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x.1.1 RESOLUTION/ FORM/ WORD Eurynome the neverending
descend: to pass by transmission, as for example old songs or ballads thread: a streak of light or colour cord: a moral, spiritual, or emotional bond shanshu: to live and die as would a mortal man
x.1.2 RESOLUTION/ FORM/ WORLD The death of the mother goddess [earth goddess] is the beginning of the antithesis between life and death, and of other cycles of similar contrasts, like that of light and darkness, of order and atrocity, etc. (Masaharu Anesaki, Mythology
of All Races: Japanese, VIII)
x.1.3 RESOLUTION/ FORM/ MAKER this is a meditation on the duty of dancing. when the Slayer dances at last, stars realign. and the planets shift. and the tides change. the old world dies. the old powers die. and there is an end to prophecy. so it came to pass, and this is the story of it, the how of the world changing, the why of the Slayer and the Slayer of Slayers, becoming, turning in the dance, engaging endlessly on and beyond this darkling plain till the world became what they needed it to be within the moment when they met and chose to join, beyond their natures, she in the Dark Universe light, and he in the Light Universe dark, opposite forces driven by need and longing into a synthesis that rewove the fabric of space and time to make possible their mutual becoming. and so herein the old world dies, that world to which Buffy gave her seven year duty. that world of duality, dichotomy and stable populations, the World of the dead Above that matches the dead Below, ends when she follows her heart to him and beats Osiris in the game to claim at last her birthright and her prize. this was the old world of straight lines, sharp division and delineation, a side to stand on, a divided canvas. but neither the straight line nor the angles formed by its bisection appear in nature. Euclidean geometry sat in its own fantasy landscape and lied about the nature of the world. so in that old world set of good and evil, the line was drawn in the center, in a no-man's-land of balancing forces that's metaphorical but occupied realspace within the physical world, Powers that Be, grey areas, a universe between the trenches: Willy's Bar on the borders of the night. on one side sat the world of the First where nothing grows, and the towers of Wolfram & Hart built on the power of dirty money, and the world of evil things that rule the dark. in the middle sat the Powers that Be, a host of minor gods and powers and players, some of them charged with restoring balance, some of them skittering back and forth looking for their own best advantage. on the other side, the side of good, White Hats and Champions, guardians of light. and the Slayer drew her line in the sand in the middle, claiming her territory beyond the boundaries of good, and patrolling her borders nightly, keeping the fragile Peace and weeding out the deadwood and the bad seeds. she held that balance by policing the badlands beyond the world we think we know, and kept eternal night from coming down on us all. the black and white world of the buffyverse ended with the seventh episode, but the demi-world of grey that Buffy patrolled was still between light and dark. this put her forever on the opposite side of the line from her mirror image demon lover Spike, two opposed and opposing figures that belonged to different worlds that could not be blended, two unmeshable things, because she was a symbol of light and he was a symbol of darkness. but then they began to choose to patrol the same territory, walking side by side on either side of the line. and since every line has width, by definition, the moment came when they met inside outside and both occupied the same line at the same time, transcending the neutral space between them. and thereby they found themselves suddenly somewhere else, reengineering through theoretical physics a new relationship with one another. and that joint occupation in the center made a resultant vacuum on both sides of the line, and this remade in a moment the set and landscape, the world they lived in gone, negative space redrawn to set them free. so at this point in time now Buffy dances out of duty at last to choose another path. her dance has remade the world, in chaos before order, where there are no boundaries and no firm dichotomies. Buffy, she always has herself as compass. and darkness turns inside her into light. so when she lays down the office of Slayer and comes as herself, she is reborn as a chaos figure, come to mate with another, and together they hold the balance inside one another instead of out there in the physical world. and in the new beginning that chaos sings, time and space are one, just like in mathematics, and physics remakes the black hole at her center into womb, to keep him safe, to make children, and they turn in the dance and hold another line altogether in the micro in the macro beyond space and time and the six string dimensions into the eleventh dimension of Mother and Magic and Mystery, and thereby the world becomes brandnew. and in the new world she remains in light, and he will live inside her and not burn, and color returns to the world at last. neither one is grey, but they are no longer kept apart by their natures. they have both become chaos figures dancing together across a world they made which has no borders. because Eurynome has returned them back to the beginning, to a time before the Earth Goddess was murdered, chained to the Well, a time before all these dichotomies were set. the world, in short, is ending into beginning. so now the balance shifts from a physical line in the sand to a united centre within Buffy and Spike, remaking as they will rise into an echo of their double-helix union with its central axis. they learn to master a new geometry of curved space. instead of standing outside one another in parallel lines, they can finally meet and mate. and instead of figures patrolling a line in the black night, we gain a world of light and color: a dance in which the principals circle the playing field, the stage, bleeding the colours through one another like ink mixed with a pin, until the two sides turn into a multitude divided by swirling spirals. this is a world of holding ground in concentric circles that Faith and the littleSlayers now inherit, a living world in which they all will play the game of sheepfolds and protection within a palette of proliferating color everywhere, shepherds who guard their flocks by night, by the light of stars, Inanna the Goddess of Heaven and the Lord of Light forever joined and wheeling across the sky. the perimeters they patrol and hold will now be measured as circumference instead of line, and the dark Slayer, and the Lord of Light, and BuffyBecoming, are all in this new world true chaos figures who stand against the long dark of the Last Ending to protect all that world of colour and choices that bleeds out of a world remade in light. Bright One, Dark One, sisters, lovers, here unjoined, but chosen, mending. because they have all learned at last the lesson, when they did the only thing they could in a deadly world in the dark, they learned to care for one another. this is a meditation on the duty of dancing. when the Slayer dances at last, stars realign, and the planets shift, and the tides change. the old world dies, the old powers die, and there is an end to prophecy. they have no boundaries but the ones they choose. so it came to pass, and this is the story of it, the how of the world changing, the why of the Slayer and the Slayer of Slayers, becoming, turning in the dance, engaging endlessly on and beyond this darkling plain till the world became what they needed it to be within the moment when they met and chose to join, beyond their natures, she in the Dark Universe light, and he in the Light Universe dark, opposite forces driven by need and longing into a synthesis that rewove the fabric of space and time to make possible their mutual becoming. they recognize no borders when they walk their kingdoms. and light and dark are one, all else is mending, blending. and they dance the round
dance, sacred marriage, harvest out on the seed of the threshing floor.
x.2.1 RESOLUTION/ DIVINATION/ PROPHECY The vampire with a soul, once he fulfils his destiny, will shanshu. (from The Prophecies of Aberjian, AtS 1.22) And if the beast shall find thee, and touch thee, thou shall be wounded in thy soul, and thou shall know madness, and the beast shall attack and cripple thee, and thou shalt know neither friend or family. But thou shalt undo the beast... And thou shalt be restored... Even as life and death are not two things but one. In darkness is the light, in light is the darkness. Arise! Arise! Arise! Arise! Arise! Arise! (Ibid)
x.2.2 RESOLUTION/ DIVINATION/ TARA Tara? Tara? Please. I lost the link. What's happening? There was a Calling, through Faith, for them all. It's okay, really, it's only the Calling she severed. She is still here, playing Osiris. Willow? I'm here. Tara, I can't do this without her. I'm not strong, like you. It won't be right, I'm wrong inside, I'll send, it will go badly. I need to know she's there to feel what's right to do. Willow, she's trusting you. I trust you. We're both here, hold on. I need you to let go now and sing chant again. All the walls between dimensions are down, and the balance is shifting. There's nothing to keep her here now except all those connections to the world that both of you are holding onto. It won't be much longer. Tell Xander to get everything ready. Don't go. Don't leave me, Tara. I get so lost in the dark. You're more than that. Just
be Willow and hold on tight. I'm always here. And Buffy's free. It will
be all right.
x.2.3 RESOLUTION/ DIVINATION/ FATES The Slayer rolls her own bones, beyond time, beyond life, and is not bound by the world, but stands outside it. And when she comes into her power at the end of days, she will know the world, just as she will know her heart. So the Slayer that marries
darkness to her light, bringing good out of evil, shall become more than
Slayer, even the Light of the World.
x.3.1 RESOLUTION/ CHORUS/ FORCES 1 Ready? Maybe. Not used to being general yet. Be sure to tell me how I'm doing, Wesley, maybe you'll get the hang of this Watcher thing the second time around. So far, I've got the Buffy litmus test down: I ask myself, what would Buffy do? Then I do the opposite. I'm kidding. If you could just see your face. There's movement at the entrance. Oh, goody: all this everlasting light in the meadow's good for extra crispy. We come to stand with you and not against you. Yeah, I hear pigs fly too. Well, on second thought, maybe they do at that, tonight. Okay, still, seem to recollect seeing your unforgettable gameface on the other side in the last skirmish. The Balance is shifting. The Council of Watchers has chosen the Dark. But we await the coming of the True King. And you do the same. So we choose now to stand for light, with you, though preferably slightly out of it, as does the Master of the Order of Aurelius, he who is called Angelus. We like to call him Angel here. So you know my Brother. How wicked cool is that? Okay, you're in: anyone climbs out of that stairwell, kill him. Twice if necessary. Especially if he's wearing tweed. I don't like tweed, did I mention? Coming of the True King, eh? That's Spike you're meaning there? Huh. I just can't get a handle on that guy, but nobody else came close to giving him that tag. We'll take the Senior Partners on; most of us here don't sizzle in the light. Try not to trample the wildflowers: Buff's getting a thing for gardens, and I want to keep things nice for when she comes back. Go nuts, or, you know, whatever. Gotta run. Do you think all Slayers are mad? Quite possibly. We never isolated a genetic strand, but the empirical evidence certainly suggests it. Girl's good at clear instructions, though. She called him Brother. Now that might have made for an interesting pair of Chosen. Well, too late now. Hey, fledglings. Time to try out all those new Slayer powers, see how they work in action. Here's how it goes. Anyone entering the meadow that isn't us gets to die. Nobody gets to get away. Anything at the entrance there, bit more complicated. We have new allies, Angel's clan, and they're in charge of taking out anything coming up the stairwell. They'll stay out of the light. Don't dust the allies, it's bad manners. Anybody need a phone booth to change into costume? That's not the task I set you, Kennedy, what's your deal here? Got my own plan. Oh yeah? Let's have a chat. The battle's that way, and you're the best fighter of the lot. You listen to me, cause this is the only time I'll ever say it. Patience, never my strongest point. You may have all the others fooled, but I recognize you, cause you could be me. Hell, you have been me. Now, we're out of time to beat around that bush. It's not about the power or the glory, kid, and if you go for the power it's just gonna eat you alive, the way it swallowed me. I know that you don't get that: I didn't either, but I was luckier than you. You, you've just got me, and this is all I've got to give you: you're gonna take point for all these kids today, and you make one move towards changing sides and I'm gonna take you down in a permanent way one heartbeat later. I don't have any intention of letting these kids die because you're having a fit of pique over the way Buffy and me chose to divide up her Slayer powers. I still hold the line, and anytime you want some action off to the side you consider just how bad you want to go through me. You're playing way out of your league, and they don't call me a killer for nothing. Every kid on that line, little girl, is worth ten of you. Now get out in the field and make your choices, poser, cause I've got your back. Gives you a warm feeling, doesn't it, just knowing that? Get moving. Man, you really know how to inspire your troops. If looks could kill. She hasn't picked a side,
Xander, and I can't think of anything more dangerous in a battle. Maybe
fear will keep her from bolting if nothing else will. Keep an eye on her,
would you? I'd hate to have to explain the whole thing to Willow afterwards,
but I'm not risking all those brave little girls.
x.3.2 RESOLUTION/ CHORUS/ FORCES 2 How did you think this would end? I have to go down. You're still not the Master of Us. Who appointed you Savior? I'm the only one who can stay functional long enough to take out all the weaponry in the stairwell. This isn't a discussion. Is the crane ready yet? I'll use the cable. I thought you hated him. I sired him. He is my child, the same as you. I am responsible for him. Family ties. That's what it's like, to be a father. Also, I loved her. I will always love her. So cool. I bet Angelus rages, though, inside, singing a different song. I am Angelus. No you're not. Couldn't you stay and love me instead, my eternally absent father? Easier not to, isn't it? In my experience... maybe just a little. I leave you, though, this family I made. And they are better teachers than I'll ever be. I know, they made me better than I am. And I am blessed to have known you. Made you. Held you. Always. Go be a champion, Connor. Wesley? You'll keep those homefires burning on my behalf? We need you here. You don't. Not in this world to come. Take care. You made us so much more. Thank you. Your turn to run
with it. It's time.
x.3.3 RESOLUTION/ CHORUS/ FORCES 3 What were you thinking, Giles? I'm supposed to be spelling Willow off on chant, not bandaging you up. I didn't live eleven hundred years to watch you die, thank you very much. Why are you always out there in the line of fire? You should put those frontal lobes to better use and stay well back. Dear Anya. I'm glad to have known you. I was lucky enough to live to watch her grow beyond me. It's a lovely thing to see, but it's hard to let her go. You stupid man, you're not dying on my watch. Look out there. What do you see? A trampled meadow. The end of the old world. Don't be foolish. It's the beginning of the new. I spent most of my life as a vengeance demon, you think I can't tell the difference? Three casualties in exchange for the death of all the opposition. We held that line. For Buffy. For Faith. For light. For the world to come. Next Buffy comes up the cable, and then we go home. I want you to go home with me. We're going to have a lot to do. I cornered the futures market while I sat with Willow, and there are several trust funds that need to be set up, one for their children, one for ours. I think I'm having trouble following your train of thought. That's okay. Lie back and
think of England, or whatever it is you do. I was waiting for you to get
to this on your own, but you took too long.
x.4.1 RESOLUTION/ SOLILOQUY/ ANGEL I wondered if I'd see you, before I go. Like you could actually avoid me. Cordy.... Don't make it harder. Harder? I'm gonna make it possible, mister. Cause where would you be without me? Okay, you got me there. But you can't come. Don't even think it. I think it, I do it. One good champion deserves another. It's my choice. It's mine too. You think I don't know what's gonna happen? You know you can't do it right without my help. You're mortal. You're immortal. That's the problem. You know it won't kill you. Didn't I promise you I'd stake you, come the day? No rest for the wicked. Yep, you've been wicked. Welcome to this world, Mr Preparing-to-leave-it. It's a wicked hard world. Let's just both wipe our ledgers clean. Maybe we'll see one another on the other side of whatever. You still have gifts to give. My visions came for you, remember, courtesy of those vanished Powers that Be? Our time is over, buddy. Get on with it. Remember, mortal here. I've got the stake. Think you can shield me long enough for me to use it? I've never been able to stop you yet. We get to save the world for light, so where's the downside? That's an armful of valley girl you got here, boy, not Galway crystal. I won't let go. Thank you. Hey, don't get all weepy on me now. I only ever wanted to help, you know. Your best performance ever. Timing. All in the timing. What are friends for? Today I guess I know at last. Let's get it done.
x.4.2 RESOLUTION/ SOLILOQUY/ SPIKE It doesn't really make any difference, does it? I am a monster and a man, as I have always been, and that includes before I was turned. Spike wasn't a demon who moved in and trashed an empty crypt, see? It was William made the demon. Everlasting life, unimaginable power, and no conscience. Of course he went for it. Nobody moved in on him, he changed as he chose. Easy way to live, revelation for the boy who hadn't seen much of anything, born to be a right Prufrock, and all of a sudden there's blood and glory forever. Spike was what William chose to make of himself, they are the same. It's William who's accountable. Who could blame Dru? And Angelus never made me, in spite of all the work he put into it. So here I sit, monster and man, a demon who chose to get himself a soul, with no more chip these days, just waiting on a girl who used to be a Slayer until yesterday. I dunno what she is today, to get down here intact, but she's a wonder, I know that, in any incarnation. And since the demon always loved the Slayer and the girl, evil or not, chipped or not, ensouled or not, monster or man, I expect he'll still love whoever she is today. What she wants him to be for her at any given moment, that's a mystery so far, unless she tells him flat out, but all that's just costume anyway, flesh and bone, blood and deadboy heart. There isn't any heart of darkness here, the monster never wished her harm, there's only me. I don't know why it was that Angel reckoned it otherwise. Since Dru and Darla too, like me, were of a piece. Still I had reason to think I knew Angelus all too well, and he was ravenous, and never liked to share. I just don't think there was a Liam in there with him, he was entirely monster. Cursed with that soul, how did Angel ever manage to build himself from scratch on top of that hulky remnant of primordial evil, wrestle the old man into the wall and Montresor him into place for a hundred years, while Angel learned to love, and do good works? Nobody could have made that kind of deal with Angelus, and made it work. But why would Angelus ever choose to play that kind of part? I guess Angel really did want to make things right, poor sod, with the old man always looking over his shoulder, ridiculing his efforts, waiting for his one good day. Pretty much all my sins have to do with what I ate, and did for Dru, and sins against various Slayers. Those things are down to me, and I can live with that, and still go on. But Angel had Angelus to live down and millennia would never have been enough to even that score. He would have liked to atone. But he didn't have a chance. Poor bastard. You want heroes? There, I'll give you one, our Champion, ladies and gentlemen, who fought a cesspool of darkness in himself and won for a hundred years. My own aspirations are a
bit less grand. I mean to do my best for the girl, whatever she needs,
as long as I can. I'll guard her back, and fight by her side, and do whatever
else she thinks she needs me for, and I won't ever leave her. I'd never
let her be lost to darkness, never leave her in the dark, never let her
family go bad or missing or fall into the dark, never let them fall to
the darkness in me either. I'm not as worried about that last one as I
maybe ought to be, because it's a very long time since I last set out to
kill any of them, in spite of lots of provocation, and I'm still not sure
I didn't really lay my weapons down before her on the day we met, her and
her family and her friends, and me all evil standing before her full of
myself for being a Slayer of Slayers, I still don't understand how it happened
but somehow I fell out of darkness into her light, and even though it burned
I couldn't bear to let her go. I wonder if that was the way it went for
him too, lost in an instant inside her light and burning?
x.4.3 RESOLUTION/ SOLILOQUY/ BUFFY Hero, what does that really mean? What use is glory, after all? How do we know at any given moment what the right thing is? What is worth fighting for? We're human, so we follow our hearts. And every time we do we are making choices. How does a vampire ever learn to make good choices in this world? The demon calls him to feed, to kill, to a life of evil. Humans are so weak, and we only hate and fear those demons, try to kill them. How can they ever understand our pain? Why would they ever want to make it a little less? For all these people who can not accept them. Still Angel loved me when
he had a soul, and he cared about the people in this world, and tried to
make it better. And there was nothing of the demon Angelus in any of that
at all. And then Spike loved me, and tried to help, and to keep his promises,
even without the soul. And how much courage did they show, heartless and
damned, in all of that, compared to me, when all I ever really wanted was
to help, and to give my heart?
x.5.1 RESOLUTION/ ECHO/ WITNESS ARIAS Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived an ordinary life. How very dull of her. Ah, but she didn't think so at the time. She was quite fond of it, her little life. And then what happened? Suddenly, in a moment, the whole world changed. The world was full of monsters in the dark, and she was the only one with the strength and skill to fight. Is it a saga then, Tales of Bold Penelope? Odysseus home with the suitors and the shroud unravelling? Another song of goddesses and sacred kings who wouldn't die and kept on trying to get home? We can't know yet. The Fates are gone. We are as gods despised ourselves, caught in the narrative and lost in our own stories. And she still looks amazingly like a real girl. Looks aren't everything. If it's a fairy tale, can we have the happy ending? Tuesday night at the end of the rainbow? Read any fairy tales lately? How many monsters choose to change? The world is full of enchanted princes. And hungry wolves deep in the forest. But here the girl is really the huntsman. She's got the cape, but the basket's full of weapons. And the monster fell to her anyway long ago. There's another version. Once upon a time, the world was different. And the Slayer fought chained to the red rock. She sang her siren song to every demon who came too close, and bled her hundred thousand battles alive but caught in the moment of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound, and was destruction, absolute, alone. But that was in another country, and besides that wench is dead. Bleached bones and shadowplays out in a desert at the dawn of time, the end of space, where nothing grew. In the land of death. And how is it these days, out in the worlds we know? A little kinder.
x.5.2 RESOLUTION/ ECHO/ MEMORY person then, and so was i
we will remember you x.5.3 RESOLUTION/ ECHO/ INVOCATION Behold the Guardian of you all is walking.
x.6.1 RESOLUTION/ PLAINSONG/ BARD'S TALE She found herself in the
room with the senet board, and the god Osiris. "Now you are no longer the
Slayer", he said to her, "just one small girl who does not matter. No weapons,
no friends, no hope. Our bargain is off." "My bad, I thought it was come
as you are, when I came. But now I can see you clearly, the snake in the
garden. And as you say I am just a girl, and so beneath you. But I'm still
me, and I always keep my bargains," she said. "And I can't help but notice
the gameboard is still set up, and the move is mine." "Move, then, and
bet all you are alone on the throw. Throw the sticks and cross the Styx
if you can, but you're not under my protection, and you'll never find him."
"You can see I'm all naked and mortal here, your keepers have taken their
pound of whatever, and all I have left is myself. But still, I'm thinking
it's more than enough for the likes of you. I'm wondering, though: what's
left of gods when they run out of worshippers?" Alone in the room she threw
the Styx, and gave the ferryman the penny that Willow gave her, to his
disappointment, and he carried her across and, this time at least, she
did not drown.
x.6.2 RESOLUTION/ PLAINSONG/ LYRIC what the heart forgets in time, the body remembers.
on some molecular level, we do all get to be immortal.
x.6.3 RESOLUTION/ PLAINSONG/ BALLAD
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