Author: Jessamyn (ladymagi@a...)
Summary (for this part): Dawn is not just the Key....
Rating: R
Disclaimer: All hail Joss, creator of all that is great. Of course I own
nothing but my own mind. Joss & Co. own all else Btvs related.
Dedications: As always, to my beta'rs Kel and Helen. Love you guys.
Distribution: Free for all.. but please keep my header on it and tell me
where it's going kay?
Spoilers: General Season 5, but it's AU in aspects.
@~~~~~~
She felt exactly like the time when, on her 7th birthday, she'd been thrown
from the pony she'd somehow begged her parents to rent for the occasion; a soreness that spread throughout her whole body and set her teeth on edge. Dawn half expected to feel the scratchy grass beneath her, so it was a surprise to feel the soft velvet brush against her cheek and shoulder as she doubled over to clutch at her sore stomach.
Her groan muffled itself against that softness but was apparently loud enough to alert the person waiting for her to awaken. "Well, it's about damn time." Glory said, flashing a grin at herself in the mirror. "Thought I was gonna have to start without ya."
Dawn's eyes flew open, only to close again an instant later, and then tried
it more slowly. She blinked the haziness from them as her brain clanged its
alarm and the wits within scattered in wild confusion. This couldn't be
happening. She must've actually hit her head during the fall and this was
all one big concussion induced dream. "Gl- Glory?" she stuttered out, her
confusion evident.
The goddess whirled around and faced her newest possession to affect a hurt expression. "Oh, what? You really thought you'd get rid of me that easily?" she pouted. "I'm hurt, really," she managed to finish before her smirk reappeared.
It'd been nearly a year since they'd last seen her, trapped beneath a
mountain and supposedly impenetrable magicks. Apparently they'd been wrong.
Dawn struggled to sit her bruised body up with what she realized now were
loosely bound hands. Things were sort of fuzzy, and made even more so by the fresh wave of pain her movements brought to her poor stomach. And by another as she fell back down to the cushioning. A dull ache started behind her eyes.
"Awww... " cooed the Goddess in her ear, suddenly much closer than Dawn had realized. "Here, let me help," she continued cheerfully as she wrapped Dawn's hair around her fist and pulled the girl upright with it, almost pulling it from her head.
Dawn gasped and felt tears roll down her cheeks as she tried not to scream. The cooler air of the room made them seem like drops of pure ice on her bared chest when they fell..... She blinked and then looked down.... Buffy's shirt was gone! She was so dead and...oh yeah, naked!
Quickly she ducked her head down, letting her hair spill over her shoulder
and cover her bared chest before turning a glare on Glory. "What'd you do
with my shirt you-" she started to protest, and then stopped.
The blonde's smirk was already in place as she smoothed a hand down over the shimmery top and the curves underneath. "I didn't think you'd mind, what with you being unconscious and all. It wasn't really your size anyway...." she said matter of factly. Turning about to face the mirror again, she preened at her reflection.
"Buffy's going to *kick*your*ass*" Dawn said through gritted teeth. Of
course Buffy had to get home and find out about this first but.... Glory's
laugh distracted her from her thoughts. The goddess was stalking toward her again, eyes dancing with hellfire mirth.
"Oh yeah, cause that's really worked out for her in the past," she snerked,
sitting on the couch beside the bound girl. Throwing an arm over Dawn's
shoulders in a friendly fashion she added, "Besides, you won't be around to
see it..."
A shiver rolled down Dawn's spine at the tone of that voice and the power of inevitability it conveyed. She may have escaped Glory once, but she sure as hell wasn't going to be able to do it again. Buffy and the gang weren't
around to save her this time. This time it was all on her.
Glory sat back savoring the despondent body language of the girl and her
triumph. Now that Dawnie had given herself up to the truth of her situation
the immortal felt she could afford a little leniency. Sliding a hand down the
brunette's back she attempted to soothe, "It's not all bad you know... " she
started gently, leaning forward and rubbing circles in the baby smooth skin.
When Dawn turned tear blue eyes her way she continued, "I know how to make it quick and easy. All you have to do is not resist." Glory's other hand came up to stroke Dawn's hair as she spoke in the same gentle tone, petting the long shining strands with long strokes of her hand. Up and down, up and down, up and ...
Dawn's voice broke the rhythm, harsh and stiff, "Go ahead and kill me... but
get your hands *off* of me!"
The false caring persona fell away from the goddess' body like skin from a
shedding snake. Her smile turned brassy and bright as her true joy came out. Standing, she rounded on Dawn, and faced her. "Oh, I'm not going to -kill- you..." she purred, raising her hands to Dawn's head. "I'm going to suck you dry, little girl," she snarled.
Searing pain blazed where the tips of Glory's finger sank into her mind. Dawn attempted to pull back, but Glory's hold was too strong. Her cry of
frustration and pain mingled with the merry laughter of the hell god as Glory
burrowed further and further into her head. But that wasn't the worst of it.
When the tug at her consciousness, her spirit, the thing that made her 'Dawn Summers' came it was beyond agony. Everything that she was was being ripped from her. A black void became visible through the bottom layers of her soul. Fresh tears squeezed through beneath her lids as the scream burst from her lips.
It was a release of everything, and in that moment, she touched it. The
hidden thing within her.... the Key. Using the last shreds of her sanity she
wrapped her essence around it. Tying it in a knot, a double knot, anchoring
herself with it. *She* was the Key. The Key was her... and she understood.
Glory found herself flying, crashing, cracking her head against the mirror
across the room. Electric tingles ran through her, and not the yummy kind
either. "What the hell...?" she asked herself, shaking her blonde tresses and
getting up on wobbly human feet. Picking pieces of glass from her hair she
pouted at Dawn who was glaring at her with blazing eyes. "Well that wasn't
nice," she understated. She didn't understand what had gone wrong. Nothing like this had ever happened before.
Dawn, however, wasn't paying attention to Glory's talk. Her lips moved with a fluid quickness although no words seemed to be coming out of them. She rose from the couch, her bonds fading as if they had never been there at all, and walked toward the confused woman.
The knights didn't know her true history. What they had told her was only
half the tale. In all veracity she'd been around much longer than the Beast.
What she'd become, the Key, was merely another stage in her existance.
She was, originally, part of the fabric of reality. That which all dimensions, all universes, all worlds are written upon. The Powers had taken some of that essence and condensed it into key form, concentrating her abilities to deal with the barriers only.
The monks had condensed her further by molding her into Dawn Summers, taking care to build careful shields around that part of her to protect the fragile human psyche they'd created, but now she was awakened.
And her entire focus was on Glory.
Prickles of energy flowed over the skin of her human body but she hardly felt it amid the din of the other sensations that flooded her. She brushed aside the punch Glory threw her way with little thought. Layed hands upon the black hearted bitch and finished what was already started...
A scream of rage, of outrage, of frustration, and pain filled the air.
Reality shifted a fraction of an inch at her command.
And Glory was human.
*Just* human.
*****
Dawn Summers came around for the second time that day. Buffy was wrapping her in a soft blanket and picking her up as she barked orders at everyone else to search for Glory. She tried telling Buffy that it was okay now. That they didn't have to worry about Glory anymore, but the words wouldn't come, and the urge faded as quickly as the memories of what had happened. All she wanted to do now was fall back asleep in the strong arms holding her.
Sometimes she loved being the Slayer's kid sister.
~*~