Dreams…
I'm on the Observation Deck of the Andromeda, looking out at the stars. They make me feel like I'm part of something greater. Part of life.
"They're beautiful aren't they," a somber Trance spoke, coming to stand beside me. "Each a bright sun giving life to cold planets. So many lives…just starting to discover their own potentials, to spread their wings. Will you be the one to help them, when the time comes?"
I turn to her, carefully scrutinizing her features. "If they'll have me, if they'll help me. Will you be there on the day? Or will you do what you've always done? Standing by and watching?"
"I was not made to interfere my friend. I simply am…as you are."
"Yeah, the Slayer, is that what we are," I ask curiously, reaching out to touch her face. Trance melts away. A voice speaks from behind me, I turn.
"It's what we've always been B," said Faith. She is, as I'll always think of her, strong, defiant, and so full of hurt.
"I wish I could have helped you more. I wish…" I desperately try to get the words out, the right words. Ones that would heal her, heal us both.
"Ah B," she said smiling, "I know." She is suddenly serious and I mourn for the girl she never was, never got to be, and not just because she was Called.
"This is our path, this is our way. You always had the plan B, I just lost it somewhere to grandmother's house." She grins, and retreats behind her shell. "I love the new digs," she said, indicating my new leather ensemble.
"It's all they had."
But it's not all you need, she spoke into my mind.
"Wish I could be there…they've got some quality beef cake, it's like an all-you-can-eat buffet."
"I don't think I'm ready for that," I respond, thinking of a particular someone.
A smile spreads across her scarlet lips. "Ummm, now he's some quality meat. Wouldn't mind having me a piece of that."
"Gross Faith, you've got a one track mind."
"That's why the animals like me." She fades away, taking the room with her. Now I'm at the bronze dressed in my white Spring Fling outfit, the one I died in.
Well, isn't this morbid, I think.
A guy comes up to me with purple hair, I remember him, he used to howl at the moon when the sun went down.
"Hey Oz, how's Willow?"
"She's good, finding her way back home. Tara's helping."
"That's good, was she lost?"
"They all were. Hey, do you think if I practice hard enough, I can reach E-flat diminished ninth, it's a man's…"
His keeps talking as I move away. So impolite of me, sorry Oz. I see Giles singing on stage, Veruca and Harmony his back up singers. I pause for a while to listen. I can't catch all the words, just a couple verses. He's got a strong voice, but it is just way to disturbing to find my Watcher…doing that.
Your Path's unbeaten And it's all uphill And you can meet it As you always will
I start to move to the stage.
I wish I could say the right words To lead you through this land Wish I could play your father And take you by the hand
God, Giles. Tears start falling from my eyes as I ascend the stage.
I wish I could lay your arms down
And let you rest at last
Wish I could slay your demons
But now that time has past…I stand before him, my Watcher, my…father. I lay my hands on his face, and he stops singing. I open my own mouth…
Believe me I don't want to go
And it'll grieve me cause I love you so
But we both know
I rest my forehead against his own as he starts to sing again.
Wish I could say the right words
To lead you through this land
Wish I could slay your demons
And take you by the hand…
He clutches at me desperately, crying as he sings. And I know. That he loves me, that he misses me, and that he understands.
I close my eyes. He'll always love me…and I'll always love him. He was my father after all, in every way that mattered, and we finish the song. Together.
Wish you could stay
~~~
Wish I could stay
~~~
Wish you could stay
~~~
Wish I could stay ~~~ Wish you could stay~~~
Wish I could stay
~~~
Wish you could…stay
~~~
Wish I could…stay
The music stops…when I open my eyes the stage is clear. I turn to see my friends at a table…Anya sitting in Xander's lap, Tara and Willow all snuggly next to them…Giles desperately wiping at his glasses…and Dawn…Dawnie, she's laughing at something Xander says…I haven't seen her so happy since… I quickly descend the stage and make my way toward them. But the crowd thickens. I can't seem to shove them away fast enough…the flow is stronger than all my Slayer strength.
"Excuse me. Excuse me." I push against the bodies. "Dawn. Xander. Willow. Guys, I'm here."
Snarls and growls drown out my cries. I look on as the people morph into the Magog. I'm in a cave now, surrounded by the snapping mass. A light behind them catches my attention. I turn my head to glimpse a fiery outline…and then I'm back on the Observation Deck.
Trance stands beside me.
"You don't belong with them now."
I get angry and move to confront her.
Instead, I find myself facing Kendra…and we're in the library. I can see my past, me desolately clutching her dead body to my own. Too many changes, I clutch at my head. Desperate to make everything still.
"We are always wit' you," she said in her heavily accented speech.
"What's going on? Why…"
"We are always wit' you. When you need help, we are always there. We are sisters…all of us."
She reaches out and clasps my shoulders. She gives a shake to her head, her long hair flying every which way. And suddenly, the Slayer is holding me, the First. Her coal black eyes boring into my own.
"Death is your gift."
"I know, but I already gave at the office," I reply.
"Death is our gift, because we are full of love."
"Huh?"
Trance is back, but then she turns into Tara…I'm starting to hate this.
"We called, we were not the called. Our love for our people, for life changed us, made us strong. Our cries for mercy from the Evil Ones were heard and answered. We called ourselves. And our will, our mission endures. We are the Slayers, a line of warriors stretching back through time and forward into eternity. We are all connected…by blood, by bone, and by our souls."
The First appears and takes up the edict in her gravely voice. "We exist in the action of death, in the blood cry, in the penetrating wound. We are destruction…absolute, alone. But connected. Always."
"Is that why we're here. To fight another fight."
Tara closes her eyes. "You were not the first to refuse us, but you are the first to accept us. When you sacrificed your life for our mission, you took us in and made peace with us. You show us the way now, the path. Your sisters will carry on in our stead. You will live."
I turn away from the being with Tara's face. And face the First. But she is gone, and in her stead is…
"Mom?" I start to cry, this…hurts.
My mom comes to me, and cradles my face in her hand, just like she used to. I'm blinded by tears, choked with them. I'm afraid to speak, but I need to. I have so many things I want to tell her, that I need to say, things that I never got to.
"I love…"
"Shh, shh, shh," she hushes me. She kisses me on my forehead, and I'm home…
"It's all right baby, I know. I'm so proud of you."
"But…"
"No, no buts," mom smiles at my and brushes my tears away. "I love you. Now go, you have miles to go before you sleep."
I close my eyes, sensing that my mother has gone, just like the rest. I feel lean, strong arms wrap around me from behind, offering comfort and support. I rest my head back against a man's chest, feeling…an indescribable feeling, that could be love and is…completion.
He smells good, like the tobacco he smokes and like himself. A unique blend of scents that is solely his. Here, in the dream world, I can allow myself to take his love…and reciprocate it.
I snuggle in his embrace and open my eyes.
"I thought that you would be with them," I say, nodding my head at the table that has suddenly re-materialized in the distance.
"I was," he rumbled from deep in his chest. "I promised. But sometimes promises aren't enough when the spirit is unwilling."
"Did you die?"
"No Pet, I was already dead. I just decided to follow you." I look up at him and he leans down to kiss my forehead. A warm feeling spreads from his lips to my heart, where he always is, where I never knew he was. Where I never knew I needed him to be.
His customary black on black ensemble shifts into colored leather as his tousled bleached locks grow out.
"Why did you change? I liked you just the way you were."
"Change is a fact of life," he told me, the British accent melting away into the deep and proper tones of Charlemange Bolivar. His mouth spreads into that familiar sexy grin, "And I am alive."
"So you are." I turn in his secure embrace until I face him. Until I can look into his beautiful blue, blue eyes. I lunge forward, desperately melding our lips together. His taste explodes on my tongue and I reach up to grasp his hair.
Our lips part, bruised and vulnerable. "I told you, I'd never…"
Before he can finish his sentence, he is pulled from my arms. Everything disappears; all that is left is space, cold and black with no stars to light my way. I hold nothing now and feel so desolate.
"There is no hope here," a low rasping voice hissed by my ear. "You cannot save this world, for I am its master. And I will crush it beneath my heal."
A cacophony rumbles into being, getting louder and louder. It is the sound of hundreds of thousands of Magog, thirsting for blood and violence.
I try to move, to fight and kill, but I can't. As I stand frozen, the…voice speaks on.
"And my minions will inundate the universe, spreading my word throughout the cosmos. And my word is…Abyss."
I register the last statement as a hiss, but it seemed to echo through by bones. It felt like the…presence that first awakened me on Andromeda. That my Slayer half reacted to.
Pain spears through me. Unimaginable. Indescribable. Like nothing I had ever felt before. Not the desperate burning need to breath that I remember from my death. Nor the seemingly endless maelstrom that was the portal.
I can't escape and I can't make it stop.
I strain to fight, to rend and tear the thing that is killing me, all over again. But I find that I'm nothing. Formless. Without hands or fists to strike out.
With everything in me, with all that is left of my being, I cry out.
The
girl has been tossing and turning in her sheets for the last hour. Disturbing dreams invading her repose. Tears and sweat gleaming on her face,
causing tendrils of her long honey gold hair to stick to her. Then she relaxes, her body laying flat and a
smile smoothing her tense features. But
that only last for a second, before all her muscles tense up, her slender
weight solely supported by her head and feet.
Her body twisted into a painful arch.
Hazel green eyes pop open, seeing nothing. She awakens, screaming.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
and miles to go before my sleep
-so totally Robert Frost