Jaded
07-13-2005, 09:07 AM
Innocentia
Part One
Giles lifted the top off the packing crate which lay on the table in Sunnydale High’s library. He coughed slightly in response to the cloud of wood dust that rose. Quickly he emptied polystyrene packing into the bin and lifted put a cloth bound package with reverence.
“What’s that?” Willow asked intrigued by the light of intellectual excitement in his eyes.
“This is the original diary of a vampire slayer called Innocentia by the priests she worked for; it’s a Latin word meaning integrity or innocence. She lived in England sometime in the sixteenth century.”
“Oh she is so interesting!” Willow said, her eyes shinning also, “I’ve read her diary in translation – I mean modern English.”
“I bet she’d read the slayer’s handbook like our resident perfect slayer.” Buffy said bitterly referring to Kendra. She picked up a stray polystyrene shape and crushed it easily. “No doubt she survived more apocalypses than me, as well as being well versed in slayer lore.
“In fact she didn’t go through any apocalypses. She survived I think about a month as a slayer.” Giles said frowned and searching his vast memory, “Obviously it’s difficult to know exactly.”
“She sucked! That’s not incredible – Will you really need to find a more kick ass role model!”
“She wasn’t an incredible slayer, but she was an incredible person.” Willow said, “Hold on.”
She disappeared into the bookcases while Giles slowly undid the cloth covering the text.
“Here,” Willow said depositing a booking her friend’s hands, “Just read it and see.”
While Willow and Giles cooed and ooed over his newest acquisition, Buffy looked sceptically at the book in her hands. As the coming of Kendra had highlighted she didn’t read at all, let alone slayer stuff. With a strong sense of foreboding she opened the book and settled down to read.
‘For the poor, grief is a luxury we cannot afford. It is the nobles and the gentry who lie wailing for days in their plush rooms and making themselves sick and useless. Not for us, and yet though I make no sound my heart keens, sounding like a wolf cub who has lost its mother. A powerful pain lives in me – yet circumstances will allow me no time to give voice to it and exorcise that which, if not permitted to sing, will surely kill me...
‘… Washing down the stones which make up the floor of the church does not occupy my mind. It is a dangerous thing for a girl only slightly educated as I am to think on other things but work, because I know not when to check my thoughts and they spiral out of my grasp. Today I thought again of my angelic little sister. She looked so like a wax effigy in her cheap coffin, that I feared she would melt and become disfigured under the heat from the hands of the mourners who reached out and touched her. I know why they reached for her; she looked so divine, so above this mortal plain that she tricked people into believing she could bring them salvation. She could only bring them damnation. For she now resides in purgatory, where all the unbaptised go. Tis typical of the devil to create such a paradox, face of a prayer – soul of a curse…’
‘It is fortunate my father cannot read for he would take it upon himself to beat what I am about to write out of me…Though I know it is right, because I am a child filled with sin, my mortal body trembles against such a fate and my woman’s mind weakens. The priests call me Innocentia, yet how can that be when all I see in my dreams is chaos and darkness –which are surely the dreams of the Devil? But how can they, the instruments of God, be mistaken?
In my slumber unnatural beings visit me, their faces so horrible. Some snarl like the guards of Hell themselves and some speak clearly, with the flickering half-truths of shadows – monologues on pain and exalted suffering and I am drawn to them. They speak of the destruction of ‘The Slayer’ and somehow I feel they refer to me. Even though that it not my name, I nearly respond. On one occasion I looked behind me, as though looking into the past, and lined up was a multitude of young women, any of whom they could have been referring to. When I looked forwards once more a ghostly line of women to come shifted and shimmered in front of me – it seemed they resided at that present moment in the infinity before birth – a calm, beautiful place I longed to return to…’
Buffy frowned; she vaguely remembered having such a dream before the burden of slayerhood had been placed on her shoulders. Idly she wondered who had lost their life and in doing so transferred the dubious honour of slayerhood to her.
‘…A strange man spoke to me today, he seemed not to belong to this age, but rather to all ages. He told me I was to become a slayer of vampires and that a watcher would come to guide me in my task. He knew of the darkness inside of me, which whispers to me in my dreams.
Today I felt powerful in my own body, strenuous tasks flowed more easily. This surely must be the Devils work, for I am far from divine, so what else could it be?
My priestly label, Innocentia feels as though it is branded upon my chest – it burns, I cannot live up to it. I cannot work in a house of God with the saints and our Lord staring down at me while I am the Devils child. The sadness in our saviour’s eyes seems directed at me today; I feel his healing tears fall on me – the fallen. He eases the burning. The thought that now I am to be denied entrance to everlasting glory makes be weep the bitter tears of Niobe: first my poor sister and now me…’
‘…Creatures in the night follow me, how am I to rest if they continually hunt me? Horrific gargoyles of Hell, their faces are twisted when their true form is revealed; but as I was taught, the Devil does indeed deal in lies, he twists reality by allowing his minions to paint over their unnaturalness with the saintly guise of humanity. I cannot tell who they are, the only sense of their traffic with the devil is a tingling feeling across my skin – I fear that this indicates kinship. Yet why do they hunt me if I am their sister in darkness? I so crave the light…”
Quickly Buffy closed the book; this woman was like a mirror. In her she saw reflected her own doubts over slayerhood – was she good or was she evil? That was what she herself had simplified the question to, black or white? Through this girl’s account of her transition from human to slayer she was reminded of all the grey areas, it was like sunlight on water; a dappled grade of light into darkness.
‘I struggle alone, no body comes to my aid. I am alone. No one has come forth to guide me, no watcher, I cannot understand this force within me on my own, I have not the learning. All I know is how I feel; I have become intimate with the ruinous caress of the night. Where I was once filled with light and labelled Innocentia – now the luminous glow has fled and the creatures name me slayer.
I have not the strength to continue alone. The concealing colour of the night frightens me, a black that hides many an ugly deed and many a bloodstain. The moon has called to the creatures and they to me, so now I must go...’
Buffy turned the page but no words met her eyes, she turned back, rubbed the pages to see if they were stuck together, but to no avail.
“It just stopped!” She said loudly.
Giles and Willow looked up, “Pardon?”
“This diary you gave me to read – it just stopped! It says, ‘The moon has called to the creatures and they to me, so now I must go...’Then there’s non more, is there a part two or something, you know – to be continued?”
“Not as far as we are aware,” Giles explained, “That last part you just read refers to her going out on patrol and then we assume she was killed that night.”
“How could they do that to her?! She was fine, she was pure and all things lovely and they slayerised her! She didn’t have a chance – and she had no watcher to help her, useless fool – where was he anyway?”
“From what we’ve pieced together he was just slow. He was a ‘useless fool’ as you put it – incredibly arrogant he demotivated the slayers in his care because he thought such power should belong to a man, not a mere girl. He would have destroyed someone as pure and intricate as Innocentia. Admittedly that was the general opinion in regards the sexes at the time, but as a watcher he should have realised that evil makes no discrimination over sex: not those in power, or their victims.”
“I which I could know how she died,” Buffy said, “Not in any morbid sense or anything,” she added quickly raising her eyebrows and widening her eyes to emphasise it. “I just want top know what happened and the vampire that did it, so if he’s not already dust I can hunt him down and make him pay!”
“Unfortunately,” Giles said, opening the diary to its last page and examining where the faded ink stopped, “There’s no way we can know.”
...
Part One
Giles lifted the top off the packing crate which lay on the table in Sunnydale High’s library. He coughed slightly in response to the cloud of wood dust that rose. Quickly he emptied polystyrene packing into the bin and lifted put a cloth bound package with reverence.
“What’s that?” Willow asked intrigued by the light of intellectual excitement in his eyes.
“This is the original diary of a vampire slayer called Innocentia by the priests she worked for; it’s a Latin word meaning integrity or innocence. She lived in England sometime in the sixteenth century.”
“Oh she is so interesting!” Willow said, her eyes shinning also, “I’ve read her diary in translation – I mean modern English.”
“I bet she’d read the slayer’s handbook like our resident perfect slayer.” Buffy said bitterly referring to Kendra. She picked up a stray polystyrene shape and crushed it easily. “No doubt she survived more apocalypses than me, as well as being well versed in slayer lore.
“In fact she didn’t go through any apocalypses. She survived I think about a month as a slayer.” Giles said frowned and searching his vast memory, “Obviously it’s difficult to know exactly.”
“She sucked! That’s not incredible – Will you really need to find a more kick ass role model!”
“She wasn’t an incredible slayer, but she was an incredible person.” Willow said, “Hold on.”
She disappeared into the bookcases while Giles slowly undid the cloth covering the text.
“Here,” Willow said depositing a booking her friend’s hands, “Just read it and see.”
While Willow and Giles cooed and ooed over his newest acquisition, Buffy looked sceptically at the book in her hands. As the coming of Kendra had highlighted she didn’t read at all, let alone slayer stuff. With a strong sense of foreboding she opened the book and settled down to read.
‘For the poor, grief is a luxury we cannot afford. It is the nobles and the gentry who lie wailing for days in their plush rooms and making themselves sick and useless. Not for us, and yet though I make no sound my heart keens, sounding like a wolf cub who has lost its mother. A powerful pain lives in me – yet circumstances will allow me no time to give voice to it and exorcise that which, if not permitted to sing, will surely kill me...
‘… Washing down the stones which make up the floor of the church does not occupy my mind. It is a dangerous thing for a girl only slightly educated as I am to think on other things but work, because I know not when to check my thoughts and they spiral out of my grasp. Today I thought again of my angelic little sister. She looked so like a wax effigy in her cheap coffin, that I feared she would melt and become disfigured under the heat from the hands of the mourners who reached out and touched her. I know why they reached for her; she looked so divine, so above this mortal plain that she tricked people into believing she could bring them salvation. She could only bring them damnation. For she now resides in purgatory, where all the unbaptised go. Tis typical of the devil to create such a paradox, face of a prayer – soul of a curse…’
‘It is fortunate my father cannot read for he would take it upon himself to beat what I am about to write out of me…Though I know it is right, because I am a child filled with sin, my mortal body trembles against such a fate and my woman’s mind weakens. The priests call me Innocentia, yet how can that be when all I see in my dreams is chaos and darkness –which are surely the dreams of the Devil? But how can they, the instruments of God, be mistaken?
In my slumber unnatural beings visit me, their faces so horrible. Some snarl like the guards of Hell themselves and some speak clearly, with the flickering half-truths of shadows – monologues on pain and exalted suffering and I am drawn to them. They speak of the destruction of ‘The Slayer’ and somehow I feel they refer to me. Even though that it not my name, I nearly respond. On one occasion I looked behind me, as though looking into the past, and lined up was a multitude of young women, any of whom they could have been referring to. When I looked forwards once more a ghostly line of women to come shifted and shimmered in front of me – it seemed they resided at that present moment in the infinity before birth – a calm, beautiful place I longed to return to…’
Buffy frowned; she vaguely remembered having such a dream before the burden of slayerhood had been placed on her shoulders. Idly she wondered who had lost their life and in doing so transferred the dubious honour of slayerhood to her.
‘…A strange man spoke to me today, he seemed not to belong to this age, but rather to all ages. He told me I was to become a slayer of vampires and that a watcher would come to guide me in my task. He knew of the darkness inside of me, which whispers to me in my dreams.
Today I felt powerful in my own body, strenuous tasks flowed more easily. This surely must be the Devils work, for I am far from divine, so what else could it be?
My priestly label, Innocentia feels as though it is branded upon my chest – it burns, I cannot live up to it. I cannot work in a house of God with the saints and our Lord staring down at me while I am the Devils child. The sadness in our saviour’s eyes seems directed at me today; I feel his healing tears fall on me – the fallen. He eases the burning. The thought that now I am to be denied entrance to everlasting glory makes be weep the bitter tears of Niobe: first my poor sister and now me…’
‘…Creatures in the night follow me, how am I to rest if they continually hunt me? Horrific gargoyles of Hell, their faces are twisted when their true form is revealed; but as I was taught, the Devil does indeed deal in lies, he twists reality by allowing his minions to paint over their unnaturalness with the saintly guise of humanity. I cannot tell who they are, the only sense of their traffic with the devil is a tingling feeling across my skin – I fear that this indicates kinship. Yet why do they hunt me if I am their sister in darkness? I so crave the light…”
Quickly Buffy closed the book; this woman was like a mirror. In her she saw reflected her own doubts over slayerhood – was she good or was she evil? That was what she herself had simplified the question to, black or white? Through this girl’s account of her transition from human to slayer she was reminded of all the grey areas, it was like sunlight on water; a dappled grade of light into darkness.
‘I struggle alone, no body comes to my aid. I am alone. No one has come forth to guide me, no watcher, I cannot understand this force within me on my own, I have not the learning. All I know is how I feel; I have become intimate with the ruinous caress of the night. Where I was once filled with light and labelled Innocentia – now the luminous glow has fled and the creatures name me slayer.
I have not the strength to continue alone. The concealing colour of the night frightens me, a black that hides many an ugly deed and many a bloodstain. The moon has called to the creatures and they to me, so now I must go...’
Buffy turned the page but no words met her eyes, she turned back, rubbed the pages to see if they were stuck together, but to no avail.
“It just stopped!” She said loudly.
Giles and Willow looked up, “Pardon?”
“This diary you gave me to read – it just stopped! It says, ‘The moon has called to the creatures and they to me, so now I must go...’Then there’s non more, is there a part two or something, you know – to be continued?”
“Not as far as we are aware,” Giles explained, “That last part you just read refers to her going out on patrol and then we assume she was killed that night.”
“How could they do that to her?! She was fine, she was pure and all things lovely and they slayerised her! She didn’t have a chance – and she had no watcher to help her, useless fool – where was he anyway?”
“From what we’ve pieced together he was just slow. He was a ‘useless fool’ as you put it – incredibly arrogant he demotivated the slayers in his care because he thought such power should belong to a man, not a mere girl. He would have destroyed someone as pure and intricate as Innocentia. Admittedly that was the general opinion in regards the sexes at the time, but as a watcher he should have realised that evil makes no discrimination over sex: not those in power, or their victims.”
“I which I could know how she died,” Buffy said, “Not in any morbid sense or anything,” she added quickly raising her eyebrows and widening her eyes to emphasise it. “I just want top know what happened and the vampire that did it, so if he’s not already dust I can hunt him down and make him pay!”
“Unfortunately,” Giles said, opening the diary to its last page and examining where the faded ink stopped, “There’s no way we can know.”
...