(no subject)
Title: The Lady of Shallot
Author: Claire Starling
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Written for narnian_nymph , The Lady of Shallot challenge
Time: The Gift, Season 5
Additional Notes: Entire poem can be found here.
Teaser: She glanced down at the battle, and felt true sorrow grip at her. It was for nothing. Her blood did fall... and night blended into day.
The Lady of Shallot
She should have known. All her life, she had been waiting for this. For now. She never fit in, always stood out. And this, this was why.
She remembered… well, she didn’t really remember… but she remembered her mother telling her the story of Rapunzel. Locked away in a tower so high, kept away from everyone. Her guardian loved her dearly but was so possessive that she couldn’t bare to share Rapunzel with anyone else. Her only escape was her long hair.
From her perch, she wondered if she could let down her hair so that her prince could save her.
She really did feel like Rapunzel now, like a fairytale princess. Her purple dress was made with rich fabrics, almost as though Glory cared about her. It clung to her middle like a corset and blossomed at the waist. She was a princess… and she was high upon a tower now.
There she weaves by night and day
She glanced down at the battle, and felt true sorrow grip at her. It was for nothing. Her blood did fall… and night blended into day.
A magic web with colors gay.
The sky exploded into bright colors, like a fireworks display. Her eyes opened wide at the sight. A web of light, purple like her, reached out across the firmament… reached for her. A crack in the world, a crack in existence, all because of her.
She has heard a whisper say,
Dawn. Dawn. No. No! Buffy… Spike… She felt their eyes on her, felt their whispered pleas. Dear God, her only reason to stay. She hated that she had to hurt them. Buffy, her sister, her mother, her maker… the missing piece. She knew that this would crush her. Mom and lil’ sis dead in a week. Knowing that she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t save her… meant to be. And Spike… her protector, her confidant, her love. She knew he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself for failing the only two people that he cared about. His poet’s blood will run cold, the words frozen in time as the two he loves die.
A curse is on her if she stay
As much as she hated to leave, hated to hurt, she couldn’t stay. If she stayed, she would hurt them more. The world would split into pieces, dimensions bleeding into each other until up was sideways and down was diagonal until wrong was right and right was wrong and everything was insanity and nothing made sense at all… She couldn’t do that to them. She couldn’t curse them like she was cursed.
To look down to Camelot.
She looked down at the battle, through the web and blood. Willow and Tara faught to keep the lunatics at bay while Xander attempted to guard Anya’s limp body. Buffy was fighting Glory, Giles beating away at the humans, and Spike… Spike was killing as many demons as possible. But Buffy and Spike weren’t just fighting, weren’t just killing… hope had died in their eyes. They were tearing apart the enemy, limbs breaking and flesh flying, blood decorating the walls. Like her blood.
She knows not what the curse may be,
She was cursed. Cursed with this gift, this power that she was too naïve to understand. But she couldn’t let this spread. She knew what she had to do, always knew. She wondered, briefly, if she had a soul. Where would she go? Would she ascend to heaven with Mommy or burn in hell with Glory? Or perhaps, she would be like a battery, used up and discarded, erased from time. Would they remember her? Part of her hoped that they didn’t, she didn’t want them to writhe in agony over her loss.
And so she weaveth steadily,
The web, the crack spread. The sky was parting like the red sea, demons like she had never seen pouring out. The time had come. This was her destiny.
And little other care hath she,
She pulled hard on her restraints, the wood cracking loudly. The demon before her reached for her, but she was too fast. She had nothing left to lose and so much to die for. Yes, victory over evil. With her death, she would bring life. With her life, the deal would be sealed, the poem ended, the story finished. She would be complete.
The Lady of Shalott.
Like a fallen princess, like a broken rhyme, Dawn lay silently. The battle was over, the war won, but the price was paid in blood. Her eyes, wide open, seemed to carry a sense of hope… of peace. Her face was serene and her body quiet at last. She dared to dream, dared to live, and dared to die. She broke her ties, and leapt from the tower where she was kept. She did not stay, despite the warnings. She refused to let others be hurt by her cursed blood.
Buffy wept, her reflection shattered before her in a thousand pieces. Her sister, her life, her last reason to be… gone. She looked at her sister in a new light. The child that had been taken from her was now a woman resting before her.
Who is this? she thought. And what is here?
She crossed herself with bitter fear. The sun began to dawn, illuminating Dawn’s body… bathing her in holy light. She was radiant in death… glowing with beauty and innocence.
Spike had never seen a sight more… effulgent. His Dawn, forever gone, to a place he could never reach. Poetry, long dead, rose to his lips.
“She has a lovely face,” he whispered. “God in his mercy, lend her grace. The Lady of Shallot.”
.end.