She sat properly, just as a lady should. Her slim ankles were crossed demurely, her blood red skirts smoothed out around her. Pale white hands clasped on her lap.
It was a glorious night. A fat, lazy moon crowned the sky, the sun's rays reflecting from it as a silver light. The air was warm and comfortable, drawing people out into the night to feel it's weight against their skin. Low laughter trickled past her, and the sound of young, vibrant blood rushed in her ears.
They should have been hunting. Fangs and fury, and blood pounding through her body in an intoxicating rush. She didn't have anybody. Princess, lost and alone, with nobody to join her in the hunt.
She and Spike and her dark Angel, just as it should have been. Except there was no Spike, and no Daddy. Her Daddy had left her, sucked into Hell by an eager, gaping maw. And Spike... he had promised never to leave her alone... but he didn't love Daddy. And so he had left when she tried to get her dark Angel to come home.
There was no Dark Goddess, no Princess, no Daddy's little whore. There was just... _her_. The trouble was, she didn't know who she was. The voices whispered in her mind. Skitter, skitter, like little insects scurrying across the surface of her mind, trying to squirm and wriggle their way inside.
They told her things. So many words, in soft, insistent voices. The Dark Goddess, the Princess, the whore, she had kept them away. Now, they were gone, and she was all alone in her head to listen to the skittering little thoughts that swarmed through her head.
Good girl, bad girl, monster, Goddess. The voices laughed at her, pulled at her, twisted her until everything faded away beneath the pitter of tiny carapaced bodies flinging themselves about within her head.
She sucked in an unneeded breath, the air burning at her lungs. The moon stared down at her from high above, and looked up at her, a distorted face, from the water swirling below her. The laughter, soft and merry, rose and washed over her still form. The scent of blood pounded away at her senses.
Daddy had told her what to be. He told her that she was a bad girl. Whore. Bitch. Slut. Bad girls needed to be punished. So that was what she had been, and the chittering voices inside her had quieted. Her dark Angel had taken care of her.
Spike had told her what to be. He told her that she was a Princess. A dark Goddess. He had worshiped her, and the voices had faded away. She had let him make her a Princess, and he had loved her.
They weren't there anymore, and the voices screamed inside her head softly, each tiny little voice drowning out the next until she couldn't hear any of them. She was a good girl, pious and pure. She was a bad girl, Angelus looming over her, ripped and bloody and hurting. She was a monster, tearing, destroying. She was a Princess, lovely and loved. She was nothing. She was everything.
The air burst out of her dead lungs, and her hands twisted on her lap. Dark eyes peered into the night. The stars danced overhead, the specks of light dancing about the wide, bloated moon. They twinkled down at her, laughing in her head.
Water rushed below her, loud in her ears, nothing against the whispering in her mind. The night air pressed down upon her. Sweat, and blood, and life tickled at her senses. The voices roared in her head, louder and louder, swirling up higher and higher.
Pure, evil, monster, princess. Year after year opened in her memories, innocent, sacrifice, monster, loved. Skitter, skitter, racing through her mind. They rushed up around her, lifting her up into their rough embrace, pulling her apart and sticking her back together over and over.
Innocence. Evil. Demon. Goddess.
Her body tumbled helplessly, submerged beneath the onslaught of everything and nothing.
Overhead, the stars' laughter turned to screams.
~End