England, 1986, Just outside London
It should have been raining. There should have been thunder and lightening streaking across the sky and ripping the clouds to shreads. There should have been fire and death and fear.
Instead, there was a normal, quiet, although still rather painful, birth. A baby girl brought into the world surrounded by family and loved ones. Sometimes reality has no sense of dramatic scenery.
The small girl was handed to her mother by the nurse, wrapped in a blanket and bawling her head off.
"Well, I think she's going to be quite the chatter box," her father said, leaning down and placing a kiss on his wife's forehead. "What do you want to call her?"
Again, history missed a trick. In the most epic of stories a small bird should have flown through the window and landed on the bedside lamp, singing a song that would become critical in some way to the girl's future, or possibly crapped on the fruit basket. What should certainly not have happened is her mother picking a name out of the trashy paperback she'd just finished reading.
"Wren, I want to call her Wren," her mother replied. "My little girl."
And so, for a time the family was happy. And Wren was given everything a small baby with no real awareness of the world around it could want.
That was until history finally developed a sense of excitement.
The back door of the house flew backwards off it's hinges as the marauding group of vampires crashed into the house. The mother and father were killed instantly as they arose to find the source of the noise. As the group trashed the house to make it look like theives, one walked in to the nursery in search of the young girl, carrying something wrapped in a sheet.
Inside the room, which was lit by a softly glowing night-light, Wren was still asleep, having not been disturbed despite the noise around her. The vampire carfully walked to her cot and deposited the bundle he was carrying. An already dead baby girl of the same age as Wren. He then picked up the sleeping child, wrapped her up tightly and carried her out of her room.
Downstairs, his fellow demons were gathering. When they saw that their objective had been completed, each one walked back out of the house and into the night, with the child still sleeping in her captors arms.
-+-
Spike stared for a moment, a slightly incredulous look on his face. Wren look back with a composed expression and took another sip of her coffee.
"Right," Spike said, "very dramatic and full of portent. And you would know this how?"
Wren shrugged, "Mostly what I've been told...and a little dramatic liscence," she conceeded. "Do you want to hear the rest or not?"
"Oh please, do continue. Wouldn't want to miss the dramatic and heart wreching conclusion where we all learn something important about ourselves now, would I?"
"Why thank you," Wren teased, then did as he asked.
-+-
"So I was kidnapped, right? When I was a few months old," Wren spoke, and when she did there was absoloutely no sadness or anger in her voice or her expression. She told the story as if she was merely commenting on the weather. "Anyway, turned out I was taken by some crazy ancient vampire cult thing. Had this big old mansion somewhere in Oxfordshire. I hardly ever went outside to be honest, and then never out of the house's grounds. They kept me under pretty close watch the whole time. It wasn't so bad, I guess."
"Yeah, but hang on a minute love, you're skipping through the story a bit here. Why exactly did you get taken? What would a cult of vampires want with a baby?"
"Well if you'll let me tell the bloody story you'll find out, wont you?" said Wren, a little exasperated.
"Right, sorry. Carry on."
"So where was I? Oh yeah, crazy ass vampires."
-+-
England, 1998, Oxfordshire
Wren wandered around the halls of the big house which had become her home over the twelve years she had lived there. She knew the place like the back of her hand, and was aware of almost everything that went on there. As she walked towards the room which was set aside as her living quaters, a voice called out to her from the doorway behind her.
"Child! Please attend," the old looking vampire called from inside the room.
'Crap,' Wren thought, 'caught again.' "Yes Sir," she replied, walking over to where he stood.
When she was stood infront of the vampire, who looked around 40 or 50 years old, although it was impossible to tell how old he actually was, he began to speak.
"You were not in your lesson this morning child, would you care to explain yourself?"
They always called her child, all of them. That or 'Chosen One'. 'All except the High Master...and him, of course,' Wren thought.
Wren stood before the vampire who was clearly her teacher, and long suffering at that, and answered politely, "I'm very sorry Sir, but I'm afraid I was distracted by Maltheus. He was talking about the crusades and I became quite entranced. He gives such detailed descriptions of the eviscerations."
Her teacher studied her closely for a few moments before accepting her explanation, " Well, just make sure it doesn't happen again. I know Maltheus can talk well, but often his accounts are not particularly accurate, and you must learn about demon lore and practices. It's an integral part of your training. Now, get on with you, and I expect to see you in the training room at 9 AM sharp tomorrow for weapons practice, you understand."
"Yes Sir. Thank you Sir!" Wren replied with a sweet smile, before turning and walking away. A smug smile came to her face that she had, once again, so effortlessly been able to get out of one of her more boring lessons, and had instead managed to spend the afternoon exploring the vast grounds of the mansion.
As she walked into her room, closing the door behind her, she didn't notice the dark figure who watched her from the shadows, an unreadable expression on his face.
-+-
Wren paused again in her story and indicated to Spike to ask any questions he might have.
"Look, I'm still not quite getting this pet. I mean, you're telling me that you were brought up by a cult of vampires and they give you someone who sounds like an undead version of Giles as a teacher? Then go all Watcher's Council on you with the whole teaching and training. Just all sounds a bit unbelieveable to me."
"Yeah, that's what I'm telling you. Whether you believe it or not isn't my problem, but!" she said, interupting him as he was about to speak again, I understand that you may need a bit of back story first to fully understand what's going on."
"Might be useful, yeah."
"OK then," said Wren, settling back into her chair. "Basic run down. Got kidnapped by vampires, taken to a place in the middle of no where and raised by them, learning all about demon history and lore and the insignificance of humans. You know, standard vampire crap. As well as this there was also the whole physical training thing. As you've already witnessed, I'm not so bad at taking care of myself."
Spike grunted affirmative, and Wren continued.
"But still, I guess I'm not really explaining why...kinda leaving you with a big 'What's this all about' type question in your head?"
"Pretty much pet, yeah."
"Hmm, thought so," Wren picked up her coffee and brought it to her lips, but before she took a sip looked at Spike and said "How familiar are you with prophecies?"