Welcome to the start of Chapter 3, and one of a very few scenes that I have to use the actual script for:
Darkness. All she could see was darkness as she got over the initial shock of having a stake driven through her heart. Her limbs wouldn't respond to her commands. She knew she'd had her eyes open when they staked her, and since she only felt the phantom pain of the stake she still had in her heart and a severe hunger, she knew… Well, she didn't really know anything. Was she dead? Yes/No drinking in the dark. Two voices at once, that was new. A normal person stabbed through the heart with anything would be dead or dying. She didn't seem to be in any danger of bleeding out, but she knew she felt different, and she couldn't move anything.
Listening. She had to listen, focus on what was heard; focus on what she felt from her nonresponsive limbs. Rumbling… She was in a car, her arms were bound behind her. They fear what they cannot understand, and they yearn for it. There! Voices that weren't in her head. Probably. Someone out there was speaking to someone else. Male voices, nervous tones. She needed to hear them. Needed to hear them.
"Don't feel right, doing this to a fledge. I mean look at her, she's all helpless and new." Fledge. Fledgling? Was he talking about her?
"Orders are orders, and we need to follow his. You don't want the Sheriff on your ass, right?" Sheriff. She needed to file that away… Nottingham has come to play with the Jester, and Marie Antoinette shall lose her head. Let them drink blood, not eat cake, for Pete's sake.
"Why's the Prince so adamant about this one?" First voice was coming from the Driver's side. She had to be in a panel van or something. She wasn't in the trunk, she was leaned against a wall. Prince sounded interesting.
"He needs to make sure LA knows that it belongs to him, to us. We're back and we're not going away. Anyone has a problem with it… Well, you know why the Sheriff's in the other van." The other van must have had Julia in it. Sheriff of what though? Why would a sheriff of anything come in and stake her and Julia?
"Yeah. I wouldn't want to chance that stake coming loose in there. Still, I'm not sure the Prince should…"
"Watch it, brother. Prince LaCroix is someone we don't want to piss off. Between us and the fledge back there? I pick us." Second time she'd been called a fledge. Buffy didn't like it. She was a person, not a thing. She might not have been a normal person, but she definitely wasn't… she couldn't have been. It just wouldn't be fair.
"Yeah, you're right. We're here anyway."
The van stopped, and she could hear the front doors open. Still couldn't see. There must have been a bag over her head or something. She could hear fine. Damn vampires. She had known they were real, no matter how much she denied it. Grout must have been one too. That… Fuck. Julia… When she saw the woman again, she was totally going to have to make with the explainy or Buffy would… Huh. She didn't want to stake the woman. To be fair, she did watch Julia get staked and not dust. She herself… Damn. No, she couldn't be… something was off.
The door across from her opened, she could hear it as it did so. "Sorry kid, but I'd rather not lose my head over a new fledge who just got in over hers"
She felt it as thick male arms pick her up and she was pulled out of the van. It had to be the first speaker; it couldn't be anyone else. Once she was outside, the smell of gasoline hit her nose. Stale air and… tacos? No, something was off there. The man put her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, and he started walking across what she assumed was a parking lot. The man's sneakers crunched on the asphalt, which turned to a different sort of tapping sound once he hit the concrete of the sidewalk. A creaking sound indicated that a door opened ahead of her and her holder type person or vampire or whatever. The guy's hands were cold the way Angel's had been. Vampire was definitely likely. Kindred are cold and kine are warm, but a wolf can put on sheep's clothing and with a blush of blood. Shepherds beware, for we have dismissed your claims.
Wherever she was, it sounded like the room opened outward, and she felt it as her carrier walked up a few steps onto a platform. It had to be a platform, not another floor because the way the sound echoed here indicated that it was upraised. Probably a stage of some sort. God, what time was it? Why here of all places? And why did she hear so many voices?
Wait. Some of those voices weren't coming from within her head. Probably anyway. They sounded further away than they would have if they were from within her head. She heard several distinct ones talking in several conversations, but she knew she'd have to focus if she was going to hear anything more. Stale air tickled her nose… and a familiar feminine perfume. Buffy knew she'd recognize that scent anywhere now. Julia. Julia was nearby, and she still… well, she did something. They wouldn't just display her corpse on stage, would they?
The guy carrying Buffy plopped her down onto her knees and removed the bag from her head, holding her tied hands behind her. She could see now, but she couldn't move still, and her head lolled slightly. Beside her, a pale man gripped at the stake that still stuck out of her chest and yanked it right out. She could wiggle her fingers; she could move!
But… it didn't seem like the best idea at the moment. Standing in front of her was a man in a suit, beside her a shirtless man next to Julia, similarly bound. Standing next to Julia was a mountain of a man. He reminded her of some of the demons she'd faced in Sunnydale based on sheer size alone. The weapon on his back was nothing to sneeze at either, and bound as she was, she couldn't do much about it at the moment.
"Good evening," The suited man began. He held a presence that seemed to radiate authority somewhat. Buffy knew on sight that this man had to be a vampire. He reminded her of a blond skeevy version of Dracula. "My apologies for interrupting any business or prior engagements you may have had, but my reason for calling you here tonight is a troubling one."
Troubling reason? From the way the people talked in the van, it had to be something to do with Julia. Was it because Julia had slept with her? Or what? He began to talk about Kindred Society, something about laws that bind it. Julia caught her eye and smiled at her. Trust your sire, childe. Julia had to have something up her sleeve.
Buffy's eye roved over the audience as the man, Jester pretending to be royalty, continued to talk, and she saw a black man whispering to the person he was next to. She could hear him clear as day. "This little bitch, what's he doing?"
The Jester continued his talk about permission. Asking permission to sire a childe, did vampires really do this? Did Julia sire her? "Many of you have come seeking permission, and I have endorsed some of those requests. However, the accused that sits before you tonight was not refused permission. Indeed, my permission was never sought at all. They were caught shortly after the embrace of this childe."
Buffy glanced over at Julia, a look of confusion clearly etched on her face. If Julia didn't have permission to sire her, what did that mean? Julia's smile never wavered. She did mouth out one word though, "mine." An Emperor seeking the permission of a Jester? Perhaps she felt it was worth it, but whatever the punishment was, it couldn't be that bad, right?
"It pains me to announce this sentence, as up until tonight, I had considered the accused a loyal and upstanding member of our organization." The Jester Prince spoke through both sides of his mouth. Buffy knew this to be true. "The sentence for this transgression, unfortunately, is death."
Death? For Julia? And she still smiled. Why was she smiling? Why could she be okay with this? Did she want to die that badly? If so, why didn't she just tell… why did she just?
The Prince steepled his hands, and he attempted to placate the rising unrest in the crowd with his next statement, "Know that I am no more adjudicator than I am a servant of the law that governs us all."
He knelt down next to Julia, whose smile grew wider when he did so. His voice took on a clearly put upon tone of apologetics. "Forgive me."
The Jester stood at that point and walked toward her, but she couldn't help watching what came next. After the Jester gave the order, the demonic man pulled his sword off of his back and leveled it over Julia's neck. This is how an Emperor dies, but she will live on. With a single swing, the mountain severed Julia's head from her body, and Buffy's sire turned to fire and ash, and dust. That… had been a bit more violent a dusting than the vampires she remembered.
God, was she next? Was she going to have to fight her way out of a room full of vampires with her hands behind her back? If only she weren't so damned hungry, she could see how this would work out, but as it stood, she needed more time. Giles. She needed a Giles. The red-eyed mountain required preparation to deal with, preparation she didn't have time to do.
The man turned toward the audience once more, and he began to speak. "Which, of course, brings us to the matter of the ill-begotten progeny. Without a sire, most childer are doomed to walk the earth never knowing their place, their responsibilities, and most importantly the laws they must obey. Therefore, I have decided that-"
"This is bullshit!" The Hispanic man in the audience stood up, fist raised, ready to challenge the Jester. His sail and other companion held him back. Other voices in the audience joined the man, and they were clearly talking about her. Buffy wanted to speak up, but anything she could say in her defense here was probably a bad idea.
On stage, the Jester Prince clearly was unhappy about the situation, but he barely changed his stance as a smile came to his lips. "If Mister Rodriguez would let me finish, please. I have decided to let this Kindred live."
Buffy breathed out a sigh of relief as the bindings on her hands were cut free by the vampire behind her, and she leaned forward. The Prince continued talking.
"They shall be instructed in the ways of our kind, and be granted the same rights." It was hard to believe that the Prince of Jesters was talking about her, but clearly he was. She was… well, she was different now… and so damn hungry. Now that the fear was gone, all she could really feel was the hunger in the pit of her stomach. "Let no one say I am unsympathetic to the plights and causes of this community."
The Prince thanked the audience for their attendance as she was led off-stage to a back room where she could sit down for a few minutes. Buffy needed to get her head on straight, and that was difficult when so much was just… off. Luckily nobody seemed to be coming over to talk to her just yet, and she just needed to focus.
The smell of cigarette smoke wafted into her nostrils, and she looked left to see Spike sitting down next to her. "Guess I should welcome you, luv. Welcome to the land of the beautiful and soulless. Didn't think you'd have it in you to become a vampire, Slayer. Oh wait…"
"Spike, I need to think." Buffy shook her head. "Everything is right and wrong and wet all over."
"Slayer, if you start talking about the stars, I'm gone. Dru you aren't." Spike wasn't really there. Sunnydale had been a hallucination, but the vampires weren't. She was one of them now, wasn't that just funny? So funny she wanted to cry…
"I'm hungry and empty and dead inside. I feel all icky and yet it feels…" Buffy shrugged. It felt right, but she still felt like it would be wrong to kill someone unless she had no other choice.
"Watch it, cutie. The ponce is on his way over. He's probably going to want something for taking out your sire but not you." Spike warned.
"He won't see you." Buffy answered. "I'll talk to him… not like he can be worse than Snyder."
"Famous last words, Slayer." Spike said as he stood to walk behind her. Indeed, the Prince was walking over to her finally. The rest of the crowd that had come to this… trial, or whatever it was just must have left.
Once he got over to her, he put on an apologetic face. "About your sire, tragic, my apologies. But you see, there is a strict code of conduct that all of us must… must adhere to… if we wish to survive."
He began walking, and gestured for Buffy to follow. Spike chose to step in front of the man, and walk backwards in time with him, so Buffy could see his face as he did so. "Ponce likes to hear himself speak, doesn't he Slayer? Law this, law that… Break the law, fabric of society unravels, blah blah…"
As they crossed the threshold of the next room, Spike disappeared, and the man continued to talk. "You understand my predicament, don't you? Allowing you to live makes me directly responsible for your actions and behavior. So what I'm offering is not generosity, no, but the opportunity to transcend the fate woven by your sire. This is your trial. You will be brought to Santa Monica. There you will meet an agent by the name of Mercurio. He will provide the details of your labor."
Buffy frowned. Roman god of messages and winged feet and helmet? The Bird of Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame… "Yes… I understand."
"Good, you understand that what I am giving you is great clemency then, fledgling?" The Jester moved his arm. "Prove that it was more than a wasted gesture. Don't come back until you do."
He opened the door, and Spike was there again. "The poof doesn't want you to come back until you do his task. Isn't that neat?"
Buffy nodded as she stepped out the door into the nearby alleyway. God, if she could only get rid of the hunger, she could have just stood up to the Jester Prince, but as hungry as she was, standing up to him would probably have had her end up like Julia. Julia wouldn't want that. Trust in your sire, childe. Swim in the sea.