01 | Holo/Location: The Sanctuary | Shaper of Things

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

"I wish to do more violence."

Blood.  She would drench herself in it.  Bathe in it.  Wear it like a suit of armor.  It would fall from the skies as the rain fell--in torrents.

Wesley was dead.  He was just a human, nothing, and yet . . .She felt anger for his death, and his loss was an unfamiliar weight she had no will to bear.  Blood was all she thirsted for, and if it would not ease this accursed mortal feeling of despair, then she would pile heads upon heads of these creatures until she could sit upon their mutilated corpses like a king, once again. King.

The half-breeds and the human would die.  Only she would live on.

She.

But then the world blinked, and suddenly the air reeked of cold metal and silence. Water dripped from the ends of her hair to the floor, but elsewhere the room was dry. Space was no longer wide but insufferably small, no longer loud with the songs of battle, but utterly without sound. The half-breeds and their human warrior were gone. Illyria was alone.

"What is this magic?"

Her frozen, blue eyes roamed the empty room, taking in its strange accoutrements. Her body remained as it was before the blink--a statue, still and deaf to all who looked upon her. The wolf, The Ram, The Hart.  Only they possessed the power to pluck her from time and space.  They were fools.

"Treacherous. To think this sorcery will prevent your undoing."  Nothing, but silence.  Baring her teeth and clenching her jaw, she spoke calmly, lowly, and dangerously.  "Speak," she commanded. "And your deaths will be bearable."

Comments

[ visual ]

[gotcouplings.livejournal.com]

It was a face Kaylee hadn't seen in a long while, more months than she wanted to count. She had never spoken more than maybe twice with Illyria, and she doubted she would be recognized anyway based on the threats, but someone needed to speak up before something bad happened.

"They don't talk much," she says, picking up her tablet and doing her best to look as non-threatening as possible. Kaylee holds up the arm with her bracelet, too, just in case Illyria needs proof that she's another captive. "When they do, they don't give us much in the way of answers. Can't tell you a whole lot myself--Kaylee's me--but the place is called Taxon, and it's bein' run by some group of aliens with a strange sense of humor."

[ holo ]

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

Illyria's head snaps in the direction of the voice. The human speaks to her as if they are familiar. She searches the memory of the shell--of Fred--and finds emptiness.

"Taxon." The word is stale and strange on her tongue. "It exists outside my knowledge." A long pause as she remains impossibly still, eyes studying the strange device. Her next words are spoken as both an observation and a threat. "In my time, humor was born from the sufferings of its victims."

[ visual ]

[gotcouplings.livejournal.com]

"Not a one of us knew it was here 'fore we got landed here," Kaylee replied. "Still don't know where exactly in the 'verse it is." She had her ideas, none of them worth anything. More often than not they had been daydreams born out of too many hours spent in the shop inhaling fumes.

She scrunched her nose at the last comment. "Don't know how much it's changed in the future, neither, or culture to culture. But they leave us alone most days. Think we're here for observation more'n anything." Something triggered in the back of Kaylee's mind, a flash of cold beds and tests, but it was gone too quickly for her to really place where it came from.

[ visual ]

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

"Fools," she says, barely a whisper. The Wolf, Ram, and Hart--they possessed the sorcery to construct this fabrication. They wished to wage war against the half-breed without her aid. They would deprive her of her victory. She would return in kind their insolence with destruction.

She tilts her head at the girl, taking one large step forward. "This room...does not suit me. You will tell me how to be rid of it." A command.

[ visual ]

[gotcouplings.livejournal.com]

Kaylee, figuring that Illyria meant the aliens and not someone from her own world, nodded in agreement. "Considerin' they run around looking like hamsters half the time, I ain't gonna disagree."

Sometimes she forgot how pushy people could be at first. Internally, Kaylee grimaced at the order, but her face remained as helpful and supportive as she could maintain. "Just pick up the tablet--that's the thing we're speaking through. Door should open. You'll have to take the tablet with you when you go, but then just follow the hallway down, take the stairs, and you'll find yourself in a lobby of sorts."

[visual]

[poisonousparty.livejournal.com]

Woah. Spooky.

Party's definitely interested, and he's got half a cigarette burning in his gloved hands suddenly on his lap to prove it. He picks it up swiftly, though, taking a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. Bossy, this one. But cool looking. Like some mutant from one of the books he reads front to back.

"Look alive, Sunshine." The standard greeting, and Party can't help but stare. She really does look like something he drew to appease Grace. Only...

Well, kinda bitchy.

"'Fraid not, Blue. I mean, they only speak if you piss 'em off.. and I tried that, an' everyone else got pissed at a few little molotov cocktails. But, uh, welcome to Taxon. Name's Party Poison.

[holo]

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

Sunshine. At the word, Illyria takes several steps closer to the tablet. Her chin lifts, her eyes pierce him through lowered lids, the essence of regal. The thing would address her so oddly. It would learn respect.

"You are a prisoner here," she says, a question phrased as a statement. He had the body of a human--skin and two eyes and just one mouth--and yet, the oddness of his appearance struck her. "Your form is unlike the humans of my--" She falters, ever-so-slightly. Her time was lost in ashes. "--My time. It is displeasing."

[visual]

[poisonousparty.livejournal.com]

Party shrugs because hey, weird girl with weird words, what else is he supposed to do?

"Not lookin' to please you, Crash Queen." there's a hint of annoyance mixed with an odd proud, though why his 'form' would displease her is beyond him. For chrissakes, they both had coloured hair. "But yeah, and we're all stuck here and if you wanna help me escape, feel free to join Team Killjoy." Not that she'd necessarily get in. For some reason, he was getting the same vibe as Drusilla gave off when they first met. 'Crazy bitch' was something akin to it.

[holo]

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

"Kill. Joy," she repeats, tasting the words. The vampire had only earned her favor for his cause because of her humiliation and wish for vengeance. And...now she is here. Those feelings linger, still.

"They have ripped me from my timeline. Attempted to contain me in this box. I will take much joy in their dismemberment. I shall make trophies of their spines and towers of their heads."

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

It had been a long time since she'd heard that voice in the city. (If she hadn't been plucked from her world before the truly interesting things had started to happen, she'd probably have heard it in her dreams.) She was heavy with age and war and power, all wrapped up in a strange human cell.

No wonder the Angel Beast and his friends had been or would be or were intoxicated by her.

"Too late," she said, "I died a long time ago. They didn't bring you here. The wolf chased the hart and the ram over the edge and now they're all lost in the forest."

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

"Yet they breathe still," answers the god-king, almost reflectively. "They have built walls and rooms and armies to cower behind. They have ripped me from battle and placed me in this room in fear of my power besting theirs."

They did not want her aiding the half-breed warrior. But she does what suits her.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"A battle?"

That was exciting. Drusilla had been plucked from the edge of a war, before she'd had a chance to throw herself into the fray. Before the Slayer had fallen, leaving herself broken and ready for Drusilla's rescue.

"Were you winning? Did the Angel Beast fight with you?"

She still missed him.

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

"I was snatched away on the brink of it." Disappointment echoes in those words. "Before I could carve mountains with their bones and dine from their blood." She had not the time to express her true glory, to revel in the destruction.

"He led the war. He sought to regain his kingdom." She pauses. The shell has no memory of this creature. It is unknown. "You know of the vampire leader."

[allthatlife.livejournal.com]

Although Martha hadn't been trapped in the city as long as some people, she had been a prisoner long enough to see a lot of different people arrive and disappear and, in the case of Fitz, return again. It looked like he was no longer the only person to make a reappearance.

She hadn't know Illyria well. All she had know was that the woman - the goddess - had stolen Fred's body and had spent many long hours at Wesley's bedside when he'd been injured.

Fred and Wesley were long gone, just like Angel and Lorne and numerous other people from their world. It was out of loyalty to them - to the friendship that they'd had in the city - that Martha replied to the threat that constituted Illyria's post.

"We're not the ones to blame," she explained, "We're all prisoners here. We don't know where we are or why. All we know is that the city is called Taxon and there's no way out."

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

Illyria was trapped in a sea of humans, all of which she could obliterate if she had the will. It offended her to be put here. They were not her equals. They were nothing.

"A prison within a prison," she murmured, teeth clenched in anger. If only that wretched weapon had not stolen her power. But all was not lost. "Worlds and dimensions. Nothing but flimsy curtains stitching the mortal coils together. I will tear them down, shred them, gnaw at them until they collapse into nothing."

She would not be made a fool.

[allthatlife.livejournal.com]

"It isn't as simple as that." And, based on what she'd learned during her time on the TARDIS, it wasn't that easy to tear worlds and dimensions apart. Not even for ... whatever Illyria actually was. "Most of us have been trying to find a way out since we arrived. The people who are keeping us here have powerful technology. I don’t think force will help.”

It certainly hadn’t helped anyone else.

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

Nothing is simple. Worlds exist only when they are brought down. Illyria knows this. She has seen it.

"Technology. A faulty weapon used by rats to seem as great as giants. Not even the lowest relied on such illusions, in my time."

She grits her teeth. It would break. Everything always breaks.

[Voice]

[imperial-long.livejournal.com]

For a moment when he hears the voice coming from his tablet (which is sitting idly on his desk, on in case of newcomers) he believes he is hearing Winifred. Fred, the first person he had met face to face in Taxon, the first he could consider a friend truly. Fred with her warmth, courage, her answers to his early questions.

But no. The voice that carries on from the tablet is stiffer, colder, emptier than Winifred's.

Long slowly moves over, examines the holo that is being broadcast, a frown appearing between his brows and then over the rest of his face.

After long seconds he taps the buttons to answer, leaving himself sending only his voice to her.

"She... spoke of a fate she did not wish. I hadn't realized how complete it would be. Most... unfortunate."

[holo]

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

She.

But there is no face. Just words--emitting from the device in her hand. This device that Illyria grows increasingly bothered by...it is useless. Too solid. She has no want or need of it.

"I know not of what you speak. I tire of this bombardment of communications."

[voice] this is the shortest tag he has ever given anyone

[imperial-long.livejournal.com]

"Winifred," Long says, a touch sharply. "Or do you have no memory of her whatsoever?"

[holo]

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

"The shell." He knew of Fred.

She cannot see the speaker, cannot search the memories of the shell to confirm familiarity. "Ours are muddled together, memories as fragments to be pieced together, at my command. Broken divisions. There is no memory of this place. Or of you."

A pause. "You hide your face where others do not. Who speaks?"

[visual]

[slayersidekick]

"Uh... It's weird, but I don't think it's magic. O-or at least, not the kind some of us know."

This whole look-a-like thing is really starting to get on Willow's nerves. First someone who looks like Dawn and now someone who looks like Fred with blue hair. Willow doesn't like it and her unhappiness shows on her face.

"And they really don't like the whole killing thing here."

The aliens didn't, sure, but she meant the citizens, too. If anything magical happened, it was really up to her to deal with it. That was what Willow did.

[holo]

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

"It fails to impress. And I grow weary of it." Of this. Dropped into a sea of mayflies, for what purpose?

"I bow to the will of my captor as I do the insect," she says, defiant, looking at the human with renewed interest. Ah, this one. This one is familiar. She knew the shell. There is respect, a bond. But Illyria would sooner show respect to a cockroach. Still, she eyes the witch. "You are a practitioner of sorcery," she declares, piecing fragments together. "Of illusion. Magics. And yet, you know nothing of this?"

[visual]

[slayersidekick]

Willow frowned. How did she-

"Fred?"

Probably not. This just wasn't her lucky week... or year, really. May as well answer the question.

"I-it's a different kind of magic, I think. Alien stuff. I can't break it."

[holo]

[the-bluethunder.livejournal.com]

"No." A simple, conclusive answer. "Winifred Burkle is the shell I'm in. She is no more." A pause. "But I have found you in her memories. They are minimal and negligible."

She tires of these magics--mere attempts by humans to appear more powerful than they are. It is no matter. She will unravel it. Instead, she says, thoughtful, "Everything is alien."