10

Three days ago and a few more past that

Lythia'l was quite proud of herself, and who could blame her, really?

There was a human saying somewhere, well, there were lots of them to be quite frank, but the one she'd preferred which wasn't too lengthy at all, and that was probably why she liked it, and it was: The most two powerful warriors are patience and time. Well, that was her in a nutshell, now wasn't it? Oh, all fighters fancied themselves warriors since they tussled in the dirt and blood, but they were just trying to make footnotes of their brief little existences, thinking that their kill counts might be hung on the walls and talked about in later years.

What a silly little concept. Lythia'l didn't lack for strength or for resilience, but she didn't go knocking heads about trying to make a statement, now did she? No. She was conniving, manipulative, wily, all those words for being intelligent and sly. And now, she could add patient to that list. Very, very patient, to the point she'd torn her hair out in frustration.

Thankfully, it grew back rather quickly. As did her nails, so she'd long resigned herself to the fact that human manicures was not something she could reasonably partake in and expect them to last more than a day. Nail polish was her salvation, and oh, how lovely the little sparkles looked on her fingers.

Her dimension had nothing like this at all. No manicures—ha! No parties, either. They weren't exactly warlike anymore, which meant they tore each other part by verbal prose. Every good little Mok'Tagar demon was expected to spend their nose in books and sharpen up their wit, and never, ever let the Lug'Tonin clan back into the council, because they were a bit too vicious and prone to biting.

And she'd been good for the first eight hundred hundred years or so. It was a blessing that the Mok'Tagar lived so long, because once they got all the elders together for council, it could last months. Even years. And being the daughter of one of the Chieftains, a very respected Elder, Arachich meant that she was expected to attend more and more as the centuries went on.

It was in her twelfth century that she actively began to rebel. Her long monologues, which she'd been congratulated on for being very witty and scathing and particularly long winded, were now short and to the point, and she was beginning to sound a bit too Olan-nith Clan-like, who'd long been demoted to the less prominent ranks, the lower reaches, for their ghastly one-liners, and she was immediately sent to the Clan's composer to sharpen up her act. And she did of course, on the outside, because it was never difficult for her, it was just extremely tedious. She was more interested in the far more difficult and intriguing side of the Mok'Tagar legacy, which was teleportation and inter-dimensional travel. And of course, that had a whole bunch of precautions slapped onto it, because why would anyone want to leave the realm to travel, and that was how the whole clan of Prolemin had disappeared, the foolish pilgrims that they were had simply vanished into a portal and never returned.

And never let it be said that Mok'Tagars were ignorant of the other worlds they could travel to, of course not, the truth was, they simply didn't want to, and so rarely did. The break of tradition was an offense, a humiliation that could very easily carry into conversation for the next several centuries or so, as the clans would never hesitate to out a black sheep in order to shake up the ever-changing clan dynamics. Just because they didn't poke sticks at each other and bite each other to death didn't mean they were friendly. In some ways, articulating was just as vicious and calamitous, and everyone was always looking for a leg up.

That was when, Lythia'l first heard of Kathiril, the daughter of a known chieftain named Taparrich had disappeared into one of these other dimensions, to a world they'd named in a hundred words or so, but the inhabitants called it Earth. They were warned that the rules weren't quite the same there, that they were more likely to revert back to the more primitive, less eloquent version of themselves, and while having an soul was a superfluous notion that the Mok'Tagars had never required, it was much more important there. There were billions of people, who had numerous children, instead of just one, and they didn't live for centuries, only just the one if they were extremely lucky, and many, many people walked around illiterately, and no-one was required to recite the three-thousand length commandants before each council session.

It sounded like paradise. But Taparrich had sent two of his own clan to look for her and bring her back, and the whole while, Lythia'l was plotting. When her father Arachich, took the situation to remind his daughter how important the Mok'Tagar's traditions were and how much shame Kathiril had brought upon her family, Lythia'l had replied with all the obedient eloquence that was expected of her. And the years while Kathiril was missing passed by like eye-blinks, and Lythia'l practiced her aptitude for portals. She took a while to get the shape right, a sort-of vortex looking thing that was supposed to suck her in, but it was hard going, and she knew it usually took a few practiced in the art to concoct the portal and she was trying to do it all on her own.

But she was very determined, and that was how she first learned patience. Kathiril had done it, after all, although rumor was it she'd slipped in with couple of the council's chosen Seekers, who of course, had nothing to do with the Prolemin, and were quite versed on all the consequences that could happen to one during transdimensional travel, but the council were a proud lot, and they hated to be misinformed, so it had been the Millennial, carefully organized Pilgrimage to go out and seek knowledge, the one they had every thousand years or so, and that was how Kathiril had slipped through.

And as patient as Lythia'l was, she was, in no way, wanting to wait the next thousand years for her chance, especially since they'd be likely to increase their security. But she'd done it, or nearly, when, with Taparrich at the head, the infamous Kathiril returned, wearing clothes of bright blue, and nothing like the black robes everyone was required to wear, and though it was unanimous that Kathiril—or Kathy, as she was now calling herself, be shunned, Lythia'l could not be dissuaded.

She'd hunted down Kathy and made her tell Lythia'l just about everything that had happened. And Lythia'l had absorbed every last bit of it. College, what a strange concept, where they had to pay to learn things, instead of just open the books that were free to everyone, and there was this woman named Cher and her voice was heavenly, and they inserted 'like' into the middle of sentences, and while that was a perfectly reasonable way to increase the already turgid speeches that their kind were so famous for, Lythia'l found the whole thing completely fascinating. She was a bit older than Kathy, only by two centuries, but she was determined to learn from her mistakes, and to absolutely, never be dragged back in disgrace.

And so when she was satisfied she'd learned all she needed to know from Kathy, she'd made her escape. She'd slipped through her slightly unstable portal and ended up in California, the same California as Kathy had. And it was bright. She had never seen so many colors. In her dimension, the sky was black and the world was rock formations and sand and there was nothing such as flowers. It was true, however, that she did notice a difference in the she acted. She had considerably less concern for reading than she ever had, and the music she'd never heard before had absolutely bowled her over, although she found Kathy's preferences were somewhat lacking, and found her own favorites.

And she found she much loved partying, and that it wasn't hard at all to fit in, and there was something called laughing, which was a loud form of coughing and said more than words did.

And the first year was full of new experiences, and learning, and she had to carry around a plastic card with her face on it, and people screamed when they saw her demon-blue eyes and to trim her nails every day or they poked through her sandals, and she'd never worn shoes before and never needed to but there were just so many options everywhere and it was the most glorious fun she'd ever had, and Kathy had barely covered it all.

And then, the Mok'Tagars having learned from the first time, found her within that first year. And she'd gotten away, just barely, by falling in with a group of vampires. And vampires were a inferior lot, all about killing and darkness, and though she couldn't really blame them completely, she found drinking blood a bit too garish and them a bit too vapid and bloodthirsty and while she certainly had no problems with stealing or lying or any of the sort, having a lack of a soul didn't make her a murderer. And so she found she couldn't fit in with the vampires well either. Humans were stupid, but at least they were fun, and they did this odd stand in front of a barrel of ale and they drank and drank and Lythia'l found she was very good at it.

But she had to hide in the shadows, because they kept looking for her, and although they didn't recognize her with her skin all grown like a human's, one look at her eyes and they knew she was lacking a soul. And while that had never mattered at all in her own realm, it was essential in this one, and how odd was that. And of course, her people had a ritual for that. They had a ritual for everything, although soul-sucking was a bit archaic, it was in the books, and as a once dutiful daughter, Lythia'l had read them. But she'd also listened to Kathy's warnings. It seemed that it took a very long time, and it had made the human she was doing it to nearly intolerable, and had ripped her skin off. And Lythia'l decided that there must have been a better way, and of course she'd be the one to find it.

But in the meantime, she had to get the Mok'Tagar off her figurative tail—yet another human phrase she'd picked up. And she'd been fitting in quite spectacularly, although she learned humans weren't so quite patient with siliques longer than three paragraphs, and she'd been practicing her shortened sentences so well that she'd be able to fit in with the Olan-nith now, and her father would be absolutely horrified. But she was in her eleventh century and the rebellious years, and while the years in her realm were so tedious and mundane, here in the human world, every second was dangerous and exciting and there was alcohol and there was sex and it was just so utterly stimulating, and she could never go back to hearing the elder council speak the opening and closing statements in all thirty dialects of the Mok'Tagar language. English, in contrast, was so much simpler, and she'd picked it up from Kathy and nearly mastered it here, and she was proficient in the 'like' installments as well as giggles, and she never, ever, ever wanted to go back.

She had no sympathy for Kathy, no sympathy at all for anyone, really, but she used a Kathy as a reminder of what must-not-happen-to-her, the same way the humans used a man on a cross as a lesson throughout the ages, and though she had no religion, not in the same way humans did, she had that thought like a mantra in her head. Must not go back. So while vampires were far from her ideal choice, they were necessary to hide her, but it was a miserable experience. She wanted to go to parties and dance and 'boink', which was apparently one of the many words they used interchangeably for having sex, but all vampires wanted to do was kill people, or feed, and they had as much disdain for her as she did for them.

She had to find something more permanent. And that was when she found Haven. Studied it intently of course, for even though she didn't like researching, she was rather good at it, and she found quite a lot of helpful information, likely knowing more than most of its inhabitants by the time she was finished. It had been around for hundreds of years, constructed by these witches who had sympathy for a couple of slaughtered demons. And it was unfindable unless by magic or by knowledge. And it was the perfect place for her to hide. Vampires galore, unfortunately, but there were other things that walked about without a soul. The Mok'Tagar wouldn't be able to find her here, and for a while, her desire for a soul was forgotten, because did she really need one anyway? No, she was perfectly capable and attractive without one, and while she was in Haven, she didn't have to even watch her back anymore. And there was dancing again, and clubbing, and lots of sex, and maybe once or twice with a vampire, but there were humans too, and there was drinking and fun.

But there was only so many times she could go to the Iron Crab-hand or the Fragment before she started thinking the 'what else' and lamenting the first year she had where she had gone anywhere she wanted, and wished she had taken advantage of it more. No, she had barely left California, and what a mistake that had been, since now she was stuck solidly in the little State, and she wanted to see New York, and Europe, and although her teleportation wouldn't exactly handle long jumps across the sea then she could just try getting on one of those metal flying things and that would be an adventure in itself.

Instead, she was stuck here, and Haven seemed to shrink and shrink until it was barely more than her front yard. And she'd tried, a couple of times. Jumped out of Haven for a spell, but first it took them a month, and then a week, and then a day, and then every time she left Haven, there were her Mok'Tagars Seekers and there were more of them now, and she couldn't risk them coming to Haven, for even though they weren't capable of transdimensionally coming in, or teleporting in and out of it for that matter, if they discovered it, then they might learn to walk in, and she couldn't have that. Her prison was small enough already.

And though it had only been four short years since she'd come to Earth, she was miserable. Miserable because there was so much to explore, and she was stuck, and it wasn't fair, and it was then that her desire for a soul became an obsession, the key to her unfortunate imposed prison.

And it was a little while after that when Lyth was celebrating her 1137th birthday, too drunk to even teleport properly—although she'd tried, and ended up in a roof, and then in the water, so this was her third attempt to go home which she had then had settled on walking, and she'd cut through the cemetery, and it was then that she heard a scuffle. Through her very blurry vision, she could see two figures fighting, although it was a bit too dizzying for her to focus on properly. And apparently she'd gotten too close in her curiousity, because as she looked down at her gorgeous shoes and tried to fight with the impulse to throw up on them—alcohol mixed just about as well with a Mok'Tagar as it did with a human—she was suddenly hit by the flying body of one of the two figures she'd seen fighting.

Her angry ow had been met with an apologetic mumble as the human projectile rose to her feet and offered a hand to her. She was entirely ordinary, this small, skinny human with pale skin that was only a not-vampire shade because of the flushed complexion along her cheeks, and the blue eyes that looked down at her were indubitably souled. The one she was tussling with, not so much, and he struck the woman in the back before Lythia'l even had a chance to raise her nose up at the offerings. The tiny female was obviously mismatched, but Lythia'l didn't see why she should care—after all, she had dirt now, on her sparkly dress and who was going to clean that up, it was terribly stained.

But she remembered the rules of Haven even if no-one else did, and it was very, very important because she didn't want to get thrown out by the grouchy Sheriff Hazim just because someone else wanted to play rough. "No killing in Haven," She reminded them, impatiently, earning a lost look from the blue-eyed girl and a cackling laugh from the vampire.

"I'm just going to feed on her a little," the vampire protested raucously, tossing a ratty looking ponytail of his dark hair back over his shoulder. "Just a couple of mouthfuls."

"I'll have to pass on that," the human responded in a surprisingly deadpan tone as she rose back on her feet. Well, this was Haven, after all, although Lythia'l expected ignorance on anyone who only had a smidgen of her lifespan, she shouldn't expect all the inhabitants, even the human ones to be particularly unaware.

"Well, figure it out with killing each other, and keep me out of it," Lythia'l said in a huff. It was terribly hard to stand up straight when the world insisted on spinning, and she'd wanted to go back to her home, and she really wished she had drunk just a little less so she could teleport without worrying she'd end up two stories off the ground without a building under her feet.

The human straightened up. Her fall hadn't hurt her, which was surprising, since vampire strength was quite beyond that of a human, and she looked ordinary enough. Nothing demon-y at all. Her dark hair was whipped up in a messy bun, and it was half-falling down, surprisingly long locks, although her hair wasn't nearly as thick or as glossy as Lythia'l's was, which she noted with some satisfaction. Lythia'l had quite taken to the fact that her human façade had earned no end of male—as well as female—attention, and she considered herself quite attractive, and of course she'd rate herself compared to the other females as she passed them by. After over a thousand years of wearing robes and having to style one hair's a certain way, she'd owed herself a large amount of vanity.

"Do you need some help home?" The female asked then, seriously. A goodie-good type, and normally Lythia'l would scoff that the human wasn't quite the tall, bulky, muscular male who of course could walk her home at any time, but the world was slipping again and her eloquent refusal became a not-so-wordy grunt. She stumbled, but a small and unexpectedly strong arm had gripped her, and while her companion wasn't the sexy man she would have wanted, she was all Lythia'l had, and a sight better than the vampire who was still standing there, confused and hungry.

"Hey, I wasn't done," the vampire protested as the female began helping Lythia'l out of the graveyard, and the extra strength was sort of nice, because Lythia'l's feet could float just a little and she barely had to make any effort of her own.

"You're done," the human returned softly, and while she'd been fighting for her life a few minutes ago, she seemed just as content to shake off the danger and let Lythia'l shakily point the way back to her apartment. But of course, Mr. Fangs and had-a-problem-with-being-ignored had to butt in—Lythia'l could just roll her eyes at the audacity of vampires. They were children, all of them. All kill this and kill that, albeit it was still preferable to hearing most of them trying to lasso coherent thoughts together. A race of philosphers they were not. Distinctly lacking in patience, and an overabundance of ego. And this one was not at all unlike the rest, throwing a punch towards them and nearly catching Lythia'l in the face. If she had even an iota of her normal balance, she'd have taught him a fierce lesson, but she didn't, and she realised the reason that he hadn't hit her was because her human companion had caught his arm, stopping him.

Although one arm was still wrapped around Lythia'l to keep her upright—although upright was still a little difficult to figure out—the human's legs were free, and she jabbed them viciously into the vampire's stomach, sending him flying, and there was a crack as his head hit a tombstone and broke it in two. Both Lythia'l and the woman tilted their heads to see if he'd get back up, but he remained still. He wasn't dust either, so he wasn't dead-dead either. Lythia'l shrugged her shoulders, stifling a giggle that wouldn't have come out if she hadn't been so inebriated, but the human tossed another long, calculating look at the still body.

"Shouldn't I—?" The woman stilled, and Lythia'l collapsed against her with a sigh. Some walking stick.

"Stake him? Not unless you want the Sheriff on your ass. You can't kill unless they try to kill someone first. That's the rule of Haven." Ugh, the only thing the alcohol didn't take away was her eloquence. Eleven hundred years of wordiness, and not even a little intoxicated slur could fix that.

"Oh." The woman answered back, still a little reluctant, but at least her feet were moving again, and finally, because Lythia'l wanted to get home and puke in her toilet.

"Are you new to Haven or something?" Lythia'l asked disdainfully, not surprised when she got an affirmative from the woman. She snorted. "Find it by accident?" Better not, as if she needed the rest of the little Mok'Tagar troupe to decide they needed to walk into every magical town and happen upon her.

"No," the female answered to that. Not an accident then, that was interesting, or at least it would be, if she was a sexy man who wanted to ravage her, not some small woman playing the white knight. They walked in silence for a while, until the female spoke again. "I'm Jade, by the way."

She sighed. First name basis with a human that wouldn't even be alive in another century. She still didn't understand branching out. Why make relationships if they weren't going to last a thousand years. Still, as the human helped Lythia'l up the stairs of her rackety apartment building, Lythia'l decided it wouldn't hurt, even if she was likely never to see the woman again, and so she'd answered back.

"I'm Lythia'l."

And she'd been quite wrong, after all, about the never seeing the human again after Jade had helped her back to her apartment. No, she'd seen her again, and again, though none of the violent outbursts as the last time, she'd simply been watching. And she was skinny, and first Lythia'l was a bit envying of the human's easily slim figure, she realised later that she was too thin, like a skeleton, and it was after she'd seen Jade leaving one of the vampire's nest with a bunch of the undead on her tail and not the slightest bit of worry on her face that she realised the human might last even less than a quarter century, and how dismally inconsequential an existence like that would be.

And she'd been bored, pickings had been slim in the last couple of weeks and would it kill the Fragment to redo their upholstery so she wouldn't have to stare at the exact same room every time, and add some new drinks to the menu, please. So one night she'd asked the half-starved woman to come to her apartment with her and have something to eat. She hadn't had any problems with human food either, and she was pretty sure that nothing was poisonous. And the human, well she was still just a child. Less than that, Lythia'l was a child to her people, barely a teenager, and this Jade was even smaller. So she'd invited her over, and the human came, eyes always searching, wary, cheekbones that weren't nearly as prominent or as shapely as Lythia'l's made so by the gaunt look she was sporting.

It simply wouldn't do, she found it detestable to simply let the toddler-like human die, so she demanded Jade's presence the next few days as well, and their meals together were becoming somewhat of a tradition, although a particularly muscular and deep-voiced Kailiff demon kept Lythia'l occupied for a few days, until she tired of his one-word answers, just a little too much inarticulateness for even her to handle. While they were having sex it was perfectly fine, but there was nothing outside the bedroom that could keep her the slightest bit interested, so she turned back to her pet project. She simply hadn't been able to cure Jade of her ghastly pale complexion, or that dazed, empty look in her eyes, but that didn't mean she couldn't. No, Lythia'l was capable of a great deal of things, if she wished it. Not wish, wished it. She wasn't a Vengeance Demon after all, although of course, she was aware of them. She was aware of most types of demons, and they didn't even inhabit her dimension. What the humans' excuses were for being ignorant in their own realm, she had no idea.

But Jade was surprisingly informed, for being an ordinary human. But Lythia'l knew what her predecessor, Kathy, hadn't. Kathy'd been terribly surprised that a human female had been able to stand up to her, as Mok'Tagars should have strength superseding that of a human, but with extensive research, Lythia'l had determined that Kathy had not, in fact, tussled with an ordinary human, but the supposed Slayer. And what she had observed from Jade so far would put her in that same category, and one evening, as they munched slightly salty potatoes that Jade had baked up, Lythia'l had said as much.

Jade had tensed, and Lythia'l had snorted, warning her to not try to 'put the wool over her eyes' another odd human citation that Lythia'l had taken to. Although Lythia'l hadn't exactly kept up with her studies since she'd come to this realm—although her years in Haven had meant she had more time to return to reading, albeit grudgingly—being ignorant was a great dishonor, and even though she'd left her homeworld, some habits took a while to die.

"Yes, I was."

"Seems to me that the Slayer affliction is not something that becomes of the past," Lythia'l sniffed in response, disdainfully, picking at the cheesy, greasy baked potato circles that were certainly not good for her figure but so temptingly delicious she had stuffed all protest to the back of her mind.

"Well, I'm done with it," Jade answered quietly. "Besides. There's plenty of other Slayers now, it's not my problem."

"It's a waste," Lythia'l declared, not missing the indignation in those blue eyes. Lythia'l's eyes were much bluer, and they'd blazed a couple times at Jade, although after the first time, the human was no longer shocked, and Lythia'l suspected that her being a demon did not come as a surprise to the female. "You have one purpose in your life and you're supposed to do it. Unless your purpose is to read books and spout monologues for a thousand years, in which case…do what you have to do. But you live such pathetically short lives, so moping is such a waste of the sparse years you have."

Jade's lips twitched with one of the first smiles that Lythia'l had seen on her face. She was amused, not offended, which was a refreshing change, as most humans didn't seem to enjoy her bluntness, females especially, when she knocked on their hair or told them they were wearing the wrong shade of lipstick. She could rag on Jade's appearance all hours long, but it didn't seem to bother the female. Or convince her to change her ways either. She only had three outfits—ghastly, although Lythia'l would be happy if no-one ever mentioned how she'd worn the same robes for a millennium—and they consisted of sweatpants and hoodies from what Lythia'l could tell. The little Slayer was wasting away, and she didn't seem to care.

However, she did have a soul, a little tarnished, and maybe Lythia'l'd be able to sneak it out of her. So while her next words seemed particularly charitable and unbelievably sacrificial, it was all for the better good when she said, "So move in with me; I want a roommate so I don't have to pay as much, and get a job, and please buy something that replaces that awful dinosaur hoodie."

And Jade did. Not the dinosaur hoodie part, unfortunately, but the rest the female fulfilled. Seemed like she needed a push, with no motivation left of her own, so Jade got a job down at the liquor store, and Lythia'l stared her brilliant plan of trying to suck the soul of her, now that she was in the adjoining room.

Except that it didn't work. The first time that Lythia'l had tried to open Jade's bedroom door at night—alright, so she'd said she'd try something other than the Ritual of Mok'Tagar, but she decided it was a good starting point—she found it locked. That was fine. She could teleport if it wasn't too far, and she knew what the room looked like. So easily enough, she hopped right in. And then a strange buzzing sound filled the room, and it was loud, and the sleeping Slayer propped one lazy eye open and shut off the alarm with a careful slap of her fingers.

"Checking on me to make sure that I'm sleeping alright?" Jade had said in a decidedly impish voice, and Lythia'l, without anything to say—and that was quite a rare occurrence, had sputtered that Jade was snoring too loud and promptly teleported back out, quite bewildered. Alright, so the human was a bit paranoid, but she couldn't possibly suspect what Lythia'l was trying to do. But her next attempts—putting both blood and crushed up sleeping pills in the chili mix were unsuccessful too. After her third—possibly fourth—attempt to start the ritual, never mind actually keep it up, since several ingestions were required for the soul transferral to be complete, she was beginning to feel a bit deflated. It just wasn't working, and she'd prided herself on being much more successful than Kathy, but she was being thwarted by a female who'd almost just died from indifference, and now there was a spark in her eyes each time she circumvented one of Lythia'l's brilliant plans.

Jade was eating triumphantly from a bowl of untainted cereal and milk, sitting up on the counter when Lythia'l came into the kitchen, not even hiding a groan. And Jade shot her a playful look, that was much more full of life than it had been before, and commented, "You don't think I'd room with a Mok'Tagar Demon without being prepared, did you?"

Lythia'l let out a string of expletives, feeling quite silly and foolish, and she crossed her arms in front of her chest as she saw teenagers do, and mumbled, "I don't want you as my roommate anymore."

"Yes you do," Jade had answered back quite brightly, jumping down onto her feet. "Life would be boring without me."

And as much as Lythia'l hated to admit it, she was almost right. So while she threatened Jade with being kicked out quite often, she found she didn't actually do it, and her attempts grew less and less frequent because she couldn't stand the triumphant smile on Jade's face. So one day, of course, she just had to wipe it off the human's face with a pointed question about her past. That was certainly expected to bring the gloom on, and it did, without fail.

"So why is it that someone like you knows about Mok'Tagar demons anyway?" Lythia'l had sniffed, trying to sound appropriately scathing, and Jade's expression had fallen in response, leaving Lythia'l satisfied.

"My Watcher made sure I was kept aware," Jade had mumbled, petting one of the outrageously furry strays that she had brought into the apartment and that Lythia'l hadn't quite managed to rid herself of yet. Short of killing it, and she was tempted. She was almost perfectly convinced that cats didn't have souls either, as vain and as selfish as they were, with Jade always petting and lathering affection on it as if it was a God. Needed a man, that one. Or a woman, Lythia'l wasn't quite sure what the human's preference was. Lythia'l had done plenty of experimenting herself, although she settled on a type that Jade had dubbed 'Thor-like'.

"And where is your Watcher now?" Lythia'l latched on elatedly, and relentlessly. It was Lythia'l's turn to gloat for once. "Shouldn't you be getting back to them?"

"No," Jade answered back, and it was nearly a growl. Well, this wouldn't do. Ignorance wasn't acceptable, and let it never be said that Lythia'l wasn't tenacious. She was. And nosy. And if that was how she'd convince Jade to stop thwarting her soul taking ritual (that was the preferred option) or stop being her apartment so Lythia'l could snag a more unaware sucker, then she'd do it.

"You've been here for months now. Now I'm glad you've gotten over the little skeleton act, you're still not over the whole dead-ish look in your eyes, and I'm not going to spend the next eighty years of my life waiting to hear the exciting parts of your life so that you can keep your mystery. Because while eighty years is nothing to me, it's like your whole little life. So spit it out. What can really be that bad?"

Jade looked back at her, a little indignant, but Lythia'l had been right about the lack of a spark, because then the Slayer shrugged, indifferent. "My Boyfriend got turned into a Vampire by my Watcher who was also my Sister, I killed my boyfriend, didn't know my sister had been the one to orchestrate his turning, I was her little perfect Slayer for over a year after, and then when I found out, I snapped her spine and ran away." She'd said it snappishly, angrily, and there'd been a happy little smile on Lythia'l's face, because she did love juicy gossip.

"Didn't that make it feel better?" She asked haughtily, not really caring either way.

But Jade had looked back at her a bit quizzically. "Yeah, actually. It did."

And that had been the start of a rather unconventional friendship, although they were opposite as a Slayer and a Demon could expect to be—alright, so that was pretty anticipated, but while Lythia'l didn't always understand her roommate's brooding and self-imposed isolation, it was better than being alone. Or being with a vampire, ick. And Lythia'l started looking up other ways to steal a soul, because she still didn't think Jade would miss hers much, but she'd been thinking for quite a while that she'd have to find someone else completely unawares, or get one off the black market. Unfortunately, even the town's witch, Syeira couldn't get her hands on one, despite being all into arcane arts, but there were plenty of other trinkets that caught the Mok'Tagar's eye, although she didn't have as much interest in the appearance changing glamour rings when she learned it still wouldn't fool the Mok'Tagars on her tail, still, it was fun, and the familiar haunts in town were getting just that—familiar, and at least this way she could pretend to be someone else for a while. And she'd gotten quite a reputation that was neither good nor bad, and those who couldn't stand her glib knew to avoid her.

But still, it was just pretend, just little things to keep her from being bored, and she was turning her attention to books again, because it was still a surefire way to keep herself busy, but that had been why she'd left her dimension in the first place, that and the boring décor, and she thought herself patient, but if she had to live another century here in this tiny little town she might go insane. And the little Poker games or the parties weren't doing it for her, especially since a vampire had joined the Poker club and he cheated even better than Lythia'l did, and he did that thing with his tongue when he counted cards and he was ridiculously attractive, as well as annoying, because he didn't even look at her twice. And there was something off about him, and she realised it when she looked in his eyes that sparkled too much and how did he get his soul? And that seemed terribly unfair, because vampires had no use for them really, and didn't need one anymore, and boy, would she have liked to get her own, but all her attempts at flirting with him had been shut down and he hadn't even let her get to asking about the soul at all. No, whatever he was interested in, sure wasn't her, and that was just aggravating, even worse than the whole losing poker part.

And if anyone had told her that her roommate would just waltz off with him, she'd have been calling them insane and been just a bit miffed. As it did eventually happen, she was more than a little miffed, offended and a little left out. And then Jade had been leaving, for good, and why was Lythia'l even displeased like that at all, she should have been pleased that the little Slayer was lively and giving a damn again, because the whole upset cloud over her head had been a drag. And now she was gone, and it was Lythia'l trying to get rid of all these cats that Jade had left behind, being overly jealous that she could just leave whenever she felt like it, while Lythia'l was stuck in a town that was far too small for her, and how unfair was that.

And of course, Jade had to get herself turned into a vampire, because why not, anything to get her in the bed of the bleached blonde one, Lythia'l could only imagine, except she came back with a soul and how fair was that? Of course, Lythia'l was a bit gladdened that Jade didn't just go off and lose it after Lythia'l's patience, but what was she doing wearing it around her neck like a prize when it was all that Lythia'l wanted? And yes, she knew it was there although Jade had tried to hide the fact, but her eyes were all strange, they glowed, but her soul wasn't in her properly, sort of an attached limb, and Lythia'l was a Mok'Tagar demon, and she could see souls, so of course she could find it, and she did. But she couldn't get it—if Jade was strong before, she was double that now, and she hadn't ever lost her wariness—if anything, it was on overload now. So in the weeks that Jade had moved back into Haven after being turned, Lythia'l hadn't made so much as an attempt, because Jade was awfully touchy about that sort of thing, and if Lythia'l would only get the one chance, she couldn't waste it. But then Jade was gloomy again, and it was that sort of love triangle between Buffy and Spike or however Jade had explained it, but the love triangle saying never made sense to Lythia'l because if Jade wanted Spike wanted Buffy then Buffy should want Jade, and that didn't happen nearly enough in the soaps that Lythia'l watched, so it was more like a love caret if anything.

And the name Buffy, well, it was likely a popular one then, because it was highly unlikely to be the 'roommate from Hell' that Kathy had described her to be, although that'd be a bit interesting if it were the same, Lythia'l cared only so much for problems like that, especially since, in Lythia'l's mind, it was all solved. Buffy was mortal, Jade and Spike wasn't. It was just sixty or seventy years—probably less, since Buffy was a Slayer too. Just an eye-blink, really, and she didn't know what had gotten Jade all down in the dumps. It was just patience, after all.

It could solve quite a lot if it were just trusted.

After all, patience led Jade to her, with a soul just hanging on her neck. Circumstance left the once-Slayer, now vampire's arms broken and useless, and fortune left her dazed and unfocused. And Lythia'l had been planning this for so long. The rings, the changing appearances. She'd even picked up clothes similar to that of Spike's, worked on her accents. Picked up money to help pay for all the things she'd gotten from Syeira—alright, stolen the money, but what did the Witch care if she was paid—and she'd gotten a glamour that looked like Spike—those killer cheekbones were hard to forget—and it was Spike that had completely turned Jade on her head and distracted her so vividly that the pieces all fell into shape. She called it patience, even if it was luck. Mostly luck.

But she'd done it, hadn't she, and she deserved it. Spike had dropped the half-broken Jade on her doorstep, and she'd seized her opportunity, her only chance. She'd attempted it and now she'd done it, and Jade's soul was in her hands as she teleported away, and even though it hadn't been a century, it had been nearly six years since she'd come to Earth, there was still a finally. After 1139 years, Lythia'l was free to go wherever she wanted with her new soul.

Lythia'l was quite proud of herself, and who could blame her, really?