disclaimer: All characters from the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer were created by Joss Whedon, and I have no legal rights to them.
distribution: if you have the earlier Guardian Angels, yes. Otherwise please ask first.
notes: AU in the summer after Becoming (season 2 finale)
thank you especially to Gabrielle.
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Once, this place had been his home. The evidence was all around, and yet it still seemed so hard to believe. His scent was here, as well as other scents that felt right, like he had known them, as if they'd belonged here, of a man and a woman that he could almost see in his mind. There was plentiful clothing, all of it fitting him perfectly. A place where there were no sharp rocks to avoid, no vicious beasts hiding in the bedding or under the ground. A place where there were soft places to sleep, and he could be clean again.
It was almost too perfect.
But the Red Woman had brought him here, had saved him from the Bad Place. She had magic in her, powerful magic that had reached into his very being and pulled him out, brought him here to safety. She looked at him, and had known who he was, had wanted to help him. Red Woman had risked herself by taxing her magic to the last slivers to help him, leaving herself weakened and vulnerable before him. It was entirely baffling and humbling to contemplate.
He wanted to find the words to ask her about that. To ask what his name had been, how she had known him. To ask why someone like her would know him, would worry so much about a blood drinker that she would risk so much to bring him here. To ask who or what had dared to hurt her, to cause the injuries that he could sense in her body, the bruises that he'd seen. But after so many years in the Bad Place, he had lost the words, keeping only fragments of memory and dreams, some of them good, and others bad.
He dreamed, and in the dreams there were three women who kept appearing over and over again. One was the Red Woman, clothed in soft things, smelling like fruit and flowers. There was Doll-Keeper, a woman with dark hair and dark eyes, always watching him and holding a delicate looking girl-doll. And there was the Yellow Woman, always holding weapons, always ready to fight.
Yellow Woman had hurt him, had sent him to the Bad Place. He didn't know why, but there must have been a reason. He'd had fragments of images of fighting beside Yellow Woman, helping her to kill demons and other blood drinkers, but there was also the memory of her sword piercing him, sending him away to the Bad Place, where he'd suffered for so very long.
Maybe the Red woman would know what had happened? Red Woman had saved him, had brought him food, even when she was weakened by her injuries and spells. None of the Magi in the Bad Place would have done that for a blood drinker, not even for one of their favored assassins, which he'd never been. He hadn't been cooperative for them, for reasons that he couldn't put into words anymore... He hadn't liked what they'd wanted. Hadn't liked the way the Magi and the Greater Demons had fought and squabbled, clawing and ripping at each other for more power and status. Hadn't liked the way so many of them had smiled as their favored demon and blood drinker underlings had ripped bleeders to pieces in the arenas. Something whispered that Yellow Woman would have fought well in the arenas.
But Red Woman didn't do that. She didn't seem to be fighting with anyone, although she was in some danger even here. She'd been attacked when they'd gone to a place where a frightened bleeder had given them more of the funny little pouches filled with blood. It still seemed so odd and pleasant to be able to take blood from a little pouch instead of from a living creature or a fresh corpse. There had been no little pouches of blood in the Bad Place, let alone places where they could be given by a frightened - was the frightened bleeder a merchant of some sort?
He'd been puzzled by the place, by a lot of things about this town. There were no spells embedded in the buildings, none of the wardings that he'd learned so painfully to detect. But there had been many lesser demons there, and he'd seen the way they had looked at the Red Woman, as if considering if she was predator or prey. Her magic had been depleted, and with her injuries... There had been some who felt her weakened enough to attack. He'd stopped them, for the first time having no internal argument about killing another thinking creature.
And it seemed that Red Woman had accepted his services, had been willing to keep him, to claim him as her own. She'd taken him with her to another little dwelling place, where there were other bleeders, though the man had carried the faint whisper of magic. They had been Red Woman's parents, and they had looked at him with dismay. Obviously, they felt that she could have a better protector than him. But she had kept him, had fed him more of those little pouches, so many that he was not hungry at all. He was certain that this place didn't have as much distinction between those who had the power - the Magi, and those who were just flesh and blood, the bleeders, food for whatever demons were in favor at the time. They didn't call them 'bleeders' either. no, they were mortals. Humans.
She even let him sleep in the same place as her, to keep her safe from any attacker, to curl near her warmth and let it seep into his cool body. He didn't dream of the Yellow Woman when he curled near Red Woman. Instead, he dreamed of the fragments of his past, or of coupling with the Red Woman. Images of his hands sliding over her soft flesh, wondering if her eyes would grow dark as he brought her pleasure, imagining sliding into her warm depths. It almost made him glad that he couldn't speak of his dreams - surely she would be angered? But perhaps not... There had been Magi in the Bad Place who took blood drinkers or demons into their beds, though the demons were often more for power than pleasure.
He thought that perhaps the Yellow Woman had been his lover, before. Had that been why she'd sent him away? Had he not pleased her in bed? No, some old confidence insisted that it was not that that had caused her to send him away, to pierce him with her sword. He was fairly certain that he was a very skilled and pleasurable bed partner. There were answers in his past, the times that he'd pushed back into the depths of his mind. The things that had hurt too much to remember. The Bad Place was dangerous, and he had known that he couldn't be distracted by remembering a place where it was safe for mortals to walk around, a place where there were alternating periods of light and dark - night and day. Dwelling on those memories wouldn't have been safe, and that inattentiveness could have gotten him killed, either in the arenas of torment and combat or in the wilder lands that he'd escaped to.
But he wasn't there anymore. She'd brought him here, to this place again, where everything was different. This place had a sun, and it would hurt him, but there were fewer demons in the Dale of the Sun. Fewer demons and many more mortals. When he was stronger, more confident, it would be very easy to go out, to find a mortal to drink from if the pouches were gone... But. But something about that troubled him, a fuzzy insistence that such things caused problems. There were so many, surely it wasn't a question of food shortages, as there had been for the blood drinkers in the Bad Place? Somehow, the Yellow Woman was connected to this in his mind, and when he imagined drinking from one of the foolish, unaware mortals that seemed to have no idea of the dangers that lurked just beyond their sight, he saw the Yellow Woman, her hand holding a sharp stake, with hard, angry eyes.
No, it would be best not to start drinking from the mortals wandering around, even if they deserved it for being so stupid, so unaware of the dangers. Habits worn in through his years of hiding made him wonder - what would he feed on if not the mortals? Would there be enough small animals? Would there be more of the pouches? It would be best if he kept drinking from the little pouches that the Red Woman had given him, at least until he remembered or relearned the rules of this place.
Slowly, he ran his fingers over the smooth glass window that kept the night and all that moved in it separate from the house, seeing the sparkles of light - stars. He had been here before, was here again, and he would survive here. Compared to the pits of torment, or hiding in the wilder lands from the patrols and the feral demons, this place would be easy. Few of the demons in this place were as powerful as the things that he'd hidden from, once he'd regained his strength by regular feeding, he would be easily able to keep the Red Woman safe from anything out there.
He could almost imagine the dark eyed woman looking down at him from the stars, a man beside her with brown - no, nearly white hair, his arm wrapped around him. Something had made her sad, but she was certain that the Red Woman would fix it.
Life here was much better. He heard a sound behind him, saw a flicker of pale and red in the glass. Red Woman was there, still moving slowly from the bruises all over her back. He could feel the small smile form as she looked at him.
Red Woman spoke, soft sounds that he could almost understand, that he knew he'd understood before, and made a little motion, asking him to go with her. It was a relief that her expressions and gestures enabled him to understand what she wanted.
He followed her into a room, where she sat on the soft leather couch, motioning for him to sit near her, and she lifted a book. He felt himself tense, wondering what spell the tome might contain, but there was no feeling of power in it. She opened it, and there were bright pictures with writing underneath. Words and pictures of things here, and she began to read the words. It was obviously an effort to help him remember the ways of speaking here, to remember the words and creatures and objects.
Her efforts gave him a strangely soft and warm feeling inside. Red Woman wanted to help him... He smiled, and dared to move, first sitting on the couch beside her. As she merely smiled and continued to read, he slowly shifted more, until his head was resting on her leg, and he stretched out along the couch. He felt good, full and safe and welcomed at her side.
The End