BtVS: A Questionable Shape
Oct. 17th, 2005 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alixtiiTitle: A Questionable Shape
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters: Lydia Chalmers, the First Evil
Timeline/Spoilers: After “Never Leave Me,” but before AtS’s “Awakening.” Spoilers for “Never Leave Me,” I guess.
Word Count: 600+
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After miraculously surviving the destruction of the Watcher’s Council headquarters (in my The End of an Age), Lydia is visited by the apparition of her old mentor.
Author’s Notes: Part of The Watcher’s Diaries of Lydia Chalmers for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fanfic100. The prompt is #075, “Shade.”
A Questionable Shape
Lydia Chalmers, formerly of the Watcher’s Council of Britain, sat down at her kitchen table and began to eat. Alone. She was alone, now. Her vocation, her colleagues, her mentor—all of these had been stolen from her by the First.
“I told you that there would be a time when we would no longer be there for the Slayer,” a familiar voice rung out from behind her. “I simply did not expect it to be proven right quite so soon.”
Lydia looked back to see Quentin Travers watching her with curiosity, his sad smile upon his face. “You’re not him,” she said simply.
“Oh?” he asked. “Then who am I?”
“The First Evil,” she answered, turning her gaze back to her dinner. “Absolute wickedness older than men and demons, something we cannot even conceive. Beyond sin, beyond death, you are the thing the darkness fears. You are everywhere: every being, every thought, every drop of hate.”
“Yes, that’s you, Lydia, always with the textbook answer. The perfect scholar. If I ask you about the Slayer, will you go all ‘Into each generation’ on me?”
Lydia did not answer. It wasn’t him.
“Maybe you don’t understand how this works,” he said. “I am the First Evil, certainly, beyond your comprehension, but in this form I am also Quentin Travers. I have his memories, his mannerisms, everything. He was proud of you, you know that? I was proud of you.”
Don’t think about the pain. Don’t let him get to you. “What do you want?”
“But now, look at you. You have no direction, no purpose. You’ve become useless. This is not why I protected you.”
“What?” She couldn’t help the exclamation of surprise.
“What did you think, Lydia, that you just had remarkably good luck? Please. We make our own luck. Fortune favours the brave.”
“And I earned having my colleagues—not to mention my mentor, whose form you are now defaming—blow up around me, how, exactly?”
“Lydia, you were never one to lack long-term vision. Sometimes what is required of us is not as we would like it. Think of it as your Cruciamentum. Necessary . . . in the end. I have plans. They don’t require a bunch of Watchers thinking they could win a war against me. It’s not their war. You know very well that in the end, there’s only two people in this war that matter.”
“You,” said Lydia. “And the Slayer.”
“One girl, chosen to fight—but you know it, don’t you? You have it memorized. Only no longer. Soon there will be no more potential Slayers. No more Watchers to train them. And then, when I have the two Slayers killed, no more of anything.”
“You may find her a more capable foe than you expect.”
“Her unpredictability and heterodox methods may yet prove to be an asset? That’s what you told me two years ago, isn’t it. And I didn’t listen and now I’m dead. But I haven’t forgotten. That’s why you are still alive.”
“You lie.”
“What is the first lesson a Watcher learns, Lydia?” That was classic Quentin Travers style: to ask a question in true Socratic form, and only afterwards to relate the answer back to the matter at hand.
“To separate truth from illusion,” she answered. “In a world of magicks, it being the hardest thing to do.”
“Yes! Another textbook answer. Look into my eyes, Lydia, and tell me that I am merely an illusion. A mere phantasm, the First Evil playing tricks on your mind. I am the truth, the hard-core reality. Good is the illusion, the lie. Only I am real, and deep within yourself, you know it is true.”
Go to The Watcher’s Diaries of Lydia Chalmers masterlist.
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters: Lydia Chalmers, the First Evil
Timeline/Spoilers: After “Never Leave Me,” but before AtS’s “Awakening.” Spoilers for “Never Leave Me,” I guess.
Word Count: 600+
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After miraculously surviving the destruction of the Watcher’s Council headquarters (in my The End of an Age), Lydia is visited by the apparition of her old mentor.
Author’s Notes: Part of The Watcher’s Diaries of Lydia Chalmers for
fanfic100. The prompt is #075, “Shade.”Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com’st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee
--William Shakespeare, Hamlet I.iv.46-50
A Questionable Shape
Lydia Chalmers, formerly of the Watcher’s Council of Britain, sat down at her kitchen table and began to eat. Alone. She was alone, now. Her vocation, her colleagues, her mentor—all of these had been stolen from her by the First.
“I told you that there would be a time when we would no longer be there for the Slayer,” a familiar voice rung out from behind her. “I simply did not expect it to be proven right quite so soon.”
Lydia looked back to see Quentin Travers watching her with curiosity, his sad smile upon his face. “You’re not him,” she said simply.
“Oh?” he asked. “Then who am I?”
“The First Evil,” she answered, turning her gaze back to her dinner. “Absolute wickedness older than men and demons, something we cannot even conceive. Beyond sin, beyond death, you are the thing the darkness fears. You are everywhere: every being, every thought, every drop of hate.”
“Yes, that’s you, Lydia, always with the textbook answer. The perfect scholar. If I ask you about the Slayer, will you go all ‘Into each generation’ on me?”
Lydia did not answer. It wasn’t him.
“Maybe you don’t understand how this works,” he said. “I am the First Evil, certainly, beyond your comprehension, but in this form I am also Quentin Travers. I have his memories, his mannerisms, everything. He was proud of you, you know that? I was proud of you.”
Don’t think about the pain. Don’t let him get to you. “What do you want?”
“But now, look at you. You have no direction, no purpose. You’ve become useless. This is not why I protected you.”
“What?” She couldn’t help the exclamation of surprise.
“What did you think, Lydia, that you just had remarkably good luck? Please. We make our own luck. Fortune favours the brave.”
“And I earned having my colleagues—not to mention my mentor, whose form you are now defaming—blow up around me, how, exactly?”
“Lydia, you were never one to lack long-term vision. Sometimes what is required of us is not as we would like it. Think of it as your Cruciamentum. Necessary . . . in the end. I have plans. They don’t require a bunch of Watchers thinking they could win a war against me. It’s not their war. You know very well that in the end, there’s only two people in this war that matter.”
“You,” said Lydia. “And the Slayer.”
“One girl, chosen to fight—but you know it, don’t you? You have it memorized. Only no longer. Soon there will be no more potential Slayers. No more Watchers to train them. And then, when I have the two Slayers killed, no more of anything.”
“You may find her a more capable foe than you expect.”
“Her unpredictability and heterodox methods may yet prove to be an asset? That’s what you told me two years ago, isn’t it. And I didn’t listen and now I’m dead. But I haven’t forgotten. That’s why you are still alive.”
“You lie.”
“What is the first lesson a Watcher learns, Lydia?” That was classic Quentin Travers style: to ask a question in true Socratic form, and only afterwards to relate the answer back to the matter at hand.
“To separate truth from illusion,” she answered. “In a world of magicks, it being the hardest thing to do.”
“Yes! Another textbook answer. Look into my eyes, Lydia, and tell me that I am merely an illusion. A mere phantasm, the First Evil playing tricks on your mind. I am the truth, the hard-core reality. Good is the illusion, the lie. Only I am real, and deep within yourself, you know it is true.”
Go to The Watcher’s Diaries of Lydia Chalmers masterlist.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-06-06 09:17 pm (UTC)