taxonomites | 007: A Bit of Earth [Accidental Visual / Location: The Playground]

There were a lot of things that Drusilla didn’t like about Taxon, but the silence was the thing that she hated most of all. The stillness. It didn’t matter that the playground – the trees that swayed slightly in the breeze and the swing that creaked slowly backwards and forwards – was bathed in soft silver moonlight. It didn’t matter that the city seemed to be singing. There was nobody for her to hunt and nobody to hunt with her.

It was all wrong. The wrong Slayer, the wrong Spike, the wrong Dawn Bird. They’d taken her daughter and the wonderfully wicked chaos mage. It was all wrong and it wasn’t fair.

Sitting beneath the trees that fringed the playground, Drusilla buried her fingers in the soil. The words were hers, though she didn’t choose them. The music seemed to be coming from inside the soul she didn’t have.

“A bit of earth,
She wants a little bit of earth,
She'll plant some seeds.
The seeds will grow,
The flowers bloom,
Their beauty just the thing she needs.
She'll grow to love the tender roses,
Lilies fair, the iris tall.
And then in fall, her bit of earth
Will freeze and kill them all.

How can she chance
To love a little bit of earth?
Does she not know
The earth is old
And doesn't care if
One little girl wants things to grow?

She needs a friend.
She needs a father,
Brother, sister,
Mother's arms.
She needs a home.
She needs so many things
They cannot give.
Instead she asks
A bit of earth
To make it live.”

The silence that followed the song seemed emptier than ever.

OOC: The song is a modified version of ‘A Bit of Earth’ from The Secret Garden musical. A great big thank you to Spy for introducing me to it! ♥

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[ no. she refuses to feel sorry for drusilla. she won't, ever. ]

Congratulations. You just took the meaning of the word 'creepy' to a whole new level.

She picked up the tablet with soil covered fingers. Hate - cold and acidic and as pure as water - bubbled up in her chest when she heard that voice. That was wicked of their hosts. Drusilla hadn't expected to sing. She certainly hadn't wanted to share her song.

"Didn't you like it?"

Hmmm let's see. Soulless vampire singing about cold soil killing the roses... nope, not really.

"Roses always die, in the end."

It was a pointed reply. A reminder that the Seer wouldn't live forever, no matter how loved she was. There conversations were always a competition. Despite the common thread of the visions, the two Seers were as different as blood and water.

[ she gets it, okay? her death was inevitable - because if... no, when the aliens decide to throw her back to LA then there was nothing left for her to do than be violated by some higher being and die. it was an ugly, ugly truth - and her staying in Taxon was just delaying the inevitable. ]

Hello! Comes with being alive, in the first place. [ which was also a reminder that the vampire, on the other hand, wasn't. ]

She didn't want to be alive. A heartbeat offered a certain degree of freedom, yes, but it also had restrictions of it's own. Drusilla could imagine a life like that, held in my morals and ethics. She'd run away every time.

"I was, once."

Uh-huh. Until Big Bad Angelus found you and gobbled you up and made you into what you are right now.

Drusilla's lips curved into a reminiscent smile, though she missed him and missed him and missed him. The memories reminded her of all the things Angelus hadn't had a chance to do. The lives he hadn't had a chance to end and the games he hadn't had a chance to put into motion.

"He made a wonderful mess," she mused, addressing herself as much as Cordelia. The blades of grass broke beneath her fingers. "I didn't think Anne had so much blood in her."

Anne? [ the question came out before she had a chance to clamp her mouth shut. cordelia really didn't want to know more about Angelus' antics - her four encounters with Angel's soulless counterpart was scarring enough, after all. ]

Drusilla, on the other hand, answered with relish. She'd loved her sister. (She continued to love her, or what she remembered of her.) It sounded like somebody else's life.

"My little sister."

Had she been the youngest? Drusilla wasn't sure. She had seemed very small at the time, but Drusilla - in the time before she had been Drusilla - had never been tall.

And Angelus... [ oh god, the horror. ]

"Ripped her throat out," said Drusilla, finishing the sentence with something close to amusement. Strange, wasn't it? These days, she could talk freely about something that had shattered her as a human. Her tears had turned into laughter and her fear into a form of acceptance. It had happened. Anne was dead. It couldn't be changed. Drusilla had a new family now.

(That was why they meant so much to her. She knew how to love because she remember what it was like to lose something precious.)

[ she tries not to imagine it. Angelus - with Angel's face - doing something like that. but the images are too vivid to ignore. ]

God, that's just-- you're really sick, you know that?

"I'm what Daddy made me into," Drusilla crowed. The shock that rippled through Cordelia's voice was a reward, of sorts. A reminder that Angel had been Drusilla's first. A reminder that part of Angel would always belong to Drusilla.

"She was beautiful. The apple of Mummy's eye. She was much better than me."

[ she shakes her head. ] And you don't feel anything? At all? With your sister? I know it's like a zillion years ago, but--

[ then a thought hits her. ] Why... why were you the one turned anyway?

Drusilla growled at that. Cordelia frequently attempted to insult her and she frequently responded with amusement, but she couldn't let that slide.

"I loved her," she replied sharply, "I miss her. She was mine and she was beautiful. But she's gone. I used up all my tears but they didn't bring her back. Didn't you hear the song? Everything withers and dies!"

Cordelia couldn't hope to understand, but, fortunately, the next question allowed Drusilla to step on to firm ground once more.

"Because I was special. Grandmother said I could have been a saint."

[ okay, so maybe that was a low blow. still. ] I-- [ was she about to apologize? she bites her lip. no, she would not. ]

...a saint. [ this is said in her driest of tones. And - grandmother? did she mean the real one or Darla? ]

Edited 2010-05-10 12:15 (UTC)

Close. Very close. Drusilla's lips curved into a wicked smile. She enjoyed making her squirm.

"A saint," Drusilla confirmed, with a sage nod. Her eyes were bright, as if she was gazing at a future that hadn't unfolded. "I was going to take my orders."

(Darla, of course. Her human family - except Anne, who had been too young to know better - that thought that her visions came the devil. They hadn't been able to see the good in them.)

[ orders... nun. of course. didn't wes say angelus had a thing for convents, churches and other holy places? it'd make sense he'll have a thing for holy people as well. ]

But instead... you got damned. [ there it was again, that little nagging guilt-inducing twinge. it was hard to look at the vampire and see her not as a killer, but a victim. ]

Edited 2010-05-10 12:37 (UTC)

Not just holy, but pure. Pure as snow, as ice, as the clouds. (And cold, ever so cold.) Drusilla had been innocence personified, despite what her parents had thought of her visions.

Maybe the Powers-That-Be - who guided Cordelia and the Angel Beast - had had plans for her. Maybe she'd never find out.

"Did I? I just stepped into the shadows."

007: A Bit of Earth [Accidental Visual / Location: The Playground]

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