Star Wars link and Darla ficlet
Dec. 2nd, 2004 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakInterested in reading essays analyzing Star Wars? (Without a single "George Lucas ruined my childhood!" whine...) Go and visit the new Star Wars Journal, launched by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fernwithy et al.
***
kathyh wanted a human Darla at Christmas drabble for her inside beta-reading of the Londo essay. It turned out to be another mini ficlet (562 words). Why can't these characters keep it brief(er)? Anyway. Early season 2 of AtS. No Tiny Tim in sight.
Christmas Carol
Wolfram and Hart lets its employees celebrate Christmas. It's a quaint fact Darla discovers when Lindsey asks her, hesitating, whether she wants to spend the holidays with him. She declines, with a smile just amused enough to tease but not to taunt; after all, she is well aware she needs all the allies she can get in her new and weak human state.
"Someone has to be working," she adds, "and it is time that I…"
"Start earning your keep?" Lilah suggests. Darla's smile does not falter. Inwardly, she wonders what Lilah would taste like.
"Precisely."
So she is alone in the apartment they gave her, with a lot of food she has had to learn the names of in the last month. As a vampire, she posed as human occasionally, but there had never been the need to keep it long enough to go shopping. Spike, of course, had bored them each and sunder with his unbreakable enthusiasm for human delicacies, but it has been decades since she has last seen Spike and Drusilla, and whatever meals had caught his enthusiasm then might no longer exist now.
Recalling the enthusiasm the school children of Sunnydale had for chocolate, and the fact these children were rather tasty themselves, she tries products by Hershey, and is horrified by the blandness of the taste. The bread is even worse, white and soft and without any resistance. There is not much she recalls from her first life, but she is sure bread was better than that in Jamestown. So much for progress.
Thankfully, there is one taste that won't disappoint. Leaving her unaccustomed human body with its weaknesses behind, she tracks down her darling boy in his dreams. She is her old self again here, literally, wearing the robes of centuries past. It's better to confront him first this way, and it is fitting. Rather relentlessly, he dreams of snow. This is a new obsession she can't understand, and it disquiets her that the snow he dreams up melts on her cheeks. After all, her body is not supposed to exude any heat. She has not fed yet.
He is walking through a Californian street in his dream, but the snow is as thick and heavy as the storms she recalls from their journeys through Russia. It doesn't make sense. When he sees her, he stops and stares at her.
"It can't be you, not here," he exclaims, and two things occur to her. He is not surprised to dream of her as such, which is rather gratifying. But he did not expect her in the snow. He expected the other, the school girl. The cheerleader he killed her for.
Oh, he deserves everything the lawyers have in store for him.
Even now, though, her smile does not falter. Instead, she bites in her left wrist, then kneels down and lets her blood pour in the street. All the snow turns red, quickly, inevitably, and he runs to her to make it stop. But as he touches her wrist, his face changes. There he is again, her darling boy, and he drinks from her. She is what she wants to be here, and so feels her face transform as she bites him in turn. All the tastes she ever wanted are back, and there is nothing but lovely red.
The snow, though, keeps falling.
***
In other news,andrastewhite has written her first Crusade fanfic. Ah, fannish life is good.
fernwithy et al. ***
kathyh wanted a human Darla at Christmas drabble for her inside beta-reading of the Londo essay. It turned out to be another mini ficlet (562 words). Why can't these characters keep it brief(er)? Anyway. Early season 2 of AtS. No Tiny Tim in sight. Christmas Carol
Wolfram and Hart lets its employees celebrate Christmas. It's a quaint fact Darla discovers when Lindsey asks her, hesitating, whether she wants to spend the holidays with him. She declines, with a smile just amused enough to tease but not to taunt; after all, she is well aware she needs all the allies she can get in her new and weak human state.
"Someone has to be working," she adds, "and it is time that I…"
"Start earning your keep?" Lilah suggests. Darla's smile does not falter. Inwardly, she wonders what Lilah would taste like.
"Precisely."
So she is alone in the apartment they gave her, with a lot of food she has had to learn the names of in the last month. As a vampire, she posed as human occasionally, but there had never been the need to keep it long enough to go shopping. Spike, of course, had bored them each and sunder with his unbreakable enthusiasm for human delicacies, but it has been decades since she has last seen Spike and Drusilla, and whatever meals had caught his enthusiasm then might no longer exist now.
Recalling the enthusiasm the school children of Sunnydale had for chocolate, and the fact these children were rather tasty themselves, she tries products by Hershey, and is horrified by the blandness of the taste. The bread is even worse, white and soft and without any resistance. There is not much she recalls from her first life, but she is sure bread was better than that in Jamestown. So much for progress.
Thankfully, there is one taste that won't disappoint. Leaving her unaccustomed human body with its weaknesses behind, she tracks down her darling boy in his dreams. She is her old self again here, literally, wearing the robes of centuries past. It's better to confront him first this way, and it is fitting. Rather relentlessly, he dreams of snow. This is a new obsession she can't understand, and it disquiets her that the snow he dreams up melts on her cheeks. After all, her body is not supposed to exude any heat. She has not fed yet.
He is walking through a Californian street in his dream, but the snow is as thick and heavy as the storms she recalls from their journeys through Russia. It doesn't make sense. When he sees her, he stops and stares at her.
"It can't be you, not here," he exclaims, and two things occur to her. He is not surprised to dream of her as such, which is rather gratifying. But he did not expect her in the snow. He expected the other, the school girl. The cheerleader he killed her for.
Oh, he deserves everything the lawyers have in store for him.
Even now, though, her smile does not falter. Instead, she bites in her left wrist, then kneels down and lets her blood pour in the street. All the snow turns red, quickly, inevitably, and he runs to her to make it stop. But as he touches her wrist, his face changes. There he is again, her darling boy, and he drinks from her. She is what she wants to be here, and so feels her face transform as she bites him in turn. All the tastes she ever wanted are back, and there is nothing but lovely red.
The snow, though, keeps falling.
***
In other news,
andrastewhite has written her first Crusade fanfic. Ah, fannish life is good.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 05:08 am (UTC)Thank you
Date: 2004-12-02 05:58 am (UTC)Re: Thank you
Date: 2004-12-02 06:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 06:35 am (UTC)I hope you noticed I let you play with your favourite character rather than mine *g*.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 06:40 am (UTC)And yes, I noticed and was grateful.*g* It's not that I have anything against Spike, he just doesn't talk to me as well as others do. Besides, I'm sure I'd get the English slang wrong.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 07:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 08:08 am (UTC)*decides Kita did that already*
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 07:10 am (UTC)The fact that Wolfram and Hart lets its employees celebrate Christmas. is such a gorgeously twisted idea *g*
no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 08:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 12:23 am (UTC)who DOESN'T sometimes wonder. . .
Date: 2004-12-04 10:38 am (UTC)And Lindsey -- poor misunderstood woobie. Big winks on that ;).
Plus, poor Darla, trying to break in her palate on American chocolate!
Then a swift turn for the dark and lyrical, what an ending!
Thanks for pointing me this direction; I've been low on computer time lately so I need to know what I'm missing from my f-list!
better than...
Date: 2004-12-04 10:45 am (UTC)Glad you enjoyed it. BTW, did you ever read
Plus she pulls the Lilah/Buffy and the Darla/Buffy off in a plausible and dark way, too.
Lilah/Darla/Buffy!
Date: 2004-12-04 10:58 am (UTC)Then I also had a dream last night that my 1-year-old niece disappeared. I completely blame it on that episode.
Re: Lilah/Darla/Buffy!
Date: 2004-12-04 11:24 am (UTC)Links to Roz' two stories: the first, Buffy/Lilah (http://glamourousrags.dymphna.net/girl1.html) one, and the sequel, in which Buffy meets Darla (http://glamourousrags.dymphna.net/girl2.html), and orchestrates the breakout.
Re: Lilah/Darla/Buffy!
Date: 2004-12-04 11:33 am (UTC)I'm now getting a "5 things that never happened to Wes & Connor" bunny -- farm in Utah, Qortoth, back to the Council, rogue demon hunter/single dad, and what else? sends him to Hogwarts? ;)
Re: Lilah/Darla/Buffy!
Date: 2004-12-04 11:37 am (UTC)However, that would still leave him with the problem of Connor's first 11 years. Somehow I don't think he'd ask Dumbledore, given Dumbledore's idea of how to ensure enough modesty in Children of Destiny.
Re: Lilah/Darla/Buffy!
Date: 2004-12-04 11:43 am (UTC)Swoons with love at this idea. I was trying to describe Wes's arc to a friend who knows HP but not Angel, and so I said, "Imagine Percy Weasley growing up to be Sirius Black." Then I was just rereading the Snape-Lockhart wizards' duel in preparation for attempting my first HP-fic, and noticed that old Gilderoy and early Watcher-Wes have certain superficial qualities in common. And the number of permutations of slash conceivable among the characters I've mentioned in this post? Aye-aye-aye.
Re: Lilah/Darla/Buffy!
Date: 2004-12-04 11:52 am (UTC)Anyway: yes. Wesley and Snape, snarking at each other. AND then Bellatrix turns up, and Wesley has again sexual tension with people from both camps, a former baddie and a present one.
Also, my boy Connor would think Draco was utterly useless because that would be canon Draco, not fanon Draco. Being Angel's and Darla's kid plus educated by Wesley he would be sorted into Slytherin, though. And prove his natural tendency to crush on older strong girls by secretly fancying Hermione.
Re: Lilah/Darla/Buffy!
Date: 2004-12-04 12:02 pm (UTC)According to Spike, anyway ;).
I confess to having a bit of Draco-love; it must be the hair. But yeah, Connor would make short work of him.
Do you think Wes is more of a Gryffindor or a Ravenclaw?
As for Connor's first eleven years, he'd spend them with the Weasleys. They wouldn't even notice another one; he'd just need to invest in some hair dye.
Re: Lilah/Darla/Buffy!
Date: 2004-12-04 12:14 pm (UTC)So it would depend on Wesley, one thinks - the Hat would leave him the choice.
Good point about Connor and the Weasleys. Which would be the absolute opposite of his single child with Holtz experience, and might account for some interesting changes as far as personal relations are concerned. As mindwiped!Connor grew up with a sibling and family and promptly had a flippant sense of humour which pre-windwiped Connor did not (though pre-mindwipe Connor did make the very, very occasional joke - he was working on it), that would be one.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles.... Angel makes an alliance of necessity with Lilah in order to get Connor extradited. Cordy promptly quits in disgust. Fred and Gunn split up amiably. Gunn goes with Cordy, Fred decides to stick around and keep an eye on Angel who gives into the UST with Lilah. Little does Fred know that Knox the cute intern who is flirting with her has already contacted Voldemort about the transport of a certain sarcophagus to America....
meeting of minds
Date: 2004-12-04 12:23 pm (UTC)I think Wes if Wes got to pick, he'd go Ravenclaw; but I've got a theory about Ravenclaws coming through in a pinch -- we've seen less of them than any other house, but I'm a bit of a Ravenclaw myself, so I give them the love. What Wes definitely ISN'T is a Slytherin; he wouldn't torture himself nearly so much if he were. Now I do think his father might be, but that's just my take on him (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2118278/1/).
Re: meeting of minds
Date: 2004-12-04 12:35 pm (UTC)Considering his family background, I think it's safe to say that Sirius, being himself an emotional mess, would steer as far away from emotional messes like Wesley as possible.
Agreed about Wesley not being a Slytherin. Ravenclaws: alas, aside from Cho and Marietta, they haven't been given much lines, though wait, wasn't Zacharias also a Ravenclaw?
Wes is EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE?
Date: 2004-12-04 12:41 pm (UTC)seriously (hah! I didn't even write that on purpose, but I'm leaving it); maybe Wes could kidnap Mr. Black and lock him in a closet? I'm sure he'd have a very good and intellectually rationalized Ravenclaw reason for doing it. Cho's the only Ravenclaw I really remember. . .some of the faculty must be but nobody comes to mind.
Re: Wes is EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE?
Date: 2004-12-04 12:47 pm (UTC)Though what Sirius would do to Wesley if he got locked up in a closet doesn't bear contemplating. I'm pretty sure sex won't be involved, but canine violence will. Maybe even a Crucio or two. Sirius must have picked up some curses at home, after all.*g*
No, I'm maintaining the member of the Black family Wesley would actually have sex with would be Bellatrix.
Re: Wes is EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE?
Date: 2004-12-04 12:52 pm (UTC)also, I do tend to read Wes as fundamentally straight (despite wanting him to hook up with David Fisher in the course of trolling L.A. funeral homes for vampires; that's really my MC Hall w/a 5oclock shadow in a white T-shirt kink talking). but there could be some spelling and counterspelling and animorphing going on w/ Wes & Sirius.
Re: Wes is EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE?
Date: 2004-12-04 01:17 pm (UTC)Also, Bellatrix and her sisters have obviously a parallel with the Mitford sisters going on - I mean, Narcissa = Diana, the one who married Oswald Mosley, Andromeda = Jessica, the rebellious one who ran away and married a communist, and Bellatrix = Unity, the Hitler groupie. No Nancy in sight, though.
Anyway, the whole thing is very English in the way the Mitfords were, and I can see Wesley exacting his Madonna/Whore complex via pining for Andromeda (who is married to Muggleborn Ted) and having dysfunctional sex with Bella. It's not like he's got a pattern going on, oh no.
poor Wesley
Date: 2004-12-04 01:24 pm (UTC)I'm only saying.