by The Devious OneShe shut the door to her temporary hotel room with a renewed sense of despair. She'd felt this way for a few days now. Shutting her eyes tightly against the emotional pain she was feeling, the blonde haired woman walked beyond her boxes of belongings and laid down on the not so comfy bed in the room and curled her body on her left side, facing the far wall. She laid her head on her pillow and let the tears fall.
Why? That one word was a voiced question the blonde woman had mused about for the past few days. Why had this happened to her? Why did the one person she loved more than anything else in the world abuse her in the manner that she did. It was something that Tara Maclay couldn't figure out. She'd been asking herself why would her lover of just over a year and a half would do what she did.
But the truth was that Tara already had an idea of why it happened. Her lover, well...ex-lover Tara now had to acknowledge, Willow Rosenberg had been abusing the magick of witchcraft for a very long time now. And Tara knew that it really began getting worse after the events of Glory's mind sucking of Tara. The blonde drew a shaking breath. Even after getting her sanity restored, things had still been strained between them because of Buffy's death.
The Slayer's death had hit Willow hard and the redhead had simply been unwilling to let Buffy go. She put all her attention into the resurrection spell, not caring about the possible consequences of that spell. Tara had tried to talk to Willow about it a couple times, but the talks came to deaf ears and Tara could easily acknowledge that that was the beginning of their future problems. Having tasted so much power after that spell, it was no wonder why Willow kept dabbing more and more into the darker forces of magick.
Then of course, came the first fight the blonde witch had with her ex-lover. Well, the second fight actually. And the fact that Willow had decided to control the development of their relationship by using a forget spell on her was the hardest thing for Tara to bare. And she'd only learned of it thanks to Dawn, in part.
But now, laying here in the darkened room on the very night of her moving out, Tara could only dwell on the events that had led to this happening. Tara genuinely hoped in her heart that she and Willow could one day patch things up, but it would be a long time from now and it would take a lot of work on Willow's part and work on Tara's part.
The blonde slowly sat up from the bed and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She reached over to one of the boxes nearby and slowly pulled it over to her, the box dragging along the floor. She reached down and slowly began opening the flaps of the box. Reaching inside, she removed a picture frame with a picture displayed in the center.
The picture was taken by Xander and the two women were laying on the bench at the front porch of the Summers House. Willow was behind Tara with her arms around Tara's shoulders and she had her cheek pressed against Tara's. The picture was taken during a time before the mind sucking had happened, but a little bit after Joyce had died. They had been at the house helping Buffy.
And seeing the serene smiles that crossed both their faces was enough to make Tara put the picture away before the reality of her situation made her cry again. She didn't want to cry. She knew things with Willow were next to over, but she didn't want to accept it. She wanted to call a cab, take her stuff and go back to the house and return to Willow. But she couldn't because she had to be strong. Willow had a very serious problem right now and Tara knew that Willow had to realize it before help could be had. With a shake of her head, Tara began to disrobe for sleep.
|__________|
While Giles was in the air on his way home to England and while Buffy was in the Bronze kissing Spike, a new player in the battle of good versus evil was driving his vehicle into an abandoned warehouse. The warehouse was old and filthy. It stood in Sunnydale for over fifty years now, mainly just used for storage, but the figure who drove this car was here for a very special purpose.
The figure was new to Sunnydale. So new in fact, that this was his first trip to the Californian city. Oh, he'd been to California, but he'd made it a point to steer clear of Sunnydale because all other times, there was too much happening in the city to warrant his attention. But now, he couldn't stop himself from being here. The time that he had been preparing for was finally at hand.
He was a vampire. More so, he was a vampire unlike most vampires. He was turned, but his vampiric characteristics were different. He didn't have the morphing face with the yellow eyes. After he was bitten, his DNA was changed. It took him about eight months to complete his transformation. First, it was the desire to remain out of the sun. Later, he found himself hungry and thirsty, regardless of how much he had to eat and drink. And he found himself wanting to taste the warm texture of human blood.
That's when he knew his transformation to a vampire was complete. And once the word got out that he was a different breed of vampire, he garnered a very powerful following. Vampires sought him out to follow him. They wanted the secrets of how to become like him. His name.....was Deacon Frost.
And ever since he became the first living vampire in the known world, Deacon Frost had but one goal in his new existence, one purpose. He wanted to bring about the end of humanity's reign over the Earth and make vampires the single most dominant species. And with that goal, Deacon found himself studying old scrolls written in blood by powerful mages, or wizards. One of the oldest scrolls in existence was written in the form of an ancient book. Deacon had discovered that book in Egypt.
The book spoke of the first living vampire being born. This vampire would be different than all other vampires. He would hold the secret to the path that would lead the vampire race to dominance over the humans. Written within the book were the means and the clues that Deacon Frost would need to make those words become a reality. And that's why he found himself in Sunnydale.
