Paying the Toll (Spike/Buffy PG)
So I wrote the frivolous thing about goats. And then this sadness happened. Blame fantas_magoria, I fear, because we've just reached The Gift.
Title Paying the Toll
Author Brutti ma buoni
Rating PG
Words 340
Setting shortly after The Gift
Prompt Charon the Ferryman
Warning Angst. In case you didn't get that from the setting. A smidge of horror, I guess, though fleeting.
He had to do something for her. One last thing, since he failed so utterly to perform the previous last thing she'd needed from him.
He didn't know why it was this particular myth that he picked. Could have been a great pyre or a ship burial. A libation in her memory. A lion at her feet or some sweetmeats and a weapon to take onward to the afterlife. A chorus of mutes and black horses, and sod the secrecy attendant on this quiet burial.
All futile, he knew. She'd gone beyond them now. Nothing they did to honour her - not the formal dress and the good shoes, not the combing of her hair or the straightening of her broken limbs - none of it mattered to Buffy Summers anymore.
But, helplessly, he had to share in the rites, and it was his old school lessons that told him what was needed.
He stood beside her coffin, looking his last. Her eyes were closed, as they hadn't been after she fell, staring into the eternal unknown she'd entered. Her eyes would be rotting now, just starting to turn, like all the softest parts of this human body. He was glad they'd closed her eyes.
In his hands, two sovereigns, minted in 1853 and put by for him ever since (what a good boy, William, keeping your birth gifts safe). No better use for them than this. Not mere pennies for his Slayer. It should have been just the one coin in her mouth, if he recalled aright, but something sat wrong with that idea. He'd touched her mouth just the once, when she kissed him in thanks, and he wouldn't sully that memory. One coin seemed ungenerous too. He wanted to give her double her due.
He placed the sovereigns on her eyelids, so careful, but he couldn't help but brush her cold skin. Same temperature as his now, and ever would be, while she still had flesh.
"Tip the ferryman well, love. Make sure he gives you a smooth ride."
She deserved a little peace.
*
Title Paying the Toll
Author Brutti ma buoni
Rating PG
Words 340
Setting shortly after The Gift
Prompt Charon the Ferryman
Warning Angst. In case you didn't get that from the setting. A smidge of horror, I guess, though fleeting.
He had to do something for her. One last thing, since he failed so utterly to perform the previous last thing she'd needed from him.
He didn't know why it was this particular myth that he picked. Could have been a great pyre or a ship burial. A libation in her memory. A lion at her feet or some sweetmeats and a weapon to take onward to the afterlife. A chorus of mutes and black horses, and sod the secrecy attendant on this quiet burial.
All futile, he knew. She'd gone beyond them now. Nothing they did to honour her - not the formal dress and the good shoes, not the combing of her hair or the straightening of her broken limbs - none of it mattered to Buffy Summers anymore.
But, helplessly, he had to share in the rites, and it was his old school lessons that told him what was needed.
He stood beside her coffin, looking his last. Her eyes were closed, as they hadn't been after she fell, staring into the eternal unknown she'd entered. Her eyes would be rotting now, just starting to turn, like all the softest parts of this human body. He was glad they'd closed her eyes.
In his hands, two sovereigns, minted in 1853 and put by for him ever since (what a good boy, William, keeping your birth gifts safe). No better use for them than this. Not mere pennies for his Slayer. It should have been just the one coin in her mouth, if he recalled aright, but something sat wrong with that idea. He'd touched her mouth just the once, when she kissed him in thanks, and he wouldn't sully that memory. One coin seemed ungenerous too. He wanted to give her double her due.
He placed the sovereigns on her eyelids, so careful, but he couldn't help but brush her cold skin. Same temperature as his now, and ever would be, while she still had flesh.
"Tip the ferryman well, love. Make sure he gives you a smooth ride."
She deserved a little peace.
*