Author's Notes: I apologize that I went so long without updating. I'm on vacation! Please note the new rating on this story. It may be rated too high, but I'm a little concerned out the 'darkness level' and figured it was better to be safe than sorry. Warning—this chapter is depressing.

The italicized portions need a bit of explanation. As in earlier chapters, they are quotes from various characters (usually Illyria or Wes) from memories. That applies here, but you'll notice that some are in double quotes, which means they are spoken out loud.

A note about archiving… I'm absolutely flattered if you want to put up my story. I only ask that you leave my footnotes in if you're not doing a direct link. Thanks. I'd also appreciate having my e-mail listed for feedback purposes: gweni1015juno.com

Chapter 7: The Decision

Two times the greatest of the Old Ones had agreed to sacrifice, but Adele looked at her now and knew there would not be a third.

Illyria was outraged, and her fury was never silent.

"You ask me to give up my life— "she fumed, "-- to allow you to slaughter me like chattel-- all for one human life!"

"For two human lives," Adele corrected quietly.

The former goddess turned her head away in instinctual disgust, muttering darkly. "Pathetic, groveling creatures…" An ugly sneer was on her face… until two words came in Adele's strong voice.

"For Wesley."

Illyria turned sharply to find the Valkyrie's gaze locked, unafraid and unblinking, upon her. She lifted her chin and tried not to show that the words had pierced her, even as more words came forth, the maiden walking towards her.

"It's the idea of this that you hate, Illyria, not the dying itself. Twice you offered to sacrifice yourself for this man, and were those sacrifices any greater?"

They were not. Illyria could not deny that, not truthfully. But her life—her very life! It couldn't be borne. Her head went to one side, but there was none of the usual childlike seeking in the gesture—only malice. Her cold blood showed itself in full.

"Why do you want this, Valkyrie?" she taunted, head tilting still farther. "To make up for your failures? You lost Fred because you were weak, and now you wish to use me to undo your weakness!"

"I want you to do what is right!" Adele's voice rose for the first time, but Illyria could hear the slight undertone of defeat as the words echoed. "It isn't right that this man should have to settle for a paradise without his love! It isn't right that Fred should be locked away inside herself!" She was trembling with feeling at her words, knowing she was losing the reins of her careful control but unable to stop herself. All the while she had been telling herself that she must not do this, must not hope, must not try to fight Illyria. There was a reason she had lived longer than all her sisters.

The demoness had harsh words of her own to spit back in her face. "Right, wrong, good, evil! You're no better than these humans, caught up in these meaningless rules, titles."

The mockery had no affect; if anything it cooled Adele's coursing blood. "And you're not?" The question was still; it hung quietly suspended in the air.

Illyria cut it off. "I care nothing for these things," she declared, so vehement and cold that Adele sighed tiredly.

"No, I suppose not."

"But you are noble," Illyria continued, willing to kick her opponent while she was down. The death-maiden's head lifted, eyes boring, and the goddess knew she'd understood the hidden meaning behind her words. Her name. Adele—'she who is noble.' The Valkyrie had not given her name and had not supposed that she would remember it after so long. There were many of the maidens then, and Adele hardly notable among them. "Yet you wish my life for theirs. Who deals death now, Adele?"

Adele's eyes came up again at that, and there was yet a bit of hardness to them. "I do not like it any more than you do," she defended firmly.

"So why do you not choose me? That would suit your purposes." The words were meant as a death blow, and she sent tem driving into the Valkyrie's face.

They had no effect. "And that is exactly why I cannot choose you," Adele replied, turned her own somber voice on Illyria. "I don't want your death, but death is sometimes the only thing that can bring life. If you die, you will be just as you were before. You'd be asleep in the Well with the rest of your kind. You died millions of years ago, Illyria—you died. Your murder may not have been right, or just— but at some time you would have perished, and perished rightly."

"But Winifred… Winifred should not have died when she did. She was meant to live, and love Wesley, and fight against evil. She was meant to live for a long, long time—but that was taken from her. It was a horrible death," she ended hoarsely, pictures of other awful killings flooding her mind. How she wished she did not carry them. It had not been her intention to hurt Illyria with the memory; it's surfacing had been unwelcome.

"I told you I am … regretful of that. Do not remind me of it." Illyria's voice was as flatly arrogant as ever, but in spite of it she did look regretful. The haughty tip of her chin was gone, making her long hair hang straight down almost over her face. She looked very much the penitent.

Then there it came, the last glimmer of hope that Adele had so tried to banish. "Then repair it, Illyria. Undo what has been done. I know you did not choose to destroy Fred… or Wesley….but you are still the only one who can bring them back."

"No. You ask too much of me, Valkyrie."

With that, Adele sighed but nodded. Perhaps she had. She hadn't known many humans—comparatively many, in the millions of years she had observed them-- who would give up their lives in this fashion, and Illyria was not human. Oh, she'd known several who talked well and made pretty offers, but they were most often retracted when the crises came. "I was foolish to try," she said quietly, and then turned up her head. "Auroros!" she called loudly, and a silver pool of air shivered.

Illyria fixed her eyes upon the portal, wondering if the Valkyrie had called upon some monster or enchantment to force the life from her. Instead, out from the gateway leapt a fire-white warhorse, a dimension-jumper whose power showed immediately in bunched muscle and liquid-brilliant eyes. The stallion reared and let out a trumpeting whinny that seemed to split the air, even as a blast of silver flame from his mouth singed it. On landing, the tile floor shattered under diamond hooves, and its silk-white tail whipped out like a lash. Proud and fiery in the way of all great warhorses, he shook his silver mail armor in a motion that clearly showed mettlesome impatience. Unlike his somber Valkyrie mistress, Auroros had not felt the years; it could have been only yesterday that he was flying and charging with the rest of the spirited Valkyrie ponies. They had flown so swiftly that men had thought them the flickering of the dawn.[1]

"Gently, little one," Adele spoke, her manner softening, changing. It was a bizarre endearment, for the horse stood far higher than she did, and looked anything but gentle. Nevertheless, Auroros clearly loved her, and in a moment was resting his great head on her shoulder in the manner of a lamb. She nearly dropped under its weight, but reached an arm around his unbridled muzzle in a soothing gesture.

"Hush, Auri. We have sad cargo today."

When did they have cargo of any other kind? What day of theirs was not filled with death? Truly, she wished she could be as the stallion was, unaffected by the task they had been chosen to do. She was weary of death, and this one hung more heavily on her than was usual.

And so it was with great weariness that she turned to face Illyria one final time. The fallen goddess was watching her every movement, body tensed like a wound spring.

"Say goodbye to Wesley if you wish to, then," Adele told her. "He cannot abide here any longer. I've held it off too long already."

Illyria stared hard. The horse had come to bear Wesley's soul away. These were her final moments with him—what was left of him.

"You'll not touch him!"

Adele only sighed again. They'd come full circle… or had they? As Illyria took Wes' body into her arms in farewell, there was a change in her, one that was palpable. It was different this time. Desperation clung to the demoness as strongly as she herself clung to the lifeless form she held. Finality. Adele hated this-- the goodbyes-- and she had seen more than any being should ever have to witness. Death happened every day—some quiet and peaceful, others not, but the ones she attended on were heroic deaths, epic deaths, and those were very rarely peaceful. They were the sorts of deaths that men read about in the old sagas or make into verse and songs—too dramatic and terrible to be real. But they were, in the world she lived in. She had seen women tear out their hair, cut their own limbs to pieces. She'd seen others leap onto funeral pyres, trying to follow their lovers and burn their anguish away. She witnessed men who had plunged daggers into their own hearts or drank poison—or had wanted to. Many, many others sat stone-faced while their sorrow ate them from the inside. Sometimes their minds slipped, spewing out insanities.

And those were nothing to this farewell. This was worse, worse than anything she had set eyes on, and she moved behind Auroros not only to give the grieving demoness some privacy but also to shield herself from the too-painful scene. Illyria's tears weren't flowing in the way of a human. They were boiling out. Strange for a creature whose blood was reptile-cold… Her form kept flickering to that of Winifred, but she seemed unable to hold the simple modulation that cloaked her emotions. No, this was her mourning now, despite Winifred's influence. The reading of Illyria's essence had clearly shown that Wesley was the one thing the two shared in common, but held separately as well. If only it were enough… enough to hold Illyria without Fred's soul… It would be so simple then. Why could things never be simple, or good more easy to carry out?

Adele wondered at the magnitude of Illyria's grief as the goddess wept, her forehead pressed against Wesley's. Even with Fred's influence, this mourning was nearly inexplicable. Not only was he a human, but Illyria had not known him for very long-- certainly not in terms of her own lifetime. It was as a single grain of sand in a vast hourglass. Most of that time they had been at odds with one another, and he in downright contempt. They'd never shared a single moment of love, except in false face at the end.

But Wesley was the first creature she'd ever loved, and she from a race that did not love at all. It was monumental. It was like unto the tragedy of first love, like the dramas that humans write and play at-- everything amplified. She carried her own grief as well as Winifred's, and Fred's would have been overwhelming enough on its own. Illyria was still an Old One, with strong feelings to match her once uncomprehendable strength. It was only natural that she would feel things at a colossal scale. She'd once felt pride that held worlds in her sway. She'd had a conquering spirit that crushed armies at a single blow. Her recent anguish had destroyed that very night the most fearsome and vast of armies.

Illyria's mind also rested on the armies, nearly wishing another to come and challenge her. It would give her something to hurt, somewhere to send this ravaging grief that feasted on her. Before, she had channeled it onto the enemy minions, converted it to violence. Now there was nothing to channel it onto but her. She felt that she could tear her own self to pieces; there were no enemies to rip limb from limb. This hurt too much. It hurt. She felt it too deeply. Her memories flashed farther backward, to a time during her reign. A group of enemy demons had plotted to take her throne, and as a punishment she had thrown her scepter among them. They'd turned on one another as she'd known they would, hacking one another to bits as they clutched futilely for their prize. She'd had to do nothing, save to observe… and perhaps she had smiled. That bloody reckoning mirrored her pain now. She was breaking into pieces, melting …

She thought, briefly, of the body of Vail, of further venting her anger upon it, but then remembered that there was little left. Even if she reduced him to grime beneath her boots, what would follow? Would she kill the Valkyrie, the random people who walked the city, her comrades? It would not heal her, and she knew that the soul within her would never allow it. So she turned her mind backward, replaying old killings in hopes of slaking her misery. There was she and Fred, destroying Vail together. Then Fred, alone, hitting the woman Justine savagely when she'd found out her attempt to murder Wesley.

Illyria was startled from her pain for a flash of a moment. She had not meant to cross into Winifred's memories. Were they so blended now?

It wasn't the time to think on that. It was time now to let Wesley go. He was stiff by that time in her arms, his grey sweater stiff too with blood but soaked soft in places with her tears. It was the same grey sweater he had worn at Fred's death. Illyria knew he had worn it tonight for a purpose. He'd known he was going to follow, even if he could not go where she was.

"Did Wesley feel this?" she asked in strangled voice.

"Yes," answered Adele without malice, and no sooner had she confirmed the awful truth than Illyria found herself suddenly at the mercy of a vision, one that clutched at her face and would not let her look away. It was another memory, but more vivid, and so close to reality that she felt swallowed into it. It was all around her, playing itself out, and so full of anguish that she tried to tear it away from before her eyes. She could not. It was her own mind that held her, and she couldn't escape it.

It was Fred's death that she saw. Such a meaningless little memory when she had first come back to the world. She'd used it to control Wesley, but no more. Probably it was fitting that it now controlled her. She saw it not as a moving picture. She was not a spectator. It was Fred's memory that she saw, and so she saw it as Fred. Saw Wesley's face, creased with unable pain, as he pleaded with her to fight and live. Felt his hands clutching with the same desperation that she now showed for him, felt his whole body shudder with choked-in sobs as he tried to be brave for her. Heard his voice so full of love, starting with set determination and ending with a whisper of despair.

To hear his voice once again…

'I've loved you, since I've known you.'

'I'll never leave you.'

The words were a bittersweet balm to Illyria, a dying comfort to Fred. Comfort… that was what Illyria craved, and she jerked herself away at last from that memory only to plunder others. Fred had known much love. Wesley, her soul mate, had loved her so much it killed him. She would not think on that. Charles had loved her also. Her parents had been adoring. Those recollections were much simpler. Illyria bathed in the happy moments as she found them. Christmas mornings. Birthdays. Flirtatious early-morning phone calls with Charles. Those first few sweet, awkward dates.

But these were stolen memories, not hers. They were poisoned through with her own knowledge that it was all going to end horribly, and so no joy came from them.

She must think of things that were hers, back to her own fierce and primordial world. Her reign… but that hurt still worse. It was gone.

She had nothing—nothing—not even memories to live on. No powers, no followers, no worship, no temples, no kingdom.

'... turned to ash and stale wind.'

No place in this world.

'Your place is with the rest of your people, dead and turned to ash.'

Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. Was that not what humans said over the graves of their dead? They turned to dust. Vampires turned to dust. She was higher than both, but she still turned to ash and her kingdom with her. It seemed that she was not so much more than they were, after all.

Her guide was gone. Her way. Her light.

'You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy...'

Illyria winced at the unbidden memory, biting her lip until it bled. That was where the song ended.

Her love was dead, any chance of it dashed. Love seemed to be the only comfort in this foul world, as Wesley had believed. And hope. Purpose. She had none.

'Now you know how I feel.'

She looked to Wesley. Indeed.

Her eyes turned across the floor to Winifred, or the shell of her. Her shell, Wesley's shell. Empty inside, as she now was. She could see earlier images dancing before her eyes, of the two of them, still full—of life, of happiness, glowing with the discovery of their new love. But she'd turned them to shells, and now she was a shell herself. It was just.

And now there was a way she could fill the two of them back up...

It was the right thing…

No… no—she would make a place for herself; she'd carve it out. She had clawed her way back once and could do it again, even if she did have to start with nothing. As an Old One she had started with everything, for the moment she appeared the creatures below her had known she was meant to be worshipped and feared. Conquest had been a simple matter; she'd been born with a hunger for it.

'When the world met me, it shuddered. It groaned. It knelt at my feet!'

She would have to fight harder, that was all. She could still fight, that she had proven. But for what would she fight? Would she battle further alongside Angel and his warriors? She disliked the vampiric leader intensely, despite their current alliance. It was one of the ways she knew Winifred's feelings for people were not, in her, all-encompassing. Spike and Charles she was fond enough of, that she would admit, but it was not enough.

She had no reason to fight. She'd fought only for Wesley, to avenge him—and also for Winifred. She'd begun the battle against the Black Thorn in revenge for the humiliation Hamilton had subjected her to. Despite what people thought of her, she hadn't killed merely for pleasure, though she thrilled at a good fight—it was one of the few things that made her feel alive anymore. She'd always left senseless killing to baser creatures like lesser demons and vampires. She killed to accomplish her own ends and that was all. Now that she could no longer conquer or avenge, what was the point? She could try to seek out more of Wesley's killers, or Angel's warriors and fight for good, for what little that was worth to her. Then, one day, she would be defeated by something stronger than herself, and there were far too many of those now. Her last moments would be some filth like Hamilton, reaching out with a death blow and sneering in her face. She longed to destroy the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart, but knew, honestly, that she was not strong enough. They would kill her and it would not be a good death.

Soldiers were supposed to know why and what they died for. She'd made sure of it when she sent her own into battle all those millions of years ago. A cause put fire in the blood and a fighting spirit in the body. She would die without any purpose at all. It was a horrible fate but the best she could hope for, for being a warrior was all she knew and all that she was. What was she to do—live what could have been Fred's life, with a home in Texas, a job, a husband, children? There was nothing for her in that happy, normal human life; she couldn't do it. Even Fred could not have, not after Pylea changed her forever.

Again a memory seized her. Spongy ground and green, dense trees. The sharp tang aroma of the forest burning in her nose. Hot, rapid breath at her heels and tearing her lungs. Lungs—human lungs. She was running-- Fred was running. Illyria never ran away, had never. This was the hell dimension Pylea. She was trying to run home, away from the monsters nipping at her heels…

Illyria's head swam, wondering why this image had come to her. She couldn't go to her own home, if it still existed. Even if it did and she could find a way, she'd be destroyed immediately by the remaining Old Ones—a fate so terrible that even the thought could not be endured.

She was trapped as Fred had been trapped, as she was trapped now. Trapped and so lost in this foreign, mortal world…

The words came out before could stop them. They came in Fred's voice, broken and scared.

"I was so lost... I was all by myself and you weren't there!"[2]

Illyria looked almost frightened, unsure if the words had actually left her mouth. Her troubled eyes turned to Wesley's still face, as if were still alive to guide her.

'But I don't say these words…'

And deep inside Illyria, something broke. Before, the breaking down of the bond between herself and her human shell had caused she herself to break, powers rupturing and leaking until Wesley had saved her by draining them away. Now, she was breaking as the bond between she and Fred grew stronger. There was nothing she could do but close her eyes and let the memories hit her.

They came in a torrent, rushing through the fissure in her cracked essence and gushing out from her lips. They assaulted all her senses.

"This face is not my face," she said weakly, repeating what she had revealed to Wesley in what seemed like ages ago. "I don't know what it will say."

"I got lost. I got lost and they did terrible things to me! If you see what they made of me... I didn't mean to get so lost."

Her voice was high, frightened, with wild fear intensifying a Texan accent. It was Fred's voice from years ago, when she was a little girl lost. Illyria fought for control and the next words at least were in her own voice.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I got so lost. I didn't mean to."

Perhaps they were in her own voice because the words themselves were also hers…

"Make it stop!" Illyria thundered, holding her head. That too was a phrase from memory… at Fred's death… Wide-eyed, she turned to the empty shell of Winifred that the Valkyrie had formed, and turned her anger and fear upon it. What if this was Fred attacking her, attacking her where she could not fight back-- from the inside, from her very thoughts? "I order you to stop this!"

Adele, ending a drowned-out song, answered as she tried to steady Auroros. The stallion, disturbed, pawed and snorted loudly. "Illyria… Fred isn't doing this. She feels as you do, now." Her reading had shown Fred's spirit desperately trying to hold onto control as her soul and Illyria's essence grew closer at incredible speed. She was afraid but steady, desperate not to be sucked in, like she had been those years ago in the library. She would not lose herself, lose the shade of herself that remained.

Either Illyria was doing this to herself, or it was simply happening—the inevitable result of two beings sharing a mind and body… and the same great love for the same man.

'There are two sets of memories-- it is hard to tell which is which.'

Illyria's own memories were no better than Winifred's, and even they seemed to turn against her. She could hear Drogyn's voice, commanding but deep and quiet.

'Old One... you have no right to walk this earth. Your time has passed, you belong to the Well.'

And her unforced answer.

'Truly.'

"Truly," Illyria echoed, almost sadly. She had known it all along, hadn't she, even before Wesley was taken from her.

'So why don't you go?'

Wesley's voice, so rightfully cruel. He had so much potential for darkness, and his coldness could match her own. He was all fire and ice, her Wesley. How she loved him.

'Please, Wesley... why can't I stay?'

With Fred's dying whisper, the memories themselves also died away, leaving Illyria oddly still. Adele watched warily; Auroros settled. All three could feel it. The change in the fallen goddess was affecting the very air around them, it was so palpable. There was a peace about her that she had not possessed since her arrival at Vail's chambers—since she had found her temple in ruins and her entire purpose and place in the world destroyed along with it.

She knew her purpose now. She could endure life a life with nothing. She could go on, in the way of Old Ones and human beings. As both, she had strength in abundance, more than she knew. But defeat she could not bear. She could not go on knowing that she could save this man that she was inexplicably bound to and did not. That would be the ultimate defeat. She would not lose he who was precious to her… even if saving him meant her very death. Even if she had to lay down her life, her pride, her remaining power, her pride, she had to do it. For Wesley….and now, for Winifred as well. They were meant to live their lives, as she millions of years ago had lived hers. Her time had passed, but theirs would begin again.

It would be a death but not a defeat.

Illyria rose to her feet with more pure, unaffected grandeur than Adele had ever seen in her, even when she held the worlds in her sway. Her voice, under no force but her own great conviction, matched it fully. It was Illyria and none other that spoke.

"I will do this."

Adele could hardly reply. "Illyria?" she questioned, not quite comprehending.

"If you must have my life for theirs, then you'll have it. Restore them."

And Illyria, the former god-king, knelt once more to say good-bye to the man she loved.

Only this time, she knew she was the one leaving.

[1] In Viking times, the Aurora Borealis—or Northern Lights—were thought to be the flickering of light off the Valkyrie riders' armor. Then name "Auroros" is a masculine version of Aurora—"the dawn."

[2] This quote and the ones immediately following are from Fred's post-Pylea breakdown in Season Three's "Fredless."