Posting on Behalf of the author, with her permission.
***
TITLE: "The Psalm"
AUTHOR: Nate
RATING: PGR
XOVER: BtVS, Highlander and Poltergeist:the Legacy
SUMMARY: What is stronger than death? A Slayer, Willow and her friends
are about to find out.
Timeline: 6mths after Becoming2. Alt ending.
DISTRIBUTION: Por Siempre...Kendra
Characters focus: Willow, Angel, Buffy etc. PtL: Derek, Alex, Nick, Rachel etc. HL: briefly mentioned.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not affliated with the television
show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Joss Whedon, FOX,
Mutant Enemy, or Warner Brothers. I'm not receiving
compensation for writing this story.
Authors notes: This isn't beta read, so expect lots of mistakes. We
don't have the new episodes of Buffy yet, so in my universe,
none of Faith or Buffy returning happened. I will continue in other
stories coming up soon, in the same vein.. even though we're getting the
new Buffy on Thursday. There is a new slayer, and I'm responsible for
her. You'll see. ;)
*********************************************
"The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want."
Ps 23.
***
Sunnydale cemetery by night.
Thumb prints of tombstones juttered up from the ground below, inscribed
with epitaphs of the fallen and beloved.
A lone figure stands within the shadows, alone and without direction.
Once upon a time, this baleful place would reverberate her senses, evoke
inside her a passion and destiny she felt with everything she was, but
now it lay dormant in her path. Gone. Forgotten.
Stepping over fallen branches strewn over the path, she wished she could
convey the compulsion she had to stay regardless of the powers stripped
from her.
She carefully threaded her way to the doors of the abandoned church and
scrutinized her environment. Seeing no immediate threat, or impression
of it, she then entered with tentative steps, every nerve standing on
end. She hesitated on the threshold, one delicate dusky hand grasping
the door as if it held her fate - her exoneration.
And in a way, it did.
With all those that would come to this place, she pondered their
reasons. The Bishop in Sunday redemption - trying to impart morals
before dinner time. The local business man who is trying to open a
casino. A young tourist interested in architecture or a girl who's just
been given the news she has cancer. Shelter from the rain, from someone
and something. A place of confessions. A place for a wedding ceremony. A
funeral. Lives that touched and continue to touch this place, and many
like it. Under many names of sanctuary, they held the same thing.
Absolution.
With a decisive push off the stone wall, she entered the chamber, eyes
straining in the semi-darkness for a glimpse at the Deus she had come to
see, to love, to worship and to loathe.
No longer seeking the death of her enemy, but her own.
***
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the
still waters.
****
She walked from the arch doors down the center isle, her head turning
from side to side, seeking the dangers only a precious few knew lay in
wait. She turned slightly at the front to a grimly lit window on the
side and looked up at it for a long time.
Behind the cobwebs was a jumble of colored glass that depicted the dark
majesty of Gethsemane, and in the center of the trees and flowers was
the image of a beseeching Messiah dressed in a long flowing robe, his
pale hands outstretched to an approaching Judas dressed the same, but
coins falling from his hand like a bloody dagger..
30 pieces of silver.
She didn't think that her price could have been so simple as
bloodthirsty revenge... but it was. Angelus. Gods, even the name was a
seed of deep rooted bitterness to her. Had she given up her senses to
honor a friend, when she didn't kill him the first time? Or the second?
She had taken this brief gift of immortality out of yearning and
incensed culpability for the events following her death, only to be
denied. The first Slayer, Buffy, had already dispatched her forboding
boyfriend to the hell he so richly deserved... the same one that she was
now intended? She didn't want to think about it.
She paced the floor in short bursts of agitation, agonizing to find her
place in this new world. She allowed herself to feel a little of the
bitterness at what was taken. Her parents, a life other than destiny and
to know she was a woman instead of this stone sentinel always on guard,
always with duty. A little bitterness gave way to the flood, and the dam
gave way to the miasma of increasing regrets.
***
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for
his name's sake.
***
Immortality. Desired by man, since the first death. Not knowing what
evil she was, she couldn't return to her watcher or the life she knew.
She had to stay away... but for him. Angelus, the one she had sought
with everything inside that remained of her fading vampire senses.
Now, she came to face him only to face herself instead. To the others,
she remembered little of them, but that was secondary to the vow she had
made.
Revenge had been an empty gesture. Although the memory of Angelus' lair,
the great Gothic mansion exploding in upon itself - warmed her a
little... she still remained. And if not for revenge only, she was given
life - then why? She dropped heavily on one of the front pews, suddenly
exhausted. The remains of the last year replaying in her mind.
***
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,..."
***
The Horrors of death, were irrelevant compared to the terror of rebirth.
Being entombed was a poisoness awakening. There wasn't a night, she
didn't relive it.
The darkness and wretched mire had closed her inside its sinister womb,
trapping the body in a morbid paralysis. Multiplying screams and
desperate pleas, had struggled from her throat, to whatever God or
Goddess that could hear her. She had prayed could hear her.
None had come to save their beloved. None remembered. This the life and
death of a Slayer immortal.
It was days before the earth submitted to her clawing and having no
other choice, she bit into the earth and swallowed. Her body trembled at
the horrors wrought inside her, but none that could vanquish the name
she had carried to her deathbed. Angelus.
Hellmouth, Sunnydale was in for one hell of a reunion.
***
"...I will fear no evil: for
thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."
***
Not that she forgave herself. She had gone to Angels lair only to find
that Buffy had finally put the demon where he belonged. Nothing remained
whole or unbroken. The rampage doing a lot to quell the fury, but
nothing to the sorrow she felt at being cast aside. Buffy had honored
her with taking up her own destiny and then running from it. Part of her
wished that she was there with her now, someone to lean on. To help
her.. die? Not that she hadn't thought of that either
It was a beautiful funeral pyre, homage to those that watched in
fascination and horror. The blood sienna dawn was only enhanced by the
fire claiming the once vampire lair of the fallen prince - Angelus. She
stood amongst it, the flames quickly given a life of their own. She
could have walked away, but in the end, she had no where else to go.
Throwing open her arms she welcomed the embers and screaming inferno.
No forgiveness. No mercy.
***
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou
anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
***
Was she the enemy? She didn't feel it.. could that be illusion? The once
vampire Slayer walked haltingly up to the statue, impervious to her
presence.
She stared at him darkly, her mask of icy imperviousness crumbled to
reveal the
young confused woman that she remained inside, regardless of the
momentous destiny she bore quietly. In her mind, she addressed the
downcast figure.
"Where are you now dat I need you most?" She accused, forcing herself to
remain standing, even though her legs struggled to hold her up. "Where
is de brimstone and de fire?," she quietly announced, her voice husky -
strained and rough. "dat evil should not enter your temple and live? I
am here, am I not?"
"WHY am I here?", she asked more of herself than any one else.
She laid the facts straight in her mind and sighed deeply. "I find dat I
can no longer muster de spirit for battle. I feel dat I may someday
endanger de lives of my watcher, and dose I have been entrusted ta
protect. And I cannot let dat happen."
She was greeted with silence. There the bitter truth.
"You don't believe I want to die.. you tink I still want revenge, want
anger and hate? Is that it?"
Hearing no response, like the nights she made deals with him before, she
continued on bitterly. "Is it.... Is it proof you need? Is dat it?" She
ripped the coat she wore down the middle, exposing the skin over the
heart. Angry purplish bruises covered most of it.
"After I crawled my way from de grave, de only evil I created was da one
inside deep regret. See? This is de faith you ask??... I would rather
die than be de evil I had so long hunted." She pulled her sleeves up,
revealing angry slash marks on her wrists. "Dis testament too, and
dis.." she lifted her chin and exposed the throat, burned with a rope
mark, "..and dis," lifting her shirt, she turned to show her back to
unseeing eyes. Several bullet holes still able to be seen. A police
barrage
did nothing to slay. She was immortal.
Her dark eyes turned back to the still and cold figure on the cross,
beseeching him like he was to Judas depicted on the stained glass
window. "What more do you want from me? What have I left ta give?" she
responded equally decisively. She spun away, afraid of the anwser.
***
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me.....
***
She waited a few more seconds before whorling to face the crucifix, eyes
blazing. Tonight, neither one of them were prepared for the emotional
tumult that sent her tumbling down at last into the abyss of agony long
contained. She came closer, etching out the details in the face. The
lowercast eyes, the jawline set and the sacrifices she knew of too well,
only to be betrayed at the end.
"Where are you now dat I need you most?" His silence seemed to condemn
her. *We shall be remembered, in spite of ourselves.* "You didn't, did
you?" She took a moment to step away pained by the betrayal she herself
would commit. Taking the hilt beneth her trenchcoat, she revealed the
blade hiding there.
"Consider -"
She whorled around, the blade striking and glittering in the darkness
like a scepter of death. In one foul sweep, she extended her position to
punch her weight behind the downward cut lay waste to the statue.
"...yourself -"
Plaster EXPLODED into the air, the sound of something heavy falling to,
then rolling a short way to the floor. She faced away, not daring to
take in the sight... fearing what she might see in herself at that
moment.
"...reminded."
***
all the days of my life..
***
Fighting all the demons she invoked, she stumbled her way forward a few
steps before staggering to her feet. She forceably made herself immune
to emotion -
it was her way to survive what she had just done, and would continue to
do.
The headaches began again, fierce and inescapable. Blood poured from her
nose and mouth.. choking her where she stood.
Only her eyes held the true horror of what she had done. Her expression
was blank, her eyes never leaving the front wall leading out. Fighting
against a wave of revulsion, she dropped the sword and composed herself
enough to walk back from whence she came. As she reached the door, her
head dropped into her hands. She was so tired, that she didn't see the
figure in black slide through one of the doors and come to stand beside
her.
***
and I will dwell..
***
The old rough hewn door swung on its rusty hinges and closed quietly
behind him, leaving the silence of the cathedral to its dusty ebb. Only
the headless statue, testament of the anger bestowed in her quest to
die, up to the time that she found absolution in the arms of angry God.
***
..in the house
***
Her wish for the Angel of Death was still in her mind, as his hand
touched her shoulder and her dark eyes starred helplessly into brown.
**
of the Lord
***
He took a few minutes to drink in the dark beauty and smiled
tenderly, which failed to reach his eyes. She took the memory of them
with her, as she fell over the edge of the dark abyss - into oblivion.
"Kendra."
***
Forever.
***
End part one
***
TITLE: "The Psalm"
AUTHOR: Nate
RATING: PGR
XOVER: BtVS, Highlander and Poltergeist:the Legacy
SUMMARY: What is stronger than death? A Slayer, Willow and her friends
are about to find out.
Timeline: 6mths after Becoming2. Alt ending.
DISTRIBUTION: Por Siempre...Kendra
Characters focus: Willow, Angel, Buffy etc. PtL: Derek, Alex, Nick, Rachel etc. HL: briefly mentioned.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not affliated with the television
show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Joss Whedon, FOX,
Mutant Enemy, or Warner Brothers. I'm not receiving
compensation for writing this story.
Authors notes: This isn't beta read, so expect lots of mistakes. We
don't have the new episodes of Buffy yet, so in my universe,
none of Faith or Buffy returning happened. I will continue in other
stories coming up soon, in the same vein.. even though we're getting the
new Buffy on Thursday. There is a new slayer, and I'm responsible for
her. You'll see. ;)
*********************************************
"The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want."
Ps 23.
***
Sunnydale cemetery by night.
Thumb prints of tombstones juttered up from the ground below, inscribed
with epitaphs of the fallen and beloved.
A lone figure stands within the shadows, alone and without direction.
Once upon a time, this baleful place would reverberate her senses, evoke
inside her a passion and destiny she felt with everything she was, but
now it lay dormant in her path. Gone. Forgotten.
Stepping over fallen branches strewn over the path, she wished she could
convey the compulsion she had to stay regardless of the powers stripped
from her.
She carefully threaded her way to the doors of the abandoned church and
scrutinized her environment. Seeing no immediate threat, or impression
of it, she then entered with tentative steps, every nerve standing on
end. She hesitated on the threshold, one delicate dusky hand grasping
the door as if it held her fate - her exoneration.
And in a way, it did.
With all those that would come to this place, she pondered their
reasons. The Bishop in Sunday redemption - trying to impart morals
before dinner time. The local business man who is trying to open a
casino. A young tourist interested in architecture or a girl who's just
been given the news she has cancer. Shelter from the rain, from someone
and something. A place of confessions. A place for a wedding ceremony. A
funeral. Lives that touched and continue to touch this place, and many
like it. Under many names of sanctuary, they held the same thing.
Absolution.
With a decisive push off the stone wall, she entered the chamber, eyes
straining in the semi-darkness for a glimpse at the Deus she had come to
see, to love, to worship and to loathe.
No longer seeking the death of her enemy, but her own.
***
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the
still waters.
****
She walked from the arch doors down the center isle, her head turning
from side to side, seeking the dangers only a precious few knew lay in
wait. She turned slightly at the front to a grimly lit window on the
side and looked up at it for a long time.
Behind the cobwebs was a jumble of colored glass that depicted the dark
majesty of Gethsemane, and in the center of the trees and flowers was
the image of a beseeching Messiah dressed in a long flowing robe, his
pale hands outstretched to an approaching Judas dressed the same, but
coins falling from his hand like a bloody dagger..
30 pieces of silver.
She didn't think that her price could have been so simple as
bloodthirsty revenge... but it was. Angelus. Gods, even the name was a
seed of deep rooted bitterness to her. Had she given up her senses to
honor a friend, when she didn't kill him the first time? Or the second?
She had taken this brief gift of immortality out of yearning and
incensed culpability for the events following her death, only to be
denied. The first Slayer, Buffy, had already dispatched her forboding
boyfriend to the hell he so richly deserved... the same one that she was
now intended? She didn't want to think about it.
She paced the floor in short bursts of agitation, agonizing to find her
place in this new world. She allowed herself to feel a little of the
bitterness at what was taken. Her parents, a life other than destiny and
to know she was a woman instead of this stone sentinel always on guard,
always with duty. A little bitterness gave way to the flood, and the dam
gave way to the miasma of increasing regrets.
***
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for
his name's sake.
***
Immortality. Desired by man, since the first death. Not knowing what
evil she was, she couldn't return to her watcher or the life she knew.
She had to stay away... but for him. Angelus, the one she had sought
with everything inside that remained of her fading vampire senses.
Now, she came to face him only to face herself instead. To the others,
she remembered little of them, but that was secondary to the vow she had
made.
Revenge had been an empty gesture. Although the memory of Angelus' lair,
the great Gothic mansion exploding in upon itself - warmed her a
little... she still remained. And if not for revenge only, she was given
life - then why? She dropped heavily on one of the front pews, suddenly
exhausted. The remains of the last year replaying in her mind.
***
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,..."
***
The Horrors of death, were irrelevant compared to the terror of rebirth.
Being entombed was a poisoness awakening. There wasn't a night, she
didn't relive it.
The darkness and wretched mire had closed her inside its sinister womb,
trapping the body in a morbid paralysis. Multiplying screams and
desperate pleas, had struggled from her throat, to whatever God or
Goddess that could hear her. She had prayed could hear her.
None had come to save their beloved. None remembered. This the life and
death of a Slayer immortal.
It was days before the earth submitted to her clawing and having no
other choice, she bit into the earth and swallowed. Her body trembled at
the horrors wrought inside her, but none that could vanquish the name
she had carried to her deathbed. Angelus.
Hellmouth, Sunnydale was in for one hell of a reunion.
***
"...I will fear no evil: for
thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."
***
Not that she forgave herself. She had gone to Angels lair only to find
that Buffy had finally put the demon where he belonged. Nothing remained
whole or unbroken. The rampage doing a lot to quell the fury, but
nothing to the sorrow she felt at being cast aside. Buffy had honored
her with taking up her own destiny and then running from it. Part of her
wished that she was there with her now, someone to lean on. To help
her.. die? Not that she hadn't thought of that either
It was a beautiful funeral pyre, homage to those that watched in
fascination and horror. The blood sienna dawn was only enhanced by the
fire claiming the once vampire lair of the fallen prince - Angelus. She
stood amongst it, the flames quickly given a life of their own. She
could have walked away, but in the end, she had no where else to go.
Throwing open her arms she welcomed the embers and screaming inferno.
No forgiveness. No mercy.
***
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou
anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
***
Was she the enemy? She didn't feel it.. could that be illusion? The once
vampire Slayer walked haltingly up to the statue, impervious to her
presence.
She stared at him darkly, her mask of icy imperviousness crumbled to
reveal the
young confused woman that she remained inside, regardless of the
momentous destiny she bore quietly. In her mind, she addressed the
downcast figure.
"Where are you now dat I need you most?" She accused, forcing herself to
remain standing, even though her legs struggled to hold her up. "Where
is de brimstone and de fire?," she quietly announced, her voice husky -
strained and rough. "dat evil should not enter your temple and live? I
am here, am I not?"
"WHY am I here?", she asked more of herself than any one else.
She laid the facts straight in her mind and sighed deeply. "I find dat I
can no longer muster de spirit for battle. I feel dat I may someday
endanger de lives of my watcher, and dose I have been entrusted ta
protect. And I cannot let dat happen."
She was greeted with silence. There the bitter truth.
"You don't believe I want to die.. you tink I still want revenge, want
anger and hate? Is that it?"
Hearing no response, like the nights she made deals with him before, she
continued on bitterly. "Is it.... Is it proof you need? Is dat it?" She
ripped the coat she wore down the middle, exposing the skin over the
heart. Angry purplish bruises covered most of it.
"After I crawled my way from de grave, de only evil I created was da one
inside deep regret. See? This is de faith you ask??... I would rather
die than be de evil I had so long hunted." She pulled her sleeves up,
revealing angry slash marks on her wrists. "Dis testament too, and
dis.." she lifted her chin and exposed the throat, burned with a rope
mark, "..and dis," lifting her shirt, she turned to show her back to
unseeing eyes. Several bullet holes still able to be seen. A police
barrage
did nothing to slay. She was immortal.
Her dark eyes turned back to the still and cold figure on the cross,
beseeching him like he was to Judas depicted on the stained glass
window. "What more do you want from me? What have I left ta give?" she
responded equally decisively. She spun away, afraid of the anwser.
***
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me.....
***
She waited a few more seconds before whorling to face the crucifix, eyes
blazing. Tonight, neither one of them were prepared for the emotional
tumult that sent her tumbling down at last into the abyss of agony long
contained. She came closer, etching out the details in the face. The
lowercast eyes, the jawline set and the sacrifices she knew of too well,
only to be betrayed at the end.
"Where are you now dat I need you most?" His silence seemed to condemn
her. *We shall be remembered, in spite of ourselves.* "You didn't, did
you?" She took a moment to step away pained by the betrayal she herself
would commit. Taking the hilt beneth her trenchcoat, she revealed the
blade hiding there.
"Consider -"
She whorled around, the blade striking and glittering in the darkness
like a scepter of death. In one foul sweep, she extended her position to
punch her weight behind the downward cut lay waste to the statue.
"...yourself -"
Plaster EXPLODED into the air, the sound of something heavy falling to,
then rolling a short way to the floor. She faced away, not daring to
take in the sight... fearing what she might see in herself at that
moment.
"...reminded."
***
all the days of my life..
***
Fighting all the demons she invoked, she stumbled her way forward a few
steps before staggering to her feet. She forceably made herself immune
to emotion -
it was her way to survive what she had just done, and would continue to
do.
The headaches began again, fierce and inescapable. Blood poured from her
nose and mouth.. choking her where she stood.
Only her eyes held the true horror of what she had done. Her expression
was blank, her eyes never leaving the front wall leading out. Fighting
against a wave of revulsion, she dropped the sword and composed herself
enough to walk back from whence she came. As she reached the door, her
head dropped into her hands. She was so tired, that she didn't see the
figure in black slide through one of the doors and come to stand beside
her.
***
and I will dwell..
***
The old rough hewn door swung on its rusty hinges and closed quietly
behind him, leaving the silence of the cathedral to its dusty ebb. Only
the headless statue, testament of the anger bestowed in her quest to
die, up to the time that she found absolution in the arms of angry God.
***
..in the house
***
Her wish for the Angel of Death was still in her mind, as his hand
touched her shoulder and her dark eyes starred helplessly into brown.
**
of the Lord
***
He took a few minutes to drink in the dark beauty and smiled
tenderly, which failed to reach his eyes. She took the memory of them
with her, as she fell over the edge of the dark abyss - into oblivion.
"Kendra."
***
Forever.
***
End part one
