Objects in the Mirror

Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

Part III

I’m not getting out of here. Have to get used to the idea.

Another day in the life. Sleep nestled in pine shavings. Clean paws. Chew green pellets (and the occasional sunflower seed, oh joy, rapture), suck water from the little metal tube on the end of the bottle, run on the wheel. Sleep some more. Repeat. Then again. Basic routine, not enough raw material to make it complicated.

No idea how long. Seems like forever. Changes, I feel them but I can’t track them. Hot and cool, light and dark, new voices and patterns and smells. Incense, herbs, lotions, oils, different candles. Laughter, music. Chants, meditations, incantations, and talk, talk, talk. Excited, happy, tender, wondering, thoughtful, curious. Sometimes urgent, but not often. Sounds of sex when the lights go, voices murmuring and crying out.

And Her.

I know She’s there. The other one, the enemy. The one who’s keeping me bound here. Because it shouldn’t have taken this long, no matter how bad I screwed up. Something more is going on, something is blocking the flows and rhythms. I can feel Her.

Somebody out there doesn’t like me.

Can’t understand why Willow doesn’t know. She’s good, really good. I’ve got power, it’s in my bloodline, but Willow has talent. Not always as sensitive to the nuances as she could stand to be, but … even though I started out strong, I haven’t really grown that much (none at all, lately, duhh!), but Willow was weak and timid and hesitant for the longest time, and then when she finally started to gather some steam she just kept accelerating. I had more mystic muscle, but I already knew that soon she’d have enough skill to tip the balance. When you’re in that kind of higher gear, subtlety isn’t such a big deal.

Unless someone is coming in on your blind side. Unless your enemy plants Herself in a spot where you can’t see Her.

She’s there, I know it. I’d have been free long ago if not for Her. Transmogrification reversal can be tricky, sure — especially when you’re trying to realign someone else’s original spell — but Willow absolutely would have managed something by now. I want to scream at her sometimes (well, most of the time when I can think at all) to dump the brute-force approach and try drawing outside the lines. Give me a voice, so I can do my own spells. Borrow some IQ from wherever and siphon it into me, so I don’t have to scrape by on leftover fragments of awareness while this revolting little body is asleep.

Didn’t even have that much at first. And then I was back, human and whole, but gone again before I could do more than smile and draw a breath, only I snatched at whatever I could hold onto on the way back in. Big achievement, a few minutes of disorganized thought now and again when it can’t do me any good at all.

Note to self: next time you cast a spell, pay attention to where your hands are pointing.

Stupid rat brain. I’m crippled here. Awake, I could scratch out messages, or make hand(paw)-signals, or squeak some kind of makeshift Morse code. Willow’s drifting around in this preoccupied, dreamy fog, making only the occasional stab at bringing me back (Her fault, Her doing, damn Her!) … but I’m positive that if I could communicate, if she knew I was conscious in here, she’d give it everything she had until she found a way. But no, why make things easy? Save the smallest shred of intelligence for when I’m lying here twitching and snuffling.

Could be worse. At least the tiny animal-psyche isn’t interested enough to pay too much attention when she’s having sex. Might liven things up a little — Hecate knows I could use some excitement — but I don’t exactly want to get used to watching someone else’s intimate moments. Just enough sifts in to register when I shuffle through the memories, but that’s as far as it goes. Suits me fine.

God, I hope she doesn’t get the notion to stick a male in here with me, to give me “company.” That would just be too grotesque. And then I’d have to find a way to kill her.

Joking? Think so.

Pretty sure.

Don’t really have any sense of time, but I can separate the however-long-it’s-been into three basic phases of being. Willow. Then Willow-and-Buffy. And now Willow and the other one, the nameless girl. Still can’t really work out how that is; I think maybe I was in Willow’s room for the first part, I can remember seeing it when she’d have me over for brownies, and that human memory matches the sense-impression I got through the rat’s eyes. (That was also where she had sex the first time after I was enverminated. All her other couplings are a merciful blur of disconnected recollections, but I remember that one in way too much detail. Would it have killed her to stick my cage in a closet or something?)

The two remaining phases, I still haven’t gotten them sorted into anything that tracks. Buffy was there some during the first one, but then all of a sudden she was there a lot, sometimes I was alone and sometimes Willow was there, but I think mostly it was both of them. And then a while after, there were the new ones, the girl I don’t know and the two men I don’t know, too many people coming and going, and now that it’s all finally shaken out, Buffy isn’t around much anymore and Willow always smells like the other girl and sexual heat and cat.

Big shock, cats aren’t on my current list of favorite things. But it could be worse, it’s nowhere near as bad as the heavy predator smell I used to have to deal with all the time. The way it is now is a lot easier on me, and at the same time doesn’t make much sense. Did Willow find a way to cure Oz? (Really? and why not me?) Or is he of the past now, and her with some other guy? Hard to believe, but it’s definitely two people I hear in that bed — I don’t want to notice, but I might as well be wallpaper as far as she’s concerned — and I’d know if Oz had been around her.

I never realized rats were so sensitive to scent. Is this normal, or just one more freak twist to my whole freak existence? I can see why I’d be alert to Oz — he’s pure wolf, this body stays in a state of trembling panic anytime he’s near — but I wouldn’t expect to pick up on the others. I hate this life, hate every moment I’m here, but I’ll kind of miss that wonderful range of scent once I’m out for good. You get a whole different perspective of the world when you can assess it through this extra layer of sensing.

Willow, for instance. Nobody would underestimate Willow if they could perceive her the way I do; she smells sharp, like burning maple. Nameless Man Number One is leather and gun oil and hard soap: masculine, and actually kind of pleasant. (But he’s gone, too. How long? Don’t know, can’t remember when he was around, last. He had a nice voice.) Nameless Man Number Two, he confuses me. He doesn’t sweat, doesn’t carry any of that faint whiff of body secretions that’s always in the background for anyone else: whiskey, cigarettes, old blood, but no human odors, just wrong somehow. (And Willow used to be frightened of him but now she’s not, and I don’t know what to make of that.) Buffy smells like … like sand feels, clean and dry and smooth. (She should be sunshine, and fire, and the brass of trumpets.) The nameless girl is lilies and talcum: too soft, too weak, don’t like it. Xander, now, his smell is …

Huh. Wonder if anybody else has noticed that. Weird.

The enemy doesn’t have a smell. But I know She’s there.

*                *               *

I was wrong, or not wrong but I didn’t carry it far enough. There was another phase after that, when I first started seeing the green energy. Thought it had something to do with the other one, thought Her nature was finally staring to leak over. But, sometimes the energy is there and sometimes the enemy, and sometimes both, and lately I’ve been able to sense a subtle clash between them. They’re not the same, not even really the same type of thing. Coincidence, or maybe connected but in some way that doesn’t have anything to do with me. Don’t understand it, can’t work out either what’s the deal with them or how I might be able to make use of whatever-it-is. Just there. Maybe when I’ve had more time, or maybe when I’m out. Maybe maybe maybe.

Someday.

Well, now. Something new, break in the routine: broccoli. Never could stand broccoli, but the rat gorged until I’m halfway afraid these icky little intestines might rupture.

That would be one way out.

But no. I want this over, but not like that. I had a life of my own, and I lost it. Want my life back, the way it was, want to get back what was taken from me. Gods, demons, fires of hell and winds of heaven and roots of earth, I deserve that …

Whoa.

Déjà vu. Sometimes these thoughts sound so much like my mother, I feel like I’m hearing her voice. But that’s ridiculous. Not like her, not at all. She was vengeful, and frustrated, and bitter, and crazy. I just want out. Want to take back what I had, what’s mine by right.

And I will. Just ’cause I’m here doesn’t mean I’ll stay forever. Haven’t given up on Willow yet, but even if she never works out a cure, I won’t let myself be kept here. No way. Not gonna happen.

So much I wasted when I was free and walking! Not just taking for granted the things I don’t have now, but potential, too. All the stuff I did then, it was such a careless use of power. More focus, more awareness, more skillful application of the energy that’s already there … I may be helpless right now, but I’m not paralyzed. I’ve had time to think a lot of things through; with what I understand now, I could be three times the witch I was.

Will I even remember? Not sure. What I’m doing now is kind of like one of the things Willow taught us in Miss Calendar’s class: virtual RAM, I think it was, or something like that. Using the little pieces of stuff I can collect, in place of the human mind I lost, and will I be able to hold onto it when I finally change back? Don’t know, can’t say. But I will find a way to keep the essence, even if I can’t preserve the memories.

Because if I’ve learned anything, it’s this: life is about power. Having it, using it, building it, finding ways to get maximum mileage out of what you’ve got. You’re either one of the movers, or one of the victims, and that second option totally bites. Been there, done that, left the t-shirt to burn while I scampered out between the ropes. Let my mother terrorize me and steal my body, let Xander blackmail me and make a fool out of me, let the MOO morons truss me up for a luau.

Let Willow put me in a Habitrail.

Power. Hoard it, practice it, use every resource you can find to extend it and make it last. I’ll never be anybody’s cat’s paw (rat’s paw?) again.

I know You’re out there. Don’t know who, don’t know why, but I know you’re the reason I’m still scuttling around in fleas and fur. Enjoy it while you can. My day is coming.

I’m not getting out of here, not any time soon … but when I do, Somebody is going to be sorry.

 

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