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

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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.

[On the bisected fruit
of my glass and still chamber,
On the empty shell
of my writing desk,
I carve a name,
through ink and linen.]

En-Doul is unable to speak aloud, but the tablet is doing a good job of translating his signing into speech.

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."

Drusilla made a low purring sound of appreciation. It helped to hear words from a mouth, of course, but they retained some of the power even if they went unspoken. She could fill in the gaps herself. She was happy to.

"Oh," she breathed, rapturous, "What a beautiful poem! Did you write it?"

"No, lady, I did not," he signed. "I am not used to the custom here, but this seems to be a land in love with song and while my people do not sing, a few of the more adventurous write."

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.

Borrowed beauty was still beauty. Drusilla tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, regarding the new face on the tablet with frank interest. Their captors took things away, yes, but they offered up treats from time to time as well.

"We're not," she corrected, "The songs are in love with us."

"Is a song more fickle than a mortal heart? If so, then we should be worried." Doul's instructions on Drusilla were short and consisted of 'unknown, possibly ab-dead, curious' and that's more than enough to encourage an overly curious Deadman to talk.

"No," she said, firm and serious. She thought of the girl her William had set his sights on before they'd met. She thought of the soldier that had temporarily tried to fill the Slayer's heart. "Hearts are the most fickle things of all."

Which made you wonder, really, what made them so delicious.

"So I've been told." Not that he knows first hand. En-Doul is married, but he's never been heavily involved in her life. "But, I keep mine safely away from harm."

"Clever boy."

Drusilla had tried to do that, once upon a time, but she hadn't succeeded. She gave her heart away too freely. To Daddy and Darla, to William, to the Slayer. (To the Master and Morgana, perhaps? She'd have to wait and see.) Vampires could love. They could. They'd loved well, even if they didn't love wisely.

"I don't think I have one."

"No? I'm not sure what the appropriate response to that would be. Should I commiserate? Should I congratulate?" It's suspected that the thanati of High Cromlech have the capacity to love, but to date, no one has ever heard of it happening.

Nearby, without a sound, there's a phone booth.

It might have always been there, or it could be new, or maybe it belongs to someone. The red paint is shiny, the glass is clear and inviting. Come in, come in, the door is untouched and open and waiting, patiently, for Drusilla to step through it.

There's business to be done. Happy business!

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?

She hadn't been waiting for them. As patient as she was, Drusilla had no love - just anger, just anger - for the aliens.

Still, there was something terribly compelling about the phone booth. It was new and bright. The red paint was the colour of freshly spilled blood. With her palms stained with soil, Drusilla ran a hand - curious and exploratory - over the wooden paneling. It had a warmth to it, a life to it.

In the end, she didn't have a choice. She had to step inside.

"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."

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

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