Title: Woe
Author: Sarah K. Roberts (S.K.Roberts/WesNut)
Main Character(s): Illyria, (Wesley)
Date Completed: May 20, 2004
Category: Missing Scene, Angst
Summary: Illyria grieves.
Warning: Aftermath of character death
Setting: Just after Illyria kills Vail in the finale episode of Angel (Season 5)
Spoilers: Through "Not Fade Away"
Author's Note: This is for my own closure if nothing else.
Disclaimer: This story is not meant to infringe on rights of Mutant Enemy. This is not for profit and purely for enjoyment. All characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel were borrowed and then returned, unharmed and unchanged at the end, with their dignity intact. Any similarity between this story and an already existing fan fiction, is purely coincidental.
Woe
The red wizard is dead. I crushed his skull with merely a fist and watched as his bones, flesh, and innards became power and mess between my fingers. He called me a little girl. Underestimation has killed him.
My thoughts are confused by emotions. They are disturbing to me. I feared for my own demise when Hamilton left me to die. I did not like that feeling. My concern for Wesley's wellbeing brought me to this place. Concern over a human surprised me, but it was so. Now there is grief over arriving too late to doing anything for Wesley and watching him die. I like this emotion least of all.
Killing the red one should have brought me pleasure, but my grief overshadows it.
I turn from the demon's remains to look back at where Wesley's body lies. Walking over to him, he still appears to gaze at me with his open eyes. But I know he is not. He is no longer there. Only his broken body remains, in a pool of his own blood.
It brings me pleasure to spill the blood of my enemies and watch as it leaks from them. Yet, it is different when the blood comes from someone for whom I care. The sight of the life force bled from this man sickens me.
Before he faded away, I admitted to him that I care. I am not sure in what way. As he was my mentor. As he was perhaps even my friend. In what way, I will never know now. But yes, I cared for him. That is why it pains me so much to see his lifeless body.
Yet his eyes still look at me. The eyes of this human reveal everything about who he is... who he was. They can never withhold anything from one who knows how to look in them. The joy he once had, the depression since the loss of Fred, and now the pain of his own death. I have seen it all. Now there is nothing but a void. And it is disconcerting.
I lean down to him and gently close those eyes. Just before they shut finally, I spy a tiny glimmer of something. Something almost like happiness. Perhaps my lie gave him that. I hope he took it with him to wherever his journey takes him now. I stand up now and walk toward the doorway slowly, gazing at him one last time.
What do I do now, without him to guide me? Where do I go? H-how do I make my overwhelming pain stop...?
Angel and his fight.
Wesley told me that there was no perfect day for him, and that may be true. But I can make this day perfect in his name. I can make it perfect by killing every being of evil that has brought him to this end. I will rejoin Angel and continue his fight. I will do violence and kill until nothing remains.
Yet I think it will not save me from my grief.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
