(no subject)
Title: Final Goodbye
Author: skull_theatre
Rating: G
Word Count: 548
Prompt 011 - Sunnydale Crater
Character: two demons
He picked his way through the rubble, moving up and out of the now significantly smaller Hellmouth, a gaping wound reminiscent of battered lips oh-ed open, rocky shattered teeth and broken gumlines. He winced as he moved through it and away from it, ducking under piled granite boulders as big as, well, boulders. He smirked. Ah, destruction and chaos and general mayhem. This had been one spectacular show but he quickly admonished himself with the thought of his mission and sobered by grief he moved forward, threading through rock and climbing steadily upward, the demolition now becoming human in construction, concrete chunks maced with razor-sharp rebar protrusions, splintered wood, twisted metal. And the smell of charred vampire. Hundreds of thousands of charred vampires. He was getting closer.
One of his hearts hung heavy as a stone behind his ribs and he brought up a hand to press against the place, just there, where he could feel it beating sluggishly, cold and dark and filled with a black anguish. She was dead, cut down, and death comes to us all, a little more to some, but he wasn’t about to let her body lay here, beneath the ruins of Sunnydale, of that damnable High School, and decompose the way human corpses were wont to do. She would be immolated as she deserved to be. Even before the Grand Finale of Finality he had already set out with full intent of bringing her back to perform the last rites and utter that incantation which would set her flesh aflame and then, only then he would allow himself to be blinded by tears and perhaps rejoice a tiny bit in such Creative Carnage. But right now, he had to find her.
If he could find her, if on the underside of this earthen crater, somehow, someway her body had fallen with the dirt and rubble and landscaping shrubberies, if it had, he would search until he did. And if it hadn’t, he would search until he could search no more and knowing himself as he did, best not to think how far in the future that time might be.
The eternal flames of damnation lit his way but the way was growing darker and he chanted under his breath and a yellowish illumination lit the littered path. He stopped for a moment and closed his eyes, breathing deeply, wondering if he could smell her in her dead state. He coughed.
Then, he bent and stood and rounded another pile of rubble and there she was. Torn and broken and severed nearly in half. D’Hoffryn pulled himself up short - he thought he had been prepared, but he hadn’t been, of course. Slowly he approached and then he went down on one knee beside her and reached for the arm that was splayed backwards and beneath her, he gently, gently pulled it free and took the limp hand in his own. “Anyanka. My dear girl.” But no tears, not yet.
He scooped her up in his arms, holding her torso together by pulling her closer to his chest, her head lolled onto his shoulder and he looked down at the ruined body of the girl. "I found you." Surprising even himself, he touched his lips to her forehead, tasted grit and sweat and blood, and whispered into her dead face, "Come then. Home."
And the demon, his arms heavy with his burden, disappeared in a burst of blue flame, the lingering smoke smelling of sorrow.
Author: skull_theatre
Rating: G
Word Count: 548
Prompt 011 - Sunnydale Crater
Character: two demons
He picked his way through the rubble, moving up and out of the now significantly smaller Hellmouth, a gaping wound reminiscent of battered lips oh-ed open, rocky shattered teeth and broken gumlines. He winced as he moved through it and away from it, ducking under piled granite boulders as big as, well, boulders. He smirked. Ah, destruction and chaos and general mayhem. This had been one spectacular show but he quickly admonished himself with the thought of his mission and sobered by grief he moved forward, threading through rock and climbing steadily upward, the demolition now becoming human in construction, concrete chunks maced with razor-sharp rebar protrusions, splintered wood, twisted metal. And the smell of charred vampire. Hundreds of thousands of charred vampires. He was getting closer.
One of his hearts hung heavy as a stone behind his ribs and he brought up a hand to press against the place, just there, where he could feel it beating sluggishly, cold and dark and filled with a black anguish. She was dead, cut down, and death comes to us all, a little more to some, but he wasn’t about to let her body lay here, beneath the ruins of Sunnydale, of that damnable High School, and decompose the way human corpses were wont to do. She would be immolated as she deserved to be. Even before the Grand Finale of Finality he had already set out with full intent of bringing her back to perform the last rites and utter that incantation which would set her flesh aflame and then, only then he would allow himself to be blinded by tears and perhaps rejoice a tiny bit in such Creative Carnage. But right now, he had to find her.
If he could find her, if on the underside of this earthen crater, somehow, someway her body had fallen with the dirt and rubble and landscaping shrubberies, if it had, he would search until he did. And if it hadn’t, he would search until he could search no more and knowing himself as he did, best not to think how far in the future that time might be.
The eternal flames of damnation lit his way but the way was growing darker and he chanted under his breath and a yellowish illumination lit the littered path. He stopped for a moment and closed his eyes, breathing deeply, wondering if he could smell her in her dead state. He coughed.
Then, he bent and stood and rounded another pile of rubble and there she was. Torn and broken and severed nearly in half. D’Hoffryn pulled himself up short - he thought he had been prepared, but he hadn’t been, of course. Slowly he approached and then he went down on one knee beside her and reached for the arm that was splayed backwards and beneath her, he gently, gently pulled it free and took the limp hand in his own. “Anyanka. My dear girl.” But no tears, not yet.
He scooped her up in his arms, holding her torso together by pulling her closer to his chest, her head lolled onto his shoulder and he looked down at the ruined body of the girl. "I found you." Surprising even himself, he touched his lips to her forehead, tasted grit and sweat and blood, and whispered into her dead face, "Come then. Home."
And the demon, his arms heavy with his burden, disappeared in a burst of blue flame, the lingering smoke smelling of sorrow.