The Sorrowful Tale of Miss Kitty Fantastico - Ch.2: Spike,Dawn,Clem
TITLE: The Sorrowful Tale of Miss Kitty Fantastico - Ch.2
Summary: Buffy is dead and Dawn’s fifteenth birthday is coming up. A penniless Spike wants to get her the greatest present ever. It proves to be harder than he expected. He encounters kittens, and Clem and nosehairs and learns some valuable lessons about life.
Rating: PG for swearing
Warnings/Notes: A Sunnydale version of a Victorian Morality Play. Inspired by Kipling’s ‘Just So’ stories and served with a side dish of Dr. Seuss. A mixture of humor, angst, and reflection upon the foibles of a vampire who wants to be a good man.
And now I introduce you to the major players in the tale.
TSTOMKF 2
We have mentioned that Miss Dawn is a key actor in this play. In fact, she is KEY to many things Universal, and bears the distinction of being concurrently three ages at once. To elucidate, as a universal being of energy she is so old as to be timeless, but at the instance of our story her physical human existence measures less than the span of one year. This is another story altogether and is important here only in the weight that it gives to her third age - her remembered age. Miss Dawn and all the people who surrounded her, both close and casual, consider Dawn to be fourteen and fast approaching her fifteenth birthday.
In one of those little ironies that we so often encounter in life, the two adults who were perceived as being the farthest from Dawn's sphere, being of the shortest acquaintance, were in fact the two people closest to Miss Dawn during the summer that followed the death of her sister, Miss Buffy Summers. It was Miss MacClay that gently reminded the other actors on our stage - Mr. Xander Harris, Miss Anya Jenkins, Mr. Rupert Giles and, alas, even Miss Rosenberg - that Miss Dawn would soon need a celebration.
These were all good people who would perhaps normally have been more disposed to understand the importance of a birthday. However, the events of Miss Buffy's death had left them all wounded in sensibility, all pulling back within themselves, hoping to spare themselves newer pain whilst healing old, and moving about in a thin semblance of normal life. Thus while Miss Dawn, flush with hope that fifteen would be the magical age that would grant her access to adulthood, was dropping hints of high heels, weapons of mass destruction and karate lessons, those supposedly nearest and dearest were enchanting teddy bears, buying dolls and opening bank accounts. Miss MacClay clearly saw the world around her, yet also held close in her heart the remembrance of being fifteen years old. While aware that Miss Dawn would never be a witch, for it was not her nature, she undertook to gather the basic needs for a beginner to the Wiccan way. She knew Miss Dawn would benefit from the teachings, would learn new ways to appreciate the world and would come closer to inner peace, all the while feeling very grown up indeed.
Mr. Spike, alone of all Miss Dawn's parental figures, had neither purchased nor planned any gift for Dawn, even though he was in fact deeply sensible of the importance of her birthday. Oddly enough, he remembered with an even deeper sensitivity than Miss MacClay what it was like to be fifteen years old. Nonetheless, he loudly declaimed to one and all his complete and absolute lack of interest in such lowly proceedings as a 'birthday.' He repeatedly declaimed said lack of interest, whilst pacing back and forth at the Magic Box, voice strident, brandishing his arms as though they were flags, eyes flashing looks both dark and dire, daring anyone to disagree with his arguments.
"Waste of time, is what it is. Fifteen years, phfft, blink of an eye. No vampire worth his salt celebrates a birthday. Now fifteen years undead might be worth a mention."
And he further declaimed his lack of interest while sitting on the porch at Revello Drive between harsh inhalations of his cigarette and wild gesticulations that spewed burning ash like fervent fireflies about his head. Here though, in the presence of none save Miss Dawn and Miss Kitty, his voice was remarkably more tender, his eyes full of an emotion that might have been love, though he would have denied it vigorously if so accused.
"No use expecting anything from me, Bit. I'm not gettin' you a thing. Doubt I'll even be here come your birthday. Most likely be doin' more important things."
Miss Dawn only smiled a smile of the deepest faith, unaware of how beautiful and how innocent and how young she appeared when that smile graced her features. Her eyes were luminous in that way only children's eyes ever are, as clear and bottomless as the deepest well, as yet untroubled by the ripples and turbulence that responsibility brings. Young Miss Dawn had encountered amazing, frightful monsters and sorrows that would bow many older and wiser than she, but through it all she was but chaff. In one wise she was a plaything of the evil that beset the Hellmouth, and on the other a precious thing cosseted and protected by her elders. She was as yet dependent on the grace of others for all things important in her life. She believed with paramount confidence that Mr. Spike would bring her a gift, the best gift, the gift she wanted most - a crossbow. Spike would understand the true gift being given, an acknowledgement that she was ready to assume her place among the heroes that surrounded her. An admission that at last she could undertake to be responsible for her own protection and well-being, no longer a burden but a colleague. An adult.
As we may have mentioned before, our protagonist Mr. Spike was a truly unique individual. Despite over a century of perversion, bloodshed and cruelty, he had retained an innocence of spirit, a yearning for grandeur, a desire to nurture, and an ability to love in the way that a child loves, not wisely but with a broad and accepting demeanor that condemns nothing while giving of itself fully. In this way he loved Miss Dawn. He would slay her dragons, make manifest her every wish, and care not whether she was sinner or saint. He could see every aspect of her, not just the face being presented to the world, but the kindest impulse, the cruelest desire, the twisted reasoning that would lead to the most illogical of behaviors - and he loved all. Where we would condemn a Dawn who was homicidal, and laud a Dawn who devoted her life to healing the sick, he would love both with the same ferocity. Mr. Spike would cherish either behavior as merely one facet of a marvelous whole, and he did not yet have the moral capacity to understand that any one characteristic was better than the other. Furthermore such was the childish portion of his nature, the impulsive need to react to immediate stimulus, the nervous energy that pressed him to move on from one thing to the next, that he seldom slowed down to consider any matter from beginning to end. He saw that Miss Dawn would be made happy if she were given a crossbow and there, as far as he was concerned, was an end to the matter. She would have a crossbow.
But an important element in the unfolding of our tale occurred before our action starts. An unfortunate downturn of fortune had befallen Mr. Spike. Events - a lack of students to fleece at pool because of summer break, threats from Mr. Giles should he be caught stealing or robbing, and heavy losses at the gambling table - had conspired to remove from him even the smallest necessities that he usually enjoyed. In consequence, as the crux of our tale approaches, Mr. Spike was skint. His pockets were bare and he was totally dependent on the mercy of Miss Dawn's co-custodians for the very blood he drank. Poor vampire, he had hoped without hope that he could prepare Miss Dawn for the possibility that he would fail her, that she would suddenly profess that she did not care whether he was able to provide a birthday gift or not. Instead she had smiled at him, revealed to him her utmost trust; she had laid her heart in his hands and he knew he could not bear the look in her eyes should he fail her.
Mr. Spike couldn't grasp the nature of the dull misery that welled in his chest and circulated through his body, as though his heart could still beat and distribute it in the place of his blood, moving it through his limbs where it pooled and thickened them like lead. You and I would recognize this as melancholy. Though this was not a new feeling to Mr. Spike in these days, he still keenly felt it as a foreign element to his being. Nothing in his vampiric nature prepared him to deal with it. He spoke out loud, though he stood now alone and there was no other to hear, words designed to shake away the feeling, as though it were a cloak that could be shrugged from his shoulders.
"It has to be the coat. Gonna have to sell the coat. Got nothin else left now. Be worth it, to see the look on her face."
But the feeling stubbornly clung to him and he continued his discourse, having no other to help with the offer of alternatives or to simply share the weight of his decision.
"Gonna miss it. Been with me a long time now but it's just a coat, that's all. I can always kill another slayer, score another coat. A 'Look' from my Niblet though, that's gonna stay with me forever. Up to me to make sure it's a happy look. Nothin I won't do for my girl. It's just a coat."
He slowed his stride, his state of mind pulling him so deep within himself that he took little note of world outside. So despondent was he that when a sound finally pierced his shell of misery - a sound so bleak and thin, so pitched to his own despair - he thought for a moment that perhaps he had uttered the sound himself. Shaking himself free from his unmindfulness he took note of the mournful and desperate kitten that begged for his attention.
As though it never existed, his melancholy was gone. His eyes sparkled, lit from within as though candles burned there, and his face was stretched into a smile so wide, so joyous that he could not have shown more tooth without shifting to gameface. Flinging his arms wide as though to embrace the very world, his voice brightened the still night with jubilant tones.
"Glory Hallelujah! I've been saved!"
He tucked the startled kitten into the crook of his arm and dashed off to begin initiating the plan that had blossomed full-blown within his head upon that very instant.
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Summary: Buffy is dead and Dawn’s fifteenth birthday is coming up. A penniless Spike wants to get her the greatest present ever. It proves to be harder than he expected. He encounters kittens, and Clem and nosehairs and learns some valuable lessons about life.
Rating: PG for swearing
Warnings/Notes: A Sunnydale version of a Victorian Morality Play. Inspired by Kipling’s ‘Just So’ stories and served with a side dish of Dr. Seuss. A mixture of humor, angst, and reflection upon the foibles of a vampire who wants to be a good man.
And now I introduce you to the major players in the tale.
TSTOMKF 2
We have mentioned that Miss Dawn is a key actor in this play. In fact, she is KEY to many things Universal, and bears the distinction of being concurrently three ages at once. To elucidate, as a universal being of energy she is so old as to be timeless, but at the instance of our story her physical human existence measures less than the span of one year. This is another story altogether and is important here only in the weight that it gives to her third age - her remembered age. Miss Dawn and all the people who surrounded her, both close and casual, consider Dawn to be fourteen and fast approaching her fifteenth birthday.
In one of those little ironies that we so often encounter in life, the two adults who were perceived as being the farthest from Dawn's sphere, being of the shortest acquaintance, were in fact the two people closest to Miss Dawn during the summer that followed the death of her sister, Miss Buffy Summers. It was Miss MacClay that gently reminded the other actors on our stage - Mr. Xander Harris, Miss Anya Jenkins, Mr. Rupert Giles and, alas, even Miss Rosenberg - that Miss Dawn would soon need a celebration.
These were all good people who would perhaps normally have been more disposed to understand the importance of a birthday. However, the events of Miss Buffy's death had left them all wounded in sensibility, all pulling back within themselves, hoping to spare themselves newer pain whilst healing old, and moving about in a thin semblance of normal life. Thus while Miss Dawn, flush with hope that fifteen would be the magical age that would grant her access to adulthood, was dropping hints of high heels, weapons of mass destruction and karate lessons, those supposedly nearest and dearest were enchanting teddy bears, buying dolls and opening bank accounts. Miss MacClay clearly saw the world around her, yet also held close in her heart the remembrance of being fifteen years old. While aware that Miss Dawn would never be a witch, for it was not her nature, she undertook to gather the basic needs for a beginner to the Wiccan way. She knew Miss Dawn would benefit from the teachings, would learn new ways to appreciate the world and would come closer to inner peace, all the while feeling very grown up indeed.
Mr. Spike, alone of all Miss Dawn's parental figures, had neither purchased nor planned any gift for Dawn, even though he was in fact deeply sensible of the importance of her birthday. Oddly enough, he remembered with an even deeper sensitivity than Miss MacClay what it was like to be fifteen years old. Nonetheless, he loudly declaimed to one and all his complete and absolute lack of interest in such lowly proceedings as a 'birthday.' He repeatedly declaimed said lack of interest, whilst pacing back and forth at the Magic Box, voice strident, brandishing his arms as though they were flags, eyes flashing looks both dark and dire, daring anyone to disagree with his arguments.
"Waste of time, is what it is. Fifteen years, phfft, blink of an eye. No vampire worth his salt celebrates a birthday. Now fifteen years undead might be worth a mention."
And he further declaimed his lack of interest while sitting on the porch at Revello Drive between harsh inhalations of his cigarette and wild gesticulations that spewed burning ash like fervent fireflies about his head. Here though, in the presence of none save Miss Dawn and Miss Kitty, his voice was remarkably more tender, his eyes full of an emotion that might have been love, though he would have denied it vigorously if so accused.
"No use expecting anything from me, Bit. I'm not gettin' you a thing. Doubt I'll even be here come your birthday. Most likely be doin' more important things."
Miss Dawn only smiled a smile of the deepest faith, unaware of how beautiful and how innocent and how young she appeared when that smile graced her features. Her eyes were luminous in that way only children's eyes ever are, as clear and bottomless as the deepest well, as yet untroubled by the ripples and turbulence that responsibility brings. Young Miss Dawn had encountered amazing, frightful monsters and sorrows that would bow many older and wiser than she, but through it all she was but chaff. In one wise she was a plaything of the evil that beset the Hellmouth, and on the other a precious thing cosseted and protected by her elders. She was as yet dependent on the grace of others for all things important in her life. She believed with paramount confidence that Mr. Spike would bring her a gift, the best gift, the gift she wanted most - a crossbow. Spike would understand the true gift being given, an acknowledgement that she was ready to assume her place among the heroes that surrounded her. An admission that at last she could undertake to be responsible for her own protection and well-being, no longer a burden but a colleague. An adult.
As we may have mentioned before, our protagonist Mr. Spike was a truly unique individual. Despite over a century of perversion, bloodshed and cruelty, he had retained an innocence of spirit, a yearning for grandeur, a desire to nurture, and an ability to love in the way that a child loves, not wisely but with a broad and accepting demeanor that condemns nothing while giving of itself fully. In this way he loved Miss Dawn. He would slay her dragons, make manifest her every wish, and care not whether she was sinner or saint. He could see every aspect of her, not just the face being presented to the world, but the kindest impulse, the cruelest desire, the twisted reasoning that would lead to the most illogical of behaviors - and he loved all. Where we would condemn a Dawn who was homicidal, and laud a Dawn who devoted her life to healing the sick, he would love both with the same ferocity. Mr. Spike would cherish either behavior as merely one facet of a marvelous whole, and he did not yet have the moral capacity to understand that any one characteristic was better than the other. Furthermore such was the childish portion of his nature, the impulsive need to react to immediate stimulus, the nervous energy that pressed him to move on from one thing to the next, that he seldom slowed down to consider any matter from beginning to end. He saw that Miss Dawn would be made happy if she were given a crossbow and there, as far as he was concerned, was an end to the matter. She would have a crossbow.
But an important element in the unfolding of our tale occurred before our action starts. An unfortunate downturn of fortune had befallen Mr. Spike. Events - a lack of students to fleece at pool because of summer break, threats from Mr. Giles should he be caught stealing or robbing, and heavy losses at the gambling table - had conspired to remove from him even the smallest necessities that he usually enjoyed. In consequence, as the crux of our tale approaches, Mr. Spike was skint. His pockets were bare and he was totally dependent on the mercy of Miss Dawn's co-custodians for the very blood he drank. Poor vampire, he had hoped without hope that he could prepare Miss Dawn for the possibility that he would fail her, that she would suddenly profess that she did not care whether he was able to provide a birthday gift or not. Instead she had smiled at him, revealed to him her utmost trust; she had laid her heart in his hands and he knew he could not bear the look in her eyes should he fail her.
Mr. Spike couldn't grasp the nature of the dull misery that welled in his chest and circulated through his body, as though his heart could still beat and distribute it in the place of his blood, moving it through his limbs where it pooled and thickened them like lead. You and I would recognize this as melancholy. Though this was not a new feeling to Mr. Spike in these days, he still keenly felt it as a foreign element to his being. Nothing in his vampiric nature prepared him to deal with it. He spoke out loud, though he stood now alone and there was no other to hear, words designed to shake away the feeling, as though it were a cloak that could be shrugged from his shoulders.
"It has to be the coat. Gonna have to sell the coat. Got nothin else left now. Be worth it, to see the look on her face."
But the feeling stubbornly clung to him and he continued his discourse, having no other to help with the offer of alternatives or to simply share the weight of his decision.
"Gonna miss it. Been with me a long time now but it's just a coat, that's all. I can always kill another slayer, score another coat. A 'Look' from my Niblet though, that's gonna stay with me forever. Up to me to make sure it's a happy look. Nothin I won't do for my girl. It's just a coat."
He slowed his stride, his state of mind pulling him so deep within himself that he took little note of world outside. So despondent was he that when a sound finally pierced his shell of misery - a sound so bleak and thin, so pitched to his own despair - he thought for a moment that perhaps he had uttered the sound himself. Shaking himself free from his unmindfulness he took note of the mournful and desperate kitten that begged for his attention.
As though it never existed, his melancholy was gone. His eyes sparkled, lit from within as though candles burned there, and his face was stretched into a smile so wide, so joyous that he could not have shown more tooth without shifting to gameface. Flinging his arms wide as though to embrace the very world, his voice brightened the still night with jubilant tones.
"Glory Hallelujah! I've been saved!"
He tucked the startled kitten into the crook of his arm and dashed off to begin initiating the plan that had blossomed full-blown within his head upon that very instant.
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