milliways_bar: In the hallway outside room 496.
[after this thread and Illyria's subsequent return to Milliways.]It's late - late enough that she should be sleeping. Wesley'd insisted that she get some sleep after the lights came back on, after the most immediate evidence of the threat had passed for another night. She would have argued, but they'd come to some understanding and she didn't
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But the fact of the matter was that she was the only one who could dare. The only one that Illyria wouldn't harm no matter how angry she got. The only one, save perhaps one other, who could make this personal to Illyria. And since the other had helped her get her powers back, that left only her to do this thing.
To ask her to give them away again.
"That isn't what I mean," Fred clarifies, still staring the goddess down.
"Memory and power. That's what it wants, what it keeps trying to shake out of us. If I had either one to give, I'd have given them by now, but my memory's been taken from me once already. I don't even know if what's left is worth anything to this thing, or if they've been so changed... but even if not, I don't think mine would be enough. You felt that quake earlier. You saw how much was damaged this time. What if tomorrow's quake is the one that destroys something beyond all repair, something, or someone that could have helped solve this thing?"
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Illyria's tone is mocking, scathing.
"You have no idea what you are asking, all for the sake of if. Do you know what the return of my powers very nearly cost? Do you have any idea how close your beloved Wesley came to a far more permanent death?"
She fairly spits the words back at this presumptuous human who dared to speak so only because they wore the same face.
"No. I will not relinquish them a second time."
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Fred's not really surprised by the knowledge, nor particularly hurt, but there is a quiet sort of defeat in the observation.
"You can't. You talk about Wesley like I'm supposed to believe you valued his help, but you don't value his continued existence enough to do the one thing in your power that would keep him here, and safe. You put him into danger so easily and think it's okay because he's willing to follow you. Because for whatever reason he trusts you."
She stares at Illyria a moment longer, her expression full of nearly as much contempt as Illyria usually held for her.
"He trusts you, and that's his right. But I don't. Knowing you won't hurt me doesn't come anywhere near trust, Illyria. So if it comes down to a choice, if it's you or me? I'm going to go with me."
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Illyria is by all appearances unfazed, completely unaffected by this outburst. As cold and impassive as she ever was.
"Are you quite done wasting my time and your own?"
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Done trying to reason with a pathologically selfish creature that she's currently incredibly ashamed to look like, and perhaps done trying to accept her, as well.
It seems that had been the true waste of time.
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