The Web We Weave


TITLE: The Web We Weave
AUTHOR: Fyre
EMAIL: Fyredansa@hotmail.com
SUMMARY: Someone is thinking...
FEEDBACK: Gimme, gimme, gimme! Please?
DISTRIBUTION: Just here at the mo...but anyone can have it :-) Just ask nicely ;-)
SPOILERS: None really - set just after 'Becoming - Part 2'
COUPLE: Aus/Dru implied
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: Tisn't mine! *sob*
CLASSIFICATION: A single random moment of weirdness
NOTES: Inspired by "What a tangled web we weave" - don't know where I heard it, but it seemed like a good line. Also another of the Improv fics. improv - sepia, revenge, wish, memory - Written : 14.12.2000
DEDICATED: To J for giving me an intriguing character to work with
_________________________________________

What a tangled web we weave.

It sounds like it should make sense, but it doesn't. Not really. I mean, have you ever seen a web that was tangled? Have you ever seen a human weaving a tiny, delicate web? No? Didn't think so.

And why, you ask, am I rambling on and on about webs and spiders and stuff…I'm feeling poetic. Poetic as hell, for once. With just the tiniest amount of the insanity that she has forced on me over the years I'd been with her.

You see, they've left me on my own, which is never a good thing. Only they haven't figured that out yet. They still think that I'm totally oblivious to my surroundings. To everything that's going on. That my memory is non-existant.

They think I can't see or figure out what was done to me. Where it is that bastard cursed me to remain for all eternity, my voice supposedly going unheard by everyone around me.

Supposedly.

What a strong word that is.

Supposedly, again, there's no chance for revenge in this gig.

Let me tell you about myself, before I even try to explain what I have become. What I've been reduced to. I was a Witch. Not just any Witch, but a very powerful one and I know all witches claim to be powerful. I'm the exception. I was powerful, to such an extent that it terrified me.

And yet, I thrived on it. The pain and fear I unwittingly inflicted on others and myself as I started out. Being psychic half-demon didn't help.

Now there's a pathetic stereotype, I hear you all cry – a psychic half-demon AND a Witch. Sounds like a main villain for one of those trashy horror stories that he likes to read. Not that she approves of them at all. She doesn't like anything I dislike. Kinda nice really.

And trust me when I say I don't usually talk like this. It doesn't exactly command attention or carry the wisdom and authority my role requires. I only talk like this when I know the dotty chit isn't listening – even if it seldom happens.

So, back to my tale.

I've been with this dear girl for a long time now, but before that, when I actually was still...normal – aside from the whole witchy-demony concept – I was teaching myself how to use magick and that was never a good idea.

I tried to hard, I played with the wrong stuff, I messed up one too many incantations blah-blah-blah, managed to summon some kind of super-duper-powerful, horny, old sorcerer from an alternative dimension...let me tell you, that was bloody freaky! I mean, in my day and age, we still thought the world was flat!

Having someone appear out of nowhere in an explosion of light and fireworks in the middle of the kitchen, having opened a portal in the solid stone floor of the pantry was enough to make me – a chamber- maid-cum-witch-cum-half-demon – piddle her pants with terror.

Which I did. Before politely fainting in an untidy heap of fear on the floor, leaving my somewhat confused victim standing in the middle of the room staring at me.

He looked human...or at least he did by the time I came to. He was like one of the gentlemen the Master would occasionally have around for dinner, one of those respected members of a society I would never fit within.

Only he didn't act like them. He was eyeing me like a piece of meat, violet eyes trailing over my body and I swear I could feel his invisible hands pushing aside my dresses and taking a good old grope at what was beneath.

Bastard.

And I told him as much, which really wasn't the best thing to do. But then, I wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the box when I was a teenager. C'mon, tell the truth – how many teenagers are there in the world that are actually blessed with some vague semblance of common sense?

Anyway, getting back to my story, I didn't know who this sleazy git was or why he was eyeing me like that. I only knew I didn't like him and I called him several names that no young lady is under the liberty to repeat.

Naturally, he didn't take it very well.

From his eyes starting to glow red and his skin to glow white, I was able to put together the fact that this was definitely not a human being at all. That's my claim to intelligence, for crying out loud.

A chill ran through my body, as sparks of light erupted from his hands, giving me the incredibley vague suspicion that I might just have gotten myself into a big old bit of trouble.

In the words of today's seventeen year olds, "Duh!"

And then he did it. I felt myself growing weaker and frailer, my internal organs seeming to shrivel away to nothingness, my vision growing strangely fuzzy, my mouth becoming drier and my tongue feeling as if it had been turned to stone, stifling my protests.

Not a pleasant way to go, to be sure, but he didn't kill me. Even though I wish he had now. He knew this would be torture for any teenager – being ignored for almost an eternity. Or at least that's what it felt like.

He found it all very amusing, picking my lifeless, emotionless body up and staring cruelly into my glassy eyes, one hand roughly stroking the tangled mass of my hair as his hands touched what I would never have let him moments before.

I had never wanted to kill someone before that moment, as he continued to play with my pathetic little body, my mouth refusing to co-operate in my desperate attempts to scream for help.

As if it would make a difference. He knew and told me I was being stupid, telling me that no one would ever find my body, that I was stuck as I was for all eternity and he would be able to play with me whenever he wanted.

But he was wrong.

Silly git. He may have been a powerful sorceror and turned a seemingly helpless witch-demon-seer-chambermaid into something I shouldn't have been, but I still had my powers, despite being unable to move or act on my own will.

Kinda takes the fun out of it, wouldn't you agree?

Anyway, getting back to the point, since I'm bored and someone aside from my dark mistress is listening to me for once, I suppose I better tell you how and why I finally did get my wish and escape from that twisted pervert.

He always played with me, but he also had a collection of others, who were like me as well. We could communicate, but so many were so far gone, they had simply become the things they had been turned into: body and mind simply separated. It was incredibley weird.

Then came the final blow.

He decided it was time for us to have a nice party and he dressed me in sepia. Of all the bloody colours in all the bloody world, he chose sepia! I mean, it doesn't even match my hair or my eyes...in fact, I look like the creature from the swamp, especially since he had the audacity to add a veiled hat to the ensemble – talk about sheer and complete humiliation!

So I started mentally screaming. I screamed and screamed and screamed, desperately pleading to the powers that be to send someone – anyone – who would save me from the mess I was in.

And they did.

It was more along the lines of the anyone than the someone. I get the feeling the PTB were all having a big old chuckle about it when they saw my saviour come barreling into the room and attacking the warlock.

Dispensing with him swiftly, gleaming eyes swam over the sea of faces, settling on mine, one slender white hand reaching up and touching my cheek before plucking me from among the masses.

One thing I was relieved to realise was that we muct still be in my reality, but after a hundred years with that paedophilic sleazoid of an owner, I wasn't sure if I could see how far humanity had advanced.

By my estimation, it would have to be around the 1870's or 1880's by now and I'll give credit to my rescuer, as she carefully lifted several of my companions down from their places – she had taste and a talent.

"You stopped screaming." She murmured, touching one finger to my still lips, her eyes searching mine, even though I knew there was no sign of life in them. "Is it because I came to save you all?"

The child-like quality of her voice terrified me, as much as the realisation of what she was. But, on a plus note, she couldn't hurt me. It was impossible. You can't kill an inanimate object such as myself or my companions.

At least, not kill in the normal sense of the word.

She could hear us too, which was another bonus. Not many people could...in fact, none that I knew of, in all the hundred years.

But now, now she's gone again.

After all our time together, she just vanished.

Staring blindly into the darkness of the Mansion, I wonder if I should feel betrayed or relieved. I miss my beautiful Saviour. My Saviour who heeded my every word and listened, entranced to my every prediction and whispered message. She would never leave me of her own accord. I hold too much for her to leave behind.

Her preoccupation with her dark master – Angelus, I think his name was – couldn't even keep me from her affections. She always had me close by, no matter how her dark master hurt her. Always turned to me in times of misery, hoping my magick would comfort and heal her shattered thoughts.

She and I, we can't be separated, they should know that by now. She can't live without me by her side. It's almost like I've got her trapped in some odd way...odd. You don't get much odder than the relationship she and I have.

Funny that, looking back on it, I did actually weave a web to hold my mistress to me. Like a spider I wove a world of mysteries and magick around her that she was and is too frail to break through.

I can make her return. She can try and escape my magickal web, but I can always spin again and spin more. I persuaded her to rescue me from my owner and she did. It was simple. All I had to do was scream to begin the weaving.

And I will begin the weaving again. As soon as she hears, she will be pulled back into my safe little web and never escape again, I the spider, she the juicy fly that I live through and off.

Soon, she'll pick me up in her arms and hold me close, dressing me in all her favourite little dresses, tie my gag a little tighter, then she'll say what she always says to me when I scream for her favour, the words I love to hear.

"Mummy's here again, Miss Edith."


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