Faith didn't know what to say, why didn't she run? what had kept her still, she would never have held back before, maybe prison did change people or maybe it was something else.
The demons had quickly returned with an unconscious Elissa, not paying much care to how they handled her, she was cut and bruised (though that was expected). What Faith hadn't expected was the look on her face when she woke up, unable to speak, just a look. Faith could almost hear what Elissa wanted to say, it was as if she was speaking into Faith's head, telling her she should have left her in prison to rot. For the second time today, after years of abstaining, Faith felt sorry. Truly sorry but couldn't find a way to express that, it was so new, the word just didn't seem good enough.
The mayor entered the room. They were in an old house by the woods, very beautiful, ivy climbing the old brick walls, almost ironically living in a place where Elissa felt she could die. The room Elissa and Faith were being held in was again, very pretty. Old oak beams lined the white washed ceiling and the furniture was aged and luxurious. The mayor sat himself down on the throne-like chair at the end of the room and remained in silence, waiting for someone to speak. When no-one did, he took it upon himself to be the first.
"Not very chatty are you girls?" the smile he had held previously had disappeared to be replaced by a look of overwhelming disappointment.
"Please don't hate me." Faith muttered, almost afraid to breach the subject.
"hate you?" the mayor laughed good heartedly "I couldn't hate you Faith, I knew things would be different at first, but you'll be back to normal soon, you'll see."
"How's that gonna happen?" Faith wanted something concrete, she couldn't trust the mayor unconditionally anymore, though she wasn't sure why.
"I'm glad you asked." he got up and strode over to faith, pulling her up from where she was seated on the floor, she rose willingly. "you are going to be you again, you're like a daughter to me and what kind of father would I be if I couldn't help?"
"But how?" Faith felt like a child again, she was handing her life over to someone and she knew it, but it felt better, her head felt lighter and she wasn't worried anymore.
"Come with me, I'll show you." she followed, not knowing where they were going but anxious to get there, curiosity taking over, he seemed so sure.
The corridor's were adorned with rows of portraits, all large and old and slightly to much in the beautiful yet relatively modest accommodation. Neither the mayor nor Faith had said a word and neither felt it was necessary, they both somehow knew that if anything important needed mentioning, it would be, until then they were happy in comfortable silence. Faith's footsteps made a satisfying sound as the wooden floor came in contact with her boots and it had almost hypnotic powers. She thought back to the ritual she used to perform every night as a child, she would walk through every room in the house, stomping heavily to the rhythm of her heart beat, when asked why she did this she always replied that it was to frighten the monsters away, though in reality it was an attempt to get someone to acknowledge her existance. Monsters didn't scare her, they were only a physical threat, Faith could handle them, it was the emotional problems she couldn't, the feeling of loneliness when her mother was drinking, there was no-one else. Faith was drawn back to reality by the sound of a door opening., she had almost walked into it as she was in her own world, she had just been walking without an aim, the corridors were long but usefully straight.
"In here." the mayor said simply, not waiting for any acknowledgement that he had been heard before entering. Faith began to get worried for a moment, she didn't know what he was going to do, but she remembered who he was and forced herself to trust, breathing deeply before entering the door.
Inside she found nothing of the rest or the house's splendour. It was a plain, undecorated room, bare stone showing with nothing to cover it but threadbare tapestry at the far end. The only thing apart from this tapestry and herself in the room was a staircase, the mayor was nowhere to be seen. Faith assumed he had gone down the stairs but before she followed, something on the tapestry caught her eye. She idly wandered over to it, feeling the incomprehensible need to keep quiet in case it disappeared. It was obvious that a few hundred years ago, this over-glorified rug would have been magnificent. Brightly coloured, perfectly made, but years of wear had made the colours face and patches of it were missing. What had caught Faith's eye in the first place, she didn't know, but what caught it now was one tiny detail in the upper left hand corner, a girl, herself, unmistakably so. The stitching was very well done but the likeness was crude at best, still, there was no doubt in her mind who it was. Looking over the rest of the tapestry, another thing struck her, every figure on it was a girl, all in their mid to late teens and all dead. Faith herself was lying upon the ground, what would have been vibrant blood red, now a pale pink surrounding the pale body. She stared at in with a mixture of horror and wonder when she saw another recognisable face, Buffy. She was falling, though there was no indication of what from. She didn't know how long she stood there, but it had her transfixed, her mind seemed blank except for the pictures, a look of horror and surprise on each of the girl's eerily expressive faces.
"I thought that might delay you." a voice from behind Faith whispered in her ear. She turned round in shock to see the mayor smiling at her.
"I-I'm sorry, let's get going." Faith stuttered, almost embarrassed to be caught looking.
"Don't you want to know more about this?" the mayor gestured roughly in the direction of the tapestry, Faith simply nodded. "It is called the slayer tapestry, for reasons which I would imagine are obvious. It was made around five hundred years ago by a group of witches, they had amazing powers of foresight and were imprisoned here for their own safety and the safety of others. It is said that a slayer died on this spot, where this building was built for the witches to spend their lives in comfort. Apparently the spirit of the dead slayer came and interfered with the witches' predictions, causing them to make this tapestry, none of them knowing what a slayer was. It depicts every slayer's death, but none past you and Buffy. The witches died before it could be completed, but some say that is not the reason for it ending with you, it is, however, not for us to speculate on such things. Shall we leave?" Faith nodded numbly and followed the mayor down the steps without another word, contemplating the tapestry and how it depicted her death. She could tell she wouldn't get this out of her mind for a while.
