Fic bit: After the fall (1/many) (FR13)
Minor quibble with ratings in general: I'm still not sure about how ratings actually work yet (what with dissected corpses being prime time material on TV, but boobs still being verboten), but I needed some means of labeling the titles of my fic-posts for people to know what to expect. Here 'FR13' means work and child safe.
A few quick notes before we get started:
1) I'm not really 100% certain what Illyria knows and does not know about human culture by the time ATS ends, so I'm going to make an arbitrary call and say 'not much'. If I happen to write her as confused about things she canonically wasn't anymore then I'll just blame head trauma sustained during the ATS final battle for making her forget or something, alright? Good.
2) Honestly, I can't be buggered to go back and do much research on what Giles and the Scoobs do and do not know re:the Illyria situation, thus I'm making my second arbitrary call of the day and saying 'not much' again. If they were in fact given detailed information of her origins then consider this to be an AU in which they weren't. All they knew was that some kind of demon was infecting Fred and trying to take her over. That makes much more sense anyway, IMO, because if the Old Ones really were all that big of a deal, Giles should have dispatched several legions of slayers when he found out that one of them was on the verge of being reborn.
3) Last but not least, the pronouns are going to be all over the place in this story for a while. Illyria won't be using pronouns in regards to him/her/itself and the ones used to designate other people may vary from gendered to neutral. Given that, for the most part, it's an Illyria POV, this might lead to instances of clunky sentence structure (although hopefully I'll find ways to avoid that). I just thought I should point this out beforehand so you know its deliberate on my part. It's a means of showing that Illyria's appreciation of identity as we humans would understand the concept has not yet been fully formed. In the course of the fic, the pronouns should slowly start to make more sense as Illyria starts to grow more attached to the world around him/her/it.
Right then. With all of that said, on with the fic...
Title: After the fall
Author: nemo_gravis
Genre: Humor, drama
Pairing/'Ship: Ensemblish, with a focus on Illyria and Xander POVs
Spoilers: Goes AU after the ATS finale. I won't be taking any comic book continuations into account.
Summary: With the battle over and the legions of the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart successfully repelled, Angel and Spike have sent Illyria to the Council with news of the pyrrhic victory.
Disclaimer: I don't own BTVS, I'm just playing with it, no profit made, no harm intended.
Author's note: I never liked Fred all that much, to be honest. Illyria, on the other hand, has potential. And I do like potential.
***
All parts are here
#1 - A king in exile
The small human is excavating its nostril and staring.
Illyria frowns.
The excavation continues regardless.
After several minutes of silent confrontation, Illyria leans around the seat and frowns at the creature's mother instead. The woman flinches, gathers the child up into her arms and pulls it down into its seat again, away from the Old One's sight.
Good.
Not that the prospect of imposing appropriate respect in a more satisfyingly violent manner lacks further appeal but the shell's wounds are still tender. Beating both child and mother would mean reawakening aches and pains that still linger in battle-weary limbs and such disgusting weakness is a fetter best ignored for now, if only to be able to focus on more pressing matters.
According to the little time piece on the large display screen at the other end of the cabin, no more than fifteen hours have passed since the burial of the human Charles Gunn. A human custom which holds that those who mourn for his passing should congregate to stare at his lifeless husk on display in a wooden box and shed the water of tears from their eyes.
Both half-breeds fought to protect the human male's lifeless body during the battle so that, during the ceremony that came later, his shell looked almost as complete as it did in life, most of the worst injuries hidden under the dark suit with which it had been clad.
Then they sealed the box and cooked it.
Illyria found the entire episode confusing but no one deigned to explain it. Questions as to why his meat was not then served at the social gathering later held in his memory had caused several violent outbursts from those who claimed him as a friend.
Increasingly, it's becoming true that the more time passes, the less humans make rational sense. How the brief creatures experience the flow of causality remains a mystery but, even so, events seem to have moved on remarkably quickly. No sooner the ritual over, both vampires declared their time in Los Angeles to have come to an end and that each had a need to be alone. Of course, Illyria's presence could simply have been imposed upon them and neither would have been able to prevent it but the once-god was moved to allow the separation regardless.
Now, while sitting in what the humans refer to as 'economy class' on a mechanical device named airplane and traveling from the state of California to a land named London, Illyria is struggling to understand that decision. Pathetic and unworthy as they were, Angel and Spike are the only two beings left to serve as guides. With Charles Gunn burned and Wesley gone, the half-breeds are the only known commodities in this horrible simian world. Even the demon named Lorne fled, gone before the battle and never returned. Letting them go was... irrational.
"Miss?"
Illyria turns to find one of the beings named Steward standing in the aisle with an obsequious smile on its face.
An effort has to be made to recall Winifred Burkle's voice and ask, "Yes?" in suitable human tones.
"Would you like the chicken or the veal?"
Nothing ever makes sense where humans are concerned but this is truly incongruous. Surely, livestock in such a confined space would only add to the discomfort. Most likely, there is a context to the question that has escaped notice. There is always a context. Wesley would have explained, but Wesley is dead.
"Excuse me?"
The obsequious smile wavers slightly and the steward's eyes dip to a trolley in front of it, laden with trays of food. "It's lunchtime. Would you like the chicken meal or the veal one?"
Meals. Another perplexing notion. The ingestion of processed meat, vegetable and grain is more than a mere biological imperative for humans. Primitives eat for a variety of reasons, only one of which is survival. Comfort food, for instance, is a widely spread notion too. On the television, actors sometimes indulge in large meals at times of depression or moral confusion. It makes no rational sense, as it changes nothing about the circumstances which led to their emotional turmoil in the first place, but the actors seem to derive some form of respite from the practice. The shell, of course, requires no further sustenance anymore but suddenly Illyria is curious about the concept.
"I will have both. Please."
The steward looks surprised. "I'm sorry?"
"I will have both."
"But that's not-" Illyria frowns at the steward, who pales. "Both. Right you are, Mi- Ma'am."
"Thank you."
***
Tbc...
<< (01) >>
I decided to post this in bits, mainly because it's more of a collection of moments than a single story. Some will be short, others longer depending on the mood of the scene and so on. Illyria as a character probably had the most potential for growth of the entire 'verse and I just thought it'd be fun to showcase that a little by exploring her 'life' after NFA. We'll see where that leads in the end, I suppose.
S'all for now. Bye. And thanks for reading!