Spikeid VI

[quinara]

Sorry this took a little longer than anticipated! But now it's here - and is possibly my favourite book so far. There's Spuffy! Meta-chat with Virgil! A cameo by a character I love! Not to mention that this book means we are HALFWAY THROUGH!! (Hooray for visible milestones!!)

Many many thanks to my betas for this book, brutti_ma_buoni, fulselden and ladyofthelog, who were excellent in their comments. I hope people enjoy. :)

PG-13; ~4000 words (~530 lines); warnings for the series of death and denied agency, with lots of issues around death this book.

Spike and Buffy deal with where they've landed; Illyria is tempted.

[V]

VI

      The vastness of the darkness all around,
The plangent loneliness which fills the black
And, biting at his tongue, the bitterness
Of acrid air: it feels like it should be
Too much for Spike. He’s lost and can’t tell where.
Sensations strike at him in punishment,
Or so it feels, for having form once more.
The light here works the way it should; his eyes
Adjust eventually to let him see
Soft-shadowed people wandering through dark,
Or forms at least, a little indistinct,
Vast crowds of them in cavernous expanse.
(The Hellmouth, he remembers, looked like this.)
Spike starts towards them, gripped by growing fear
That he is too far gone from where he was,
From Buffy and Illyria, the light,
Too far to find his way back home again.
“Hello?” he calls, but no one turns, the ones
Who walk still walk, the ones curled on the ground
Remain unmoved. “Hello?” he asks again.
Behind him is a rush of air; he turns,
Surprised, but so relieved on turning when
He sees it’s Buffy who has followed him.
“Where – Spike!” she asks, confused and then relieved,
Until confusion closes in again, “Where’s this?”
He shrugs, but then there is a clear “Ahem!”
As someone clears their throat. It’s followed by
“You’re new.” The words sound through the dark. They turn
To meet their speaker, nervous with surprise,
Come face to face with no one that they know.
Ahead there is a woman standing tall,
With corporate gold-brown hair, a wicked grin
And navy suit, incongruously sharp
But seasons out of date. “I guess we are,”
With hands in pockets Buffy makes reply,
Uncertain whether they have met a friend
Or foe. “Where’s this? Do you know who’s in charge –
I’ve got a few complaints about the trip;
This wasn’t on our list of scheduled stops…”
The woman laughs, then stops as though she can’t
Believe, “You’re serious? Well then you can’t
Be from the company…” She squints at them,
Assessing with a smirk before she says,
“Oh my.” She looks amused. “I knew they’d changed
Their game and had things shaken up, but still
I never thought that things would get this bad.”
She shakes her head with blatant disbelief.
“It’s Spike and Buffy Summers, in our hell…
Hey, have you come to save us from ourselves?”
“Just tell us who you are and where this is;
It’s not that hard, yeah?” Spike replies, annoyed
Not least because his panic hasn’t gone.
“I’m Lilah Morgan.” She puts out her hand,
But neither Spike nor Buffy put out theirs.
“Once President of Special Projects at
Wolfram and Hart, Los Angeles. I’m shocked
That Angel never mentioned me. Or not.”
She pauses. “Oh, and you’re in hell. It’s meant
To be the place where vampires go when you,
Ms Summers – can I call you Buffy? – take
Your cute li’l stake and turn them into dust
(Osiris sold the deed because he has
No business in the excess parts of self
That vamps construct around them after death),
But now it houses our employees too.
It makes an interesting mix, let’s say.”
She closes with a smile, but Buffy won’t
Accept that; no, she has to find out more.
“So what?” she asks. “You loiter here all day –
And night and day and night again – until
Eternity is done?” And she worked for
Wolfram and Hart? That firm? “That’s all you get?”
She can’t be sure exactly what she means;
She doesn’t know this woman, so it’s not
As though she knows how evil she once was –
And yet presumably she caused some deaths.
It sounds like hell, her living in this void,
But can she judge what Corporate Bitch deserves?
Is this enough? Is this too much?
                                                           It’s strange,
So Buffy thinks, that she once died and found
The afterlife, found heaven of a sort,
And yet she doesn’t think about the hell
Which she sends vampires to. Though Angel spoke
(Tried not to speak) about damnation, she
Could never visualise a place. Not this.
“What happens here?” she asks, now looking back
To where they were, to figures coming in
And out of sight; some close, some far away.
“Apart from all the sleepwalking, I mean.”
But Lilah shrugs, amused by how they twitch,
This pair of visitors. “Not much,” she says,
“But let me tell you I expected worse –
Considering I lived for years in fear
Of death, the real thing’s not that hard to take.
I think it might have helped that I was killed
Outside the office, not as a result
Of disciplinary procedures. Hmm…”
She ponders this, head tilted over scarf.
“What happened, when you died?” then Buffy finds
She has to ask, her mind returning now
To Lilah’s words before. “Like, what you said,
About Osiris and his business – what
Exactly did you mean by that? Because
I’ve died a couple times, but still I can’t
Remember how the process really works.”
She looks around, takes in the shadowed dead.
“I think that I should know, you know? If I’m
The one who’s killing off the vamps – if I’m
The one who came to LA on his… ” Then
She has to stop herself; hot angry tears
Are welling up with memories of Giles,
The god’s harsh, damning words. She glances down,
Sees Spike approach with just the smallest shift
Of AirWair Bouncing Sole across the ground,
A gesture of support that lets her look
Back up to Lilah, who seems not to care
About her weakness, staring in surprise
And not a little shock. “My god,” she breathes,
“They let you drink from Lethe. Wow. I should
Have known. Or someone should have told me that.”
“Oh, please,” now Spike is interjecting, voice
A mix of scorn and awe and irony,
Like he does not believe what Lilah’s said,
But wishes that he could, although he knows
That he would not receive the benefit
Of what it is that would be true. “Don’t try
To palm that bollocks off on us – we may
Be visiting your nice dimension, but
We’re not a pair of bloody tourists, right?”
But Buffy doesn’t get why she is meant
To care. So, “Huh?” she says. “What’s Lethe mean?”
“’S a river,” Spike replies, his eyes on her
As if he can’t believe she doesn’t know,
Yet somehow finds that kind of neat. “In hell,
Or right outside, or somewhere nicer – we
Don’t know. ‘S a myth that Christians borrow from
The Classics when they fancy it. You drink
And you forget your life, can be at peace.”
He turns back to the lawyer. “It’s not real.”
Eyes bright, still Lilah looks defiant. “Who
Exactly is the dead one here? And not
Undead, but actually dead? Still, I
Was speaking metaphorically, if that’s
Allowed? I’m sorry, I forgot that I
Was talking to a child…” Spike rolls his eyes;
She looks to Buffy then, continuing
More patronisingly, “Hey, sweetie, so –
You wanna know what death was like for me
And all the bottom-feeders of your world?
Well, first you gotta know what death entails,
‘Cause really it is much more simple than
The doctrines of the mortal realm make out.
It’s all exchange of energy, our ‘souls’
Or ‘essences’ or ‘life forces’ move on
From one dimension to another place,
So something else can happen. When our hearts
And brains stop working, there’s a shift, a spell,
A sacrifice – you call it what you want –
And that’s us slipping from the world the way
We came, through birth and childhood. If you
Mix magic up with that, then there’s a hole
Created in the fabric of the world,
And there are ways to bring a soul back through,
But otherwise we slip through pinprick gaps,
Dissolve away like salt in water. Sure,
You get your vampires, zombies, causing snags
And schisms – souls get caught – but otherwise
We carry on to somewhere else. Above,
Below, it doesn’t matter; it’s just change.
Osiris, though, and beings like him, look
At us from somewhere higher, maybe still
Below a higher god, but we don’t know.
He takes an interest in the things we do,
Has got a family business moving souls –
Like someone selling water to a town –
And wants to keep control on his supply.
That’s why he takes control of life and death.
You won’t find meritocracy these days –
The souls are traded on a stock exchange.”
      She pauses then to smirk again before
Her captive audience. “When we move on
We stay the same, remember what we’ve lived.
The wheat gets sorted from the chaff, but, yeah,
The wheat remembers swaying in the field.
The only time that doesn’t happen’s when
Osiris’ interests mean that memory
Is smoothed and buffed away like burrs on oak –
Then we forget the bad and bask in good.
I’d say that that’s what happened when you died.”
And then she shrugs, remembering the truth.
“Until, I guess, you got pulled back to earth.”
Thus Lilah finishes; now Buffy’s mind
Is reeling, spinning round with intel as
Propulsion, knowing that she shouldn’t trust
This woman to have every scrap of truth,
But still considering the tale she told,
Her chosen details and particulars.
For Buffy knows Osiris lied when he
Made Sadie justify Giles’ murder, but
She doesn’t want this possibility
To mean that she abandons eagerly
Assumptions which she held before and clings
To this new precipice (which seems so firm
Beneath her fingers, poised to let her climb
To understanding of the truth) unless
It really is that firm, and not about
To crumble into powder, dropping her
And hers into a pit of misery.
It’s not her hope alone, but others’ too,
She has to make the bargain with. If hope
Is really what she means...
                                               However, Spike
Is thinking other thoughts, reflecting. “Huh,”
He says. “You’re telling us Osiris is
Akin to, what, the Senior Partners? Not
A destiny-deciding god?” His thoughts
Return to where they always seem to go.
“Then why did he want Buffy in LA?”
Reacting, Lilah frowns. “He wanted that?”
She looks intrigued, thinks on then says, “Can’t tell.
Perhaps he wants some meat that’s juicier
Than all the offal my wise bosses sent
His way by switching up their LA game…
I’ve heard that there’s a portal, right? And not
Just to a parallel dimension filled
With H2O and carbon, but right through
The walls of physical existence? Well,
That needs negotiation on our parts
To keep it open: lobbies, promises…”
She whistles, calculating in her head.
“Hoo, boy, yeah I can see the reasons why
They want a few more heroes here, and why
They had to give up Angel, let him die
And be sent down to us…”
                                       On that, Spike looks
At Buffy, who looks back at him. It seems
So obvious that Angel would be here,
If this is where the ghosts of vampires go.
They should have realised when she told them that.
In unison they speak: “We’ve gotta go.”

      Illyria can feel it when she stands
Alone, bereft of both the other two
In this, the other world of dazzling light.
She feels it like a breath that cleaves the air
Around her mind to leave her once again
Herself. Her worry now is gone, although
It never was her worry; demons here
Are screeching to expel her from their world,
But it is no more troubling than a fly
That wings beside an elephant, a beast
Of greatness so beyond its ken that it
Will never comprehend its lack of worth.
And then temptation comes, for she could stay
And rule this world eventually, although
She cannot see it (maybe she should leave
Her shell). The laws of metaphysics state
That she should share her mind, that all of those
Who live here are one consciousness, but she
Thinks differently to them and cannot share –
Although she still is suffering attack.
It makes a change from these last painful weeks
When she has felt too much of others’ minds,
Their hopes and fears and, every night, their dreams.
She doesn’t need to tell of Spike’s mistake
And Buffy’s fall in after him, she could
Remain and live alone content with this
Cohesion and containment of her mind.
But there is still a debt there, so she thinks,
Ignoring all the demons’ violent shrieks
And turning round with ease to look again
To where the portal wants to take her back,
The technicolour shimmering that lies
Not far beyond her feet. Above it still
The demons try to come at her, their forms
Attained the moment when they cross the edge.
It’s only flying demons she can see,
Perhaps those earth-bound are all falling through?
To pitch attack against those down below?
      And, yes, the debt, there is a debt between
Her godliness and Spike, found in this war.
The shelter he provides relieves the need
To interact with demons every hour,
Repeatedly annihilating them
And the great irritation they will pose.
But there is yet a deeper debt than this:
Both Spike and Gunn retain the memory
Of Wesley, dream of him sometimes, and she
Cannot resist the chance to hear his voice.
She knows this weakness is not one she should
Uphold, left over from the shell – and yet
The more she has indulged it, then the more
It has begun to feel like her, a new
Development of what Illyria
Must be. And living as she does this way
Those memories are precious, spun from gold
And wreathed with orchids, lent to her with this
The price.
                       So, thinking of this debt she moves
Towards the bank of the great portal-lake
And stares into its waters, whence she’s here.
The siren screaming pounds inside her head
And tempts her all the same once more to stay,
But looking to an anti-matter stitch
Just on her right and thinking how she knows
That Spike and his acquaintance both are lost
Inside there, thinking of her debt she takes
Her step to bring her back to her new home.
Immediately she then regains the sense
Of what ground is, and that it doesn’t lie
Beneath her, falls and knows her falling down.
The night returns apace, distinction formed
In blacks and greys and blues, the humans’ clothes
And skin define them, demons do not screech,
But snarl and cry and claw and fight below.
Illyria has landed and once more
Sweet violence reigns (why would she want to leave
This great, dear pleasure?). Creatures leap towards
Her throat – she bats them hard enough away
To crack their skulls upon the tarmac roof,
So slick with wet and blood beneath them all.
She snaps another’s neck no sooner than
It’s come to land not far from her. It’s slow
And lumbering beneath her fingers; they
Do not see many of this type, the tall
And shaggy humanoids. Their deaths are quick,
She’s sure they don’t survive for long down here.
It doesn’t take much time for the attack
To slow, but then she realises that she
Knows no one here. The younger Slayers look
Exhausted, while the other team are grouped
To nurse another with a wound. There is
No smell of human death, and so she calls
The girl who led her to the world above,
“Young Slayer, you who helped to cast the spell,
The vampire Spike and Buffy with him, they
Have fallen prey to portals in the world
Beyond. They have made passage whither they
May not return so easily as I.
You must recall them if it’s your desire
To bring them back to this, their native world.”
Elise hears but it’s Gurpreet who then
Replies, “OK, we’ll sort that out then – guys?”
And they begin to clear a space between
The demon corpses and the blood so they
Can call both Spike and Buffy back to them.

      They search until the faux-sweet, mocking grin
On Lilah’s face has faded in their minds.
Her words of parting, “Best of luck with that;
There’s only all the vampires ever made
Down here!”, soon lose their pointed phrasing, the
Exact way she delivered them, and then
Become a general sentiment that they
Are wasting time with this attempt to find
A needle in a haystack on a world
Made out of haylofts where the atmosphere
Is hay. It weighs on Buffy to the point
She realises she doesn’t have the strength
To carry on like this. She needs to stop.
It’s not a point she comes to lightly, but
She looks around the endless sea of death,
The faces staring back at her through gloom –
The mindless fledges represented here
By mindless shadows of themselves, which have
No personality, the growling hate
Of those a little older and the ones
Who sit and weep, who summoned up enough
Of self in life to recognise this place –
Surrounding her they make her heart grow numb.
She could not bear to find out Angel’s here
And so belief starts setting in that he
Is not, that they would never find him should
They stay a hundred years, that even if
They did it’s Angelus they’d find – the soul
Was a reflection of his mortal self,
It wasn’t self-constructed like these shades.
A part of her is still aware that she
Is in denial, afraid of seeing him
And of her grief, but she cannot prevent
Her mind from curling in defensively.
“We have to stop,” she says to Spike, “we have
To find our way back home. There’s work to do.”
It’s in those words she finds some strength, a strength
That has been lacking since Osiris forced
Designs upon her life. “We know he’s gone.”
But Spike, unfortunately, values hope
Above experience, and so his thoughts
Have found themselves upon a different path.
The nascent thought that Angel could be here,
It doesn’t partner with the misery
Around them, but instead it ricochets
Against Spike’s growing worry that he’ll have
To take the lead. If Angel’s really here…
That means that he could once again be there,
Back in LA, succeeding at the job
That Spike is still uncertain he can do.
Aside from Buffy he’s the one who has
The most experience in fighting wars
Like this: apocalyptic, weird as hell –
But he’s the partner of the leader, not
The one in charge.
                               Yet Buffy can’t be forced
To take command, not now with everything
Osiris made her face, it isn’t fair.
She’s still in pain, he thinks. Because of this,
When Buffy’s words have reached his ears, he hears
Not strength but Buffy giving up. “No, love,”
He says, “He’s not gone yet. He’s here and we
Can find him,” striding as he tells her this.
“We’ll find him and we’ll take him back with us.”
“To what, Spike?” Buffy asks, a little scared;
Spike will not turn around to see her face,
Just doggedly regards the crowds of dead.
“There’s nothing we can put him in, there’s no,
No – body.” Spike, however, will not turn.
“We’ll have to keep on looking then, wont we?
Until we’ve found him round some rocky bend.”
She halts, demands, “Spike, stop.” She knows they can’t
Go on, but now she realises that she
Will have to make a stronger stand. “He’s gone,
OK?” He’s gone: she knows that now, the way
She’s known the same for many people who
Have gone before. “You have to let him go.”
Spike pauses, ducks his chin down to his neck,
So clearly thinking. Though she knows that she
Should stop, she starts, “I mean,” and means to end,
I didn’t even think that you were close –
But she’s ashamed to think it so she can’t.
And yet Spike hears. She can’t tell if it’s ‘cause
Of where they’ve been, Dimension of Shared Thoughts,
Or whether he’s just good at hearing her,
But hear he does and slowly turns around.
He’s backing slowly back from her, his face
Taut muscles and eyes wide with disbelief.
He has no words, can only shake his head.
She tries to take back what she didn’t say:
“I – Spike!” she calls, now he is turning, gone
And running, cutting lines among the ghosts,
His coattails rippling with the need to go.
She runs herself, heart brightly pounding. “SPIKE!”
      He shuts his ears, now running anywhere
His feet will fly, refusing to look back.
Perhaps it isn’t right that he expects
For Buffy to turn up and understand
The way things are for him, but still he’d hoped
That somehow she would get it, how he feels.
He’s been in love with her and she once said…
Oh, sod that line of thought, he thinks, and run.
Around him there are vampires in their droves,
And maybe most of them are short, long dead,
But he can’t see a frowning forehead loom.
He’s sure he doesn’t have much time – because
Of course those back on earth will call them back.
He has to find him, check his sanity,
Then work out how to bring him on their ride.
Or maybe…
                       There’s a thought that glimmers quick
Inside Spike’s mind, that he’s not meant to leave.
When he’s found Angel he’ll have found his place:
Perhaps he’s meant to stay here with the rest
Of all these vampires. Honestly, who thinks
A vampire’s meant to save the human world?
And if he managed once before, then all
He did was fail in coming here the way he should.
He knows he’s not the hero here, he’s dead
Already. Usually the mortals go
To hell, make sure they get their tickets stamped
Return, don’t eat the food – but him? He’s dead.
He might as well be with the shades.
One day he’ll end up here, no matter what;
If Angel died from duty, Spike won’t live.
These thoughts, they slow him down, and soon enough
The Slayer’s calls are ringing in his ears
While he is stood absorbing Hell’s milieu.
He doesn’t think that he should turn around;
He doesn’t want to look at her, her thoughts.
“Look, Spike,” she says, a little out of breath,
“I didn’t mean it, what I said – or thought –
I didn’t say it, ‘cause that isn’t what
I think I think. I know we’re not the same –
You’ve known him for way longer, but we can’t…
We have to keep on going with the world.
If we give too much power to the past,
Or even to the people that we lose?
The present’s gonna be without a hope.
And you’re that hope – you give me so much hope.”
A shuddering sigh runs through Spike’s weary bones –
And part of him would love them to be gone.
Yet Buffy’s words are with him, though he still
Won’t turn. “I don’t know what you want from me,”
He says. “I’m not the hero; haven’t been
In all my life, my unlife or my death.
I tried, I did, but, Buffy, you – you know
It’s true.”
                 He waits for confirmation, but
What Buffy says is, “No. I really don’t.
I don’t know what you think a hero is,
If they need prophecies or evil gods
Who order them around, but I think that
A hero’s somebody who fights for good.
No more than that. It’s somebody who fights
Injustice, evil, all that stuff – against
The badness in the world or in themselves.
It’s something you decide to be, not what
The higher powers pick to find in you:
You’ve been a hero for a long, long time,
From when you fought yourself to – recently,
To when you built a home against the dark
And let me stay.” “I don’t know how to win,”
He tells her, thinking back to where they fell,
The stitches W&H sewed through
The universe. That’s more than he can fight.
“Well, nor do I –” Still Buffy’s voice is strong.
“– But we’ll have way more chances with you there.”
With Angel, too, they would improve their odds,
But on that score he knows they are too late.
There is a tugging in his sternum now,
A gentle pull that wants to take him back
To earth and all the people they have left.
Presumably this is the witches, set
To bring them home. He comments, “You should go.”
She’s human in the end, so this is not
Her place. But still she says, so firm, “You think
I’d leave without you?” Then what can he do
But turn? He sees her face, alive and whole,
Incomparable to any vampire’s gaze,
And part of him believes she means her words.
Although there is an Angel in this place,
There is a world where Buffy still belongs –
Does she believe that he belongs there too?
As Buffy walks towards him she puts out
Her hand, which reaching out he takes. It’s then
As her warm fingers settle on his own
That he accepts the hook of magic in his chest
And they both fade from hell to go back home.

[VII]

Comments

[rahirah]

This is indescribably awesome.

[quinara]

:D Thanks very much!

[stultiloquentia]

Moar Spikeid! I saw this late last night and scooped it onto my thumb drive to read at work. SO cool. Back shortly with proper commentary.

[quinara]

Ooh, hooray for thumb drives!! I'm looking forward to the commentary. Though I'm very grateful just for you popping in with your thumbs up, so thanks already! :)

I return! Bearing wordses!

[stultiloquentia]

Lilah!!! With her out-of-date, yet natty suit! Huh, she gives good infodump. Osiris as businessman is bloody ingenious. Has got a family business moving souls/Like someone selling water to a town -- hah. What an efficient, vivid explanation. And hel-lo plot! For so many reasons, given who she is, and going back years into the show, he's a perfect opponent for her. Woohoo, go get 'im, Buffy! :D

Also:
The only time that doesn’t happen’s when
Osiris’ interests mean that memory
Is smoothed and buffed away like burrs on oak –
Oh-ho. Laying a bit of groundwork, there? *waits patiently*

The part I thought was most beautifully played was Buffy's misunderstanding of just what Angel meant to Spike. Buffy catching herself and Spike reading her anyway was such an utterly perfect way to play it: if she'd said it out loud, it would have been horrible, almost unforgivably thoughtless, but thinking it and then checking herself is actually really relatable -- I mean, who among us hasn't had a thought and realized in the next instant, "No, no, no, self, that is so false"? And then Spike running away from Buffy -- such a Spikeishly kinetic reaction, his distress so vivid.

Illyria's amazing, realizing that these people are part of her Becoming. She's accepting that this is who and what Illyria is, now -- and accepting, I think, that this could be an interesting, even worthy, existence.

I love her descriptions of the dimension and its beasts, especially as they transform from one state to another as they fall through the tear. That's just cool.

an anti-matter stitch

There's something about reading words like "anti-matter" in an epic poem that really turns me on. It's like a collision of two of my separate geekdoms.

Oh, Angel. I confess I'm a bit confused about how I'm supposed to read the talk of Angel lost among those billions of souls. Is this closure, or a leaving open of the possibility of coming back, better armed to retrieve him? I think you've left a very intriguing potential, too, for.....hmm, maybe I should shut up about my possible spoiler. Hmmm. *waits somewhat less patiently*

There’s a thought that glimmers quick
Inside Spike’s mind, that he’s not meant to leave.

Wat? Spike, that's an unappealingly Angelish thought. Please turn and present your ass; I need to kick it.

I like that Buffy and Spike don't understand each other perfectly. I love it when I get to see fanfic couples earnestly and purposefully working to be successful together. I find it a very adult tack, and somehow so much more...hopeful, and longsighted, than so many stories that are driven by, oh, one big, silly, superficial misunderstanding followed by magical and effortless broccoli harmony.

It’s then
As her warm fingers settle on his own
That he accepts the hook of magic in his chest
And they both fade from hell to go back home.

I like the meta, there: hell = isolation, solitude. Home is someone else's grip in yours. It's what Illyria's learning, too, come to think of it.

Talk to me a little about what you're riffing on in this part. I don't know my epics well enough. I don't even have copies of Homer or Virgil in this house, can you believe it?! (My parents are tired of shipping books, and besides, I think all they've got is Pope.) If I cave and buy new (well, used), what's your favourite translation for reading for pleasure?

Re: I return! Bearing wordses!

[quinara]

Oh, you are fantastic! It's so great to see someone reading and reacting - not least because it gives me more to think about in going forward, because I only have a skeleton plan really, so it's great to be able to clarify what themes need hitting...

I shouldn't talk about Osiris or Illyria, because while I'm fairly certain what's going to happen in both their cases, I'm not 100% and, besides, it would ruin it, I'm sure!

But in terms of this book, which I see as (hopefully) closing the Buffy-Spike-Angel arc for the moment (though possibly and probably not forever), it's all about this short but memorable passage in Aeneid VI (the way I see it, in any case), in which Aeneas sees Dido in the underworld. (I should say at this point, that while the Aeneid is kind of the basis for my structure, I'm generally only riffing lightly of select bits, rather than the whole thing. This one's important, though!) I'll copy it out, actually, to give you a taster of the translation I prefer... This Robert Fagles' (his VI.521-553), which I like for being (a) recent and (b) in verse. It's fairly free, and IMO loses steam in the later books, but I think it works as a poem in itself, rather than as a read-along-with-the-Latin thing.

And wandering there among them, wound still fresh,
Phoenician Dido drifted along the endless woods.
As the Trojan hero paused beside her, recognized her
through the shadows, a dim, misty figure - as one
when the month is young may see or seem to see
the new moon rising up through banks of clouds -
that moment Aeneas wept and approached the ghost
with tender words of love: "Tragic Dido,
so, was the story true that came my way?
I heard that you were dead...
you took the final measure with a sword.
Oh, dear god, was it I who caused your death?
I swear by the stars, by the Powers on high, whatever
faith one swears by here in the depths of earth,
I left your shores, my Queen, against my will. Yes,
the will of the gods, that drives me through the shadows now,
these moldering places so forlorn, this deep unfathomed night -
their decrees have forced me on. Nor did I ever dream
my leaving could have brought you so much grief.
Stay a moment. Don't withdraw from my sight
Running away - from whom? This is the last word
That Fate allows me to say to you. The last."

Aeneas, with such appeals, with welling tears,
tried to soothe her rage, her wild fiery glance.
But she, her eyes fixed on the ground, turned away,
her features no more moved by his pleas as he talked on
than if she were set in stony flint or Parian marble rock.
And at last she tears herself away, his enemy forever,
fleeing back to the shadowed forests where Sychaeus,
her husband long ago, answers all her anguish,
meets her love with love. But Aeneas, no less
struck by her unjust fate, escorts her from afar
with streaming tears and pities her as she passes.

Buffy and Spike have been kind of playing out Aeneas and Dido since book I, though we started from Spike's POV and Buffy hasn't been told to/chosen to leave. So, here in the underworld, I really wanted to push that to the point where I was saying 'yes, they are Aeneas and Dido - but they're also Buffy and Spike, so they don't have to and are not going to stick to their models'. Aeneas' heroic journey is all about him, really, and his epic manpain - especially at this point when he wants Dido to talk to him one last time before he goes back to the real world, just to make him feel better about himself. Buffy has a certain amount of protagonistpain, but she's also way more self-aware and has learnt how important her Dido is to her, so as much as there is work to do, she is going to damn well wait until Spike turns around to look at her. Spike is all about getting some focalisation for his Dido-ish POV and dealing with whether he's mission's boyfriend (and thus almost certainly victim of his own angst in the end) or sovereign queen ruler of a young, new city state, set to meet with other rulers and fix the country. (It's possible I think Dido is rather shafted in the Aeneid - and there is a reason why we are in the Spikeid, though Buffy is doing most of the epic-heroing.)

Angel is playing many people in my great epic mash-up/Aeneid fest (as well as himself, naturally), so here I see him both as Spike's former husband partner against evil, who's the sort of safe familiarity he can try and run back to, and the venerable advisory figure your epic hero tends to seek out in the underworld - like Aeneas' father and Tiresias+Agamemnon (who Odysseus chats to). It didn't come out very much in the end, but I think he plays that second role for both Buffy and Spike - the thing here being that they can't find him. This epic isn't very keen on authority (in case that hasn't been coming out...), so it seemed right (after trying quite hard to get him in and it not working) that there is nothing actually so very special about Angel that means you can find him amongst a world of vampires, when he doesn't know he's being looked for.

We are now, therefore, in a rather bold new world! Or so I like to think.

Re: I return! Bearing wordses!

[quinara]

Oh, and, to add to my epic comment (heh) - Achilles is someone else who Odysseus chats to in the underworld and Angel has totes been playing him. Possibly more than anyone else. I reckon you could write the whole Iliad with Connor as Patroclus... (Though there would be less fighting over stolen women.)

[fulselden]

Ooh, I missed this going up! It is still awesome, and I love your explication above - it makes their failure to lay hands on Angel - already interesting, and very bold new world-ish - even more exciting. Also, I will never not enjoy Lilah's guided tour of the otherworld as supplied wholesale by Wolfram and Hart. I too love canon!Lilah, and you really do her justice - no moaning about her lot for her!

Casting Angel as old-guard-authority-figure makes it appropriate, I guess, that Spike's moment when he almost wants to stay amongst the shades is almost literally Angel-think, as stultiloquentia has it.

And, heh, Connor as Patroclus! That fits ... almost too neatly.

[quinara]

Ooh, yay!! I'm glad you still like it!! (No worries about missing it.)

On Patroclus - I was definitely writing Angel in Buffy's vision of book 3 with Achilles-Patroclus in mind, so it's possible I'm sculpting that relationship past what it already is... But then I think it's pretty much there already, just with a bit more memory wiping and a bit less death. :D

[readerjane]

(With corporate gold-brown hair, a wicked grin
And navy suit, incongruously sharp
But seasons out of date.)

Ah, what wonderful economy in introducing Lilah! Corporate gold-brown hair, indeed.

(But can she judge what Corporate Bitch deserves?
Is this enough? Is this too much?)

Fascinating that it matters to Buffy: how bad this hell is, and whether Lilah deserves it or not. Especially when Buffy wasn't the one who sent Lilah here. Responsibility, thy name is Slayer... *g*

Your Illyria is quite satisfyingly alien. Not just human with weird trappings: she feels really different. And yet there's just that little grain of humanity in her, tied to the memory of Wesley.

(He doesn’t think that he should turn around;
He doesn’t want to look at her, her thoughts.)

There's our Eurydice, and Orpheus both. *huggles Spike*

(It’s then
As her warm fingers settle on his own
That he accepts the hook of magic in his chest)

Oh, caught like a fish, but of his own choosing hooked!

Love this tale so much.

[quinara]

Oh, thank you! It's so lovely getting your comments popping up as you read; all you're observations are so great! I mean, absolutely Buffy feels her responsibility - I don't think she could go to hell without wondering whether it's the right sort of hell; she has too much stake in killing bad guys.

I'm really glad you find Illyria alien, also. I love her, but I always want to make sure that she comes across as herself, rather than some sort of human-like substitute.

*huggles Spike with you*