Disclaimer: Buffy and Spike and their world is the property of Joss Whedon and ME, I only borrow!
The fairies are my creation ….( though Oberon and Titania were of course created by the brilliant W. Shakespeare!)
Notes: Thanks for the kind Feedback!!
So far I have not seen a movie named " Troll" but thanks for mentioning it. I will try to get my hands on a copy of that movie.
As to how I came up with these characters and the plot ……as I said I was inspired by my holiday in Finland. I spent a wonderful summer with my friend in a small wooden house right on the edge of a giant lake in the middle of Finland. It was the most beautiful countryside we lived in. The country is so remote and quiet that I thought that ´s what fairy- land must look like!
None of my characters are actually based on any kind of legend I have ever heard of, I have to admit that sadly, I know not very much about that
…shame on me!!
I based my idea of the Royal court of fairy on everything I´ve read about the French court of King Lois XIV( the famous sun-king) because I thought that a fairy court should be a place of splendour and beauty, but also a dangerous place filled with intrigue, rivalry and secrets.
Hey …they are immortal after all…….they have to get bored!
Also ….thanks for the tip about a book named " Kiss of shadows" ….checked it out on amazon.de and it sounds interesting ( I already ordered it!).
WAITING
Walking through the giant mansion, Buffy had to remind herself to stop gaping. The house was grand, no doubt about it.
Some demons obviously liked to lead a comfortable life!
Selena hardly seemed to notice the luxury surrounding her, but then again ….she was a princess, Buffy thought, seemed as though her royal highness was used to living this way.
The fairy walked straight into a gigantic living room complete with on open fire-place and lush leather-couches and armchairs.
" So ……what now?" Buffy asked impatiently, still a little rattled by the little display of power Selena had put on out front.
" Do we make a plan how to ….."
Sighing the fairy sat down, shaking her head. She pressed one slender hand to her forehead and closed her eyes as though she was getting a migraine.
For the first time since Buffy had met her, Selena looked almost human……tired and exhausted.
Liath sat down next to her.
" You need to rest."
" I will…." She looked up at him, smiling, and then her eyes wandered over to Buffy and Spike.
" Dawn is coming soon, I can feel it. Your vampire is no use to us during the daylight hours and even though Siobhan can withstand it, she does not like the sunlight. We all should rest during the day."
The banshee looked like she wanted to say something, but then thought the better of it.
" I have arranged for an audience at the lady Iolanthe so we can discuss the terms of Cay´s return." Liath added.
" Wait …." Buffy interrupted, " You said you had already discussed this with her and she had told you that she would not let him go!"
" I have sent a messenger, yes." Selena explained, still smiling mildly, but the fatigue was still there in her voice and her features.
" Then why ….."
" I told you, there is a code of conduct for this kind of thing, rules that I have to follow. I sent a messenger, she denied my request. Now I have to go to her personally and demand that she return to me what is not rightfully hers. If she does not …..I have every right to take any measures I deem necessary."
" And you are sure that this is no trap?" Spike asked suspiciously.
" That she won´t try anything once we all go to her, all she´d have to do is sit and wait for her prey like a bloody spider in her net!"
" She can´t……." Len said quietly, leaning against the empty fire-place. His eyes glowed dimly, fixed on Selena.
" Even the Lady Iolanthe is honour bound by the laws of hospitality. We come to her in peace with a simple demand ….. she would not dare hurt is."
" What if she did?" Buffy shot a questioning gaze at the princess.
" Then her life is forfeit." Selena answered calmly.
" She is immortal……how…"
" There are worse things than death, Buffy Summers." The fairy told her, her voice eerie and cold.
It was as though an inaudible sigh went through her and the other fairies and for a moment there was a complete silence.
" My dear cousin is not the only one at the court who has mastered the art of cruelty. Immortality can be a far more severe punishment than death."
The fairy´s eyes sought Buffy´s face, holding the slayer´s gaze for a long time. Buffy returned Selena´s look, feeling like she could loose herself in those deep, dark storm-eyes.
" Or how would you like to spend the rest of eternity as a mess of dismembered body parts, locked in a box at the bottom of the sea where no one will find you, alone with yourself and your screams?"
It wasn´t so much the picture the fairy painted in Buffy´s mind that tore a gasp from her throat…. It was the fact that while she said it, Selena´s voice remained level, cool and detached with only a hint of resignation and bitterness, that told the slayer that it had been done before.
There had been a small awkward pause, when Buffy and Spike had parted to enter their separate rooms. But Buffy had not been sure what to say, so she had just stared at each other for a couple of seconds.
As it turned out, Liath had come to L.A with very distinctive orders for Trollock, everything had been prepared. There had been pig´s blood in the fridge for the vampire, enough food to feed an army and rooms prepared for everyone.
Buffy´s room had a balcony with a view of - what she suspected to be the garden- even though it looked more like a park, complete with a labyrinth and the obligatory swimming pool.
There was a vase filled with white roses on her nightstand, the flowers filled the room with their sweet scent. She could almost forget that she had been blackmailed to come here and pretend that this was nothing more than a holiday……..almost, but not quite.
Even though the king-size bed was very comfortable, Buffy could not sleep for more than a few hours.
In search of the bathroom Buffy had passed by a half open door. She had meant to just take a peek in order to find out what kind of room it was…….
Buffy stopped dead in her tracks to stare at the scene that seemed to have sprung right out of an old painting. Selena was sleeping in a giant four-poster bed, her multi-coloured hair spread on the white linen of the blanket, a shimmering mass of copper, bronze, brown and red in hundreds of different shades.
Sleeping, she looked so very young, not at all threatening or powerful, but frail and vulnerable, like a precious, dainty china-doll. One of her slender hands was curled under her cheek as she slept, a gesture so very childlike and endearing that it almost broke the slayer´s heart.
Curled up at her feet in a ball of silver fur lay Len in his wolf-form, his snout resting atop of Selena´s knee. He had not moved, but simply opened his amber- eyes to look at Buffy.
He uttered a tiny, almost inaudible mewl and Buffy moved on, not sure what to think.
Around noon the slayer found herself roaming the gigantic mansion in an attempt to remember where the kitchen was. She could do with a sandwich right about now and maybe ……just a short dip in the pool?
It was there after all and she had hours of doing nothing and waiting in front of her. She might as well make the best of it!
There should be an upside to being blackmailed by a fairy- princess, shouldn´t there…… Buffy reasoned with herself.
She should be entitled to some sort of compensation ……a few hours of sunbathing and swimming in a private, marvellous pool should suffice …….
The kitchen was gigantic, pretty much like everything in Trollock´s house, but then again, Buffy figured if one was as gargantuan as the demon, these proportions seemed probably just about right….
Several doors of the kitchen´s glass- front lead out onto a terrace overlooking the garden.
Through the glass Buffy could see Liath sitting in a patio-chair. As though Selena´s cousin had felt her surprised look, he turned to look over his shoulder and waved her over.
Well, the sandwich could wait a few minutes, she guessed.
The white haired fairy was sitting in the sun, eating strawberries.
He met Buffy´s questioning gaze with his arctic blue eyes, his eyebrows arched in what seemed to be amusement.
" Selena is still sleeping." Buffy told him in lack of anything else to say, sitting down on the chair next to him. The view of the garden was simply breathtaking.
Liath gave her wry smile.
" What a pretty picture they make, don´t you think? The princess and her wolf……"
He held the bowl of strawberries out to her, stressing the offer with a nod.
" It´s not what you might think." He added solemnly.
Buffy took a few, gingerly holding the fruits in her hand. They tasted even better than they looked. Sweet and juicy and warm….
" They won´t even let her sleep alone, her bodyguards. Don´t know how she managed to leave the rest of them behind …there´s eleven of them still at the palace. Cay selected them personally, every last one of them …..they adore her. They drive her crazy most of the time, won´t let her do anything by herself, but then again she never listens anyway….."
Liath chuckled to himself, offering Buffy the berries again.
For a while they just sat there in silence, enjoying the sunshine. Liath let her have the last strawberry, before he put the bowl on a table nearby.
The tall, slender fairy tugged a strand of snow-white hair behind his pointy ear and turned towards the slayer with a serious expression on his handsome face. He didn´t look as young as his cousin did. In fact Liath did not seem young at all; his features had a more ageless quality to them. But his slightly almond shaped eyes were ancient, Buffy could see that. They were like ice-splinters in his perfectly handsome face.
" You don´t approve of how she handles things .."
Buffy felt like she needed to say something to contradict him, even though in a way he was right. She sure as hell didn´t approve of being blackmailed!
Buffy opened her mouth, but couldn´t find anything to say. Liath smiled wryly at her again, lifting one hand in a soothing gesture.
" That´s ok! Neither do I …if it were up to me we´d just barge into Io´s impossibly decadent place with a whole army of demons and monsters and simply demand that she free Cay immediately."
Buffy stared at him in absolute amazement.
" I thought you had codes of conduct for this kind of thing!"
" We do ….." he grinned maliciously. " …but I´d say to hell with them! Selena is the princess, she could do whatever she pleases. Oberon would probably let it slide by …..he has four sons, but only one daughter! He loves her dearly. If Io came to complain, he´d most likely tell her to shut up and get a new toy to play with!"
Buffy swallowed hard.
" So this is all superfluous? What am I here for then? I did not exactly volunteer for this, you know!"
" I know!" He was still grinning.
" It´s not up to me …..Oberon would not punish his daughter. He´d be disappointed in her for a while, but he´d get over it …….but in the end that is not the point. It´s not my decision …..Selena does thinks by the book, Oberon taught her well………she´s got principles…..scruples, you might say."
" I am here because the princess has scruples?" Buffy asked incredulously.
" She resides in a demon´s house, she blackmailed me , she orders Spike and Siobhan around …..what scruples? I don´t see the difference!"
Liath snickered as though she had said something incredibly amusing.
" Yes …you do slayer, that´s one of the reasons you are here!"
" Why is she doing this to herself and to us, if she could do things the easy way?"
" Do you always take the easy way out, Buffy Summers? I don´t like it , but that is just who Selena is …..the princess Amoret Indajaan, Stormborn of the royal court of fairy. She thinks that if royalty decrees rules that others have to live and die by ….. then so does royalty."
" How can you expect other creatures to abide by your rules and laws if you are not willing to respect these boundaries yourself?"
They both turned to find Siobhan standing in the kitchen, just far off enough to be out of the sun. The banshee´s voice carried far enough. She was not trying to pass as human anymore. The colour had drained from her hair and skin, leaving it grey like ash. Her eyes were two deep, black pools in what was still a hauntingly beautiful face.
" Selena has never been weak. I serve her not just because she has power over my kind, but because I respect her for who she is. She is not like others I have known. The princess would never order you to do the dirty work for her, slayer. She would never ask you to do anything that she would not do herself. If she wants somebody dead, she´ll not have them killed. She´ll go for the kill herself."
Siobhan yawned, holding one hand over her eyes to shield them from the sunlight.
" It is still day …I´ll go back to bed!"
Liath and Buffy watched her shuffle out of the kitchen, like a child that had risen to early.
Buffy had to admit that the banshee´s words had reassured her a little. It was good to know that the princess did not mind getting her hands dirty.
Then something Liath had said come back to the slayer. She turned her head to look at the male fairy, taking him all in.
" What is it?"
" They make a pretty picture…." Buffy answered slowly, her eyes searching Liath´s face.
" …the princess and Len, a very cuddly picture ……does that bother you?"
Buffy could not help wonder if Liath was the other man Selena had talked about, the other man the fairy princess loved.
The lord of snow returned her look for a moment, obviously not comprehending what Buffy was insinuating. She could see confusion wash over his face before he threw his head back and started laughing loudly.
" Oh …slayer! You got it all wrong. I love my cousin, but for all it´s worth, she is as dear as a sister to me! And Len ……" he had to interrupt himself because he could not stop laughing.
" …..Len, …..Len had his heart broken into pieces so small that all the king´s men could not put it back together again! He has given up on love a long, long time ago! Sleeping in Selena´s bed to protect her is as far as that will ever go!"
He calmed down a little, looking at Buffy again. There was nothing but sincerity in his eyes.
" Len will never trust a woman with his heart again. The last time he did, a bunch of villagers almost burned him at the stake and the human witch he loved so desperately cursed him. He has not always been a shapeshifter, my dear, though I might add that he turned that curse into his advantage."
He turned his gaze towards the garden, his face unreadable
" For most of us slayer, love is not as it should be …….for most of us it has become a cross to bear."
She said ….we are royalty, we make rules that we decree other´s to live by …..how can we expect other´s to respect laws and rules, if we don´t respect these boundaries ourselves?
Aristocracy has no right to reign, if we don´t live by the rules we apply to others.
She´d never expect anyone to do the dirty work for her …..she would never ask you to do anything that she would not do herself ……
If she wants somebody dead, she´ll not send an assassin …..she´ll go for the kill herself.
She´s afraid of becoming one of those monsters herself.
It´s just as hard for her as it is for you
