PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
"I turned and fixedly looked on him: blond
He was, and beautiful, of noble mien;
But one eye-brow was cleft by a great wound.
I disclaimed humbly ever to have seen
His person; then "Look on my breast," he said,
And showed me, above, a scar upon the skin." – Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy "Purgatorio"
"Idle reader, you can believe without any oath of mine that I would wish this book, as the child of my brain, to be the most beautiful, the liveliest and the cleverest imaginable. But I have been unable to transgress the order of nature, by which like gives birth to like. And so, what could my sterile and ill-cultivated genius beget but the story of a lean, shriveled, whimsical child…?" – Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
You can guess from the first quote that this story is about Spike. It is a tale of redemption, loss, frustration, woe, love, obsession, selfishness and colossal effort in the face of adversity. You can tell from the second that it's not going to be a work of great fiction. This story was written as a response to a challenge. You can read more about that in chapter one.
At this point I'd like to thank Dlgood, Gia, Adia, Dan Spector and a host of others whose names I've probably forgotten (do excuse me) who have lent me their support and censure in the past two years. I would like to tend a special thanks to Dr. Doom who will probably appreciate the influence he has had on me when he peruses this humble novella of mine.
And, finally, I would like to thank Joss Whedon and James Marsters, the former without whom this story could not have been possible and the latter without whom it would not have been necessary.
"It's the song of a merryman, moping mum,
Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum,
Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb
As he sighed for the love of a ladye." – William Schwenk Gilbert, The Yeoman of the Guard, or The Merryman and His Maid
Queen Boadicea