I don't think Holland can use this anymore :). Maybe you can tuck it
away in my file, Counselor McDonald.
Fwd: -----Original Message-----
From: Darla Thursday, January 06, 2005 6:52 PM
To: Holland Manners
CC: For the files
Cute of you to set me up my own little email address. What an inane thing. Email. It lacks the personal touch I like so much. So much is lost in email. It beckons to be short, concise, to fit the parameters of an interoffice memo. It's silly. But really Holland, how could you ask me to stop and reflect? You know what I am, that I can't. I spent too long having no reflection. This is not something I could do now, even if you'd asked during that week I spent in Lindsey's office. My mind is quiet, or it's beating against the bars of this
cage. 'We have facts, timelines, but not everything, and we were hoping that you could maybe fill the blanks.' For one thing, Wolfram and Hart's blanks aren't blanks, they are chasms. Abyssal voids. Like hell. Hell to me anyway-- when I ended at the hand of my darling boy, and there was no time, no place, no blood, no games, no dresses. Just me, alone, disembodied in the agony of nothingness. Detached.
Not what I expected the last time I was on my deathbed. When I had a long 38 days to lay there and think about the coming punishment for my sins. I knew full well that harlots went to hell. It was a downward backwards purgatory, I think, that convalescence. I thought about all of the pretty things I'd collected, surrounded myself with, spoils from doing ugly things with ugly men. Those things would outlive me, the ugly men, and the pretty things. Now, I was ugly too. Paler then than required by fashion, lesions on my skin, festering. The powder was gone from my hair, but since I hadn't eaten or gotten up it was ragged, unhealthy and tangled. And dry. Those last weeks, I couldn't sleep, and every time I summoned the strength to roll over I heard it crinkle. It was brittle. It sounded like my bones would in my grave in an earthquake. Or so I thought.
Then the Master came and I joined the Order of Aurelius (you'll want to cross-reference that). He dubbed me Darla, and my old name died then. I didn't miss it, whatever it was. There was joy. I was so happy to be beautiful again, to have nothing threaten to outlive me, porcelain or flesh. I was delighted to end lives for our cause. It was a purpose, his grand plan and I liked that, for a while, having directives. But ultimately, it was boring. All that waiting, and lurking. We waited and lurked in Europe, and in Africa. It must have
been about fifty years before I was tired of it. But I was not an ingrate, so I stayed with him, and found my fun when I had time and I had lots of fun. Lots of victims. The men were so delectable. They always fought once they realized what I was, didn't faint and give up like the women. They always felt so betrayed, by god, by the world, for letting a little woman take them. When I told the Master about them, he'd call me Beauty and the Beast. He didn't mind my indiscretions, because I was so dear to him. I think he understood that I loved being so much more alive than that nameless whore had been. My life was everything I could have hoped for. But I grew listless, finally, and bored with just having my new father as a peer. It had been almost 100 years before I took following some of the more handsome men, thinking about their suitability. Dozens of let me down one way or another. Not enough fight. Or no panache. Or no sense of aesthetics. One had a face that promised he knew something about cruelty. But he didn't, so I took his head.
I stumbled on Him then. Rather he stumbled around that Galway tavern and I fell in love. He was a magnificent beast even alive. He had a certain style, and it looked effortless from him to carry that height of his. He was even well dressed. He brawled with abandon. He had a mean fire of self-loathing that burned him from the inside. He was perfect. Weaknesses I could manage, Strengths I could strengthen. I knew he was what I'd been waiting for. I took him, and we were taken with each other. As you already know until the gypsies ripped him from me. I took my vengeance on them, with the help of the children- Spike and Drusilla, they had a portion of his cruelty, and some flair of their own, but none of his class, none of his brilliance or self possession. So after a time, I left them too. The Master was still around, and he welcomed me back with open arms. I was just biding my time, until somehow Angelus came back. Or I found a suitable replacement. I got Angel's stake instead.
You know the recent history since you orchestrated it. I can look in a mirror now. I look alive. My lips are flushed. My cheeks can blush. If I use the right shampoo and conditioner, my hair is almost as golden as it was before. And soon, Angelus and I will start our next round.
If this is not what you were looking for, not detailed enough, ask me again when I have more time. When Angelus is back for good maybe, and we have returned from a long trip to Romania. I think we both know Wolfram and Hart will still be around then, even if you are not.
