Chapter One.

Gifts and Legacies

Okay, so I'll admit it. There was the germ of an idea lurking around in my head after I wrote 'Between Two Worlds.' It had something to do with a demon trying to get control of something called 'The Eye of Harmony' and it had Giles being kidnapped and Hercules and Iolaus turning up to help Buffy rescue him. But it wasn't this story. Not to begin with.

The big revelation in that idea was to have Iolaus dive into what everyone (except Buffy and Herc, who knew better) thought was a suicide situation - to then open his wings, snatch a very startled Giles from certain death at the very last minute and take off, leaving the demon ranting below. It was never entirely a serious idea, and I never got round to plotting it. I was too busy trying to rescue (a mortal) Iolaus and his best friend from a nest of giant ants.

Then, as a result of my work, I found myself reading a horrific report detailing the death of a child. An abused and tortured child, who should have been saved and wasn't, because she slipped through the cracks. They're busy patching up those cracks right now: new legislation and new guidance is on its way. They won't stop that kind of abuse from happening, but hopefully there'll be things in place to identify and deal with it when it does. Before what happened to Victoria happens to anyone else.

It was a harrowing read. I won't go into details here, because this story isn't a rehashing of real events. Nor is it, in any way, an attempt to reflect or comment on that experience. I think it was just the way my mind tried to deal with the emotions the report stirred up in me. Anger, frustration, sorrow, and disgust numbered among them.

And I needed to write them out of my system ...

There are days I suspect my subconsious mind is a very scary place. It took all of that, triggered on the fact I'd just started watching Buffy's (last?) season (with mixed feelings, I have to say ...), stirred in that germ of an idea - and came up with all of this. More or less overnight.

I'd like to side track for a minute to re-iterate something I said at the start of these notes. This story is about love. About something the Buffy writers seem to have lost sight of a little, even though it permeates earlier seasons. When I realised I was going to have to write this tale I went and did some background research - on demons, on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and on Buffy - because I like to get enough of my facts right to feel right.

Which was when I came across this quote from the show:

Buffy: I-I-I have a few questions, about being the Slayer. What about... love? Not just boyfriend love.
Spirit Guide: You think you're losing your ability to love.
Buffy: I didn't say that... yeah.
Spirit Guide: You're afraid that being the Slayer means losing your humanity.
Buffy (pausing): Does it?
Spirit Guide: You are full of love, you love with all your soul. It's brighter than the fire... blinding... that's why you pull away from it.
Buffy: I'm full of love? I'm not losing it?
Spirit Guide: Only if you reject it. Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love... give... forgive. Risk the pain, it is your nature. Love will bring you to your gift.
Buffy (confused by that last bit): What?

This, for me, is the Buffy that Iolaus saves; the Slayer who died to save the world, and would do so again without a second thought. She's an integral part of this story, struggling to deal with traumatic events and doing her best to protect the people that she loves. It's not easy, and there are times she can't help when she knows it's needed most. But that's the way life is sometimes. Living hurts, she complains to Iolaus the first time that she meets him. Sometimes it’s meant to, he tells her. That’s one of the ways you know that you’re alive.

And, as Giles will (eventually) get round to pointing out to Quentin, the Head of the Watcher's Council:

'This isn't a question of duty, or tradition, or even destiny. In the end, the only thing that truly matters is love. No matter what it costs. That's what really saves the world.'

It takes him a little while to figure that one out. But he will.

I'll admit it. I was up and running with Chapter one long before I'd figured some of that out. When Rupert Giles, demon prince of Malador, opened the door to that bar and strolled in to totally disconcert Wesley Wyndham Price, it was as if I were watching a scene from a movie and describing what I saw. The rest coalesced in a feverish plot writing session (I ended up with six pages of notes sketching out the background) which was then supported by equally feverish research. Giles would have been proud of me.

My biggest stumbling block was my central villian. I needed one with sufficient reason to kidnap and corrupt Buffy's Watcher (rather than just kill him for the fun of it). One so nasty that it would require the help of an Archon and a demi-god to overcome him. I was struggling a little with that - until I dug out my dictionary of angels and found the reference to the Grigori:

Grigori (egoroi, egregori, 'watchers') - in Jewish legendary lore, the grigori are a superior order of angels in both the 2nd and 5th Heavens (depending on whether they are the holy or unholy ones.) They resemble men in appearence, but are taller than giants, and are eternally silent. Ruling prince of the order is Salamiel "who rejected the Lord."

The irony was just too delicious to resist. For me and for Salamiel. I had my villian and his reasons all in one neat package. The Malumbra (bad shadows) became what's left of his order, the one he destroyed when he could no longer face what was happening to them. They are silent, looming giants, creatures that even demons fear - for good reason. Even for the Incandescent, the driving force behind his actions is love - albeit a twisted, damaged version of it; unable to save his people from themselves, he took away their choices and vowed to destroy everything in order to wipe corruption from eternity. He's not a typical demon at all. He has chosen to become an evil thing in order to have the power to do what he believes needs to be done. He doesn't hate the good guys. He admires them.

He also feels pity for them; for clinging to the foolish belief that life might be worth living. For him, existence itself is intolerable, something he endures because he has a purpose to fufill. And because it's intolerable, he is prepared to do anything, no matter how cruel or vile it may be, so long as it advances his cause. Which includes torturing innocents so that he can restore his strength - and forceably reshaping a man in his own image in order to impose his particular vision of peace on the world.

So Salamiel, the prince of the Celestial Watchers, chained in hell for countless millenia, finally gets access to the mortal realm - which he finds is defended by a slip of a girl, a bunch of eager young fools - and a fellow Watcher. A mortal one, perhaps, but nonetheless ...

My notes at this point read:

His eye is caught by Giles, whom he senses is more than might first appear. There is an air of old magic about him; he’s lived through and been tempered by experiences that would cripple a lesser soul, and he is a scholar as well as a warrior – one, like him, dedicated to the light, but touched, a little, by darkness.

The descent into hell had begun.

I knew I was being ambitous, setting this up within a framing story, but after a few pages I was glad I'd approached it that way. It allowed me to add a level of explanation that wouldn't have fit with a straight re-telling of the tale, let me drop some cryptic hints early on (which I then knew I'd have to pick up on and do something with) and will, eventually, allow me bring this to a rounded conclusion. It also let me bring Angel and his collegues up to speed with events I felt they probably ought to know about (avoiding, I should say, the whole Conner issue, since that would have been way too complicated to weave into all of this!)

Besides - I just love that opening scene in the bar ...

Oh - and for those of you who may be wondering; if I was filming this, Lucy Lawless would probably be playing Sky ...