Title: The Monster's Alphabet
Author: alliterator
Summary: A series of vignettes, from Adam to Zookeeper. Spoilers for all seven seasons.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything belongs to the great and power Whedon.
The Old Ones
Takes place a long, long time ago. Spoilers for A Hole in the World.
"For untold eons demons walked the Earth. They made it their home, their... their Hell. But in time they lost their purchase on this reality. The way was made for mortal animals, for, for man. All that remains of the old ones are vestiges, certain magicks, certain creatures..."
- Giles in The Harvest.
Once upon a time, the earth was a paradise. Except it wasn't a paradise for humans – no, they were here, but not advanced enough, no agriculture, no cities or towns.
No, this was a paradise for demons. And it was ruled by the Originals, the capital-D Demons. They were called many names – most unpronounceable and long, describing various scales and slithery tongues, but one name described them all: the Old Ones.
There were many Old Ones back then. They ruled their respected lands with iron fists and claws and tentacles.
There was one that was particularly vile. Its temple was enormous; statues of it in its various forms littered the halls. Tentacles rose up from the floor, forming a Lovecraftian nightmare. In the center of the tentacles is it.
It has no gender, but sometimes it likes to try different ones out. Its shape shifting power allows that. Today it is a she.
She is a vision of death. Corpses surround her throne. She infects them with her tentacles, going through their orifices and changing them from the inside out. She makes them submissive to her.
She looks at one of the bodies. It is human – usually, she doesn't bother with humans. They are not good as slaves; their backs break easily. But t his one… he dared to invade her sacred temple and try to assassinate her. He dared to try and touch her holy body.
He would pay, but not by death. She would change him. He had screamed at her in an incomprehensible language and now she reached into his mind to speak to him in it. Moving past the primitive barriers, she found the reason why he had attacked: his family had been murdered for food by one of the other Old Ones and he was out for revenge. She smiled with what might be called a mouth and spoke perfectly in his language.
"You seek vengeance? You are nothing. You are a dust mote, a microscopic particle on our flesh. You are not even a disease. But now, you will be."
Her tentacles invade his body and she uses ancient magic – as old as she is, perhaps older – to transmute his flesh, to make a man into something… else.
Within minutes, he is no more. He is instead scattered across the floor as minute molecules.
The next day, she is not feeling well. Her temperature fluctuates and she cannot control it. The day after it is worse.
A month later, Illyria dies. Her followers entomb her and bring her to the Deeper Well to be buried.
A year later, she is nothing but dust.
100,000 years later, she, too, is a disease.