COLOURS OF QOURTOTH
SETTINGS: Bare with me. I'm stuffing timelines up here to make this possible. Begins directly after the Gift. Ignores ALL of Season Six of Buffy. Willow doesn't attempt the resurrection spell. Eventually crosses over with the Angel episode 'Sleep Tight'. What if Glory's hell dimensional home had been Quortoth, and seeing as Buffy jumped into the portal, she was sent there.
RATINGS: PG-13. I don't write smut, so it's pretty user friendly.
PAIRING: Buffy/Steven. (I'm stuffing around with his age in this too, so bare me with)
DISCLAIMER: Not mine.
ONWARDS:
CHAPTER ONE: RED
"Be brave. Live. For me."
It was bright. Blinding really. White lights and purple lightning flashing all around, the beginnings of a dull ache in her head as everything began to tear in two. She could feel her soul, her entire being begin to rip in half, the pain of it all so intense, so much more than anything she had ever felt in her entire life. And all she could do was scream silently as her body fell from the tower, plummeting towards the earth.
And then everything went red.
----
The first thing she noticed was the unending darkness. Pitch black, pure nighttime. She had spent the last six years in the dark, but nothing even came close to the blackness surrounding her now. There was no lights, no stars in the sky or a moon overhead. It was black. And it was cold.
She shivered in the darkness, rubbing her hands over her arms, grateful for what little warmth her white long sleeved shirt gave her. She blinked slowly, trying to adjust to the dark, but her eyes wouldn't allow it. Behind her eyelids, she could see the echoes of the bright light that had engulfed her earlier, but when open, her eyes refused to show her anything.
She tried to stand, but her shaky legs wouldn't hold her. She fell to her knees, trying to sort through her thoughts to determine where she was and why she was there.
She could remember the tower. She could remember her sister about to jump, but she had stopped her just in time. She remembered her epiphany. Death was her gift. She SHOULD have been dead. Not that she was complaining or anything, but she couldn't understand it.
She heard something take a step behind her, and she immediately turned to face it, going into the best defensive position that she could without standing. She felt something heavy collide with her cheek and she was sent sprawling to the ground. She landed heavily on her wrist, which ached for some unknown reason.
She tried to pull herself up, but felt another heavy something smash into her ribs. She wheezed heavily and her arms gave out, the Slayer now face down on the dirt floor.
She went to move again, but something was placed on her back, forcing her to stay down. 'A boot' she wondered idly.
"Slayer."
The voice wasn't gentle. Then again, she hadn't really expected a gentle voice after being treated so horribly, but it still came out harsh and loud in the silent darkness.
"Who are you?" she demanded, her voice showing nothing of the fear that she felt.
The voice chuckled and she shivered involuntarily.
"Your executioner."
"Bit late," she replied sarcastically. "I'm already dead."
Her reply earned her another kick to the head and she immediately held her tongue. The aching throb in her head hadn't dulled at all, and she was beginning to see white spots.
"Foolish girl," the voice whispered. "You stopped the link from being severed. You defied fate and prophecy. You ignored the signs that showed you how to defeat Glorificus. You failed."
"My sister's still alive! Glory's dead! I didn't fail."
"You are dead, Slayer. That is the ultimate failure for your kind."
"I did my duty for six years and all I ever got was more trouble. I didn't fail! I won!"
She was gripped on the shoulders and turned around, her back in the dirt, facing upwards. She could tell that whoever the voice belonged to was close, their breath cold on her face, the smell almost overwhelming. The grip on her shoulders didn't diminish one bit.
"You FAILED! You may have won the battle against Glorificus, but the link was not severed. The Key was meant to have completed her duty, but you denied the vessel that honour."
"You wanted me to let my sister die?" she demanded, struggling against the rough hands on her shoulders. She tried to grip the wrists of her captor, but her hands passed through thin air. She reached up to her shoulders where the bruising grip rested, but could feel nothing but her own shoulders where the hands were meant to be. She tried desperately not to panic.
"The Key would have been rightfully restored to its proper form. Your memories of your 'sister' would have been taken from you. You would have won."
"My sister is alive!" Buffy cried. "She's real dammit. I don't care what those monks did to my memories, she's more real than you are. She's innocent! I wasn't going to let her DIE!"
Tears streamed down her face and she struggled to draw in breaths, her ribs aching. Before she even knew what was going on, she was hauled to her feet and thrown across the blackness, hitting something solid. It felt like a wall of rocks, edges jutting out to cut her skin, her clothes. She went to move, but her hands came in contact with metal bars. She panicked and frantically scrambled around in the darkness trying to find a way out.
The voice laughed once more, the sound seeming so far away from her.
"I hope you can live with yourself Slayer. Knowing what you've lost. You've lost your life. Your friends. Your sister will die. Everyone will die. Your Watcher, your pet vampire. They'll be killed and you won't be there to protect them. Not without a Circle of Three."
She cried out to him as she heard his footsteps echoing in the darkness, becoming farther and farther away until she could no longer hear a thing except her own frantic heartbeat and the wet sobs that shook her body. She clutched at the bars, trying to wrap her mind around everything, but could no longer stay conscious. And the blackness overtook.
