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kittydesadeTitle: One Shift, Two Shift, Red Shift, Blue Shift
Fandom: Angel: The Series
Characters: Illyria, Glaucon (OC), Gunn, Wesley, Angel, Connor
Word Count: ~13,000 words
Rating: PG-13 (It's a surprisingly tame apocalypse)
Summary: At the end of all things (again), Glaucon reflects on how this end of the world reflects the end of his world when he was a soldier of the Goddess Illyria of Primordium.
Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4
There was a tornado in Lost Angeles.
"Los!" He heard the loud human saying, in his mind. "Los Angeles! No T!"
Glaucon thought it was more fitting to be Lost Angeles, given what he knew of what the city's name meant. There were no divine beings of light and joy here. Only tortured and their torturers.
He was also under the impression that there weren't supposed to be tornadoes in Lost Angeles.
Glaucon tipped his head back and stared at the dusty sky. As various humans had explained to him, Lost Angeles had been under instructions to reduce the amount of clutter in the air, dust and smudges from smoke of various kinds, other things he didn't understand the specifics of but which all came under the term pollution. Everyone had been expecting that it would diminish, decrease.
As far as Glaucon knew, nothing cleared the air quite like reducing the population of living beings, especially sapient beings. But they hadn't been willing to go that far.
And so the air was still hazy and now it was being whipped up by the weather and the forces pulling tides and celestial bodies and heat and cold this way and that. He could smell it in the air. He could taste the grains of sand as they crunched and squeaked between his teeth. Dirty air. Dirty damn city.
All cities were dirty.
The streets of Lost Angeles were resoundingly unfulfilling. Nothing challenging. No demons of note. For whatever reason the creatures on this world were softer than those on his, weaker. He wandered through the slums that, somehow, looked the same no matter what world he was on. Decaying structures, its populace lounging outside regardless of time of day or state of dress, trash littering the streets, leftovers and unwanted things turned to their last possible uses and arranged carelessly in and around homes.
He moved through the trash and picked his way with the attitude of someone who disdains such carelessness to hygiene, organization. Despite not being dressed like someone who came from wealth he had the posture of it, and it made him a target. Which he didn't mind.
When they came for him he broke three wrists and several ribs before they realized he wasn't the easy mark they'd expected, and backed off. He smiled at them and stood, lazily waiting for the next attack. It didn't come.
Disappointing.
Glaucon rolled his head around and cracked his neck and kept walking. He knew the hunting territories of the half-breeds within walking distance of the hotel, she had made certain of that. And yet perhaps she had also made certain that all of them knew where he stayed and with whom, and who he was at least if not what. Again, no one approached him. Maybe they were all staying inside because of the tornado.
"Taco, señor?"
Glaucon blinked at the street vendor, still out in the late evening with his cart and his umbrella over it, covered in dust.
"Is it not late in the evening for you to be out?"
The man shrugged. "Close every evening around dinner, open back up when the bars close. Do a good bit of business. You want a taco, señor?"
The demon shook his head. "No, thank you." He had not eaten food from street vendors in centuries.
The wind was dying down, at least. The dust was no longer kicking up in the air so much, and the tornado was an ominous swirl in the clouds. His sword weighed heavy against his back; he would have to clean it again. Too much grit.
There was nothing in the city for him. Nothing to distract him, nothing worth occupying his time. Not until, as the half-breed said, things shook out and they saw who and what they would be facing, the creatures that had been called up to protect this demon's bid for power. He didn't like wandering the city, it felt cheap. And he didn't like having so little to do before a battle. It made him restless.
And he still went back to the hotel, to a pack of people who were at best indifferent and more often openly hostile to him, and to his Goddess, who at times seemed just as lost as he felt.
"... and I don't need him crawling around here following you like a lost puppy!"
That was not the voice of the most common shouter. Strange. That was the voice of the half-breed in charge, who usually spoke in lower tones and brooded to excess. Glaucon wondered who he was fighting with for all of two point six seconds.
"That is not the tone with which you are to speak to me!"
Ah.
Oh dear.
Glaucon stepped into the doorway and caught the door before it swung shut, closing it more quietly so that they wouldn't be interrupted. This was interesting.
"I'm not one of your subjects, Illyria, I'm your boss. And useful as he has been..."
He was surprised it had taken her six words to draw her sword, or axe, or whatever it was she had at the time and put it to Angel's throat. From a human it would have been laughable, but she had reflexes and strength equal to if not greater than the half-breed, and much more experience. It was a threat, and he shut up.
"He has been more than useful to you, as you have said yourself. He is my follower, and has been for longer than you have spent on this puerile world. He is a warrior to match any ten of your people, and he is wiser than all but one of them." Including you, Glaucon thought she implied, but it might have been his smug imagination.
She did let the half-breed go. He stepped back, rubbing his throat and glaring.
"He was of use to you when he rescued the human woman whose life was imperiled by your actions. He was of use to you when he slew the Rusalka demon. Now he is not of use to you because his presence makes your loud and brash soldier uncomfortable." She stepped back, looked him up and down with a disdainful glare that had withered older creatures than him. The last time Glaucon had seen that look in her eyes the person on the receiving end had been crushed into the stones. "If you were not blinded by sentiment you would see that the role of a ruler is to maintain order, not sacrifice a good resource to keep a poor one. If your soldier were not blinded by appearances he would see my Glaucon's abilities for what they are worth."
It was the longest speech she had given in some time. Both of them were surprised by it, and Glaucon was somewhat impressed and even more confused. Had this been going on longer than he thought? Was she so infuriated that she was allowing herself to adopt the human habit of rambling on a point?
"Gunn isn't..." he started, but even the half-breed couldn't maintain that sort of illogic in the face of evidence. Especially, Glaucon decided, when he was caught out in a lie.
"Isn't...?" he stepped away from the door and towards them. The half-breed jumped, as though he didn't have greater than human senses. Idiot. "Isn't what? Is he not asking you to get rid of me, like an inconvenient indoor plant?"
Illyria's eyes flickered, but even in this human form he couldn't quite read her emotions. Even when she had so many more of them.
"I'm not..." the half-breed stuttered, trying to salvage the situation. "Look, no one's getting rid of anyone..."
"If you like, I suppose I can go elsewhere." Though he didn't know where he'd go. But it was a threat, and meant against him, not her. One look told her that he would not be leaving her if she told him to stay.
She did not inform the half-breed of this. If he was too blind to see what was plainly in front of him, then he would have to live without that information.
"No," he said hastily, shaking his head, holding out a hand as though that would stop Glaucon if he truly wanted to leave. "No, I'll... work things out with Gunn. But you need to tone it back. Stop antagonizing him."
"I do not antagonize him," Glaucon explained to the younger creature, in the tones one explains to a baby that the fire will burn him if he touches it. "If he takes offense to my nature there is nothing I can do about it. If he takes offense to my manner, let him take it up with me."
The half-breed openly flinched at that idea. "I'll talk to him," he said, and then Illyria decided that that was enough of futile conversation and led the way out and back to their rooms in the hotel. It was getting close to the conjunction. Even more so, everyone was on edge, latent hostility shifting to outright warfare.
He did not have the voice for this, preferring softer conversations such as the one they would have upstairs. If they survived, perhaps the two of them could go somewhere private and indulge for a little while. It was a nice thought.
He sat on the edge of the bed and she knelt in front of him, placing her tiny hands around his large ones. It did not feel right. He should be kneeling to her, holding her, not the other way around.
"I know you are tempted to vent your irritation on the human Gunn," she told him quietly, and he thought she was smiling, too, on the inside. "I am, even now, and I am not the one who was insulted. But you must not. At least until the conjunction and the subsequent battle is passed, and then we will know better what to do."
He dropped his head, spoke to their joined hands more than to her. "They would just as soon I died in the battle, you know."
"It is possible that you will," she told him, contrasting what she said earlier. Not that it bothered him. She was aware of what he needed to hear, and sometimes it was platitudes and firm if not well founded hope, and sometimes it was the truth. "It is possible that I will," she said again, strained and too-calm and his head jerked up in alarm. She stroked his hair again. "But it is not likely, not for either of us, I believe. I do not know, though. I am not as certain of the future as I have been. It may be that you will need to continue alone."
This must be what the residents of Lost Angeles felt like when the tornadoes began to tear apart the city; before that, when the demons appeared and their world was plunged into a Hell dimension. The complete and utter irrationality of everything. A change in the way things were and always had been, even the smallest thing one took for granted had to be questioned, and because it was taken for granted one often didn't know about it until it happened or was taken away.
She might be taken away. She was telling him this, in the same quiet tones as she had told him to kill this lord or start that riot. How could she be so calm?
"I do not know what to do alone," he said, his voice roughened and his jaw clenched, making himself look back at her as evenly as she stared at him, red eyes and blue. He blinked once, slowly.
She freed one hand and reached out, tidying his hair-feathers. "You will endure. You will restore my temple, and you will train warriors to serve and assist you. It may be that you will find that Angel's chosen mission suits you, or you may find another. You are fit to command armies, my Glaucon. You will not stand helpless and grieve a second time, do you understand?" Disapproval colored her last command, tempered with understanding. He nodded.
"Yes, my Goddess."
His head stayed bowed, until she crawled up into his lap, and then it came up and his eyes grew wide and startled. This was not her usual attitude. This, too, was not how things were supposed to be, except that sometimes in the last several months it had become how things were. He leaned back against the pillows and she settled with him, making him her pillow, lounging over him as though she could possess him with only that.
Not, of course, that she needed to. She had him, by now, for centuries.
It comforted him, a little, to feel the grip of the sword he had used for so long in his hand.
It wasn't the same sword, of course. That had been lost in the ruins of the old temple many years ago. But it was close enough as could be re-created, and close enough to feel right when he swung it and cut off the top of the enemy demon's head.
They were fighting. They had been fighting for long enough that his shoulders and back ached and the cuts on his arms and legs no longer stung from the attacks of the enemy. How long it was otherwise, measured in water or candles or the movement of the sun in the sky or an arbitrary creation ticking the time off like so many little rows on a balance sheet, that didn't matter. It never mattered in battle.
The only thing that mattered was how long it had been since the last drink of water. How long had it been since the last moment he could steal to lean up against the columns or the wall, catch his breath, and begin again.
He'd lost sight of the others very soon into the battle, though now and again he could hear Illyria's shouts of rage, and they were shouts of rage more than pain or alarm. He didn't see any of the others. The dragon roared overhead, a distant ally present in the back of his mind but little else. Blood coated his face, over his bare arms, none of it his own. It splashed warm and metallic into his mouth, at least three different tastes.
At least they had the light. There was yet enough light for him to see what he was doing, though the fires from the buildings that had been razed were contributing.
He sliced two throats with one horizontal motion, bashed a third enemy's nose in with the pommel. Another kick, a sweep of his sword. It was easier when he was on his own, when he did not have to concern himself with not skewering the man next to him. Once upon a time it had been different. But in those days he had also been able to practice fighting as part of a unit, one man along a line, and there was no line here. No units or cohorts or battalions. Every man for himself. Or demon, as the case was.
A flash of blue caught his attention in the corner. No other shade of blue quite like it, especially not when accompanied by curses in three languages, two of them not heard on this world until a few years ago.
He smiled with bloodstained teeth and began to hack his way over to her, clawing down bodies to make a path of broken flesh and vital fluids.
"Are you injured?"
Glaucon was sitting propped up against the wall, his sword in his lap and pristine, even if his lap was not. He shook his head, eyes closed, hair-feathers matted down over his forehead with tacky and dried blood. Dropped the back of his head gently against the wall.
"The blood is not mine. It is theirs." He didn't even know who 'they' were, not that it was the first time. It didn't matter anyway. He was very tired. "What about the others?"
"They are well, as far as I know. Angel did not seem concerned." Which meant, then, that as far as she knew everyone had checked in and was whole and intact. He had seen a few of the times that someone had been late checking in, and the human was not the only one who became loud.
She knelt down in front of him, pushing his hair up off of his head with a rough sound like crumpled paper. He made a face as his skin pulled apart from where it had crusted over.
"You are filthy," she scolded.
He smiled.
It wasn't over. They both knew it wasn't over, that this was only the first battle of several. They were taking a mutually agreed-upon rest for the sake of recharging both sides, each hoping to recover more of their resources and energy before the other. At least for now they had this section of ground, a wall to lean on, and each other. And a basin of water, it seemed, to wash the blood away.
"Hold still," she murmured, cleaning off the blood from his face, from what exposed skin she could reach.
He smiled, and let her.
Fandom: Angel: The Series
Characters: Illyria, Glaucon (OC), Gunn, Wesley, Angel, Connor
Word Count: ~13,000 words
Rating: PG-13 (It's a surprisingly tame apocalypse)
Summary: At the end of all things (again), Glaucon reflects on how this end of the world reflects the end of his world when he was a soldier of the Goddess Illyria of Primordium.
Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4
There was a tornado in Lost Angeles.
"Los!" He heard the loud human saying, in his mind. "Los Angeles! No T!"
Glaucon thought it was more fitting to be Lost Angeles, given what he knew of what the city's name meant. There were no divine beings of light and joy here. Only tortured and their torturers.
He was also under the impression that there weren't supposed to be tornadoes in Lost Angeles.
Glaucon tipped his head back and stared at the dusty sky. As various humans had explained to him, Lost Angeles had been under instructions to reduce the amount of clutter in the air, dust and smudges from smoke of various kinds, other things he didn't understand the specifics of but which all came under the term pollution. Everyone had been expecting that it would diminish, decrease.
As far as Glaucon knew, nothing cleared the air quite like reducing the population of living beings, especially sapient beings. But they hadn't been willing to go that far.
And so the air was still hazy and now it was being whipped up by the weather and the forces pulling tides and celestial bodies and heat and cold this way and that. He could smell it in the air. He could taste the grains of sand as they crunched and squeaked between his teeth. Dirty air. Dirty damn city.
All cities were dirty.
The streets of Lost Angeles were resoundingly unfulfilling. Nothing challenging. No demons of note. For whatever reason the creatures on this world were softer than those on his, weaker. He wandered through the slums that, somehow, looked the same no matter what world he was on. Decaying structures, its populace lounging outside regardless of time of day or state of dress, trash littering the streets, leftovers and unwanted things turned to their last possible uses and arranged carelessly in and around homes.
He moved through the trash and picked his way with the attitude of someone who disdains such carelessness to hygiene, organization. Despite not being dressed like someone who came from wealth he had the posture of it, and it made him a target. Which he didn't mind.
When they came for him he broke three wrists and several ribs before they realized he wasn't the easy mark they'd expected, and backed off. He smiled at them and stood, lazily waiting for the next attack. It didn't come.
Disappointing.
Glaucon rolled his head around and cracked his neck and kept walking. He knew the hunting territories of the half-breeds within walking distance of the hotel, she had made certain of that. And yet perhaps she had also made certain that all of them knew where he stayed and with whom, and who he was at least if not what. Again, no one approached him. Maybe they were all staying inside because of the tornado.
"Taco, señor?"
Glaucon blinked at the street vendor, still out in the late evening with his cart and his umbrella over it, covered in dust.
"Is it not late in the evening for you to be out?"
The man shrugged. "Close every evening around dinner, open back up when the bars close. Do a good bit of business. You want a taco, señor?"
The demon shook his head. "No, thank you." He had not eaten food from street vendors in centuries.
The wind was dying down, at least. The dust was no longer kicking up in the air so much, and the tornado was an ominous swirl in the clouds. His sword weighed heavy against his back; he would have to clean it again. Too much grit.
There was nothing in the city for him. Nothing to distract him, nothing worth occupying his time. Not until, as the half-breed said, things shook out and they saw who and what they would be facing, the creatures that had been called up to protect this demon's bid for power. He didn't like wandering the city, it felt cheap. And he didn't like having so little to do before a battle. It made him restless.
And he still went back to the hotel, to a pack of people who were at best indifferent and more often openly hostile to him, and to his Goddess, who at times seemed just as lost as he felt.
"... and I don't need him crawling around here following you like a lost puppy!"
That was not the voice of the most common shouter. Strange. That was the voice of the half-breed in charge, who usually spoke in lower tones and brooded to excess. Glaucon wondered who he was fighting with for all of two point six seconds.
"That is not the tone with which you are to speak to me!"
Ah.
Oh dear.
Glaucon stepped into the doorway and caught the door before it swung shut, closing it more quietly so that they wouldn't be interrupted. This was interesting.
"I'm not one of your subjects, Illyria, I'm your boss. And useful as he has been..."
He was surprised it had taken her six words to draw her sword, or axe, or whatever it was she had at the time and put it to Angel's throat. From a human it would have been laughable, but she had reflexes and strength equal to if not greater than the half-breed, and much more experience. It was a threat, and he shut up.
"He has been more than useful to you, as you have said yourself. He is my follower, and has been for longer than you have spent on this puerile world. He is a warrior to match any ten of your people, and he is wiser than all but one of them." Including you, Glaucon thought she implied, but it might have been his smug imagination.
She did let the half-breed go. He stepped back, rubbing his throat and glaring.
"He was of use to you when he rescued the human woman whose life was imperiled by your actions. He was of use to you when he slew the Rusalka demon. Now he is not of use to you because his presence makes your loud and brash soldier uncomfortable." She stepped back, looked him up and down with a disdainful glare that had withered older creatures than him. The last time Glaucon had seen that look in her eyes the person on the receiving end had been crushed into the stones. "If you were not blinded by sentiment you would see that the role of a ruler is to maintain order, not sacrifice a good resource to keep a poor one. If your soldier were not blinded by appearances he would see my Glaucon's abilities for what they are worth."
It was the longest speech she had given in some time. Both of them were surprised by it, and Glaucon was somewhat impressed and even more confused. Had this been going on longer than he thought? Was she so infuriated that she was allowing herself to adopt the human habit of rambling on a point?
"Gunn isn't..." he started, but even the half-breed couldn't maintain that sort of illogic in the face of evidence. Especially, Glaucon decided, when he was caught out in a lie.
"Isn't...?" he stepped away from the door and towards them. The half-breed jumped, as though he didn't have greater than human senses. Idiot. "Isn't what? Is he not asking you to get rid of me, like an inconvenient indoor plant?"
Illyria's eyes flickered, but even in this human form he couldn't quite read her emotions. Even when she had so many more of them.
"I'm not..." the half-breed stuttered, trying to salvage the situation. "Look, no one's getting rid of anyone..."
"If you like, I suppose I can go elsewhere." Though he didn't know where he'd go. But it was a threat, and meant against him, not her. One look told her that he would not be leaving her if she told him to stay.
She did not inform the half-breed of this. If he was too blind to see what was plainly in front of him, then he would have to live without that information.
"No," he said hastily, shaking his head, holding out a hand as though that would stop Glaucon if he truly wanted to leave. "No, I'll... work things out with Gunn. But you need to tone it back. Stop antagonizing him."
"I do not antagonize him," Glaucon explained to the younger creature, in the tones one explains to a baby that the fire will burn him if he touches it. "If he takes offense to my nature there is nothing I can do about it. If he takes offense to my manner, let him take it up with me."
The half-breed openly flinched at that idea. "I'll talk to him," he said, and then Illyria decided that that was enough of futile conversation and led the way out and back to their rooms in the hotel. It was getting close to the conjunction. Even more so, everyone was on edge, latent hostility shifting to outright warfare.
He did not have the voice for this, preferring softer conversations such as the one they would have upstairs. If they survived, perhaps the two of them could go somewhere private and indulge for a little while. It was a nice thought.
He sat on the edge of the bed and she knelt in front of him, placing her tiny hands around his large ones. It did not feel right. He should be kneeling to her, holding her, not the other way around.
"I know you are tempted to vent your irritation on the human Gunn," she told him quietly, and he thought she was smiling, too, on the inside. "I am, even now, and I am not the one who was insulted. But you must not. At least until the conjunction and the subsequent battle is passed, and then we will know better what to do."
He dropped his head, spoke to their joined hands more than to her. "They would just as soon I died in the battle, you know."
"It is possible that you will," she told him, contrasting what she said earlier. Not that it bothered him. She was aware of what he needed to hear, and sometimes it was platitudes and firm if not well founded hope, and sometimes it was the truth. "It is possible that I will," she said again, strained and too-calm and his head jerked up in alarm. She stroked his hair again. "But it is not likely, not for either of us, I believe. I do not know, though. I am not as certain of the future as I have been. It may be that you will need to continue alone."
This must be what the residents of Lost Angeles felt like when the tornadoes began to tear apart the city; before that, when the demons appeared and their world was plunged into a Hell dimension. The complete and utter irrationality of everything. A change in the way things were and always had been, even the smallest thing one took for granted had to be questioned, and because it was taken for granted one often didn't know about it until it happened or was taken away.
She might be taken away. She was telling him this, in the same quiet tones as she had told him to kill this lord or start that riot. How could she be so calm?
"I do not know what to do alone," he said, his voice roughened and his jaw clenched, making himself look back at her as evenly as she stared at him, red eyes and blue. He blinked once, slowly.
She freed one hand and reached out, tidying his hair-feathers. "You will endure. You will restore my temple, and you will train warriors to serve and assist you. It may be that you will find that Angel's chosen mission suits you, or you may find another. You are fit to command armies, my Glaucon. You will not stand helpless and grieve a second time, do you understand?" Disapproval colored her last command, tempered with understanding. He nodded.
"Yes, my Goddess."
His head stayed bowed, until she crawled up into his lap, and then it came up and his eyes grew wide and startled. This was not her usual attitude. This, too, was not how things were supposed to be, except that sometimes in the last several months it had become how things were. He leaned back against the pillows and she settled with him, making him her pillow, lounging over him as though she could possess him with only that.
Not, of course, that she needed to. She had him, by now, for centuries.
It comforted him, a little, to feel the grip of the sword he had used for so long in his hand.
It wasn't the same sword, of course. That had been lost in the ruins of the old temple many years ago. But it was close enough as could be re-created, and close enough to feel right when he swung it and cut off the top of the enemy demon's head.
They were fighting. They had been fighting for long enough that his shoulders and back ached and the cuts on his arms and legs no longer stung from the attacks of the enemy. How long it was otherwise, measured in water or candles or the movement of the sun in the sky or an arbitrary creation ticking the time off like so many little rows on a balance sheet, that didn't matter. It never mattered in battle.
The only thing that mattered was how long it had been since the last drink of water. How long had it been since the last moment he could steal to lean up against the columns or the wall, catch his breath, and begin again.
He'd lost sight of the others very soon into the battle, though now and again he could hear Illyria's shouts of rage, and they were shouts of rage more than pain or alarm. He didn't see any of the others. The dragon roared overhead, a distant ally present in the back of his mind but little else. Blood coated his face, over his bare arms, none of it his own. It splashed warm and metallic into his mouth, at least three different tastes.
At least they had the light. There was yet enough light for him to see what he was doing, though the fires from the buildings that had been razed were contributing.
He sliced two throats with one horizontal motion, bashed a third enemy's nose in with the pommel. Another kick, a sweep of his sword. It was easier when he was on his own, when he did not have to concern himself with not skewering the man next to him. Once upon a time it had been different. But in those days he had also been able to practice fighting as part of a unit, one man along a line, and there was no line here. No units or cohorts or battalions. Every man for himself. Or demon, as the case was.
A flash of blue caught his attention in the corner. No other shade of blue quite like it, especially not when accompanied by curses in three languages, two of them not heard on this world until a few years ago.
He smiled with bloodstained teeth and began to hack his way over to her, clawing down bodies to make a path of broken flesh and vital fluids.
"Are you injured?"
Glaucon was sitting propped up against the wall, his sword in his lap and pristine, even if his lap was not. He shook his head, eyes closed, hair-feathers matted down over his forehead with tacky and dried blood. Dropped the back of his head gently against the wall.
"The blood is not mine. It is theirs." He didn't even know who 'they' were, not that it was the first time. It didn't matter anyway. He was very tired. "What about the others?"
"They are well, as far as I know. Angel did not seem concerned." Which meant, then, that as far as she knew everyone had checked in and was whole and intact. He had seen a few of the times that someone had been late checking in, and the human was not the only one who became loud.
She knelt down in front of him, pushing his hair up off of his head with a rough sound like crumpled paper. He made a face as his skin pulled apart from where it had crusted over.
"You are filthy," she scolded.
He smiled.
It wasn't over. They both knew it wasn't over, that this was only the first battle of several. They were taking a mutually agreed-upon rest for the sake of recharging both sides, each hoping to recover more of their resources and energy before the other. At least for now they had this section of ground, a wall to lean on, and each other. And a basin of water, it seemed, to wash the blood away.
"Hold still," she murmured, cleaning off the blood from his face, from what exposed skin she could reach.
He smiled, and let her.