Title: Revenge of the Queen
Author: Anya al'Nighter
Email: anyasy@singnet.com.sg
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: This is somewhere in Season 5 of Buffy, but there's nothing about Glorificus, or Tara, or Riley, since I hate them. Think of this as a relatively AU place, as crossovers are wont to be. Spoilers of Dawn being the Key, and also about Connor etc... As to Hellblazer - references to Constantine's past. Forgotten Realms: no spoilers, since in canon Nalfein is died in the opening chapters to the Dark Elf Trilogy.
Note: I would like to state that my penname 'Anya' has no inference or relationship to Buffy's Anya at all. Took the name before I began seriously watching the show.
Disclaimer:
The usual – John Constantine is from the series Hellblazer, a comic for 'mature readers', i.e. it contains a lot of violence and sex, especially under the current writer, whom I dislike. Am waiting with bated breath for Mike Carey's turn on Hellblazer – which would take place for a few issues next year. It's quite amusing that we seem to judge maturity by the ability to handle such scenes, instead of the ability to wield ones' imagination and judgement, eh? But I digress (that's a title of a book I saw in Borders). I'm going to refer to him as Constantine, since calling him 'John' seemed rather weird to me.
Buffy, Spike, and the rest of the Scooby Gang are owned by Joss Whedon, who I think is on crack after seeing a few episodes of Season 5, Mutant Enemy (the deformed demon going 'rrr! Rrrr!' is so cute) and whatever else. I wish I owned Spike, but nevermind.
Nalfein, Lloth and the Forgotten Realms belong to TSR. As far as I'm concerned, they can keep the characters, but if they're auctioning them off, I want Zaknafein and Jarlaxle. Then maybe Nalfein, and perhaps Kimmuriel. Drow bishies.
The rating for the story will start at PG-13, though, with the advent of the new year where I hit Junior College year two and all the work and exams and A'levels that it entails, John's language is likely to deteriorate further. I will attempt to imitate his accent in the books – he adores using the f-word – but don't kill me if it doesn't sound very authentic. Basically, just think 'imitation Cockney English'. JC is a Liverpudlian.
Descriptions in the story may have repeated themselves in earlier stories… because I am sending this to several lists, of which some people might not be familiar with the storylines, Constantine, or the Forgotten realms. I'm assuming everyone here knows what Buffy is about. Bear with me, and also with the language… it's going to take a long, long time for Tolkien's 'High Fantasy' thing to get out of my normal style.
The last warning is: As usual, it's very likely that characters will go out of character. I can't keep to rigid personalities.
These events take place immediately after 'Hollow Years'. Enjoy the story if you will.
--
Prologue
After some argument about exactly where the new arrival to Sunnydale was to take his shower and give his little talk, Buffy agreed to allow him to use her house. Though that would put her sister Dawn in danger if it turned out that the man John Constantine had hostile intentions, the Christmas party was supposed to be at her house this year, and she was determined that Hellmouth visit or no, it would still be there.
To her annoyance, Spike insisted on coming along, his reason being that he'd killed a Constantine before, and chip or not, if this one tried to hurt the Nibblet (his somewhat grotesque nickname for Dawn), he'd add another one to his tally. To this threat Constantine had simply smiled, something that managed to combine cold derision and insolent, sardonic insouciance. Buffy idly wondered if Constantine could teach her how to do that – it would be a fine answer to some of Spike's jibes during their joint patrols – but she guessed that the smile was probably a product of Constantine's disastrous lifestyle.
At least the huge panther that had been with Constantine had vanished into smoke – he'd said something about it returning to its home for a bit of a rest, and off it'd gone. Buffy was relieved – she doubted that Spike's car could hold that much more.
In the trip to her house on Revello Drive, both Willow and Giles seemed to be slightly in awe of Constantine, and plied him with questions on his life, his magic, and why he had come out of the Hellmouth. Constantine had, at first, answered with monosyllabic replies, then finally subsided to an apathetic silence punctuated by puffs on his cigarette. Soon, the car filled with smoke, and everyone, with the exception of Spike, was coughing.
"Put it out, or I'm going to open a window!" Buffy growled at Constantine. She was jammed with Anya in the front seat, since the back seat had to take one more passenger. "There's not enough air in here as it is!"
Constantine shrugged at this, as if he didn't particularly care that everyone was about to asphyxiate. Something else seemed to be weighing on his mind.
"Oy, not a window!" Spike yelped. "The sun's still up, and I ain't gonna spend Christmas as a pile of dust!"
Somehow they managed to get the cigarette out and discreetly clear the air without letting in enough light to give Spike a bad case of spontaneous combustion, and they made the rest of the trip back to the house without much incident, though at one bit Buffy was wondering if Giles was soon going to strangle Constantine for ignoring his questions. She had the feeling that Constantine was doing this on purpose – perhaps for malicious amusement, or perhaps out of mischief, to see how much it'd take for Giles to snap. Buffy knew Giles didn't particularly enjoy being disregarded.
She wondered if Giles' nickname, 'Ripper', had anything to do with his temper… and the mental images that ensued put her in enough of a good humor to ignore the lingering miasma of cigarette smoke.
**
Nalfein Do'Urden of the dark elven city of Menzoberranzan, from the world of Toril far away from these mortal lands ruled wholly by men, got wearily to his feet, using his beloved staff for support. His face seemed ageless, frozen in his prime – one got the sense that, like the Night whose stars gleamed like myriad eyes that looked over the innumerable worlds, he was, at the same time, both young and old. Youth in the taunt, soft skin that was in a deep hue of black, like the shadows behind bright light, in the silky, snow-white hair caught in a ring of the silvery metal known by the dubious name of 'Fool's Gold'. The ring was as wide as a finger, but was in thickness a third of its width, and had no decoration or inscription. From it the rest of the dark elf's long white hair streamed, revealing his ears that tapered to a slender point, hair that past his slender shoulders to rest high on his back.
He seemed old in that in his eyes was knowledge that could only be gained by one who had seen much, and found much, and had not liked all that he had done or all that had been done to him. There were no laugh lines on his handsome face, and his keen eyes, a dark blue in hue, were hard and cold, soft lips set in a hard line, though of inner pain or determination it was hard to divine.
He had discarded his rich, heavy ceremonial robes that would have, in his city, marked him as a Mage Lord – the rank that all the mages of the dark elves, also known as drow or Ilythiiri – aspired to, for more comfortable and more useful garb. Dressed in flowing robes that seemed to be knitted of shadows, if he drew his hood low over his face, only a bright light shone directly on him would reveal his presence. However, the pleasure he normally enjoyed whenever he put on these robes was rather marred by a feeling of unknown confusion in his mind.
Nalfein found it disturbing that although he had reached the goal he had set for himself centuries ago when he had first entered Sorcere, the school of Mages in Menzoberranzan, he was discontent, as though he had lost or had never possessed something precious all his days and had only just been given an inkling of its identity.
It could not have been power, for now he had nearly as much power as males in a Lloth-worshipping, female-dominated dark elf city could aspire to, with the exception, perhaps, of the Arch-Mage. Neither could it have been the desire for newer spells, though he still experimented with magic, he had reached the point in which he was in control and it was the servant – though the desire to wield it was always there, it no longer consumed him.
Nalfein had initially put it down to the 'mage's complaint', as the discontent was known – the feeling of dissatisfaction a male of power invariably had when he looked long and deep in the city and knew without a doubt that even though he may have invested centuries to climb to this spot, he was still lower than the lowest female priestess.
However, the feeling of discontent had grown even here – so far away from his Goddess that he felt that he could not feel her presence, a presence that was nearly palpable whenever he neared priestesses. Perhaps it was chafing at being sent on an errand in a world that was unfamiliar and hostile – for daylight was coming, and the burning sun would be terrible to behold… or perhaps not. Nalfein, never one to dwell too long on disquieting thoughts, cast it aside into his mind and tried to concentrate on what he had to do.
His sisters, the priestesses of his House, led by their Matron Malice, had with Lloth's direction opened a gateway known as a Hellmouth in their chapel, allowing him to step forth through the Hellmouth of this world. Equipped with the necessary components for him to do what he had been commanded to do when the time came – save one: Nalfein had been told to find something called 'The Key', and was warned that it was energy, and could have taken any shape. On his neck hung a short chain of white gold, with the pendant of a ruby spider that would glow in the presence of the Key. He found the pendant hateful and wished to be rid of it, but practicality bid him not to try. There would be no way he could find his way back to Menzoberranzan if he did not succeed.
Or did he wish to go back?
Nalfein hissed at such thoughts and angrily swept forward, his robes appearing to whisper over the ground like fast-flowing water, and the pack of components and written instructions rose up from the ground and bobbed after him like a docile dog. Concealed in the intricate folds of his robes were a dagger, dwarven-forged and ensorcelled to resist blunting, as well as devices he had forged, his spell book and some of his favorite wands. Though he usually would only turn to them if hard-put, for his faith lay in his staff that he held tightly in his right hand, as if for reassurance – mage-carved from black obsidian bound to adamantite, the steel of the dark elves.
It was of a stylized dragon that had climbed onto a spear – the proud, tapering head with its graceful horns and lazrael-tear eyes, the mouth set with sharp teeth that held a circular plaque of gray-green jade imbued, amongst other things, with a dweomer of lasting. This dweomer he had extended to all his current possessions – since he had no idea how long he'd take on this particular errand, it would not do for his things to decay as they would, normally, out of the Underdark. The dragon's wings were flattened to its body, though giving the impression of imminent flight – the sails made of some black metal hammered paper-thin.
Each individual scale on the body could be seen, and the wicked talons on the claws, forelegs clinging on to the spear-blade, a rare type of translucent blue opal, the inside of which a small tongue of dark flame danced in the centre, the only indication of the amount of magic that he stored in it. The dragon's tail was long and curled down the rest of the length of the 'spear's' shaft, of one of the alloys of adamantite that made it light to wield, in a place where there was no wood with which to make such shafts. On this shaft Nalfein had carefully carved all his names in the High dark elven language – binding the staff to him – and then many runes of power, not all of them of the Ilythiiri, as many as he felt the staff could take.
Of this staff Nalfein was dearly, desperately fond of, and sometimes others had seen him murmuring to it or stroking the dragon's head with much affection. It was an unsettling sight at all times, and there had been rumors spread that the new Mage Lord's staff was sentient. Like most rumors, these had not only spread but had grown quite out of hand, such that popular theory swerved between the idea that the Spear of the Dragon – as the staff was now called, or Luth'ol d'l'Tagnik'zur was an actual dragon that Nalfein had changed to do his bidding. Nalfein, with a true dark elf's penchant for chaos and prevarication, sometimes ignored these rumors or denied them with such heat that most who heard him were secretly convinced of their truth. The actual truth, of course, was only known to Nalfein himself.
"Where to now?" Nalfein asked, as he walked with a cat's grace up a flight of steps – though exactly who, or what he was asking, wasn't particularly apparent. The mage noted that the dust on the steps were marked with many footprints – relatively recent ones, though not too fresh, and the flame inside the opal brightened as if in preparation for combat.
Nalfein realized that he was inside a building, a habitation built by humans, judging by the uncouth lines and lack of graceful structure, and though he ascertained that it was empty, he knew better than to stay. This place was known to creatures already, and there was the chance that they would come back – and it did not look as though it would keep out the light of the Sun very well.
Quietly he ventured out into the unfamiliar world – onto a road paved with some dark substance – and suddenly to his right was a roar of rumbling sound like the battle-cry of some great beast – and the painful, blinding glare of two white circles, perhaps the beast's eyes…
**
"How long as he been up there?" Dawn grumbled, slouched on the sofa. "I'm hungry."
"It's lucky we managed to cook extra," Buffy said from somewhere in the kitchen where Anya and Willow were helping her. "Or you'd have not enough to eat anyway."
"Well, considering what the place he came out from smelled like, I think he should bathe as much as possible," Willow said judiciously, emerging from the kitchen to help lay the dining table. "Trust me on this."
"He talks like you," Dawn turned to look at Spike. The blond vampire was sitting quietly on another sofa – Dawn had seen her sister's darkening eyes when he had sat next to her – as had Spike, who had immediately changed position, though a hurt expression remained that Buffy had ignored. Right now he blinked after a few seconds had passed when he registered that she was talking to him, and with some effort pulled his eyes away from Buffy.
"Yeah? That's to be expected," Spike shrugged. "Since we're both Brits."
"Giles doesn't do it."
"Thank God for little mercies… " Giles muttered, not even looking up from the pile of books on the coffee table which Xander was helping him with. "There should be something in these about it somewhere… "
"There's different kinds of British, Nibblet," Spike said expansively, ignoring the cryptic words Giles was uttering. "One type's Ripper 'ere. Stiff upper lip, code of honor and mannerisms so thick you could taste it. Public-school accent, uptight personality – maybe it's to do with… "
"That's quite enough, Spike," Giles adjusted his glasses as he glared at the vampire, as if he knew what Spike was to say next. Spike smirked, his goal of irritating someone - the Watcher, in this case - achieved.
**
Upstairs, Constantine had just finished his last bath, and slowly dried himself while eyeing his travel-stained clothes with distaste. Though at least now he smelled of hot water and soap instead of… what he had been like when he'd first started. The last leg of the journey up to this Hellmouth had been particularly disgusting, and Constantine wondered vaguely if it was because of some private joke on the new leader's part, or because said leader didn't really know how to work the gates yet.
He rather suspected it was the former.
"Meri, can you clean up the clothes again?" he muttered. There was an answering chuckle in his head, high and bird-like, then the wrinkles in his clothes ironed out, the stains disappeared, and more importantly, the smell went as well. He dressed quickly, nearly slipping on the ground of the bathroom, and managed to get out without falling over. The little bit of magic that Meri – or Meridian, a strange blue phoenix of power that recently started sharing his essence, or whatever she called it – did was more tiring that he'd thought. On top of the manifestation earlier when he was trying to struggle out of the Hellmouth and needed some help. He devoutly wished to just lie down and sleep, but had a feeling that those waiting downstairs would soon become impatient.
He hung his tan-brown trenchcoat on the door, then tried to comb his short blond hair into some measure of tidiness with his fingers before going down the stairs. The vampire Spike saw him first, and smirked. "The burnin' wonder is down at last. Thought you were bent on washin' off your skin."
Constantine wasn't paying attention. The smell of food from the kitchen was getting overwhelming, and he was distinctly aware that he had missed lunch. Glancing around the room, he – food - sat down on the long sofa next to - food - the girl Dawn, and tried to take his mind off food by watching – food – Giles and Xander look through the books. Food.
"Are you a wizard?" Dawn asked him suddenly.
He glanced at her and grinned. "Depends on what you think is a wizard, luv."
"Dawn," Spike spoke up, and his voice was deadly serious. "Don't get involved with any Constantine magically… or at all, if you can help it."
"I was only talking to him," Dawn protested, "And trying to be polite."
"Eh, pay attention to him, luv," Constantine smiled a little maliciously at the vampire. "Words to live by, wot 'e said. At the same time, you might like to consider bein' a little less cozy with summat that could break your neck like a matchstick."
"That's what I tell her," Buffy said from the kitchen.
Spike scowled at Constantine, whose suspicions that the vampire more than liked the Slayer were confirmed by the sharp look of hurt that passed over his face when Buffy had spoken, but Dawn spoke up in his defense quickly. "Spike won't do that, Buffy, even if he could, and you know it."
"You'd better be rid of the Constantine – and soon," Spike muttered. "His friends all seem to die. It's probably catchin'."
For some reason, this comment managed to irritate Constantine, even though he had admitted it to himself several times. A rather perverse side of him sought to annoy the vampire in the worst way he knew, and so Constantine got up and went to the kitchen, where he proceeded to endear himself to the three girls with outrageous flatteries, getting into everyone's way like a puppy and barely-concealed attempts to get at the food. Women seemed to like rascals, because though Willow hit him with a hand-towel after he nicked his third sausage, there weren't many physical attempts to eject him until Buffy, realizing that Constantine was sidling closer to the turkey, chased him out with a fork.
Constantine sat back onto the sofa and shared the pieces of ham he'd stolen when Anya wasn't looking with Dawn, and gained another friend. He winked at the vampire, who had retreated into his chair in such a way that his blue eyes were veiled in shadow. If Spike had been looking at him, he offered no response other than a fleeting twist of his lips that seemed to be of pain, or of grim understanding.
: You know, I'm not sure if the 'bastard' side of you is well balanced yet, : Meri's voice chirped in his mind, dry and amused. : That was very evil of you. :
: I didn't do anythin', : Constantine replied mildly in his mind. : Only bein' friendly. :
: You knew Spike really wants to be accepted by these people – especially by Buffy. You had to rub his nose in the fact that they'd hardly be willing to accept him as he is… that though you are human and your rep isn't exactly clean, you managed to win over the girls in a short time. Including Buffy, I might add. :
: I know. What can I do? Women fancy me. : John realized he rather enjoyed being nasty. : Why, you don't like me anymore, luv? :
: Heh… but really, you should… :
"Dinner's ready!" Willow called from the table, and Constantine immediately ignored whatever else Meri had been trying to say.
--
Notes and References:
Women fancy me: That was a 'sort of' stolen quote from the Vertigo Secret Files on John Constantine. Heh. He might smoke, be an utter, selfish bastard at times, but I like him anyway.
Earlier story: The epilogue of Hollow Years… in the Forgotten Realms section of Fanfiction.net, will have the description of Constantine trying to get out of the Hellmouth. The rest of Hollow Years does not feature Buffy and the Scooby Gang.
