Chapter 6: Back in the High Life
Willow Rosenberg:
Agonizing pain shoots through my body. I'm dying for a second time. That's not such a bad thing, right now, you know? At least then it will be over.
No, Willow. Don't think about the pain. Think, brave, noble, self-esteemy thoughts. If nothing else, do it for them. "I'm brave, noble, and gosh darn it, people like me!" Besides, I'm thinking of silly SNL quotes rather than destroying the world, so that's got to mean something.
Think about the pretty portal above me. It's very nice, a soft blue with clouds and lightning. There's something forming in it. It's a white beam - and it's hitting me right in the chest. It's finishing what the red potion started. I'm slipping away, leaving the remains of this body. I can feel it.
Kennedy kisses my forehead. I don't want to go.
[Please Willow, don't fight it any more. It's time for you to go,] she thinks.
[Will you be there with me? Can I see my friends, too?] I ask.
[Yes and yes. I promise.] I hope she's right.
I give in, relax, and let it happen. And for instant all I feel is peace. Then I see a plume of energy rise out of my body - then an explosion of white and purple and blue lights and crackling lightening - and I don't see or hear or anything anymore.
* * *
The first thing that hits me as I regain consciousness is that the pain in my head that's tortured me for months is gone. So is the never-ending urge to lose control again and become an instrument of destruction. I can feel a slight humming through my body, but that's about it.
I also check to see if the visions of destruction that flooded through my mind are still there. They are - but now they seem to be in focus, like real memories that will allow me to figure out who I am. But I'm not ready for that just yet.
Kennedy was right. This body has its good points. So I open my eyes and try to inspect my new body. Then the second thing hits me.
I'm huge!
Literally. I'm propped up on four limbs, as if that's the most natural thing in the world. I try to move my head around - and it's easy to do, because I now have a long neck. I have bright green scales - and what look like red wings. I unfold them automatically. They are red wings, and enormous ones at that.
I look around, and I'm in an enormous cavern, with an open-air entrance at one end. The walls are mostly covered with ornate tapestries - except for a large patch featuring a mirror instead. I tentatively lumber over to the mirror with my eyes closed. I slowly open them.
My newly expanded jaw with sharp pointy teeth almost drops the floor. I'm a dragon! A big one! I'm like Puff the Magic Dragon, but Super Puffy!
I sense something from the open-air entrance. I lumber over and look out... and I see where I am, on some kind of cliff face, Goddess, it has to be a drop of more than a mile down, I can't even see the bottom, just clouds... I look up and around and I see more caverns in the cliff face, and there are flying creatures all around, thousands of them, perhaps hundreds of thousands. They're of all different kinds, big ones and small ones, things that look like birds, gas balloons, flying foxes, things that don't even have wings but seem to be flying on some type of energy... and even a few more dragons... They don't just fly, they make huge amounts of noise, too, I'm hit with a solid wall of sound. It's not just sound, it's telepathy, too, it's deafening and blinding at the same time... I pick out a few bits... what, it can't be, Goddess they're all about me...
A huge noise and thought wave deafens everything else out. [SHE HAS RETURNED, BUT IS EXHAUSTED. HEAR MY WILL, LEAVE HER IN PEACE FOR NOW.] And with that, the clouds of flying creatures break off and fly away. I sink my head down to the sill of the chamber, when I'm hit by an urge to jump out and join them... I mean, hey, I've got wings and stuff, that must mean I can fly.
That urge is silenced by another deafening thought. [NOT YET, SWEETIE. YOU WON'T REMEMBER HOW YET.] The thought's right, of course. Sigh. I slink away from the opening.
Let's see if I can remember how to fly.
Bad move - all of those memories suddenly come flooding in. Waves of dark images of chaos and destruction flood through my mind. But a few really stand out...
* * *
I'm a little child - I look like a humanoid - oh, it doesn't matter, I'm a little girl. A girl with wings, though. See, I knew I could fly. I lived an ordinary life in an ordinary village until everything got ripped apart. Our village was hit by some sort of raid by a - what was that, right, a witch goddess, with wild hair and piercing eyes. She was helped by an army of things that had the head of a vulture and the body of a human, but the arms had blades on the end of them rather than hands. The adults tried to fight them, but there were too many. They all died, all of them - my house was the last one left.
And then she was there. The witch goddess. She waved her hands, and my parents flew into the back wall of the house.
I was hiding under the table, but something came over me. I ran out towards the witch goddess. "No!" I screamed, "I won't let you hurt Mommy and Daddy!"
The witch looked at me and gave me a horrid grin. It was the first time I saw it - I'd see it again and again for a thousand years. "What a brave little girl! You'll do just fine. I'll fix you up but good, dearie, you'll see. Protect her and kill the rest." And then everything went black.
* * *
I'm far from being a child. I belong to her, the witch goddess. I'm her greatest servant, the second most powerful being in her empire. I have no thoughts but death and destruction on her command. I am her goddess of oblivion.
She tells me we need a third to make her rule complete and everlasting. And so we find herself in another village, in another house, with another brave little girl.
"No," she screams. "I won't let you hurt my sisters!"
The witch goddess looks over at me. Same twisted grin. "Remind me of anyone you know, dearie?"
"Yes, Your Highness. She does."
"What's your name, little dear," the goddess asks.
"Prospexa," says the little girl. "And don't you forget it, because I'm going to kick your butt! Daddy says I'm the fiercest fighter!" She leaps into a fighting pose.
It was the cutest thing imaginable. If I'd had a sense of humor, I would have burst out laughing. But in that century I didn't. I move to kill the threat to my Queen.
"Dearie, hold back! No, no, she's just what I've been looking for. I'll fix her up but good. She's going to be your new sister. Protect her and kill the rest."
The little girl screams. I ignore it and go about following the orders of my mistress.
* * *
I'm hit by another memory, this one from my just-done life. It's from almost two years ago. Buffy has just given a totally defeated Quentin Travers a drink.
"Glory isn't a demon," he says. "She's a god."
* * *
I don't know how it happened. I do know it took a long time.
I do remember the first time I had a glimmer of thought beyond the craving for destruction and the desire to serve my mistress.
It was another village, in another house, with another brave little girl. I followed my ruler's orders and left her entrails smeared on the ceiling. And I realized that I hadn't wanted to do it. She'd been too much like me, and my "sister."
* * *
"Glory's from a particularly nasty hell dimension," said Quentin. "They called her the Beast, and still do."
* * *
It took a long time for Prospexa, too. But one day she did the unthinkable. There was a brave little girl - oops, sorry, it was a brave little boy in her case - whose entrails she didn't smear on the wall. She let the boy go.
Our ruler was livid, and demanded I punish Prospexa.
I couldn't. At the time, I didn't know why, but I couldn't bear the thought of hurting her. And so, at the complete risk of my life, I cast a cloaking spell around the two of us, and set about my "mission." I pounded and scratched at the wall of the Queen's torture chamber, and made Prospexa scream at appropriate moments. When it was over, I threw gallons of blood on the floor, so the witch goddess would believe I had tortured Prospexa, beating and cutting her until she almost died. Just as the Queen had ordered.
I had no idea why I was so compelled to spare her.
* * *
"Glory ruled over a particularly nasty hell dimension with two other goddesses. She was the most powerful, though, and directly commanded the other two for over a thousand years."
* * *
A few decades later, Prospexa and I risked our lives again. But this time it was for a totally different reason.
As we lay together for our first time, I knew why I had spared her so many years ago - it was an emotion called love.
* * *
"But something happened in that hell dimension. The other two goddesses rebelled against Glory, eventually defeating her and trapping her spirit in the body of a human baby."
* * *
And it so it was we eventually rebelled against our mistress. After a decade of war, we learned how to defeat Queen Glorificus once and for all. But victory came at a high price - I had to sacrifice myself to destroy the witch goddess.
I remember Prospexa begging me not do it, letting her be the one instead. But the truth was, I was the more powerful one. I was the heavy destroyer, the one our former mistress called on to lay indiscriminate waste. Prospexa was the finesse killer, used when Glory wanted witnesses. So I had to be the one to die.
Right before I burned, I somehow knew I wouldn't be going to the Great Beyond. I told her I'd come back, and that we'd be together again. Tears streaked in her eyes, Prospexa promised she'd find me, no matter what it took. And then everything went red, then blinding white, then black, and that life ended.
* * *
"Oh, Goddess!" I yelped, when Quentin was done. "At least we don't have to meet those other two hell goddesses. I can't imagine what they'd be like!"
* * *
I let out a laugh.
* * *
"Do we even know what the names of the other two goddesses are?" asked Giles.
"No," said Quentin. "Not that it matters. I can't imagine that we'd even want to know anything about them."
* * *
Of course, I knew what the names of the other two goddesses were. One was Prospexa. The other's real name was a sequence of musical tones, for that was how her original tribe named themselves. But that was too hard for most of the residents of this dimension, including the Beast. So she had been renamed after the striking patterns on her wings, which looked just like weeping willow trees.
Willow! Me!
I'm... I'm a magical weapons system that went all rogue!
I laugh again. And then tears run down my cheeks (big dragon ones, of course), as I think about everyone I killed over the centuries, and everyone who sacrificed so much to eventually triumph over Glorificus.
And then I put those memories away, and think about someone else. Someone else who kept her promise to find me, and save me.
Prospexa! Where is she?
And suddenly, I hear her voice in my mind.
[Yes, sweetie, I'm here. But you need to change from your warrior form into your normal form first. You should remember how.]
I do, and soon I'm no longer a big dragon with city-obliterating capabilities, but a fairly ordinary looking woman, instead. I look in the mirror again, and I'm amazed how much I look like Willow Rosenberg. Okay, I have crests around my neck and ears, I have retractable claws in my fingers, and I have red wings, but other than that... wow. Of course, this is what I looked like before. Somehow my soul must have directed my appearance in my new human life.
And then she's there with me, in front of the mirror.
[Prospexa... you saved me. You came for me! You did!]
[Yes, baby. I told you I would - that my love for you would find you, no matter how many dimensions I had to search through. I kept my promise.]
And then there's nothing but kisses and tears and love.
* * *
To be continued...
Willow Rosenberg:
Agonizing pain shoots through my body. I'm dying for a second time. That's not such a bad thing, right now, you know? At least then it will be over.
No, Willow. Don't think about the pain. Think, brave, noble, self-esteemy thoughts. If nothing else, do it for them. "I'm brave, noble, and gosh darn it, people like me!" Besides, I'm thinking of silly SNL quotes rather than destroying the world, so that's got to mean something.
Think about the pretty portal above me. It's very nice, a soft blue with clouds and lightning. There's something forming in it. It's a white beam - and it's hitting me right in the chest. It's finishing what the red potion started. I'm slipping away, leaving the remains of this body. I can feel it.
Kennedy kisses my forehead. I don't want to go.
[Please Willow, don't fight it any more. It's time for you to go,] she thinks.
[Will you be there with me? Can I see my friends, too?] I ask.
[Yes and yes. I promise.] I hope she's right.
I give in, relax, and let it happen. And for instant all I feel is peace. Then I see a plume of energy rise out of my body - then an explosion of white and purple and blue lights and crackling lightening - and I don't see or hear or anything anymore.
* * *
The first thing that hits me as I regain consciousness is that the pain in my head that's tortured me for months is gone. So is the never-ending urge to lose control again and become an instrument of destruction. I can feel a slight humming through my body, but that's about it.
I also check to see if the visions of destruction that flooded through my mind are still there. They are - but now they seem to be in focus, like real memories that will allow me to figure out who I am. But I'm not ready for that just yet.
Kennedy was right. This body has its good points. So I open my eyes and try to inspect my new body. Then the second thing hits me.
I'm huge!
Literally. I'm propped up on four limbs, as if that's the most natural thing in the world. I try to move my head around - and it's easy to do, because I now have a long neck. I have bright green scales - and what look like red wings. I unfold them automatically. They are red wings, and enormous ones at that.
I look around, and I'm in an enormous cavern, with an open-air entrance at one end. The walls are mostly covered with ornate tapestries - except for a large patch featuring a mirror instead. I tentatively lumber over to the mirror with my eyes closed. I slowly open them.
My newly expanded jaw with sharp pointy teeth almost drops the floor. I'm a dragon! A big one! I'm like Puff the Magic Dragon, but Super Puffy!
I sense something from the open-air entrance. I lumber over and look out... and I see where I am, on some kind of cliff face, Goddess, it has to be a drop of more than a mile down, I can't even see the bottom, just clouds... I look up and around and I see more caverns in the cliff face, and there are flying creatures all around, thousands of them, perhaps hundreds of thousands. They're of all different kinds, big ones and small ones, things that look like birds, gas balloons, flying foxes, things that don't even have wings but seem to be flying on some type of energy... and even a few more dragons... They don't just fly, they make huge amounts of noise, too, I'm hit with a solid wall of sound. It's not just sound, it's telepathy, too, it's deafening and blinding at the same time... I pick out a few bits... what, it can't be, Goddess they're all about me...
A huge noise and thought wave deafens everything else out. [SHE HAS RETURNED, BUT IS EXHAUSTED. HEAR MY WILL, LEAVE HER IN PEACE FOR NOW.] And with that, the clouds of flying creatures break off and fly away. I sink my head down to the sill of the chamber, when I'm hit by an urge to jump out and join them... I mean, hey, I've got wings and stuff, that must mean I can fly.
That urge is silenced by another deafening thought. [NOT YET, SWEETIE. YOU WON'T REMEMBER HOW YET.] The thought's right, of course. Sigh. I slink away from the opening.
Let's see if I can remember how to fly.
Bad move - all of those memories suddenly come flooding in. Waves of dark images of chaos and destruction flood through my mind. But a few really stand out...
* * *
I'm a little child - I look like a humanoid - oh, it doesn't matter, I'm a little girl. A girl with wings, though. See, I knew I could fly. I lived an ordinary life in an ordinary village until everything got ripped apart. Our village was hit by some sort of raid by a - what was that, right, a witch goddess, with wild hair and piercing eyes. She was helped by an army of things that had the head of a vulture and the body of a human, but the arms had blades on the end of them rather than hands. The adults tried to fight them, but there were too many. They all died, all of them - my house was the last one left.
And then she was there. The witch goddess. She waved her hands, and my parents flew into the back wall of the house.
I was hiding under the table, but something came over me. I ran out towards the witch goddess. "No!" I screamed, "I won't let you hurt Mommy and Daddy!"
The witch looked at me and gave me a horrid grin. It was the first time I saw it - I'd see it again and again for a thousand years. "What a brave little girl! You'll do just fine. I'll fix you up but good, dearie, you'll see. Protect her and kill the rest." And then everything went black.
* * *
I'm far from being a child. I belong to her, the witch goddess. I'm her greatest servant, the second most powerful being in her empire. I have no thoughts but death and destruction on her command. I am her goddess of oblivion.
She tells me we need a third to make her rule complete and everlasting. And so we find herself in another village, in another house, with another brave little girl.
"No," she screams. "I won't let you hurt my sisters!"
The witch goddess looks over at me. Same twisted grin. "Remind me of anyone you know, dearie?"
"Yes, Your Highness. She does."
"What's your name, little dear," the goddess asks.
"Prospexa," says the little girl. "And don't you forget it, because I'm going to kick your butt! Daddy says I'm the fiercest fighter!" She leaps into a fighting pose.
It was the cutest thing imaginable. If I'd had a sense of humor, I would have burst out laughing. But in that century I didn't. I move to kill the threat to my Queen.
"Dearie, hold back! No, no, she's just what I've been looking for. I'll fix her up but good. She's going to be your new sister. Protect her and kill the rest."
The little girl screams. I ignore it and go about following the orders of my mistress.
* * *
I'm hit by another memory, this one from my just-done life. It's from almost two years ago. Buffy has just given a totally defeated Quentin Travers a drink.
"Glory isn't a demon," he says. "She's a god."
* * *
I don't know how it happened. I do know it took a long time.
I do remember the first time I had a glimmer of thought beyond the craving for destruction and the desire to serve my mistress.
It was another village, in another house, with another brave little girl. I followed my ruler's orders and left her entrails smeared on the ceiling. And I realized that I hadn't wanted to do it. She'd been too much like me, and my "sister."
* * *
"Glory's from a particularly nasty hell dimension," said Quentin. "They called her the Beast, and still do."
* * *
It took a long time for Prospexa, too. But one day she did the unthinkable. There was a brave little girl - oops, sorry, it was a brave little boy in her case - whose entrails she didn't smear on the wall. She let the boy go.
Our ruler was livid, and demanded I punish Prospexa.
I couldn't. At the time, I didn't know why, but I couldn't bear the thought of hurting her. And so, at the complete risk of my life, I cast a cloaking spell around the two of us, and set about my "mission." I pounded and scratched at the wall of the Queen's torture chamber, and made Prospexa scream at appropriate moments. When it was over, I threw gallons of blood on the floor, so the witch goddess would believe I had tortured Prospexa, beating and cutting her until she almost died. Just as the Queen had ordered.
I had no idea why I was so compelled to spare her.
* * *
"Glory ruled over a particularly nasty hell dimension with two other goddesses. She was the most powerful, though, and directly commanded the other two for over a thousand years."
* * *
A few decades later, Prospexa and I risked our lives again. But this time it was for a totally different reason.
As we lay together for our first time, I knew why I had spared her so many years ago - it was an emotion called love.
* * *
"But something happened in that hell dimension. The other two goddesses rebelled against Glory, eventually defeating her and trapping her spirit in the body of a human baby."
* * *
And it so it was we eventually rebelled against our mistress. After a decade of war, we learned how to defeat Queen Glorificus once and for all. But victory came at a high price - I had to sacrifice myself to destroy the witch goddess.
I remember Prospexa begging me not do it, letting her be the one instead. But the truth was, I was the more powerful one. I was the heavy destroyer, the one our former mistress called on to lay indiscriminate waste. Prospexa was the finesse killer, used when Glory wanted witnesses. So I had to be the one to die.
Right before I burned, I somehow knew I wouldn't be going to the Great Beyond. I told her I'd come back, and that we'd be together again. Tears streaked in her eyes, Prospexa promised she'd find me, no matter what it took. And then everything went red, then blinding white, then black, and that life ended.
* * *
"Oh, Goddess!" I yelped, when Quentin was done. "At least we don't have to meet those other two hell goddesses. I can't imagine what they'd be like!"
* * *
I let out a laugh.
* * *
"Do we even know what the names of the other two goddesses are?" asked Giles.
"No," said Quentin. "Not that it matters. I can't imagine that we'd even want to know anything about them."
* * *
Of course, I knew what the names of the other two goddesses were. One was Prospexa. The other's real name was a sequence of musical tones, for that was how her original tribe named themselves. But that was too hard for most of the residents of this dimension, including the Beast. So she had been renamed after the striking patterns on her wings, which looked just like weeping willow trees.
Willow! Me!
I'm... I'm a magical weapons system that went all rogue!
I laugh again. And then tears run down my cheeks (big dragon ones, of course), as I think about everyone I killed over the centuries, and everyone who sacrificed so much to eventually triumph over Glorificus.
And then I put those memories away, and think about someone else. Someone else who kept her promise to find me, and save me.
Prospexa! Where is she?
And suddenly, I hear her voice in my mind.
[Yes, sweetie, I'm here. But you need to change from your warrior form into your normal form first. You should remember how.]
I do, and soon I'm no longer a big dragon with city-obliterating capabilities, but a fairly ordinary looking woman, instead. I look in the mirror again, and I'm amazed how much I look like Willow Rosenberg. Okay, I have crests around my neck and ears, I have retractable claws in my fingers, and I have red wings, but other than that... wow. Of course, this is what I looked like before. Somehow my soul must have directed my appearance in my new human life.
And then she's there with me, in front of the mirror.
[Prospexa... you saved me. You came for me! You did!]
[Yes, baby. I told you I would - that my love for you would find you, no matter how many dimensions I had to search through. I kept my promise.]
And then there's nothing but kisses and tears and love.
* * *
To be continued...
