Fic: Death is Her Gift (Dawn/Vi)
Title Death is Her Gift
Author Brutti ma buoni
Pairing Dawn/Vi
Rating PG
Words 2400
A/N This fic grew out of my recent ficlet Time to Wake Up (Dawn/River), which isn’t core Rulesverse. This fic, though, is definitely Rulesverse, with particular reference to Dawn and Vi’s conversation in On the Nature of Things and Being Heroes (from where the text of Buffy’s letter is taken). The Rulesverse timeline may help if you’re lost.
The Slayer Council has a strong, possibly unhealthy, tendency towards endogamy.
It’s maybe not surprising, given the sheer weirdness of their lives and the difficulty of explaining them to outsiders. Also: Xander’s efforts to date outside the gene pool have provided many examples of the extreme badness lurking out there.
Still, it is slightly worrying to anyone with a rational, analytical mind as Buffy hooks up with Spike, Giles with Faith, Wesley with the Blue Freaky. Rational, analytical people like Vi. She thinks this is probably how the Watchers began: intermarrying, keeping it within the closed circle, and after two thousand years you end up with a bunch of strangulated British guys called Algernon who think they’re above humanity.
If nothing else, since they can't pick out Slayers, they should surely think about genetic factors when recruiting the next batch of SSOs. Or is that basically eugenics?
Sometimes it’s tough, being the science one and the ethics one combined. But no one else is rushing to take either of those jobs over.
*
Vi has to admit she’s as guilty in practice as any of the other original Sunnydalers. What with the very bad rebound fling with Kennedy post-Willow; the less bad but more confusing rebound fling with Willow post-Kennedy; the night with Andrew that Shall Never Be Mentioned Again; the seriously fun but strictly temporary thing with Tina Mendez; and the arrangement she has with Erik for whenever they’re both too single to stand it any longer, she’s pretty much non-stop crapping on the Council doorstep.
She has tried to get away, but meeting a nice guy or girl is tough in the remote Scottish highlands. There’s been some.. interesting... live chat stuff, which has been a good substitute for Erik when he’s otherwise occupied, but remote sex isn’t an actual relationship, and that is actually what Vi would like if anyone bothered to ask her.
What with her work, it really isn’t easy to take the initiative either. R&D just fell into Vi’s lap, pretty much fresh out of Sunnydale, even before anyone called it that. And so from the start, Vi had people calling at odd hours wanting suggestions for new ways to kill Flargh demons, or witches needing a little extra zazz for a flux spell. Not always the most convenient thing, when your cell rings at an intimate moment, you answer it (because you’re Vi, who’s conscientious and responsible), and you leave Him or Her half-naked and wanting because it’s a text from Giles demanding to know where the Codicus Drax is on account of the Apocalypse impending (again).
Even Council members get cranky about that happening. Though Vi feels they really should factor in the world-not-ending side benefits from leaving them hanging.
*
What Vi would really like is Dawn Summers. Endogamy for the win. Making it happen is a challenge she’s been working on for a while.
Dawn has been around forever, of course.
Which is a loaded thing to say. Vi means, in the privacy of her own brain, that she can remember Dawn as a core part of the Sunnydale operation since Vi first arrived at the bus station, sobbing for her lost Watcher, and was bundled into the back of a station wagon with a pretty kid who gave her a chocolate bar and promised there was a shower waiting for her back at the Summers place (“Not that you smell bad, but long distance buses....”). Dawn is a Council fixture, which even her years of college, girlfriends from Outside the Fold, and continuing travels to high-powered linguistic departments in universities across the world haven’t entirely shaken loose.
Vi can date her own Dawn fixation quite precisely, though, and it has to do with the other ‘Dawn forever’ trope. The one where her physical form is a construct and her essential self is an energy matrix with the power to destroy universes.
Not that Vi’s kinky, you understand.
Just, that summer when they worked through the Key’s potentialities, when Spike walked through dimensions and Illyria bonded with the Key, there was a little girl-girl bonding between Dawn and Vi going on too. Because Dawn Summers needed a friend. Specifically, a friend who could listen to her talking about the invention of time and the birth of galaxies and say, “Huh” without blinking. No one else quite cut it. Giles took notes, looked concerned, and said, “Hmm”. Buffy blinked, and said, “But you’re human now.” Willow said, “Cool!” and looked slightly too much like someone who’d once tried to destroy the world for anyone’s comfort. Spike, prepared to listen, was also prone to interrupt confidences with urgent business about Annie’s nap time or diapers.
So Vi and Dawn talked, a lot, that year while Dawn tried to make sense of her self. And it was good. They laughed and shared dumb jokes mingling demonic linguistics with mystical constructs - the type of jokes that make Erik snort, and the rest of the Council roll their eyes and despair of the Nerd Squad. Very, very slowly, they made progress towards something more, too. Cautious dancing around each other - hopeful, but wary of false steps that would break their friendship and make the Council’s enforced intimacy painful for both.
The next part, though, is the part that gives Vi shivers of remembrance. The part remembering the day in January when she walked into R&D and found Dawn dripping her own blood into a test tube. (Not the freakout-cause it would have been with anyone else - they’d all grown used to tapping into the Key for research purposes in the previous months. Because it was necessary, like if Dawn were diabetic. Looking back, that complacency feels repellent. They’d lost sight of Dawn behind the Key).
Vi said, “What’s the big research project? I thought we were done with the blood work.”
Dawn didn’t reply.
“Dawn?... Is something wrong?” Points to Vi for the observiness. Right.
Dawn’s voice was very calm, suddenly remote. “Vi... Do you think I look my age?”
“Sure. Why?” Because what do you say? Dawn didn’t look like a little kid, and she didn’t look middle aged, and 24 was about what she looked.
“Illyria says I don’t age.”
“No way!” Vi had never liked Blue Meanie much - self-centred deities not high on her list. Besides, this was garbage. “You don’t look sixteen, like when we first met, that’s for sure.” And it was true. Dawn was gorgeous, and not even slightly adolescent.
But she got no positive response to the reassurance. “No. I look twenty. I’ll always look twenty. Maybe nineteen.”
“Dawn, what in hell did that damn God King say to you?” Because even unflappable researchers have their limits.
“She said I was constructed out of Buffy. Buffy as she was. The monks could make me younger, because they had a blueprint in Buffy’s blood for how younger worked. But they couldn’t make me older than she was then. I’m going to look like this forever.”
There were a lot of things that could be said. Vi went with, “It’s a nice way to look. If it’s true, no wrinkles, no grey hairs and saggy-”
Dawn interrupted, too fierce to be stopped. “Forever. I don’t age. I can’t die. If I die, the energy isn’t controlled any more. All those things the Key does - they’ll all happen. The universe will fall in on itself. It’s way worse than being a vampire. I’m immortal, and I have to stay immortal until the end of time.” There was a long pause. Eventually, Dawn broke it, so quietly Vi could barely hear it. “I’m not human at all.”
*
Which was the end of Vi’s hopes, and of Dawn’s intimacy with humanity. No more random girlfriends turning up from Saigon or Casablanca. No more delight in the Council’s gossip fest. No more stupid research in-jokes.
Vi doesn’t know who else knows what’s wrong. Illyria, of course, and therefore probably Wesley. But even Buffy and Spike surely don’t know, or they wouldn’t have named their second kid Aurora in Dawn’s honour. (Bad for two reasons: one, dumb name. Two, as Dawn said bitterly, “So I’ll get to watch her doing all the stuff I can’t. Like getting old and dying.”) No one asks Vi what’s wrong with Dawn, so maybe her hopes for their relationship weren’t inscribed as nakedly on her face as she’d feared.
Eighteen months down the line, and Dawn’s a polite, bloodless ghost, going through the Council motions. No more Key research allowed. Available 24/7/365 for research, but never going into danger (“I can’t even die saving the world, because I’d kill the universe”).
*
It is Buffy’s goodbye letter to the Chief Slayers that shakes Vi into action.
“You have lives outside - Faith has Giles and Mike, Kennedy has Jen, Vi’s got all those research projects and exciting things to pursue with the digital- yeah, I don’t understand it at all, but I know you’re excited by it.”... So the obnoxious Ken-Jen get their props, and Faith has her only-slightly-gross relationship with much older guy, plus kid. And Vi? Vi has research.
It’s not enough.
Starting a new career as joint-head of the Slayer Council isn’t the perfect moment to sort out one’s private life. But Vi’s determined to get Dawn or get over her and move the hell on. And now she has both free research rein and the power to call really unprofessional meetings.
“Why am I here?”
It’s seven a.m. Not Dawn’s favourite time; she looks all foggy and cross. This is called strategy.
Vi sits on the control centre desk, turning her back on the blinking monitors for a while. She figures Dawn will mention it if there’s an onscreen Apocalypse while they talk.
“So... you’re the Key.”
“Yes.” Cold, closed-off. Just what Vi expected.
“And that means you’re not allowed to know the love of a woman anymore?”
“It means I’m not human.”
“Nor’s Spike. Or Illyria. They seem pretty happily hooked up.” (This is relative. Spike is pretty blissed out with Buffy, but Vi has never understood the Wesley-Illyria vibe. Still, they are handy examples for her current purpose, so strict fact gets skipped over this once.)
It works, slightly. Dawn wants to say “That’s different”, but in fact it isn’t, very. It’s just that Spike loves near-life too much to miss out purely on account of being dead, and Illyria wants Wesley, so she doesn’t care that they are different species and she is several millennia his senior. If Dawn wanted, she could make the same choices.
It may be just that no one ever pushed her on this. But Vi now has a plan. So she stops with the reasoned arguments about what Dawn deserves, and goes straight for the, um, kill.
“I think we could make you die.”
Most people’s response to this would not be happiness, but Dawn unmistakeably flares with hope. “Seriously?”
“Well, not exactly die-” Dawn is already turning off the optimism. “But end your life. Your human life. You could go back to being a green blob again, when you’re ready.”
“Are you sure?” Now there’s hope: real, passionate hope.
“Pretty sure. I worked it out. Your humanity’s just a construct. Your natural Key self is the ball of energy, right? And the ball of energy can go on forever, but your humanity doesn’t have to, as long as we can turn you back. I think Illyria could help. Maybe even a really powerful witch, since you’re put together by spellcraft. But I thought I’d start with Illyria.” Vi’s about to point out what a big sacrifice this is, given her non-love for the God King, but she gets distracted by a sudden lapful of Dawn. Followed by a mouthful of Dawn kisses, which take precedence over her martyred self. It’s, if possible, better than she imagined.
Finally, Dawn snorts an inelegant, teary laugh. “I know you haven’t asked, but yes. Okay? If you find a way to kill me, I will sleep with you.”
It’s all about incentives.
They sleep together anyway, after the first few days of Everything-But get old. But Vi hasn’t forgotten the important thing.
*
It takes longer than planned, because that week is the week they hear about Buffy’s injury, and there are whole months while Dawn goes out to California, and then the Summers family move back to the castle, and it’s all emotional mess time. And then the news about Vi and Dawn gets out, and everyone’s all coy and pleased and “look at the lovebirds” around them. Which is a little nauseating, though well meant.
Finally, Vi gets a chance to go out to California. The Hyperion is a favourite place - all those trainee SSOs bursting with enthusiasm, the fun of Lorne playing den mother to a shifting cast of hundreds. She usually avoids the penthouse suite where Illyria has her base, though. No luck this time.
“Good day, small orange one.” See, this is why Vi doesn’t like Illyria. It’s hard to keep your dignity with that kind of greeting.
“Good day, your lordliness.” Pukeworthy, but necessary. “I seek knowledge of the Key.”
“You wish to end its humanity.” Again, this would be why Vi doesn’t like Illyria: if she’s so damn omniscient, how come it takes years for her to be of actual help?
Grr. Anyway... “Yes. Dawn does not wish to continue without end. We crave your assistance with finding the means of returning her to what she once was.” Vi’s gotten a lot better at talking to gods in recent years, but she still hates the way you have to dip your tongue in flattery to get it done.
Illyria nods, oblivious. “It can be achieved. The Key need not continue in this form. Though I had hoped...” She doesn’t finish that thought, but Vi follows it anyway, into the future of Illyria’s own near-immortality and solitude.
Just this once, she feels a little sorry for the God King.
*
The first thing she says to Dawn back at the castle is, “It’s done. We worked it out.”
Vi’s never before announced to anyone human that she has the power to end their lives. She never expected it to be such a good thing, either. “The formula is in the Council safe, and it’s copied in the bank box in Zurich. So-“
“If someone blows up the Council again, I hightail it to Switzerland and euthanize myself. Sounds appropriate.”
“It can’t be done without your consent. Or, anyway, your hair, blood and bone. So don’t go giving those away.”
“I like to think I’d notice someone taking my bones out.” Dawn is smiling. “I can die. I can die any time.” She looks so happy, though she’s crying too and in Vi’s arms saying wordless thank yous.
“Promise me you won’t do it too soon?” Vi wants Dawn to have life for as long as she enjoys it, and she’s tearing up in her turn at the thought. “Life’s a gift. You can see Rorie’s grandkids and beyond, if you want. Watch humans colonise space, I hope. Maybe see them finally build the damn space elevator. Think what you could do with not-quite immortality. And if you can live forever, you can make the world better as you go.”
Dawn raises her teary, red-eyed face, with a faint look of interest. “Like Doctor Who?”
Vi kisses her, laughing a little. “Yeah. Exactly like Doctor Who.”
***
Author Brutti ma buoni
Pairing Dawn/Vi
Rating PG
Words 2400
A/N This fic grew out of my recent ficlet Time to Wake Up (Dawn/River), which isn’t core Rulesverse. This fic, though, is definitely Rulesverse, with particular reference to Dawn and Vi’s conversation in On the Nature of Things and Being Heroes (from where the text of Buffy’s letter is taken). The Rulesverse timeline may help if you’re lost.
The Slayer Council has a strong, possibly unhealthy, tendency towards endogamy.
It’s maybe not surprising, given the sheer weirdness of their lives and the difficulty of explaining them to outsiders. Also: Xander’s efforts to date outside the gene pool have provided many examples of the extreme badness lurking out there.
Still, it is slightly worrying to anyone with a rational, analytical mind as Buffy hooks up with Spike, Giles with Faith, Wesley with the Blue Freaky. Rational, analytical people like Vi. She thinks this is probably how the Watchers began: intermarrying, keeping it within the closed circle, and after two thousand years you end up with a bunch of strangulated British guys called Algernon who think they’re above humanity.
If nothing else, since they can't pick out Slayers, they should surely think about genetic factors when recruiting the next batch of SSOs. Or is that basically eugenics?
Sometimes it’s tough, being the science one and the ethics one combined. But no one else is rushing to take either of those jobs over.
*
Vi has to admit she’s as guilty in practice as any of the other original Sunnydalers. What with the very bad rebound fling with Kennedy post-Willow; the less bad but more confusing rebound fling with Willow post-Kennedy; the night with Andrew that Shall Never Be Mentioned Again; the seriously fun but strictly temporary thing with Tina Mendez; and the arrangement she has with Erik for whenever they’re both too single to stand it any longer, she’s pretty much non-stop crapping on the Council doorstep.
She has tried to get away, but meeting a nice guy or girl is tough in the remote Scottish highlands. There’s been some.. interesting... live chat stuff, which has been a good substitute for Erik when he’s otherwise occupied, but remote sex isn’t an actual relationship, and that is actually what Vi would like if anyone bothered to ask her.
What with her work, it really isn’t easy to take the initiative either. R&D just fell into Vi’s lap, pretty much fresh out of Sunnydale, even before anyone called it that. And so from the start, Vi had people calling at odd hours wanting suggestions for new ways to kill Flargh demons, or witches needing a little extra zazz for a flux spell. Not always the most convenient thing, when your cell rings at an intimate moment, you answer it (because you’re Vi, who’s conscientious and responsible), and you leave Him or Her half-naked and wanting because it’s a text from Giles demanding to know where the Codicus Drax is on account of the Apocalypse impending (again).
Even Council members get cranky about that happening. Though Vi feels they really should factor in the world-not-ending side benefits from leaving them hanging.
*
What Vi would really like is Dawn Summers. Endogamy for the win. Making it happen is a challenge she’s been working on for a while.
Dawn has been around forever, of course.
Which is a loaded thing to say. Vi means, in the privacy of her own brain, that she can remember Dawn as a core part of the Sunnydale operation since Vi first arrived at the bus station, sobbing for her lost Watcher, and was bundled into the back of a station wagon with a pretty kid who gave her a chocolate bar and promised there was a shower waiting for her back at the Summers place (“Not that you smell bad, but long distance buses....”). Dawn is a Council fixture, which even her years of college, girlfriends from Outside the Fold, and continuing travels to high-powered linguistic departments in universities across the world haven’t entirely shaken loose.
Vi can date her own Dawn fixation quite precisely, though, and it has to do with the other ‘Dawn forever’ trope. The one where her physical form is a construct and her essential self is an energy matrix with the power to destroy universes.
Not that Vi’s kinky, you understand.
Just, that summer when they worked through the Key’s potentialities, when Spike walked through dimensions and Illyria bonded with the Key, there was a little girl-girl bonding between Dawn and Vi going on too. Because Dawn Summers needed a friend. Specifically, a friend who could listen to her talking about the invention of time and the birth of galaxies and say, “Huh” without blinking. No one else quite cut it. Giles took notes, looked concerned, and said, “Hmm”. Buffy blinked, and said, “But you’re human now.” Willow said, “Cool!” and looked slightly too much like someone who’d once tried to destroy the world for anyone’s comfort. Spike, prepared to listen, was also prone to interrupt confidences with urgent business about Annie’s nap time or diapers.
So Vi and Dawn talked, a lot, that year while Dawn tried to make sense of her self. And it was good. They laughed and shared dumb jokes mingling demonic linguistics with mystical constructs - the type of jokes that make Erik snort, and the rest of the Council roll their eyes and despair of the Nerd Squad. Very, very slowly, they made progress towards something more, too. Cautious dancing around each other - hopeful, but wary of false steps that would break their friendship and make the Council’s enforced intimacy painful for both.
The next part, though, is the part that gives Vi shivers of remembrance. The part remembering the day in January when she walked into R&D and found Dawn dripping her own blood into a test tube. (Not the freakout-cause it would have been with anyone else - they’d all grown used to tapping into the Key for research purposes in the previous months. Because it was necessary, like if Dawn were diabetic. Looking back, that complacency feels repellent. They’d lost sight of Dawn behind the Key).
Vi said, “What’s the big research project? I thought we were done with the blood work.”
Dawn didn’t reply.
“Dawn?... Is something wrong?” Points to Vi for the observiness. Right.
Dawn’s voice was very calm, suddenly remote. “Vi... Do you think I look my age?”
“Sure. Why?” Because what do you say? Dawn didn’t look like a little kid, and she didn’t look middle aged, and 24 was about what she looked.
“Illyria says I don’t age.”
“No way!” Vi had never liked Blue Meanie much - self-centred deities not high on her list. Besides, this was garbage. “You don’t look sixteen, like when we first met, that’s for sure.” And it was true. Dawn was gorgeous, and not even slightly adolescent.
But she got no positive response to the reassurance. “No. I look twenty. I’ll always look twenty. Maybe nineteen.”
“Dawn, what in hell did that damn God King say to you?” Because even unflappable researchers have their limits.
“She said I was constructed out of Buffy. Buffy as she was. The monks could make me younger, because they had a blueprint in Buffy’s blood for how younger worked. But they couldn’t make me older than she was then. I’m going to look like this forever.”
There were a lot of things that could be said. Vi went with, “It’s a nice way to look. If it’s true, no wrinkles, no grey hairs and saggy-”
Dawn interrupted, too fierce to be stopped. “Forever. I don’t age. I can’t die. If I die, the energy isn’t controlled any more. All those things the Key does - they’ll all happen. The universe will fall in on itself. It’s way worse than being a vampire. I’m immortal, and I have to stay immortal until the end of time.” There was a long pause. Eventually, Dawn broke it, so quietly Vi could barely hear it. “I’m not human at all.”
*
Which was the end of Vi’s hopes, and of Dawn’s intimacy with humanity. No more random girlfriends turning up from Saigon or Casablanca. No more delight in the Council’s gossip fest. No more stupid research in-jokes.
Vi doesn’t know who else knows what’s wrong. Illyria, of course, and therefore probably Wesley. But even Buffy and Spike surely don’t know, or they wouldn’t have named their second kid Aurora in Dawn’s honour. (Bad for two reasons: one, dumb name. Two, as Dawn said bitterly, “So I’ll get to watch her doing all the stuff I can’t. Like getting old and dying.”) No one asks Vi what’s wrong with Dawn, so maybe her hopes for their relationship weren’t inscribed as nakedly on her face as she’d feared.
Eighteen months down the line, and Dawn’s a polite, bloodless ghost, going through the Council motions. No more Key research allowed. Available 24/7/365 for research, but never going into danger (“I can’t even die saving the world, because I’d kill the universe”).
*
It is Buffy’s goodbye letter to the Chief Slayers that shakes Vi into action.
“You have lives outside - Faith has Giles and Mike, Kennedy has Jen, Vi’s got all those research projects and exciting things to pursue with the digital- yeah, I don’t understand it at all, but I know you’re excited by it.”... So the obnoxious Ken-Jen get their props, and Faith has her only-slightly-gross relationship with much older guy, plus kid. And Vi? Vi has research.
It’s not enough.
Starting a new career as joint-head of the Slayer Council isn’t the perfect moment to sort out one’s private life. But Vi’s determined to get Dawn or get over her and move the hell on. And now she has both free research rein and the power to call really unprofessional meetings.
“Why am I here?”
It’s seven a.m. Not Dawn’s favourite time; she looks all foggy and cross. This is called strategy.
Vi sits on the control centre desk, turning her back on the blinking monitors for a while. She figures Dawn will mention it if there’s an onscreen Apocalypse while they talk.
“So... you’re the Key.”
“Yes.” Cold, closed-off. Just what Vi expected.
“And that means you’re not allowed to know the love of a woman anymore?”
“It means I’m not human.”
“Nor’s Spike. Or Illyria. They seem pretty happily hooked up.” (This is relative. Spike is pretty blissed out with Buffy, but Vi has never understood the Wesley-Illyria vibe. Still, they are handy examples for her current purpose, so strict fact gets skipped over this once.)
It works, slightly. Dawn wants to say “That’s different”, but in fact it isn’t, very. It’s just that Spike loves near-life too much to miss out purely on account of being dead, and Illyria wants Wesley, so she doesn’t care that they are different species and she is several millennia his senior. If Dawn wanted, she could make the same choices.
It may be just that no one ever pushed her on this. But Vi now has a plan. So she stops with the reasoned arguments about what Dawn deserves, and goes straight for the, um, kill.
“I think we could make you die.”
Most people’s response to this would not be happiness, but Dawn unmistakeably flares with hope. “Seriously?”
“Well, not exactly die-” Dawn is already turning off the optimism. “But end your life. Your human life. You could go back to being a green blob again, when you’re ready.”
“Are you sure?” Now there’s hope: real, passionate hope.
“Pretty sure. I worked it out. Your humanity’s just a construct. Your natural Key self is the ball of energy, right? And the ball of energy can go on forever, but your humanity doesn’t have to, as long as we can turn you back. I think Illyria could help. Maybe even a really powerful witch, since you’re put together by spellcraft. But I thought I’d start with Illyria.” Vi’s about to point out what a big sacrifice this is, given her non-love for the God King, but she gets distracted by a sudden lapful of Dawn. Followed by a mouthful of Dawn kisses, which take precedence over her martyred self. It’s, if possible, better than she imagined.
Finally, Dawn snorts an inelegant, teary laugh. “I know you haven’t asked, but yes. Okay? If you find a way to kill me, I will sleep with you.”
It’s all about incentives.
They sleep together anyway, after the first few days of Everything-But get old. But Vi hasn’t forgotten the important thing.
*
It takes longer than planned, because that week is the week they hear about Buffy’s injury, and there are whole months while Dawn goes out to California, and then the Summers family move back to the castle, and it’s all emotional mess time. And then the news about Vi and Dawn gets out, and everyone’s all coy and pleased and “look at the lovebirds” around them. Which is a little nauseating, though well meant.
Finally, Vi gets a chance to go out to California. The Hyperion is a favourite place - all those trainee SSOs bursting with enthusiasm, the fun of Lorne playing den mother to a shifting cast of hundreds. She usually avoids the penthouse suite where Illyria has her base, though. No luck this time.
“Good day, small orange one.” See, this is why Vi doesn’t like Illyria. It’s hard to keep your dignity with that kind of greeting.
“Good day, your lordliness.” Pukeworthy, but necessary. “I seek knowledge of the Key.”
“You wish to end its humanity.” Again, this would be why Vi doesn’t like Illyria: if she’s so damn omniscient, how come it takes years for her to be of actual help?
Grr. Anyway... “Yes. Dawn does not wish to continue without end. We crave your assistance with finding the means of returning her to what she once was.” Vi’s gotten a lot better at talking to gods in recent years, but she still hates the way you have to dip your tongue in flattery to get it done.
Illyria nods, oblivious. “It can be achieved. The Key need not continue in this form. Though I had hoped...” She doesn’t finish that thought, but Vi follows it anyway, into the future of Illyria’s own near-immortality and solitude.
Just this once, she feels a little sorry for the God King.
*
The first thing she says to Dawn back at the castle is, “It’s done. We worked it out.”
Vi’s never before announced to anyone human that she has the power to end their lives. She never expected it to be such a good thing, either. “The formula is in the Council safe, and it’s copied in the bank box in Zurich. So-“
“If someone blows up the Council again, I hightail it to Switzerland and euthanize myself. Sounds appropriate.”
“It can’t be done without your consent. Or, anyway, your hair, blood and bone. So don’t go giving those away.”
“I like to think I’d notice someone taking my bones out.” Dawn is smiling. “I can die. I can die any time.” She looks so happy, though she’s crying too and in Vi’s arms saying wordless thank yous.
“Promise me you won’t do it too soon?” Vi wants Dawn to have life for as long as she enjoys it, and she’s tearing up in her turn at the thought. “Life’s a gift. You can see Rorie’s grandkids and beyond, if you want. Watch humans colonise space, I hope. Maybe see them finally build the damn space elevator. Think what you could do with not-quite immortality. And if you can live forever, you can make the world better as you go.”
Dawn raises her teary, red-eyed face, with a faint look of interest. “Like Doctor Who?”
Vi kisses her, laughing a little. “Yeah. Exactly like Doctor Who.”
***