"You’re not serious."
"I’m sorry, Cordelia, but I am," Wesley apologized. "It says right here:" He pointed at the book he held in his hands. " ‘The Seer shall be presented to the Gods as the Gods presented the Seer to the world.’ It’s fairly clear that means that you must be…unclothed for the ceremony."
"I was covered in blood when I was born, too," she countered hotly. "Are we gonna dump Angel’s breakfast on me? Oh—and how about the placenta, huh?"
"Uh—a few symbolic markings in red body paints will do for the blood. It *would* be useful if you had your placenta, but it’s not necessary. That’s part of the reason some indigenous peoples save it. It’s a connection with the pre-living world--"
She waved her hands and cut him off. "Fine, great. I don’t want to hear any more about it. Are you sure there’s no mistake in the translation?" She demanded.
He shook his head. "It’s just classical Latin, Cordelia. I read it almost as easily as I do English. But just to be sure, I checked with Mr. Giles and Angel."
Cordelia turned to seek out the men in question and confirm that statement for herself. They were close at hand: they were both down on the floor. Angel was sponging the old chalk lines off the floor, while Giles drew new ones. Both had apparently been listening, so they spoke up as soon as she turned to them.
"It’s true, Cordy." Angel said.
"Yes. It’s—um—really quite clear," Giles confirmed.
Cordelia glared at them, and prepared to accuse them of making it all up. Hey, this was naked here.
But just then, Joyce arrived, carrying several large white candles. "They even checked it with me," she supplied. "And I just took a year or two of Latin in High School. When I told them that I didn’t have my old dictionary with me, they asked Anya, and *she* confirmed it."
A nightmarish--and no doubt accurate--image of Anya spreading the word among the Scoobies who had been sent upstairs to "get some rest—and keep resting until we tell you it’s okay" flashed into Cordelia’s mind. She buried her face in her hands, then threw her hands up in defeat. "All right! Fine! Whatever! We’re doing something that could fry my brains out, so what does it really matter what I’m wearing? Or not wearing!"
"That’s the spirit," Giles said, sarcastic but not particularly mean.
"So who’s going to be there?" She demanded.
Wesley flipped to the appropriate page in his book and scanned it, then pointed to the pertinent line, though she couldn’t read it. "It says here that the Rite shall be performed by the Priests and the Priestesses—"
Giles stretched and rubbed his back. "That’s the ideal situation. What we *have* are two sorcerers and two witches. It’ll have to do."
Wesley waved the concern away without looking up from the page. "And it shall be witnessed by the Champions of the people—"
"I still think Faith should be standing in the middle," Angel said to Giles, finishing the last of the old chalk lines. "I’m the Warrior of Night, Buffy’s the Warrior of Day, and Faith is Twilight. We should be right in a row."
"Yes, but then we have an imbalance of male and female forces. There are going to be far more women present than men as it is. That could create problems if we don’t place everyone just right."
"—And also by the Seer’s parents," Wesley finished.
"See, right there, we have a problem," Cordelia said.
Wesley didn’t need to ask what. One of Cordelia’s parents was in prison. The other was living in a studio apartment in Sunnydale. Neither was present.
"Not necessarily," Giles said, rising to his feet. "This ritual was created in an era when it was entirely possible that both parents would be dead, so the Seer can appoint others to bear witness on the parents’ behalf."
"You know," Wesley said, a step ahead for once, "It’s allowed—even expected, really—that one or both of the seer’s parents would be among the participating clergy."
"Gosh, I wonder who I’m going to pick," Cordelia said. "Just give Giles the Daddy-mark and tell Joyce where to stand and let’s get to this"
"Very well," Wesley said, closing the book.
"Nine people," Angel commented. "That’s a good omen."
Wesley pointed to the foot of the stairs, where the two witches were waiting. "Willow and Tara will be your attendants. They’ll help you prepare."
"Great," she groused. "The only two women around here who might be interested in handling me naked, and they’re the ones in charge of it."
Wesley shrugged helplessly. "If the Seer were male, it would be up to Mr. Giles and myself, but—"
"But it’s me. Yeah, yeah. Let’s just do this."
Wesley heard her voice waver on the last word, and it suddenly occurred to him that she was embarking on a potentially fatal experience, and all she was doing was complaining about the details. Once, he would have mistaken that remarkable courage for shallowness, but he had learned better since then.
He wanted to reach out and do something comforting. Pat her on the back, perhaps, or even hug her. But he was too slow. She had already turned and gone.
"I mean who am I going to pick for my parents? Really? Spike and Anya? I’d almost rather that Giles and Joyce *were* my parents. I can certainly count on them better."
Cordelia’s rant was loud enough for the whole room to hear, and it drew an "Amen" from Willow and absurd, proud smiles from the ‘parents’ in question.
*
The first step was a ritual bath. That meant it had to take place in Angel’s apartment, as it had to be an actual *bath*, and all of the guestrooms only had shower stalls. It was short but it was scalding, and they insisted that they use Angel’s unscented off-the-shelf bar soap and shampoo. Cordelia complained that now she would "smell like boy", but they held firm, saying that the fewer artificial substances tainting her skin—including the perfumes in the hygiene products she would have preferred—the better. After a moment or two of wrangling, she settled in and allowed Joyce to wash her hair, which was apparently the "Mother’s" duty.
The bath was just starting to cool to a comfortable temperature when Joyce left and Cordelia had to get out of the bath. Willow and Tara dried her with Angel’s towels, anointed her hair with some sort of oil—she wasn’t too happy about that part, but they’d sworn it was a good conditioner—then began to apply the ritual paints. She didn’t bother to ask why the oil and the paints were less "artificial" than her perfumes. They were probably organically based or something.
First, they applied symbols that were sacred Woman symbols: a red spiral over her womb leading into a downward-pointing arrow, symbolizing her fertility. She asked what symbol a man would have, and they answered a simple, straight arrow.
Next, she had two round, red moons painted on each breast, with a white drop on each nipple. She didn’t need the symbolism of those explained.
She felt Willow’s hand trembling as she started the moon on her left breast, and she realized that the purpose of giving her female attendants was at least partially defeated by the fact that these two happened to be lesbians. In that moment, she had a flash of insight. It was almost a vision, minus the skull-rupturing pain: She was maybe the third real person Willow had seen completely naked in her entire life. To the best of her knowledge, the formerly shy, nerdy Hacker had never been skinny-dipping or so much as peeked when Buffy was changing clothes.
Rather than embarrassment or annoyance, Cordelia felt the kind of amused compassion she might have felt for any other virgin or near-virgin—Wesley, perhaps—who approached her, trembling with fear and desire and most of all, awe at the simple fact that he was going to have contact with a naked human being.
She caught Willow’s small, trembling hand, and held it for a moment, turning her head to look at the red-haired witch. Willow was looking at her own feet, her face flaming.
Cordelia squeezed her hand.
Willow looked up.
Cordelia nodded, and Willow sighed in relief and returned to work, her hands no longer trembling.
The Woman symbols complete, the two witches moved on to the symbols that signified Cordelia’s status as a Seer: a flame-shaped blue mask around her eyes and a blue crescent moon on her forehead.
Finally, they added the paints that Wesley had mentioned, the ones that symbolized her birth-blood. These consisted of simple red streaks: one on each cheek, one on each shoulder, one on each flank, one on each hand and foot.
The preparations done, they each took her by the hand, and led her out into the lobby.
*
The preparations for this ritual had driven the point home to Angel that simply painting a circle on the floor would be a bad idea. This ritual--a sacred, priestly ceremony of High Ritual Magic--was entirely different from the more "mortal" magic they’d used in the past several days. The etchings were entirely different. First, as an appeal to the Powers, the spell required an invocation to "seven gods." It hadn’t specified which seven, so they had made a ring of seven modern holy symbols on the floor: a cross, a Star of David, a Crescent-and-Star, a pentacle, an Om symbol, a yin/yang symbol, and a simple Buddhist mandala. They had done this in the hopes that "living" symbols, invested with the belief of the faithful, would be more powerful and effective than the symbols of forgotten gods and dead religions.
The three Warriors each stood on a holy symbol—Buffy on the Cross, Angel on the Star of David, Faith on the Crescent-and-Star. As prescribed by the ritual, each of them wore the closest thing they had to armor. For them, that meant leather pants and leather jackets all around. Each of them also carried a sword, instead of their usual weapon of choice. Angel had a massive broadsword, Buffy a simple long sword, and Faith had borrowed Cordelia’s Katana (which had, of course, been borrowed from Angel in turn). Wesley and Giles, dressed in togas made from scavenged bed sheets, waited in the center of the circle with a brazier and a wineglass.
Angel could feel his skin itch. Giles had purified the ceremonial space with a short ritual of salt and water and chimes. Apparently his soul made him pure enough to remain, but he was still enough of an "unclean thing" that the ritual made him uncomfortable.
Then the door to Angel’s apartment opened, and Tara and Willow led Cordelia out into the lobby. Joyce, who’d been waiting outside the door in a makeshift toga of her own ("I haven’t done this since college!" "Mom? *What* did you do in college?" "Nothing."), took one of Cordelia’s hands from Tara, wrapped her other arm around the girl’s shoulders, and led her down into the circle with the two witches following in procession behind.
Wesley picked up the book, which already lay open to the pertinent section. "Who brings this woman before the gods?" He asked as the procession entered the circle.
"Her mother and I," Giles answered. "The gods gave her to us, and now we offer her back up to them."
"So let it be," Wesley pronounced.
Everyone took position: Cordelia standing before the brazier and the wineglass, with Joyce on the other side of it, and the "priests" and "priestesses’ on either side of her. Once everyone was in place, they glanced surreptitiously at Angel. After nearly 250 years, he had learned to sense the moment of the Sun’s rising.
He held up a hand for them to wait…wait…
An unpleasant, prickling heat flashed across his skin.
His hand snapped down to point at Giles.
Giles raised a chime and struck it. "The Sun rises, and the gods’ revealing light is once more upon the world."
"We call upon Apollo, god of inspiration and dreams and prophecy," Wesley said.
"We call upon Gabriel, messenger of Yahweh," Willow added.
"We call upon the Kachinas, messengers of the Great Spirit," Tara finished.
"All messengers of the gods who can hear us, we call," Giles proclaimed. "This seer is your lighthouse before us. Without her, we die on the rocks. Without her, our Champions are blind."
"But our guide is in darkness" Willow said. "We beseech you to show her the way."
Tara, who had been holding the wineglass since the ceremony began, handed it to Cordelia. "Let this drink set her feet on the path," she said.
Wesley leaned forward and lit the bay leaves in the brazier. "Let this smoke guide her to your realms, as it once guided the oracle at Delphi."
Now it was Cordelia’s turn to do something: she had to drink. She raised the glass to her lips. As another such glass had done for Oz the night before, this glass contained red wine and a mixture of things that Cordelia didn’t really want to ask about.
She hesitated even less than Oz had. Maybe this was dangerous, but getting her mind flash-fried by a vision of the gods had to be better than anything Angelus had in mind. She drained the glass in one long swallow, and the world went dark.
*
If there was a dark tunnel with a light at the end of it, then Cordelia missed it. Maybe she went through it really fast.
Instead, she found herself on what looked to be the richest street she had ever seen. Each house was actually a mansion, grand and ornate, with a long, gated driveway. None of the gates were closed, though, nor did they have anything that looked like locks.
It was night—the sky above was clear and starry—but the street was well lit. Not just by streetlights, but by lights from the mansions. There was a party going on at each mansion, but the biggest party, with the brightest lights and the loudest music, was going on at the biggest mansion.
Somehow, she knew that that was *her* mansion, and that the party wasn’t one of her parents’ cocktail parties for making connections, it was for *her*. A birthday party? No. A welcome-home party.
Great, but she was hardly dressed for—
It was then that she realized she wasn’t naked anymore.
She was dressed in a simple but elegant burgundy cocktail dress, floor-length but slit to the hip. She also wore a diamond necklace, simple but clearly the finest piece of jewelry she’d ever seen, let alone owned.
"Ohmygod," she giggled joyfully, looking down at herself. "Is this *Heaven*?"
"It’s yours," a soft voice, like a whisper of breeze, answered. "Many people create something very similar for themselves before they’re able to leave such mortal things behind and see this place as it truly is."
Cordelia whipped around, searching the empty street for the speaker. "Who’s there?" She demanded. "Where are you?"
"I am the messenger you called for," the voice answered.
"Show yourself!" She challenged. Then she remembered where she was, and realized that such belligerence might not be a good idea. "Uh, sorry about that," she apologized. "It’s just that I, uh, hang out with your, uh, Champions a lot, and usually it’s bad news if we can’t see something."
"I understand," the voice answered. "But I can’t show you a face here. We’ll have to go to a neutral Heaven."
Cordelia looked longingly over her shoulder at her mansion, her party. There were hot guys—was Doyle one of them?—waiting in the hot tub, and a new Queen C waiting in the driveway for her.
She sighed and fixed her gaze straight ahead. She had work to do. "All right, let’s go," she said.
The next moment, she found herself standing in the middle of an endless plain of fluffy white clouds. The night sky still hung above her, the stars sparkling down. Funny, she’d expected Heaven to be sunnier.
"Okay," she called. "I’m here. Can I see you now?"
"I am here, Cordelia," The voice came, but this time it was not just a voice but a Voice. It filled the world, and it filled Cordelia’s senses. It was as warm and soft as summer sand at the beach, it smelled and tasted like the breakfast that Joyce and Angel had served—the first meal that the Scooby Gang and Angel Investigations had eaten as a family. To her ears, it was a beautiful and musical voice, but it was somehow all genders and none, as if a choir was singing each word in absolutely perfect unison.
"I know," she said, more humbly than anyone back in the physical world would have believed. "But I’d still like to see you, if that’s okay."
"Very well. Look up."
She obeyed—and dropped to her knees in awe and terror as the sky started to open.
Two lines of light—miles long and miles apart—shot across the star-spattered sky. Then, slowly, they started to widen, revealing a world of swirling, blazing, rainbow color beyond.
Was the owner of the Voice going to emerge from one of those openings, accompanied by a Heavenly Host or choir or whatever from the other?
Suddenly, in another flash of insight—perhaps there was an actual upside to being a Seer after all?—Cordelia realized something that curled her into a ball, pressing her hands tight to her eyes.
The owner of the Voice was not going to emerge from those holes in the sky. Those holes were…
The owner of the Voice was opening its eyes.
"I will condense my substance, so it will be easier for us to speak," the Voice said.
Although she hadn’t been cold before—far from it—Cordelia was relieved at the sudden feeling of sun-warmth on her back.
Slowly, cautiously, she came out of her tuck. Her head was only raised for a moment, before she brought it back down again. Groveling was all she could do—all she could *imagine* doing.
The Speaker was huge. Impossibly, unbelievably huge. It towered hundreds of feet into the sky. It was shaped like Belial had been—humanoid, with a halo made of stars, glass-pane wings, and eyes like blazing rainbows. But looking at the Speaker was like looking at the night sky: body, wings, and hair were all a clear midnight black, with stars glittering and dancing in them. In the brief moment that Cordelia was watching, a comet shot across the Speaker’s chest, and the spiral-arm of a galaxy swirled through one of its wings.
"Rise, daughter of Gaia," the Voice said. "Don’t you know that you and your kind are the Children of—" The next phrase he spoke came to her "ears" as "the Powers", but she somehow knew that whatever she "heard" was a crude translation of this being’s true language. Somehow, whatever word it had just spoken to her was both singular and plural, and her mind had just heard the closest thing it could comprehend. "—not servants? It is unseemly for the children to bow and kneel and grovel. Stand up!"
"I can’t," she moaned. "I can’t! You’re too—too—you…you’re…"
"Ah. I apologize. I shall take a form that you may be more comfortable with."
She felt the world shift around her as the Speaker did so. Her senses reeled as Heaven realigned itself to allow for her mortal fragility. She was awed, humbled, and honored at the same time: why would such a being change itself to suit *her* needs, unless—
"There now, that should be better." The Voice had become a mere voice, and it was definitely masculine now. Masculine, with a British accent. What was more, it was a vaguely *familiar* masculine, British voice.
Not quite believing her ears, Cordelia looked up, and saw Alan Rickman, as he’d appeared in the movie "Dogma", standing before her.
"Is this better?" The Speaker asked.
"Uh, yes. Thank you," Cordelia answered blankly.
"Good." He reached down to her. "Please. Stand up." Still staring blankly, she allowed him to help her to her feet.
"You saw 'Dogma'?" was the first question that blurted out.
He nodded. "It was actually pretty popular around here. It was hilarious, of course, and Kevin Smith really did his homework. I especially liked the way they portrayed me." He patted his chest.
"You?" Cordelia asked incredulously. "You mean you really are that Metric guy?"
"The Metatron," The Speaker corrected. "That’s right. I’m the voice of the Powers." Once again, Cordelia heard "Powers," but knew that the Metatron had spoken that odd, mind-bending singular-plural word. "For the very reason that was mentioned in the movie: if you saw the true face of the Powers, your eyes would be burned blind. If you heard their true voice, your mind would collapse and your heart would burst in your chest. Now: what can I do for you?"
*
In the physical world, Cordelia—who had been standing for the past several minutes with her head bowed—suddenly looked up. The other participants, who’d been watching and waiting for something like this, were startled nonetheless.
"Cordelia?" Willow asked. "Are you okay? What did they say?"
Cordelia looked toward her, but it was instantly and abundantly clear that Cordelia wasn’t there. There was none of Cordelia’s essential humanity in the face that was turned in her direction. Something unimaginably old and huge and powerful and terribly, terrifyingly Good was there instead.
Cordelia turned away again, her Seer marks starting to glow a soft blue, and her eyes turning into pools of blazing color, filling the whole room with light. She clasped her hands between her breasts, over her heart. Then she held them out: cupped in her hands was a seed, roughly the size of a peach pit, but smooth and silver. Perhaps such seeds existed somewhere in the mortal universe, but none like it had ever been seen on Earth.
Cordelia’s mouth opened and a Voice emerged, but it had no relation to hers or, in fact, to anything human. It sounded like an entire choir was singing each word in perfect unison. "Take this seed," the Voice said. "Take this seed, and let the Lifeweavers make of it a tree, watering it with holiness as it grows. Then let a Warrior take the knife that was the salvation of the world, though it was bought in evil and quenched in blood, and cut a staff from this tree. Let the Builders carve it with holiness, seal the words with metal that is precious beyond all price, then quench it with holiness. So shall you make the spear that must pierce the Heart of the Darkness."
That said, Cordelia just stood there, silent and waiting, holding out the seed. Slowly, tentatively, Willow reached out and took it. She was just starting to ease back and away when Cordelia’s hand snapped around and caught her by the wrist, eliciting a screech of surprise.
"But beware," The Voice said. "Should the Darkness break its bonds, the shadows shall drip with blood. And the merest touch of blood or shadow shall fill you with the Darkness’s own hunger."
With that, the light left Cordelia’s eyes and her hands dropped to her sides, but her Seer marks continued to glow softly.
*
The Metatron stood silent, its now-human eyes distant as the focus of its consciousness was on Earth, delivering its message. Nonetheless, Cordelia could hear the words that her mouth was speaking. That was good—it was a sign that she wasn’t dead, if she still had a connection with her body.
"Carve it with holiness?" She muttered to herself. "Precious beyond all price? What does that *mean*? If these guys are so omnipotent, why can’t they give a straight answer?"
"Actually, we can," The Metatron answered, its eyes returning to alertness.
Cordelia’s blood—if she had any here—ran cold. Suddenly, she realized that her customary grousing about the Powers might not be entirely wise in Heaven. "Oh. G—I mean, oh, jeez. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—"
"No, it’s all right," the Metatron said. "I can give you a straight answer on this, and I believe you’re entitled to it."
Entitled? What happened to "we are the gods, do what we say"? Or maybe she’d had the wrong impression of them all along. After all, Metatron had been nothing but nice so far…
"The Powers can’t give straight answers, especially on the questions that you and your friends bring them, because that could be considered direct intervention, and that would be against the Rules."
"Rules?" Cordelia asked incredulously. "What ‘Rules’? Aren’t the Powers the ones who make the Rules?"
"Only partially," the Metatron answered. "They agreed on the Rules with the Lower Beings—the Deep Lords of Misrule. They would compete for the world’s destiny through proxies—the Lower Being’s slaves and loyal champions like yourselves—rather than fight it out directly. Both sides are forbidden to intervene directly, but if one does, the penalty is that the other side is allowed to do so as well, to restore the balance."
"You make it sound like a game," Cordelia said, her anger overcoming her awe for good this time. "Is that what it’s all about? Our lives—everything we’ve suffered through—it’s just a *game* to you?"
"The alternative is even worse," The Metatron answered.
"What, the Powers fighting their own battles?" She demanded. "Would that be so awful?"
"If the Powers and the Deep Lords turned to open war, it would be chaos," the Metatron said. "The Walls would fall. The Wheel of Time would break off its axle. The Powers would win, but your world couldn’t possibly survive. We take the chance of your world being destroyed, rather than take actions which would ensure it."
"Oh." Suddenly, a lot of things made a lot more sense.
"Instead, they give your people the means to save themselves. The plan works because the Lower Beings want to rule the world, not destroy it—mostly. They even follow the rules, most of the time. Unless they see a vulnerable point, a chance for a knockout punch. As the First Evil did the Christmas that it tried to drive Angel to suicide."
"He told me about that," she said. "So the snow--?"
"A bright miracle to counter the dark one."
"Wait a second," she said. "Don’t you have one of those coming now? I mean, if Belial showing up in the world and pulling Angelus out of Angel so he’s an Old One now doesn’t count as a dark miracle, what does?"
"Very true," the Metatron agreed with a strangely proud smile. He looked like a teacher whose student has just made a sudden leap of comprehension on a difficult concept. "And now, Cordelia Chase, I must bid you farewell."
"Farewell?" She cried as Heaven started to fade around her. "Wait! I still have questions! Are you going to—"
"Tell Giles and Wesley to check the Elysian prophecies," he called after her. Then he was gone.
*
Cordelia’s eyes fluttered open in the physical world.
"Cordelia?" Wesley asked. "Is it you, this time?"
"Angel, Wesley, you’re not gonna believe this," she said. "But I just got a straight answer from the Powers that Be."
|
|
|
|
Rave
Barbie Girl (Becca)
biscuit07
Filmtheory (Jim)
Malice (Jess)
MebbtheScribe (MichaelB)
Reset (Allie)
Shay (Marrisa)
somnambulist29 (Shea)
Stephanie Loss
Wendyness (Wendy)
Questions?Contact Us
|
|
All stories on this site have been archived with the authors' consent. Do not copy these stories for your own uses without the express consent of the author themselves. Buffy the Vampire Slayer TM and Angel TM are © UPN, WB, Fox and its related entities. All photos on the site are © UPN, Fox, Warner Bros, and/or their respective owners. No profits are being made by use of these images.
Powered with the assitance of eFiction.
|
|
|
