Fic/Poem/Poem/Fic - for the Who Are You ficathon.
I had something much different planned for the Who Are You ficathon, but it wouldn't happen - so I wrote a Buffy-Illyria swap instead!
PG (if that); about 1000 words; partially inspired by The Owl and the Nightingale; set post-NFA in one of my futureverses where Buffy and Illyria are friends; slightly strange; no material for 'standard' warnings beyond what happened to Fred.
What can you trust when your instincts are gone?
The Beauty of the Stars.
So then the crystal blows, their mission’s done,
But Buffy finds herself across the room.
She’s looking back to where her body stands;
Illyria is nowhere to be seen.
She watches as the body she knows breaks:
It falls upon its knees, hands covering face,
Then starts to sob.
She stands apart and waits to feel the pain,
The empathy for what’s been done to her,
But she feels nothing, calm with placid cool
As eyes that surely can’t be hers stay dry.
The room is clean with stone surrounding them,
But it’s too small, oppressive on her space,
And so she leaves.
The wind comes fresh upon her skin, the sky
So bright in darkness and the courtyard’s stone
Correct to lie beneath her holy feet.
Museums aren’t her place, instead it’s earth
That should but wait on her magnificence
And lie in silence to revere her while
The green sings prayer.
She has no memory to echo full
And resonant with how the past was played,
But still she feels her skin remembers gold.
Her muscles know the moves of ritual,
The steps to take to dance epiphany,
The swift, sharp pirouettes to shock and kill
Each sacrifice.
Too many things are written in this flesh;
It was the body once of someone young,
But now the ages score their legacy
In lines and grooves on hard blue carapace.
Illyria is more than mind contained
And limited by magic - she is here
In Buffy’s blood.
This mind rebels, however, takes control,
Insists the black above can never be
Important as the human pain she left
To grieve alone inside. The present is
A wicked place, but still she cannot let
Another bear its burden while she stands
Outside at peace.
So now, then, Buffy turns to face the curse
Of human suffering. She turns on heels
And walks up every step to stone façade,
Through tall glass doors - the prison’s lovely gate -
And down the corridors to where she cries.
Illyria is waiting, buckled still,
Curled round her knees.
The air is full of magic; Buffy feels
The way it burns and scratches at her face.
She feels it more than her emotions, strange
And foreign in the figure she can see,
But still she makes entreaty, “Lyria,
Look up, this pain’s not yours,” although she can’t
Believe that’s true.
The first response is silence, grim and still.
The God-King halts the thoughts that fill her head,
The chemicals and blood that change the facts
Of her position in this ugly world
To all-consuming upset and distress.
She musters strict command, then slow she tries
To speak her thoughts.
“The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to - Rupert Giles and I
Once read those words to understand this state.”
Illyria looks up, her eyes awash
With confluence of fear and misery.
“But this abhors all comprehension, thought
And logic fair.”
“Come out into the night,” then Buffy says
While stretching forth a hand, “and see the stars.”
With queenly arm suborned, Illyria
Accepts, “The stars are not as they once were.”
“They aren’t.” She will agree with that. “But I
Would bet you’ll understand the change
As something new.”
It’s different, leading someone as a guide
And Buffy feels more like herself again
As she brings Blue, the skittish colt, away
From vestiges of magic to the breeze.
The sky’s an autumn black, unlit by lamps
As Willow’s power cut still binds their light:
They’ve only stars.
Illyria looks up and turns to see
The sky turn with her, zodiac in waltz.
She blinks tears out her eyes, distracted, says,
“The years I ruled, the stars were not like this.
They’re forms were different, paying reverence,
So unlike now - I feel I am prostrate
Before their might.”
It’s true. The sky is great and wide above;
The air twists high and climbs towards unknown
Infinity. The air’s caress is cool
And wants to whisk her to their majesty.
It seems that Buffy understands; the girl
Of blue and red is nodding, though she’s stood
So stately tall.
“For years we thought the stars were masters - signs
That ruled and signalled everything we were.
Some people still have faith that’s really true.”
When Buffy walked in Sunnydale, she walked
Beneath the stars, and she remembers how
They were companions to her pain and joy.
She had faith then.
“Your body as my shell,” Illyria
Looks owlishly at Buffy, thinking hard.
“Do you still feel as I, as you once felt?”
When Buffy looks up to the field of stars
She does not see what she once saw. Instead
She sees the universe, with balls of gas
In traffic lanes.
“This awe disturbs me deeply to my core,”
Illyria now adds, her gaze turned up
Again so she may see the sky in full.
“That awe is not yours either,” Buffy says,
With more conviction than she spoke of pain.
“But surely now you see the world has more
Than hurt to give?”
“It does not give,” Illyria replies.
“It takes, it seizes tears and hooks my heart.
This world is still your master, all of yours.”
Her eyes remain trained to the august stars,
While Buffy at her side is free, observe.
“No feeling is a blessing; here this life
Is not my own.”
“It never was,” now Buffy must rejoin,
Remembering quite dimly that she stands
Inside a murder victim’s stolen corpse.
“Emotion, what you’re feeling, that reveals
What’s true.” Illyria will only scoff,
“This sea of feeling is a lie, a thick
Distorted lens.”
Frustrated, Buffy looks towards the sky,
But feels as though she sees beyond the stars,
Beyond the galaxy towards the void.
This is not sight in her possession, this
Is something that will not appreciate the truth,
Will only look and probe on further till
There’s nothing left.
“It’s this that is illusion,” she demands,
Her skin alight with seasalt tingling,
The crystal’s magic that has struck on her
Responding now, at last, to words that go
Much deeper than conviction. “I could not
Feel this, not ever.” Then she shuts her eyes
And is returned.
[There are
comments on Dreamwidth!]
PG (if that); about 1000 words; partially inspired by The Owl and the Nightingale; set post-NFA in one of my futureverses where Buffy and Illyria are friends; slightly strange; no material for 'standard' warnings beyond what happened to Fred.
What can you trust when your instincts are gone?
The Beauty of the Stars.
So then the crystal blows, their mission’s done,
But Buffy finds herself across the room.
She’s looking back to where her body stands;
Illyria is nowhere to be seen.
She watches as the body she knows breaks:
It falls upon its knees, hands covering face,
Then starts to sob.
She stands apart and waits to feel the pain,
The empathy for what’s been done to her,
But she feels nothing, calm with placid cool
As eyes that surely can’t be hers stay dry.
The room is clean with stone surrounding them,
But it’s too small, oppressive on her space,
And so she leaves.
The wind comes fresh upon her skin, the sky
So bright in darkness and the courtyard’s stone
Correct to lie beneath her holy feet.
Museums aren’t her place, instead it’s earth
That should but wait on her magnificence
And lie in silence to revere her while
The green sings prayer.
She has no memory to echo full
And resonant with how the past was played,
But still she feels her skin remembers gold.
Her muscles know the moves of ritual,
The steps to take to dance epiphany,
The swift, sharp pirouettes to shock and kill
Each sacrifice.
Too many things are written in this flesh;
It was the body once of someone young,
But now the ages score their legacy
In lines and grooves on hard blue carapace.
Illyria is more than mind contained
And limited by magic - she is here
In Buffy’s blood.
This mind rebels, however, takes control,
Insists the black above can never be
Important as the human pain she left
To grieve alone inside. The present is
A wicked place, but still she cannot let
Another bear its burden while she stands
Outside at peace.
So now, then, Buffy turns to face the curse
Of human suffering. She turns on heels
And walks up every step to stone façade,
Through tall glass doors - the prison’s lovely gate -
And down the corridors to where she cries.
Illyria is waiting, buckled still,
Curled round her knees.
The air is full of magic; Buffy feels
The way it burns and scratches at her face.
She feels it more than her emotions, strange
And foreign in the figure she can see,
But still she makes entreaty, “Lyria,
Look up, this pain’s not yours,” although she can’t
Believe that’s true.
The first response is silence, grim and still.
The God-King halts the thoughts that fill her head,
The chemicals and blood that change the facts
Of her position in this ugly world
To all-consuming upset and distress.
She musters strict command, then slow she tries
To speak her thoughts.
“The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to - Rupert Giles and I
Once read those words to understand this state.”
Illyria looks up, her eyes awash
With confluence of fear and misery.
“But this abhors all comprehension, thought
And logic fair.”
“Come out into the night,” then Buffy says
While stretching forth a hand, “and see the stars.”
With queenly arm suborned, Illyria
Accepts, “The stars are not as they once were.”
“They aren’t.” She will agree with that. “But I
Would bet you’ll understand the change
As something new.”
It’s different, leading someone as a guide
And Buffy feels more like herself again
As she brings Blue, the skittish colt, away
From vestiges of magic to the breeze.
The sky’s an autumn black, unlit by lamps
As Willow’s power cut still binds their light:
They’ve only stars.
Illyria looks up and turns to see
The sky turn with her, zodiac in waltz.
She blinks tears out her eyes, distracted, says,
“The years I ruled, the stars were not like this.
They’re forms were different, paying reverence,
So unlike now - I feel I am prostrate
Before their might.”
It’s true. The sky is great and wide above;
The air twists high and climbs towards unknown
Infinity. The air’s caress is cool
And wants to whisk her to their majesty.
It seems that Buffy understands; the girl
Of blue and red is nodding, though she’s stood
So stately tall.
“For years we thought the stars were masters - signs
That ruled and signalled everything we were.
Some people still have faith that’s really true.”
When Buffy walked in Sunnydale, she walked
Beneath the stars, and she remembers how
They were companions to her pain and joy.
She had faith then.
“Your body as my shell,” Illyria
Looks owlishly at Buffy, thinking hard.
“Do you still feel as I, as you once felt?”
When Buffy looks up to the field of stars
She does not see what she once saw. Instead
She sees the universe, with balls of gas
In traffic lanes.
“This awe disturbs me deeply to my core,”
Illyria now adds, her gaze turned up
Again so she may see the sky in full.
“That awe is not yours either,” Buffy says,
With more conviction than she spoke of pain.
“But surely now you see the world has more
Than hurt to give?”
“It does not give,” Illyria replies.
“It takes, it seizes tears and hooks my heart.
This world is still your master, all of yours.”
Her eyes remain trained to the august stars,
While Buffy at her side is free, observe.
“No feeling is a blessing; here this life
Is not my own.”
“It never was,” now Buffy must rejoin,
Remembering quite dimly that she stands
Inside a murder victim’s stolen corpse.
“Emotion, what you’re feeling, that reveals
What’s true.” Illyria will only scoff,
“This sea of feeling is a lie, a thick
Distorted lens.”
Frustrated, Buffy looks towards the sky,
But feels as though she sees beyond the stars,
Beyond the galaxy towards the void.
This is not sight in her possession, this
Is something that will not appreciate the truth,
Will only look and probe on further till
There’s nothing left.
“It’s this that is illusion,” she demands,
Her skin alight with seasalt tingling,
The crystal’s magic that has struck on her
Responding now, at last, to words that go
Much deeper than conviction. “I could not
Feel this, not ever.” Then she shuts her eyes
And is returned.
[There are
comments on Dreamwidth!]