Subject: [SpikesSalvation] descant descending 5/10 blood WIP Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 11:06:27 -0500 From: "macha" 4.1.1 BLOOD/ FORM/ WORD descend: to pass by inheritance 4.1.2 BLOOD/ FORM/ WORLD for all the blood that's shed on earth runs through the springs of that country for her, it's a geography, geometry of pain and loss and duty. for him, a predator, it's hunt and dinner, nature over nurture. but adding in the soul, it's also shame. 4.1.3 BLOOD/ FORM/ MAKER blood has a rhythm. it thrusts, it burns, it sings life, it bleeds death. it is the poetry from which we make the dance. its blunt percussion drives us and marks us. it names us living. beyond reason. makes us warm. makes us hard. makes us human. there is beauty in it. there is power. we live inside blood music. blood is a dance. it begins and ends with the heart. in battle and in love, it plays the urgency of life. it pounds out beats it sets. it dances out the pace it measures. it dances death, and life, and harvest. blood takes us home. it circulates. it makes connections. we know it in ourselves, meeting, that sense of place, that rightness that is shared. it is too intimate to tell. it reclaims heart and heritage. it finds us, makes us, home. 4.2.1 BLOOD/ DIVINATION/ PROPHECY The last Slayer will die, and die, and will rise again. And out of the darkness she will draw demons, Sons of Aurelius who will give up their nature to follow her into light, and mate with her there, and become champions of good, and fight in the final battle. For the dark warriors of that Order have been bred for her over the span of ten thousand years, and her blood calls always to theirs, and as it calls so must they come before her. Then according to their nature as Masters of Darkness they may turn her, and as Lords of Death they may kill her, and as Kings of Earth they may mate with her fruitfully in the harvest rites. And at the end of days the tanist king will abandon her, and his seed will be spilled elsewhere, and his wounds will never heal, and he will come to see her as a curse visited on him, and on his descendents. But the one who is promised will freely choose to stand beside her in battle and in life and death without hope of gain, and so he will gain as she chooses. And on what she chooses depends the fate of the world. 4.2.2 BLOOD/ DIVINATION/ TARA Rivers of blood. Did I make all this with my hands, day after day, eight years of days, this flood? Nah. Some of it maybe. Some of it's your own blood. Some is from Willow's sacrifice, the fawn. Even Spike's blood, I think, from Glory and... a lot of other stuff he did for you. Dawn's blood, from the tower, that time she cut herself. Your mother's, when she died. So much. I can't tell ford from flood. Even that's underwater now. We'll have to wade across. I hate the drowning part. Drowning in blood, particularly unappetizing. Yes. I remember. Why is it all collected here like this? Is it a lesson? A warning? It's a... map. Just a map. Like DNA markers, sort of. Is Angel's blood in this river? I fed him once. No. You didn't feed from him. He is not for you. I didn't feed from Spike, and his is here. It's not time yet, for that particular lesson. Spike told me once the blood of a Slayer was an aphrodisiac. Isn't that weird? No. It isn't. Buffy? Sorry. Just thinking. Spike said it was always about the blood. Sometimes, you know, he's really right. 4.2.3 BLOOD/ DIVINATION/ FATES we spin we weave we cut but we can never pin that hairshirt on her and every morning that one's tapestry lies on the floor unmade again becoming remade in some celestial geometry some nul sum language we have never known no values can be entered and we cannot spin her clothe her prick her cut her hang her drown her catch her save her spit her out we think that it may be the combination unique markers of genetic structure wildcard encounters glory prophecy loss her army of the dead the dark the lost the loved the merely mortal they all stand sentinel for her and claim a destiny that is beyond our cutting down. 4.3.1 BLOOD/ CHORUS/ FORCES OF EVIL all my secrets spilled spilled spilled like seed, but his seed in me always barren, and dead Angelus making mercy out of madness for me, till the Slayer came and i could smell the winds of change. she reeked of fertility and i saw his head come up, come round, my predatory boy, and he ran after her, led by his private parts and forever lost to me. 4.3.2 BLOOD/ CHORUS/ FORCES OF BALANCE Our orders are not for you, but merely for the girl, Miss Summers. Two ex-Watchers, you at least should both understand you can still save the rest by standing down. You have no authority here. We hold this ground in the name of the Slayer, and you shall not pass this point. You will never have her, and you only shame yourselves by coming. We think the shame, frankly, is properly yours. Evidently the situation is worse than we ever could have imagined. Vampire Slayers that mate with vampires. Demons and witches and... children crusading on her behalf: it beggars description. It certainly seems to beggar yours. Let us introduce ourselves. Me, I'm a carpenter. This is my ninth apocalypse, I think: at a certain point you tend to stop counting. Cordy here, Higher Power. Anya, vengeance demon. Willow, well, you won't be meeting Willow, she's otherwise engaged at the moment, and that's probably good news for you. The two Watchers you know. Angel, he's the Master of Los Angeles. Fred here's a theoretical physicist. Connor, we're not sure what he is just yet, chip off the old block at any rate. Dawn is The Key. Lorne's a talented guy from Pylea. The girls are students: you want to watch out for them especially, they're taking notes. Oh, and this is Faith; I'm betting you already know Faith's occupation. I gotta tell you, she's a bit testy on the subject of Council wetware teams; you might want to back up a little, while you still have the chance. Are you really all gathered here to protect that vampire the Slayer set out to recover? Nope, we're all here to protect the Slayer's right to make any damn choice she pleases about what she needs to fight the next battle. See, we've been backing her up for a long time in this kind of sitch, and we learned a bit along the way. Because here we are, seven years later, check it out, still breathing - well, those of us who breathe, that is. We'd all of us die for her if we had to, but hey, living on after the battle's really worth a good chunk of bonus pay. So, she wants the vampire, here we are backing her up. But you are, this is an alliance made in hell. How can you dare to claim you fight on the side of good. We claim them as we play them, bud. And may I say, given your function, it's real amusing to hear you arguing you've got the high ground here. Even though some of us were raised by wolves. In fact, you might want to back up now all the way to England, or wherever that Council bunker is located. Don't tell us, let us guess: we should know within the hour anyway. Or, hey, don't back up, come forward if you'd rather, all this fancy talent we've got assembled here, kinda itching for a good workout, ya know? Bit of fieldwork? Think you can oblige us? I should warn you that we've got another apocalypse to fight after this side trip's done, so we're taking no prisoners today because, what with all the women gathered here, it's already way too hard to get into the bathroom to shave. On the other hand, over the years, we've all got a little sick of cleaning up afterwards. So I'm up for this one-time-only offer to let you all depart the playing field alive, you and the horseys you rode in on. Because you can't imagine the true source of our power, and dead men tell no tales to the old men you left cowering in that bunker. As long as you're going, you tell them for us that the next time we see you here, we'll take the fight to them. Well, gentlemen? Time. I gotta say I never figured you for a speechmaker. Hey, well, every minute I'm talking is a minute at least that I'm not fighting. Growing up, much? Possibly a tad. Anyway, it coulda been worse. There might have been a cheese guy to face down. 4.3.3 BLOOD/ CHORUS/ FORCES OF GOOD I never could have understood it until I took a human life. How it changes you. It pulled me out of myself: I was free, and I was powerful. People were small, and they didn't matter. It was a taste of godhood. For a bit, I think I actually knew how it feels to be a vampire. But when I was... sane again, I thought of Buffy. Of what it was like to be Buffy. To hold so carefully to the distinction she always made between slaying and killing, that Faith didn't get. To try at all costs to hold on to her humanity, and her connections with the world. And what did you learn? The light inside her shines so brightly, it's blinding. I guess I always just stood too close to her before to see it. But the stress on her, it's inhuman, Giles. It's so unfair. Nobody who fights so long on the side of good, at such cost, should ever have to live with so much blood on their hands. 4.4.1 BLOOD/ SOLILOQUY/ ANGEL I claimed her. I didn't want to, I meant to leave her free of me. She deserved more, and better. But I was dying and she uncovered the demon rose and he, and I, devoured her, almost unto death. And that was the end. When she woke up I saw myself in her eyes, and I walked away. And in me, the demon still remembers exactly how she tasted, the blood of a Slayer, it burned, I burned inside her, blood in a holy chalice, eaten, ashes inside her as offering. Hungry. Unclean. I took all that power as currency to the City of Angels and started over. 4.4.2 BLOOD/ SOLILOQUY/ SPIKE Slayer blood, I know. And that was in it, all right, what drew me to her. Moth to a flame stuff, that. But more than that, and a very odd thing it was, Summers blood drew me. Which is only mortal, after all, and should have smelled of prey besides. But it never did, to me. Even though I was evil, and a monster. Dru was right. I was lost long before I was chipped. Stay the hell away from my daughter, Joyce said to me, first day in Sunnydale, axe all handy, and I gave it up for them all in that moment. Summers women. Always taking it on the chin, but never helpless. And bright, so bright. Shoulda worn shades. 4.4.3 BLOOD/ SOLILOQUY/ BUFFY All those photographs in my room. Memory lies. I learned that, when Dawn came. Still I remember her and mom as home to me. I am terrible at making home. Still, I so want it to be there. It's been a long time, but I can still remember feeling safe inside. Now I have so many to keep from harm. But I'm trying. Maybe the DNA remembers, all the important things I forget that matter. Dawn only has to brush against me on her way to the kitchen, and the memory of 'safe' leaves a clear impression I can live in, just for a moment. Spike made that for Dawn, when I was gone. His gift, selfless. I never told him, all that meant to me. Mom liked him a lot. Dawnie loved him. He's gotta be the most unsafe person I've ever known. But he understands home. He might even know how to make one. Maybe someday he could teach me how. 4.5.1 BLOOD/ ECHO/ WITNESS ARIAS It's blood that connects them, all of them. The Primitive First Slayer alive in the moment of death, the predator vamps catching the scent of prey, smelling the Slayer, the line of Aurelius, the monks of the Key, the Summers family acknowledging their family ties. Blood and longing and loss. Hard and bright and violent. The truths about death, and the life beyond it, that only smell knows, that instinct sings to time. It's blood that sings remorse, inside memory. That recommends carnage, beyond reason. That holds that thin line, that unskinned gulf, between justice and vengeance. It's blood, the blood they shed and how they live inside that red knowledge, that makes them what they are. Drusilla the Lost, orgiastic and innocent, covered with blood and still, forever, owed, more sinned against than sinning. Darla the Bitch cold and inventive, the architect of continents of pain, is also Darla Warm who can't remember the name she started with but still owns every bit of the blood she spilled, Darla who dies for a child she could never have loved. Angelus, the scourge of Europe, well cursed, outside, inside, walled up, looking out. Angel who tries to do right while the whole world smells like food and Angelus waits. William who bends and bends but will not break, who remakes himself as Spike and remains intact, who kills and loves and lives with his own code of honour, and still recognizes home when he meets with it. Faith who fell into the lure of blood and power and leaned out too far into the art of the kill. Buffy who would not lean, who drew the hard distinctions and held on tight, two vampires got her hot but she never fell, and got for her reward no rest, no peace, no solace, only night and blood and damage. Who will absolve them now? Only the Slayer gives peace, and can't get it. Only the Slayer has the right to choose, to stay her hand or slay, to judge and give, to take life and give mercy, for in her heart she is made so much the same, blood pounding in her too when the hunt is up, the scent draws her to darkness, separates out human from demon, she is a predator herself who dances death, and knows the glory of it. Only her ties of blood to her family and world tether her here on the human side of that great red divide which sends her out from those who love her every night into another universe of death and loss, hunting. The photographs that fill her room all change, but Summers blood wins out, she smells blood everywhere but chooses to break bread instead, unwraps her sacred chalice, and makes once more of that blood communion, community, commitment, love, built with her small hands out of the dark call of her hard calling. this is her body, which is broken for you. this is her blood, which she sheds, forevermore, for you. for the innocent, and the lost, and the damned, for sinners who die in her hour of the wolf and for all who live now in the mercy of her grace. forgive her her trespasses, and grant her absolution in this last passage, for all her small sins of omission, for all her great sins of commission, now and in the hour of her death, floating downstream in her life's blood, which is shed for you. 4.5.2 BLOOD/ ECHO/ MEMORY O they rade on, and farther on - The steed gaed swifter than the wind - Untill they reached a desert wide, And living land was left behind. "O see ye not that narrow road, So thick beset with thorns and briers? That is the path of righteousness, Tho after it but few enquires. "And see not ye that braid braid road, That lies across that lily leven? That is the path to wickedness, Tho some call it the road to heaven. O they rade on, and farther on, And they waded thro rivers aboon the knee, And they saw neither sun nor moon, But they heard the roaring of the sea. It was mirk mirk night, and there was nae stern light, And they waded thro red blude to the knee; For a' the blude that's shed on earth Rins thro the springs of that countrie. (Thomas the Rhymer) 4.5.3 BLOOD/ ECHO/ INCANTATION The Slayer has waded through blood, in the name of justice. Without her the world we live in would long since have been lost to darkness. To protect the innocent, she has dealt death, as she is called to do. She has given her blood and sacrificed herself to hold the line on the borders of light and darkness. Blood calls her now to a destiny beyond herself: let her cross over. She bleeds and dies for us, again, for you, for the mortal girl inside her. And although it is blood that calls to her now, it calls in the name of life. In the name of the life you remember, in the name of the blood you have spilled and spent, we ask you to let her pass. 4.6.1 BLOOD/ PLAINSONG/ BARD'S TALE And the Slayer came to the keeper of the fourth gate. "Let me through", she said. "Where is your token?" "I come unprepared. What would you have from me?" "All the blood on your hands." "Done." And the gate opened, and the Slayer walked through empty-handed, her burden lighter. And descended the stairs. 4.6.2 BLOOD/ PLAINSONG/ LYRIC no more the closing of portals with blood. throw them all open. the time for sacrifice is done. you can't just buy off sunny girls from california with six pomegranate seeds and the prospect of six months winter. they're gonna want to shop around, flex the credit cards, model next years' shoes, check out the shades. you can't own them. sooner or later, they'll own you. get used to it. it's a golden age, but it's not yours. 4.6.3 BLOOD/ PLAINSONG/ BALLAD opening into the start of the dance Harlequin waltzes with Slayers enhanced dark queens and melodies meant to entrance everything falling away taking his opening, dancing with death Slayer falls into him, nothing is left one beating heart in the moment, bereft everything falling away he has his weapon and she has to reach she learning lessons from he who must teach she gives him openings he cannot breach everything falling away he gives up weapons and she gives up walls now they are whirling through time in these halls they have forgotten the price if she falls everything's falling away time is an ocean that lends them this dance love neverending is trumping romance moving, from battle to mating, their stance everything falling away