Buffy slits her throat.
"What the hell!?"
"We can't trust you not to make that order," Buffy says as she wipes the bloodied blade on Tyr's shirt, oblivious to the pain she's causing him.
"Haven't I proved myself to you yet?" The words are bitter in his mouth, even as Tyr saves him from Buffy's answer.
"Is that all you got Slayer? No wonder Glory shit all over your little parade, if that's what you think it takes to kill one of the old gods," Tyr says, letting out a mad laugh. "You can cut my heart out, burn me till there's nothing left, and I will still be here to visit my revenge long after your bones turn to dust."
Giles stops Buffy from putting that to the test, gently taking the Slayer's knife from her.
"You can untie her Spike, but if I may ask…?"
Tyr growls low in her throat when Spike draws close to her; a cornered animal, wounded and betrayed. He swallows hard to get rid of the bitter taste that thought leaves as he unties her, wishing he could take it back. Wishing he hadn't shattered the trust she'd seemed to have in him. Ghostly grey eyes look up at him, the blankness in them as terrifying as the well of emotion that had been in them earlier.
"You can't take it back Wisher," she spits out the words like they hurt her to say, a film of tears in her eyes, before standing and looking at Giles.
"Ask."
"That first day, when Anya recognized you, she called you Amara…"
"I once went by Amara, a long time ago when my Wisher was another vampire. She wished for a ring that would make her immortal, but I could only make her invincible. She was an insane bitch, Anya will tell you, and she thought it fitting to name my creation after me. The source of anguish for so many people and I was the one that granted it," she says bitterly, angrily.
"You made that?" Spike can't stop the shock in his voice.
"That so hard to believe?"
"The creator of one of the most sought-after artifacts in vampire culture and I found you in a wall."
Amara shrugs, rubbing her wrists and looking at Giles.
"Is that all?"
The Watcher nods, looking down at Buffy who had already dismissed the situation as beneath her. Tyr looks back at Spike.
"With your leave I'll go. Anya said she wanted me at the Bronze, if I have your permission."
Spike's more than a little lost.
"You know you don't need it."
"I also knew that you wouldn't force anything from me." With that parting shot, she's gone, leaving him to make his way back to his crypt.
/`/`/``/`/`/`
By the time she gets to the Bronze she's mostly healed, the blood-soaked shirt lost in a Dumpster five seconds after she steals a new one. It's not her usual style, black and close fitting, but it'll do for the night. Anya takes one look at her and orders something that looks radioactive, before smoothing a gentle finger down a burn that hasn't fully healed yet. Tyr flinches away, covers it by taking a swig of whatever the waitress has just deposited in front of her. It's light, fruity, but it packs a punch.
"So what went wrong?" Anya's question startles her and Tyr finds herself spilling everything. Three drinks later Anya's wrung everything there is to tell out of Tyr, offered to call up a vengeance demon friend if Tyr's wanting a little payback. Tyr just laughs and leans against Anya, enjoying the feel of another body against hers while her head swims.
"You would've liked my oldest sister, Badb. She used to think like you, before demons tore her apart again and again until she didn't come back." Tyr strokes the feathers in her hair. "My sisters stay with me."
"I know, little goddess." There's something in Anya's voice as she smoothes Tyr's earth-red hair.
"I'm in love with Spike." The confession surprises both of them, and Anya laughs.
"I had wondered about that."
"How do you get rid of it? I want it gone."
"You can carve your heart out and it still won't leave. You just have to learn to deal."
"I am a death goddess. I do not deal." Tyr says, scowling at Anya, who shrugs.
"I'm a vengeance demon who works at a magic shop. We all learn to deal with what we have."
A trace of a song floats across her mind as Anya kisses her forehead and leaves.
Don't care if he's guilty, don't care if he's not.
He's good and he's bad and he's all that I got.
She growls because growling is better than giving into the pain in her chest and the tears in her eyes, because giving in is the last thing she wants to do, even though she's already done it. Her heart beats in her chest even though it's cradled in a vampire's hands.
A man hands her a drink, there are flakes of some shiny metal he tells her is silver, maybe gold, and she doesn't care enough to listen properly. She just wants to get lost in bottles and touches. The man is gone by the time she half way recognizes him, and something burns painfully in the pit of her stomach not long after that. That's when she realizes something is wrong, slamming out the fire exit and into the alley beyond as pain burns in her gut, making her drop to her knees in the filthy alleyway. Violent, agonizing pain that has her wondering if she'd ignored an order right up until she remembers the familiar stranger pressing a shot glass into her hand. The flakes of gold she's willing to bet weren't gold. The alchemist's son, he who had drunk of stone and sealed her in a wall. She braces a hand against rough brick and her bitter laughter quickly turns into dry heaves.
Another wave of pain that has her vomiting blood and wondering if this is what dying feels like. Her body shakes as she drags herself behind a Dumpster, the smell of rot and decay heavy in the air, and she heaves again. Blood spatters the filth in front of her and she curls into a ball, sobbing. A door slams open and she winces, the sound echoing painfully through her skull as the iron poisons her blood. The Dumpster screeches as it's wrenched away from the wall, cold hands painfully tight on her arms as they pull her to her feet. A too-loud voice shouting something she can't understand and the pain recedes.
Tyr retches again and iron pellets rain from her mouth, burning the skin of her bare feet when they roll against her. She whines, ears drooping, and tries to find an iron-free place to put her feet. She's swung into someone's arms and she fight the embrace until the familiar smell of tobacco, leather, and blood wraps around her. The world passes by in a hazy blur as she coughs up more blood and iron that burns where it touches her.
"I've got you, luv. You'll be okay."
Spike. Spike's voice, Spike's arms around her. She wishes she could tell him she loves him before she dies, because she's fairly certain that's where this is going to end up, mainly because she can't see another ending to this story.
/`/`/`/`/`
A week and a half passes with Tyr wishing that she could just hurry up and die, a week and a half spent in and out of hallucinations while she vomits blood. Black veins of iron-poisoning appear and fade across her abdomen while she screams into pillows and sheets soaked with her sweat. She dimly knows that Spike is there, holding her, helping her stand under the freezing spray of the spigot they use as a shower. He lies with her on the bed as she thrashes and tries to get her to drink some water, telling her she's safe, that he's there, that she'll be okay soon enough.
A week and a half later, she's still alive.
(Lyrics from Devil's Backbone by the Civil Wars)